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Tomorrow's energy: Hydrogen, fuel cells, and the prospects for a cleaner planet
international journal of hydrogen energy 37 (2012) 16264
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/he
Book Review Tomorrow’s energy: Hydrogen, fuel cells, and the prospects for a cleaner planet. Peter Hoffmann, Revised and Expanded Edition. The MIT Press (2012). 360 pp., Hardcover, b&w., $24.95, ISBN 978-0-262-51695-2.
Peter Hoffmann, who has published the Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Letter since 1986, has earned his reputation as the elder statesman of hydrogen industry journalism. He first wrote Tomorrow’s Energy in 2001, but events of the last decade certainly merit this new edition. Developments this election year in particular, including an incumbent administration finally showing real interest in hydrogen energy and an exceptionally scorching North American summer, may be setting the stage for renewed public attention to this technology area. The revised edition of Hoffmann’s book will engage hydrogen veterans and newcomers alike as an up-to-date overview of the industry. No other single book has so ambitiously taken on the full technical, historic, and geographic breadth of the hydrogen energy topic. Consistent with this wide scope, Hoffmann keeps constantly in view the bigger picture of hydrogen’s value as an inexhaustible and environmentally superior energy carrier, not just another marketable energy product or a technical curiosity. After some preliminary stage-setting, Tomorrow’s Energy starts with a couple of chapters recounting the history of hydrogen technology, moving from there to a detailed discussion of the many ways hydrogen can be produced using renewable and non-renewable energy and feedstocks. Separate chapters are dedicated to hydrogen’s use as a fuel for terrestrial and aerospace transport. Another chapter considers prospects for hydrogen replacing natural gas as a utility-distributed fuel. There is also an interesting chapter on non-energy uses of hydrogen, though given the book’s title, it seems a bit out of place here. In each chapter, Hoffmann includes a wealth of detail on prototypes, products, and government R&D or demonstration programs that each served, or at least attempted, to advance hydrogen technology in some way. It’s clear throughout that Hoffmann is a cheerleader for hydrogen’s potential, but as a classic muckraking reporter, he’s not above calling attention to weaknessesdnot only in the technology itself, but in the humans who try to promote it. Both the body of the book and the extensive endnotes are
livened by Hoffmann’s editorializing on “foul-ups” and “painfully slow” progress that have needlessly set back the nascent hydrogen revolution. Hoffmann provides the rich perspective of someone who’s been following the industry for decades and has learned to take the long view. This comes through best in the last chapter’s summing up and speculation about the future, clearly authored by someone who has kept watch through multiple cycles of hype and letdown in both the public and private sectors. Ultimately, the reader is left with the assurance that a hydrogen energy economy is inevitable but may still be decades away, in keeping with the measured pace of past changes in the global energy industry. I do have to share a few concerns about this book. It suffers from a malady common to books authored by journalists accustomed to publishing in increments of a few hundred or a couple thousand words. Parts of the book read like a lot of short items culled from the Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Letter strung together, which makes for reader fatigue. It would be helpful to include more insight about which of the countless industry and government initiatives cataloged here actually led to something bigger, and which came to a dead end. Hoffmann would also have benefited from a closer collaboration with a disciplined technical editor. His descriptions of specific technologies are at times awkward, and he occasionally confuses terminology, mixing up kW and kWh. Perhaps a third edition is in order soon to straighten out these deficiencies in an otherwise worthy undertaking. Overall, Hoffmann’s book is compelling reading and definitely belongs on the bookshelf of any hydrogen energy enthusiast.
Richard Engel* Schatz Energy Research Center, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA 95521, USA *Tel.: þ1 707 826 4345; fax: þ1 707 826 4347. E-mail address: [email protected] Available online 8 September 2012 0360-3199/$ e see front matter http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2012.08.018
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/he
Book Review Tomorrow’s energy: Hydrogen, fuel cells, and the prospects for a cleaner planet. Peter Hoffmann, Revised and Expanded Edition. The MIT Press (2012). 360 pp., Hardcover, b&w., $24.95, ISBN 978-0-262-51695-2.
Peter Hoffmann, who has published the Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Letter since 1986, has earned his reputation as the elder statesman of hydrogen industry journalism. He first wrote Tomorrow’s Energy in 2001, but events of the last decade certainly merit this new edition. Developments this election year in particular, including an incumbent administration finally showing real interest in hydrogen energy and an exceptionally scorching North American summer, may be setting the stage for renewed public attention to this technology area. The revised edition of Hoffmann’s book will engage hydrogen veterans and newcomers alike as an up-to-date overview of the industry. No other single book has so ambitiously taken on the full technical, historic, and geographic breadth of the hydrogen energy topic. Consistent with this wide scope, Hoffmann keeps constantly in view the bigger picture of hydrogen’s value as an inexhaustible and environmentally superior energy carrier, not just another marketable energy product or a technical curiosity. After some preliminary stage-setting, Tomorrow’s Energy starts with a couple of chapters recounting the history of hydrogen technology, moving from there to a detailed discussion of the many ways hydrogen can be produced using renewable and non-renewable energy and feedstocks. Separate chapters are dedicated to hydrogen’s use as a fuel for terrestrial and aerospace transport. Another chapter considers prospects for hydrogen replacing natural gas as a utility-distributed fuel. There is also an interesting chapter on non-energy uses of hydrogen, though given the book’s title, it seems a bit out of place here. In each chapter, Hoffmann includes a wealth of detail on prototypes, products, and government R&D or demonstration programs that each served, or at least attempted, to advance hydrogen technology in some way. It’s clear throughout that Hoffmann is a cheerleader for hydrogen’s potential, but as a classic muckraking reporter, he’s not above calling attention to weaknessesdnot only in the technology itself, but in the humans who try to promote it. Both the body of the book and the extensive endnotes are
livened by Hoffmann’s editorializing on “foul-ups” and “painfully slow” progress that have needlessly set back the nascent hydrogen revolution. Hoffmann provides the rich perspective of someone who’s been following the industry for decades and has learned to take the long view. This comes through best in the last chapter’s summing up and speculation about the future, clearly authored by someone who has kept watch through multiple cycles of hype and letdown in both the public and private sectors. Ultimately, the reader is left with the assurance that a hydrogen energy economy is inevitable but may still be decades away, in keeping with the measured pace of past changes in the global energy industry. I do have to share a few concerns about this book. It suffers from a malady common to books authored by journalists accustomed to publishing in increments of a few hundred or a couple thousand words. Parts of the book read like a lot of short items culled from the Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Letter strung together, which makes for reader fatigue. It would be helpful to include more insight about which of the countless industry and government initiatives cataloged here actually led to something bigger, and which came to a dead end. Hoffmann would also have benefited from a closer collaboration with a disciplined technical editor. His descriptions of specific technologies are at times awkward, and he occasionally confuses terminology, mixing up kW and kWh. Perhaps a third edition is in order soon to straighten out these deficiencies in an otherwise worthy undertaking. Overall, Hoffmann’s book is compelling reading and definitely belongs on the bookshelf of any hydrogen energy enthusiast.
Richard Engel* Schatz Energy Research Center, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA 95521, USA *Tel.: þ1 707 826 4345; fax: þ1 707 826 4347. E-mail address: [email protected] Available online 8 September 2012 0360-3199/$ e see front matter http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2012.08.018