Hydrogen Energy is in no way dependent on fossil fuels. Electricity is required to get hydrogen into the proper form for a fuel cell engine, but this electricity can be provided by sustainable methods. Solar cell plants, wind generators, offshore tidal generators or other known or as yet unknown sources of electricity will be able to do the trick. Hydrogen can also be produced from Biomass, something abundant in most countries. A huge wind farm in the New Mexico desert could generate enough electricity each year to prepare the hydrogen to power millions of automobiles. So the Hydrogen economy will actually be a hybrid economy, with the half not provided by Hydrogen being provided by either solar or wind power, or by some other fuel source, perhaps one not yet discovered.

The only reason that most of the hydrogen produced today is processed by natural gas is because the oil companies control natural gas production, and have used their immense power to get hydrogen production as yet another source of income. It's a way for them to hedge their bets, for they know better than anyone that the oil will run out. Some would say that alternative energy methods are not advanced enough to handle Hydrogen production. This is false. When the proof is presented of sustainable energy sources currently producing at exceptional levels, such as the windfarms all over Northern Europe, then we invariably hear that there "isnt enough money" in it. What this means is the profit margins in alternative energies arent as high for the corporations as they are for oil. Well, this is true, and it explains why we are still using oil. Unfortunately, we have an economy that is driven not by what is best for the world, but instead by what makes the very rich even richer.

But a sustainable hydrogen economy will be a reality, not because the bastards will learn to care , but because their barrels of black gold are gonna run out, and there isnt a damn thing they can do about it. By then, huge companies, the same ones now banking on the oil crisis, will have bought up all the research done by dedicated alternative energy firms, for pennies on the dollar, and will start selling us salvation in the form of their "new" energy source, clean hydrogen! Maybe we should ponder for a moment why we arent making the transition from oil to hydrogen now, while things are relatively stable, and while our planet still has an atmosphere that is not beyond rapid repair.

The reason, of course, is because the oil companies are going to try to make absolutely as much money as possible before their well runs dry. These people are ectstatic about the impending skyrocketing of oil prices that has only just begun. The executives of these companies are buying homes and yachts on the credit of the future profits they know will be coming their way. I imagine that they will make more money in the last 5 years of the oil economy than they did in the preceeding century. Where will this money come from? From a people in crisis. From the turmoil and chaos of the entire human community being forced to change its fuel source suddenly without proper planning. When one considers the potential for catastrophic scenarios in socieites all over the earth in the years when oil becomes unavailable, after it has been depended on for vital basic infrastructure for so long, then it becomes clear exactly what these businessmen do: they gamble with our lives. There is already blood on their dice, but there could be much more.

If there is some doubt in any reader's minds as to whether the oil companies and the politicians who represent them could really be so careless as to not only ignore the chaos that will result from their business plan, but to use their power to actively resist positive changes that we need to be enacting presently (and there shouldn't be), then consider this: they think that another 30-40 years of widespread petroleum consumption is a wonderful thing. Instead of allowing and aiding and even profiting from the transition to sustainable fuels now, over the next 10 years, a process which should have begun in earnest 10 years ago, they have figured in 4 more decades of internal combustion to their business plan. That's 40 more years hedging and stalling, 40 more years of our continued assault on the atmosphere, before they inevitably declare themselves the harbringers of the hydrogen economy. 40 more years of fossil fuel burning at current levels {or below them!} will be a catastrophe for the atmosphere. We have already set in motion a process with severe effects to come, effects we don't fully understand, but another 40 years more of our current CO2 emmissions will make the situation inevitably much more severe. People could be dealing with the effects of this business decision for centuries, long after these executives' great grandchildren have died of skin cancer and passed on their own billion dollar inheritances.

If someone makes decisions that result in destruction and mayhem, whether it be from a cave in Afghanistan or from a penthouse office in Manhattan, then they should be held accountable, and more importantly, stopped. If some executive businessmen want to make their millions by impeding necessary progress, interfering with sustainable development, and indirectly threatening billions of people with environmental catastrophe, then they should have to do it like they used to in the days of dukes and fiefdoms. They should have to get a fucking army. If people get educated and get organized, we can put the kind of pressure on these companies that our governments should be putting (some are.). We cannot let these people quietly sip their coffee while they make daily decisions that will bring turmoil into the lives of millions.

For anyone interested in a really comprehensive explanation of hydrogen as a fuel source, including a thorough analysis of which renewable energy sources could power a hydrogen economy, and the implications of China's growing economy as far as energy and the environment are concerned, see this report by the American Solar Energy Society.