The Fossil fuels used to create Petroleum are running out, this leads to society

finding alternative fuel sources. Hydrogen is great for many different reasons
such as being more abundant, produces three times more energy and yields a
healthier by-product being water vapour and heat. Although the benefits of
Hydrogen are excellent it also comes with some drastic disadvantages such as
the process of producing Hydrogen is difficult to do, since Hydrogen is in a
gaseous state. It is also hard to move, not enough hydrogen fuel stations and
requires significantly more energy than Petroleum to activate. Hydrogen has to
be in a liquid state at a low temperature within a high pressure area which is
difficult to achieve in order to retain being effective as a fuel source. Hydrogens
by-product, water vapour, causes damage to the environment. Hydrogen is
flammable and has no smell so sensors must be used to detect leaks.
Hydrogen is indeed the most abundant element in the universe but only has one
electron so it cannot exist naturally by itself so it becomes a compound with
another element. This causes difficulty as once a full outer valence shell is
achieved it is difficult to extract the hydrogen back out. There are multiple ways
to extract hydrogen from compounds such as Electrolysis, Photoelectrolysis and
Photobiology. Electrolysis is the process in which uses a cathode and an anode to
separate water into its base elements, Hydrogen and Oxygen. This is achieved
because the anode attracts the negative ion being Oxygen while the cathode
attracts the positive ion being Hydrogen.

This is very expensive process due to the electricity needed to split the
compound apart. Electrolysis can be 100% environmentally friendly if powered
by a renewable energy source. Photoelectrolysis is the process to directly convert
sunlight into electricity by using photovoltaics, semiconductors and an
electrolyser. The only drawback to Photoelectrolysis is that it requires the Ultra
Violet Rays of the sun.

Hydrogen can also be split using Photobiology which uses a chemical that mostly
algae and bacteria produce that can split water into hydrogen and oxygen. This
process can be controlled by using an engineering system. Photobiology has the
same drawback as Photoelectrolysis, it needs Ultra Violet Rays to work.

This means Hydrogen can only be produced within a sunny climate which is
unfavourable if the world is to rely on hydrogen as a fuel source.
Hydrogen needs a lot of energy to make it combust, but not so for Petroleum.
The Enthalpy of Hydrogen is 6806.8 Kilo Joules mol-1 per 1 gram of Hydrogen
and assuming the temperature of the Hydrogen is 24 degrees Celsius when
exploded. Petroleums enthalpy requires only a mere 475-545 Joules to activate
while under identical conditions as the Hydrogen. A mole is measurement of the
amount of a chemical substance. The enthalpy is the total heat content or the
internal energy of the chemical when combusting. This draws us to believe that
with such power needed to combust Hydrogen, it may never be implemented as
a viable fuel source.
Hydrogen is difficult to move within its gaseous state because hydrogen gas is
not very dense, so much so it is one-fourteenth that of air said by Hyper
Physics. This means that Hydrogen would float away hence making it difficult for
transportation. To combat this, the container or piping that contains hydrogen
would need to be pressurised to make the gas movable.
Handling hydrogen is also a pain just as Petroleum is. Hydrogen is more tedious
to transport as it is highly flammable and cant be detected without sensors. This
is because Hydrogen cant be smelt as it has no odour and invisible to the naked
eye. It is invisible to the naked eye as humans single out certain range of

temperatures -45 to 93 degrees Celsius and atmospheric pressures 9843

kilograms per metres squared. This makes hydrogen very risky to contain and
transport as leaks can be created and unnoticed if without a sensor and is
hazardous around places with fire around it.
Hydrogen once used creates a by-product of water vapour and heat this is
represented by the chemical equation 2H 2(g) + O2(g) +Ignition source= 2H2O(l) +
Heat. Octane creates water like Hydrogen but also creates Carbon Dioxide this is
represented in the chemical equation 2C8H18(l) + 25O2(g) = 18H2O(l) + 16CO2(g).
Water vapour is the main cause of global warming because once evaporated into
the sky it covers the atmosphere in water vapour which aids the Carbon Dioxide
already there which leads to increase in temperature but then disappears as it
rains or snows but the carbon dioxide retains the heat which causes the global
warming.
This is not the best fuel source but beats many other in the fact that it causes
little pollution to the environment and can be 100% environmentally friendly if
powered of renewable sources.