Energy’s Future
It’s Not ‘Star Wars’
Robert Hefner says natural gas offers a bridge to a squeaky-clean 'hydrogen economy.'
From the magazine issue dated Oct 1, 2007
Before Robert A. Hefner III came along, many people assumed natural gas was limited in its quantity and uses. But since its founding in 1959, Hefner's company GHK alone has discovered more than 3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas around the world. The company also pioneered the technology now used by all major companies in the United States to reach deep, high-pressure wells. Hefner recently spoke with NEWSWEEK's Fareed Zakaria about why he thinks natural gas needs to be central to any strategy to transition beyond fossil fuels.
© 2007
Loading Menu
Member Comments
Posted By: gs_790 @ 10/15/2007 12:25:26 PM
Comment: The hydrogen economy is a neat idea. It sounds great. It sounds clean. But it is fundamentally flawed, particularly in the transportation sector. You run an electric current through water to split H20 atoms. The hydrogen is used in a fuel cell to generate electricity. It's absurd to not capture your fuel source the first time it is created. The fuel of the hydrogen economy is electricity not hydrogen. Hydrogen serves as a middleman between the electricity from the power plant and the electricity to your cars tires. Unless fuel cells are so efficient that they create more elelctricity than what was consumed, to create the hydrogen it consumes, the hydrogen economy is a pipe dream of inefficiency and waste.