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Social Impact Analysis (Hydrogen Fuel)

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The search for a renewable energy source has been a top priority to us a human race in the past decade. Many ideas have come in the form of wind, solar, and nuclear power, all having their own drawbacks. But, the one that will be focused upon in this analysis is hydrogen as a source of fuel, and the technology leading the way to making it a reality. This technology would affect everyone in one way or another if correctly used. So we must ask if this technology is beneficial to us, how it might hurt us, and whether it is worth pursuing from an ethical stance. Background: Hydrogen has already been under the micro scope for many years as an alternative fuel source to us because of its abundance and power. We have simply been lacking the …show more content…

Honda has already produced a hydrogen fuel cell concept car they claim is “overall 64% energy efficient”. To put this into perspective in the average gasoline combustion engine “only about 20 percent of the thermal-energy content of the gasoline is converted into mechanical work”, making it 20% energy efficient [5]. This new line of cars could bring about jobs in the automotive industry and all industries that branch from it. As of right now the commercial market for hydrogen gas produced from the use of fossil fuels is at about $100 billion. A majority of this hydrogen goes into producing fertilizers and petrochemicals [1]. All it would take is an inexpensive source of green hydrogen, such as the one recently discovered, to completely change this industry.Overall hydrogen has the ability to bring about jobs and continued advancements in every market and industry touched by it. This could be just about every industry when considering how important transportation and shipping are to the economy; hydrogen would give them an inexpensive fuel for transport. Hydrogen fuel could do this all the while solving our most important problem of finding a renewable energy source. Potential Drawbacks: Even though hydrogen as a fuel seems to answer every problem we want it to; it also has setbacks. Although we have the technology now to bring us an endless supply of hydrogen fuel we do not have the storage or infrastructure capabilities for it. “Hydrogen

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