Many people have a misconception that Hydrogen powered cars will be the way to replace fossil fuels in the near future. To be honest, I believed in such theories, because the hydrogen plan made sense! We have abundant amounts of hydrogen atoms available on Earth, and hydrogen atoms, due to their highly reactive mechanisms, should be powerful enough for replacing oil. Both sides of our political parties have fostered this idea, and many oil corporations as well as the auto industry have spent millions of dollars on hydrogen-powered automobiles and fuel stations. Unfortunately, hydrogen technology seems distinct than what most people think.

The article “Warning: The Hydrogen Economy May Be More Distinct Than Appears” by Michael Behar from Popular Magazine sums all the misconceptions about our hydrogen future.

One of the most striking misconception people have on this hydrogen technology is that it will decrease global warming, because hydrogen cars do not exhaust Carbon dioxide. True, but extracting the hydrogen atoms from the source, which is likely to be water, is a very arduous process. Huge amounts of electricity and power must be needed to breakup the hydrogen bonds in water. The power, according from the magazine, would most likely be obtained by the current prevalent power source, fossil fuels. The construction of the hydrogen fuel cell requires a lot of energy that solar power or other clean sources of energy cannot provide. The process will still be dependent on fossil fuels to produce the fuel cells, which means the hydrogen economy is not completely global warming friendly after all.

There are many more reasons stated in the article, but the main point we should take is that technology, such as hydrogen fuel cell cars, will not arrive soon enough to make a huge difference in our oil dependence in the next 20 or even 30 years. The only way to decrease our dependence on oil is to live a lifestyle of energy efficiency. Taking public transportations to reducing the amounts of electricity we use during the summer can dramatically decrease our oil usage without facing economic slowdowns or other dramatic consequences.