Solar Hydrogen

This book shows how private industry can make a profit building and installing solar hydrogen systems that eliminate all greenhouse gas emissions from generating electricity and most greenhouse emissions from the transportation sector while eliminating all petroleum imports.

The threats of Climate Change to society are much more dire than typically portrayed, up to and including the demise of modern civilization as we know it due to the world's eventual inability to feed a growing population. Meeting the climate change community 2050 greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goal will require major emission reductions from both electricity generation and transportation sectors. Business-as-usual such as adding some renewable electricity to the power grid and adding battery electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles to the transportation system will not be sufficient to reach the GHG reduction goal. We do not know of any organization or author that has proposed a plausible scenario to achieve the GHG reduction goal and to avoid the estimated societal cost of climate change that could reach $13 trillion over the 21st century. This book describes one bold new approach to achieve the 2050 GHG reduction goal by using solar photovoltaic energy to generate hydrogen gas as the main energy carrier for the transportation system and the main energy storage mechanism to smooth out renewable electricity fluctuations over time, which would eliminate all GHG emissions from generating electricity. We show that such Solar-Hydrogen Energy Systems (SHES) will be affordable without any government support. Private industry can make a robust return on their investments in SHES's. We also show that a full implementation of SHES for the transportation sector would eliminate the need for any oil imports (most vehicles would run on hydrogen fuel), since the growing US oil production can supply all non-transportation petroleum requirements including jet fuel, lubricants, pipeline fuels, and feedstocks for industrial processes, etc.

Dr. Thomas was co-founder and President of H2Gen Innovations, Inc., a company established in 2001 exclusively to manufacture low-cost hydrogen fueling systems. Previously, Dr. Thomas was Vice President at Directed Technologies, Inc., where in 1993-1997 he led a joint project with Ford and the U.S. DOE to evaluate hydrogen infrastructure options and hydrogen safety issues. Prior to joining DTI, he served as a legislative assistant to Senator Tom Harkin (Iowa-D) from 1987 to 1993, where he assisted Senator Harkin in significantly expanding hydrogen energy and fuel cell research budgets at the Department of Energy. Previous research areas included coherent optical data processing, laser fusion and amorphous silicon photovoltaics. Dr. Thomas was the Director of the Laser and Optic Division of KMS Fusion, where on May 1, 1974 KMS became the first organization in the world to demonstrate a controlled thermonuclear reaction using high power laser beams. Since selling the H2Gen reformer technology to Air Liquide in 2009, Dr. Thomas consults in the hydrogen energy field, has been writing technical books (see paragraph below) Sandy received his BS, MS and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan in 1961, 1963 and 1971. He served on the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of the National Hydrogen Association. Dr. Thomas was the recipient of the 2010 Jules Verne Award for superior service from the International Association of Hydrogen Energy; The inscription on the award to Dr. Thomas reads: "For his leadership in systems studies, analyses, and entrepreneurship in development and commercialization of hydrogen technologies." In 2015, Dr. Thomas wrote a book entitled "Sustainable Transportation Options for the 21st Century and Beyond: a Comprehensive Comparison of Alternatives to the Internal Combustion Engine" published by Springer (ISBN 978-3-319-16832-6). This book demonstrates that the Hydrogen-powered fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) is the only option that can meet societies' goal of cutting greenhouse gases to 80% below 1990 levels.