] Hydrogen is the most abundant element on the planet. ] But it cannot be harvested directly. It must be extracted ] from another material. There is an upside to this and a ] downside. The upside is that a wide variety of materials ] contain hydrogen, which is one reason it has attracted ] such widespread support. Everyone has a dog in this ] fight. ] ] Renewable energy is a very little dog. Environmentalists ] envision an energy economy where hydrogen comes from ] water, and the energy used to accomplish this comes from ] wind. Big dogs like the nuclear industry also foresee a ] water-based hydrogen economy, but with nuclear as the ] power source that electrolyzes water. Nucleonics Week ] boasts that nuclear power "is the only way to produce ] hydrogen on a large scale without contributing to ] greenhouse gas emissions." ] ] For the fossil fuel industry, not surprisingly, ] hydrocarbons will provide most of our future hydrogen. ] They already have a significant head start. Almost 50 ] percent of the world's commercial hydrogen now comes from ] natural gas. Another 20 percent is derived from coal. ] ] The automobile and oil companies are betting that ] petroleum will be the hydrogen source of the future. It ] was General Motors, after all, that coined the phrase ] "the hydrogen economy". A Hydrogen Economy Is a Bad Idea |