The future of hydrogen - opportunities and challenges

The following article is reproduced from 'The Hydrogen Economy: Opportunities and Challenges', edited by Michael Ball and Martin Wietschel, to be published by Cambridge University Press in June 2009. In the light of ever-increasing global energy use, the increasing cost of energy services, concerns over energy supply security, climate change and local air pollution, this book centres around the question of how growing energy demand for transport can be met in the long term. Given the sustained interest in and controversial discussion of the prospects of hydrogen, the authors highlight the opportunities and the challenges of introducing hydrogen as alternative fuel in the transport sector from an economic, technical and environmental point of view. Through its multi-disciplinary approach the book provides a broad range of researchers, decision makers and policy makers with a solid and wide-ranging knowledge base concerning the hydrogen economy. (author)