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Hydrogen is becoming a more versatile fuel, with the potential of storing and transporting renewable energy. This OUPblog post explores hydrogen’s use in electricity and heating and predicts greater demand for it in the future.
While it is impractical to have solar panels dotting virtually every available surface of the earth, it does show the awesome potential of solar energy as a renewable energy to meet our needs for generations to come.
At this time, the critical resource for the transportation industry is crude oil, the energy source needed to power vehicles. This could change, however, as some parts of the world move away from fossil fuel driven vehicles and towards battery electric vehicles.
Electricity generation comes from many energy sources, including fossil fuels such as natural gas and coal, nuclear energy, and a variety of renewable sources such as wind, solar, hydroelectric, and biomass. For the transportation sector, however, energy comes primarily from crude oil.
If you spend time driving on the interstate highway system in the US, you may be surprised to see the rapid development of wind energy. This is especially true in the Great Plains where there is a seemingly endless array of wind turbines decorating the horizon. And, north of Los Angeles, the Tehachapi Mountain Range is home to almost 5,000 wind turbines.