ABSTRACT
The exploiters of the fossil fuels, coal and oil, say it costs less to produce and burn the savings account. This is analogous to saying it takes less effort to rob a bank than to do the work which the money deposited in the bank represents. As a cryogenic fuel it promises to lead to better, faster, more economical and obviously environmentally "clean" airplane designs. As a chemical fuel, hydrogen can be used in a much wider range of energy applications than can electricity. The concept has an almost mystical elegance—a near-cosmic energy dance combining the elementary force that heats the sun and the stars to produce a chemical fuel that happens to be the most abundant element in the universe and that also represents the elementary chemical building block of all matter. As a gas, hydrogen can transport energy via long-distance pipelines much more cheaply than electricity, driving fuel cells at the consumer end to make electricity plus water.
