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  20 March 2015 Last updated at 10:21 ET   Hydrogen, hydrogen everywhere... By Matthew Wall  Hydrogen is most commonly found in water - H2O - and in fossil fuels   Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. And when you burn it or use it to produce electricity, the only waste product is water.In the era of global warming, it would seem to be the perfect fuel.So why aren't we all driving round in hydrogen-powered cars, moving our goods in hydrogen-powered lorries, and heating our homes and offices with this wonder element?In short, fossil fuels got there...

Scientists in Australia are closer to harvesting hydrogen from two of the most abundant and naturally occurring resources in our environment – seawater and sunlight.Water oxidation, the first part of the water splitting reaction that can produce hydrogen, is difficult as it is so kinetically unfavourable. Using photocatalysts to overcome this energy barrier is appealing as sunlight can supply the required energy rather than needing electrical or thermal energy.Unlike some photocatalytic water oxidation methods that use catalysts mounted on a semiconductor to form an electrode, a team, led by Jun Chen and Gerhard Swiegers, from the University of Wollongong, Australia,...

A catalyst made from soybeans could overcome a major barrier to cheap hydrogen fuel by replacing the platinum catalyst used in the electrocatalytic production of hydrogen, claim scientists in the US.For hydrogen to be competitive with petroleum fuels, the US Department of Energy has estimated that its cost must be reduced from $4–5/kg to $2–3/kg. The platinum catalyst used to make hydrogen via water electrolysis is a significant part of the cost, so the search is on for cheaper catalysts that are just as efficient.Now, James Muckerman, Wei-Fu Chen and colleagues at Brookhaven National Laboratory, New York, have produced...

US researchers have developed an efficient way of producing hydrogen from urine - a feat that could not only fuel the cars of the future, but could also help clean up municipal wastewater. Using hydrogen to power cars has become an increasingly attractive transportation fuel, as the only emission produced is water - but a major stumbling block is the lack of a cheap, renewable source of the fuel. Gerardine Botte of Ohio University may now have found the answer, using an electrolytic approach to produce hydrogen from urine - the most abundant waste on Earth - at a fraction of the cost...

Developing a way to create hydrogen fuel from water is a "Holy Grail" of alternate fuel development. Many consider Hydrogen fuel sells the perfect pollution-free alternative to fuel automobiles. In these cells Hydrogen is consumed by a pollution-free chemical reaction, not combustion. So the fuel cell simply combines hydrogen and oxygen chemically to produce electricity, water, and waste heat. Nothing else. hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, it would take millenniums to run out. Up until now the major problem with creating hydrogen fuel cells is the chemical process needed to seperate the hydrogen and the oxygen...

Dubois County Herald By MIKE MORRIS Herald Staff Writer Water helps his fuel gauge As fuel prices climb, everything from natural gas to switchgrass has been mentioned as a potential power source for vehicles. But several local handymen aren't waiting on those changes - they're using water to boost fuel economy. If it sounds like a grade-school science fair project, that's fine with Jason Martin, who first extracted hydrogen gas from water in science class at Jasper High School. After all, it works. "It's going to be mainstream if it's not already," the Ferdinand resident said. "It's going to be...

The government would offer a series of cash prizes for innovations in hydrogen energy under a bill the House passed Wednesday. The bill (HR 632), by Daniel Lipinski, D-Ill., would be intended to bring clean-burning hydrogen-powered vehicles closer to reality. It passed by a 408-8 vote. “The future possibilities of this energy source are enormous,” Lipinski said. The government-sponsored competition, which would be called the “H-Prize,” is modeled after the programs of the Ansari X Prize Foundation, which gives multimillion-dollar awards to teams that achieve specific scientific and engineering goals. Lipinski pointed out that such prizes continue a tradition dating...

WEST SACRAMENTO — A bomb squad was called in Saturday, after a man dropped a knapsack in a crowd of protesters outside a building President Bush was touring. Authorities later said it appeared to be a "sophisticated hoax device." West Sacramento Deputy Police Chief Henry Serrano said the man dropped the knapsack in the middle of a street outside the California Fuel Cell Partnership, where Bush was giving an Earth Day talk on hydrogen fuel technology. The suspect then ran into the crowd of about 1,500 protesters. Police who caught him said he appeared intoxicated and refused to identify himself....

LONDON: India is ready with a roadmap for use of non-conventional resources with one million Hydrogen powered vehicles expected to run on the country's roads by 2020, Non-Conventional Energy Resources Minister Vilas Muttemwar has said. "We have been slow to respond to face the challenge of our energy requirements, but we are fast catching up and if powerful nations like America, China, Japan, Canada and Germany have a roadmap for Hydrogen energy, so have we. By the year 2020, we will have one million vehicles on our roads running with Hydrogen fuel," he told a BBC Hindi programme last night....

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - NASA said on Friday it would be at least late next week before the first shuttle mission since the 2003 Columbia accident can be launched, after Discovery's liftoff was postponed two days ago because of a fuel sensor problem. "The simple things did not provide us any resolution to the problem," said deputy shuttle program manager Wayne Hale. The sensors are designed to shut off the shuttle's three main engines before fuel runs out to avoid damaging them. A premature shutdown could force a shuttle to make an emergency landing or prevent it from reaching...

Freedom Fuel by Robert Stapler 25 June 2003 President Bush wrongly assumed that the "science" guys he inherited from the previous administration know what they are talking about. Can you imagine having a steady stream of ignorant drivers going in and out of a typical hydrogen plant each day, rubbing their static-laden behinds on velour seats, each one far more than enough to cause a hydrogen explosion. In President Bush's State of the Union Address, he announced a new government program to create a hydrogen-based alternative fuel infrastructure. The arguments he made for this proposal were: (1) to free us...