Hydrogen: Giving progress the clean taste of water

摘要

"It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever." Charles Dickens may have been describing a fictional town in "Hard Times", but since the advent of the industrial era, economic progress has been synonymous with smog, dirt and noise. Now, the climate crisis is the defining issue of our time. According to the United Nations, the last four years were the hottest on record, human activity led to record levels of greenhouse gas emissions in 2019, and climate change is limiting the availability and quality of drinking water. But a leap forward in energy, industry and mobility may be about to cleanse the taste of progress with a technology that emits only water vapor. Hydrogen energy, activated by zero-emission fuel-cell systems, has become an integral part of the world's energy mix.