In response to recent letters to the editor: No, Mr. Schmidt of Germany, Mr. Crocker of Toledo is certainly not wrong about the hydrogen economy.
There is no free hydrogen on this planet. None. It is all busy bonding with other elements. Hydrogen can’t help it. The first electron shell is one electron short. And, it’s going to get that electron somewhere, and that is why hydrogen is so reactive. It’s already reacted.
Mr Schmidt and Mr. Peter Abbarno seem to think the laws of thermodynamics don’t apply to them, and they can get more energy from hydrogen than it takes to liberate it from its molecular bonds. It is they who are mistaken. Your local high school chemistry teachers can help them understand why.
Do you readers think the means to produce hydrogen gas are new? That we just figured out how to do it? Why do you think there aren’t hydrogen production plants absolutely everywhere by now to put all of that hydrogen to good use? All you need do is follow the money if the physics is beyond you.
It costs more to get it than you can get from burning it.
Jesse Ohlsson
New York
