Could Hydrogen Fuel Replace Solar Power?

(Hat tip: IsraGood, Image Credit: Jerusalem Post)

With the supply of nuclear fuel limited (especially for Americans), future space colonies will probably need to look towards the Sun as their source of energy.

While this may benefit colonies located within the inner solar system, beyond the asteroid belt solar power is practically useless.

In order to get around their energy dilemma's, future colonists may have to rely upon hydrogen fuel in order to keep the lights on.

(Israel 21^st Century) Most hydrogen vehicles on the road use a liquid form of the material, which requires a super strong and super heavy storage tank. Liquid hydrogen is unstable and needs to be insulated from the excess shocks of bumps and potholes that are a part of everyday driving, so the tanks themselves are large and heavy, and hold at most 20 liters of fuel - enough for barely 250 kilometers of driving. [...]

The difference? C.En's tank uses hydrogen gas, collected from the environment (i.e. not produced from fossil fuels) and enclosed in a thin but leak proof glass container. The best part: You'll be able to buy your "gas" at automotive or discount stores, fueling up every 600 kilometers or so.

"We can build a 60-liter tank that can travel up to 600 km. and weighs no more than 50 kg.," Stern said, unlike tanks currently used for liquid hydrogen that weigh hundreds of kilos.

"Our company's breakthrough is in accumulating hydrogen in a glass material that is very small, only a few microns," said Stern, who is also president of waste treatment company Environmental Energy Resources (EER).["]

If humanity ever decides to settle upon Ganymede and Callisto, future residents could simply extract the hydrogen from the ice water and power their homes without having to haul around a nuclear reactor.

Other icy moons around Saturn, Uranus and Neptune would also be able to benefit from this, as would help cut down the cost of maintaining these outposts (which may convince Earthen governments of their value in supporting them in the first place).



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