There are two possible sources for creating hydrogen. Firstly, it can be created by electrolysis of water, where you split water molecules to create pure hydrogen and pure oxygen. Secondly, it can be created by reforming fossil fuels - oil and natural gas both contain hydrocarbons which are molecules consisting of hydrogen and carbon. Using a device named a fuel processor or reformer you can split the hydrogen from the carbon. However, using this method, you discard the carbon into the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide.

This second matter of course does not rid society of it's economic dependency and it continues to destroy the environment. But this is the method that is being touted for fuel cell powered vehicles because petroleum is an easily available hydrogen source until there are hydrogen stations located as widespread as petrol station currently are. But there is no doubt that the first option is the better one, however that option faces a major hurdle. Electrolysis of water requires electricity, we need to figure out how to generate that electricity without using fossil fuels. Of course, there are currently several methods of doing so, including nuclear power, hydroelectric dams, solar cells, wind turbines, geothermal power, wave and tidal power or co-generation (biomass fuels).The problem is that currently these would not provide near enough electricity to create sufficient hydrogen for all the world's needs.

So realistically, we need to increase the amount of electricity produced by these methods most probably concentrating on nuclear and solar power. However, there are problems associated with this as nuclear power has political and environmental issues and solar power provides problems with location and cost. Another issue with putting pure hydrogen vehicles on the road is with the storage and transportation. Hydrogen is a bulky gas and compressed hydrogen contains far less energy than the same volume of petroleum.



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