Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Production: Introduction

Hydrogen is a widely produced and used commodity, now being used as an energy carrier for stationary power and transportation markets. Tens of millions of tons of hydrogen are produced each year globally, mostly for large-scale industrial uses. As awareness grows for the need to reduce greenhouse gases and enable new energy paradigms, hydrogen is being seen as playing a critical role as shown in Fig. 1 [1]. Hydrogen provides chemical storage of electrical energy and can be efficiently converted to electricity on demand for distributed applications, thus enabling the global electrification trends. The H2@SCALE initiative in the United States, the commercialization of hydrogen technologies in Japan, the focus on power-to-gas and hydrogen utilization in Europe, all point toward a renaissance for hydrogen generation and utilization based on its ability to improve efficiency and reduce emissions across many sectors.