Publisher: MIT Press; Reprint edition (September 9, 2002)
ISBN: 026258221X
In-Print Editions: Hardcover & Paperback: 301 pages
Dimensions (in inches): 0.80 x 8.90 x 6.00
by Philip S. Wenz, Editor/Publisher
In 1981, Peter Hoffman wrote THE FOREVER FUEL: The Story of
Hydrogen. At that time, the solar/hydrogen age which is currently
dawning around us was a distant dream. Although visionaries, environmentalists
and attentive observers knew that fossil fuels were a dead-end energy
source, the words of these profits were falling on deaf ears. The
so-called "energy crisis" of the 1970s—in which the
Middle Eastern oil producing states raised the price of crude oil
by a couple of dollars a barrel and the American distributors raised
it by a more than a dollar a gallon—spurred a concentrated
search for new oil sources. Many sources were found, and the price
of oil, though rising gradually, has remained essentially stable
until now. The 1980s were awash in oil, and alternative energy research
and development was put on the back burner as federal and state
tax incentives and other programs were cut or eliminated.
Despite those temporary setbacks, however, the alternative energy
crowd could see that the fossil fuel tide would ebb, probably sooner
than later. So they worked on, fighting their fight, promoting their
cause. In 1986 Hoffman and his wife started The
Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Letter which they publish to this day,
and the doing of which has made placed them among the world’s
experts in hydrogen technology development. During the intervening
decades, developments in hydrogen fuel technology rewarded them,
gradually at first and dramatically in recent years, for their unflagging
enthusiasm. The development of the Ballard
Fuel Cell in the 1990s proved to be the breakthrough that the
world had awaited, a keystone to the future hydrogen economy.
By the end of the 1990s, the means and the incentive for moving
to a hydrogen economy had crossed a great divide, and it was time
for another book. Hoffman responded with Tomorrow’s Energy,
the best nuts-and-bolts book on the current state of hydrogen fuel
technology.
After a nice foreword by Senator Tom Harkin, Tomorrow’s
Energy proceeds logically, starting with "Why Hydrogen,"
a chapter on the basics. Hoffman then tells the interesting history
of the discovery of hydrogen and its early use as an energy source
as he lays the background for the central, nitty-gritty chapters
on modern extraction methods, hydrogen vehicles and fuel cells.
The rest of the book is devoted to non-fuel cell hydrogen uses—as
rocket fuel, to replace natural gas in buildings, and for various
industrial applications.
Like many writers on the subject, Hoffman feels the need to address
what he calls the Hindenberg Syndrome—people’s fear that
hydrogen is less safe than fossil fuels because of the 1937 airship
disaster. That hydrogen is in many ways safer than gasoline is a
point made by Hoffman and many other fuel experts.
In a concluding chapter on "The Next 100 Years," Hoffman
discusses various means of assessing the prospects for the timely
arrival of the Hydrogen Economy. Though his conclusion is, realistically,
non-conclusive, his methods for arriving are illustrative in and
of themselves, offering the reader a variety of tools with which
to asses the possibilities.
The overall feeling of Hoffman’s essay is like that of a textbook—challenging,
rich in data, logically arranged. Unlike most textbooks, however,
which covers subjects like American History or Biochemistry that
have been hashed and rehashed for decades, Hoffman’s work covers
an intrinsically exciting, fresh field. And unlike a typical textbook,
each chapter begins with a story of real people engaged in real
research or problem solving. Tomorrow’s Energy is the
best and most thorough introduction to a field which every ecological
designer must understand.
Bookstore | Reviews
|
