Hydrogen Fuel Cells - Part 1: A Breath of Fresh Air or Lack Thereof?

Hydrogen fuel cells come across as a miracle technology. This box, or fuel cell, that can take hydrogen gas (usually from methanol) and take oxygen from the ambient air and produce nothing but electricity and water? A battery that runs on air sounds too good to be true. Promoters of the technology always note that since, ideally, there is no carbon involved in the reaction, there is a way we can engineer fuel cells to produce no carbon based emissions. However, whenever the industry talks about fuel cells there is never any mention of oxygen, a key part of the reaction and key part of sustaining human life. How much oxygen will be necessary to produce the amount of electricity we need? Technology like fuel cells seem like a breath of fresh air, but will it rob us of all the fresh air we have?

Hydrogen fuel cells were invented in 1839 but, until recently, could never put out enough electricity to have any practical use. Our government and academics have put their weight behind this technology and made it part of our country's comprehensive energy strategy. The U.S. government has dedicated over a billion dollars towards research and development of hydrogen fuel cells and the Energy Policy Act of 2005 has made a goal of developing "practical" fuel cell vehicles by 2020. Beyond cars, scientists and academics have envisioned using fuel cells in a variety to ways, ranging from large scale power plants to a replacement for laptop batteries.

I'm going to directly quote Mary Bellis of about.com to give a brief technical description of how the basic hydrogen fuel cell works: "The hydrogen fuel cell operates similar to a battery. It has two electrodes, an anode and a cathode, separated by a membrane. Oxygen passes over one electrode and hydrogen over the other. The hydrogen reacts to a catalyst on the electrode anode that converts the hydrogen gas into negatively charged electrons (e-) and positively charged ions (H+). The electrons flow out of the cell to be used as electrical energy. The hydrogen ions move through the electrolyte membrane to the cathode electrode where they combine with oxygen and the electrons to produce water."(found at: http://inventors.about.com/od/sstartinventions/ss/Physics_Illustr_2.htm)

A key aspect here is that the mechanism takes breathable oxygen from the ambient air and, after it processes it, comes away with water and free flowing electrons. Is this oxygen a problem? By the lack of discussion one would assume not. But not according to former Harvard physicist Dr. Ruggero Santilli who writes "hydrogen combustion implies the permanent removal from our atmosphere of directly usable oxygen, a serious environmental problem called oxygen depletion, since the combustion turns oxygen into water whose separation to restore the original oxygen is prohibitive due to cost. We then show that a conceivable global use of hydrogen in complete replacement of fossil fuels would imply the permanent removal from our atmosphere of 2.8875x10^7 metric tons of oxygen per day."

Dr. Santilli's claims warrent additional investigation. This concern certainly makes logical sense. The amount of oxygen necessary would be incredible given that the energy stored within the bond of two hydrogen atoms is not large by any means. I will be addressing this concern throughout this series.

Another question that should be addressed is the necesity of oxygen in the process. If the Anode Catalyst seperates the electron and proton in a hydrogen atom and then sends the electron on its merry way as a current to begin with, why do we even need the oxygen?

By converting molecules and atoms in our air into water, we are going to be concentrating our air into water. Could this create problems by essentially taking air out of our atmosphere? With prolonged use, could it possibly effect atmospheric pressure?

I invite comments and questions regarding this issue. This technology is being pushed as part of the solution to our reliance on non-renewable energy resources. But is the solution worse than the problem? Lets find out!