Where the energy journey started for me

As an undergraduate engineering student at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, I took a course called Fuel Cells: Reality, Prospects, Myths during the spring semester of 2006. My interests in energy were stirring by this time, but this class really took me deeper into that rabbit hole. I was sold on the panacea of a hydrogen economy going into it, but, by the end of it... I realized it wasn't that easy. After reading the literature for that class, a hydrogen economy actually looked more like fools' gold than any kind of cure. The class read Jeremy Rifkin's Hydrogen Economy first, which hyped up hydrogen fuel as the miracle I thought it was at the time. To it's credit, the book gave a very interesting historical recounting from an energy resource perspective. It shed some light on the role that energy and resources played in the collapse of various civilizations and empires (I later read Jared Diamond's Collapse which covers a similar theme). This historical retelling added to my understanding of the intersection of science and society.

The class shifted gears and spent a majority of time on a book by Joseph J. Romm, who worked at the US Department of Energy, called The Hype About Hydrogen. This book explained the devilish details of various energy conversion processes, especially the advantages and disadvantages of fuel cell technologies. The book argued convincingly that hydrogen fuel cells (i.e. polymer exchange membrane or PEM fuel cells) are a bit of a boondoggle due to poor conversion efficiency going from electricity to hydrogen and back to electricity. Physorg.com has a good article that expounds on this problem. Here is a nice flowchart from that article that compares using hydrogen fuel to using batteries:

This chart compares the useful transport energy requirements for a vehicle powered from a hydrogen process (left) vs. electricity (right). Image Credit: Ulf Bossel. (Borrowed from Physorg.com)

  Joseph J. Romm also points out that hydrogen fuel cells are not the only type of fuel cell. It seems other fuel cells, which use other fuels, do have a role to play in our energy future. Some are even deployed today and are powering various businesses and institutions. There will be opportunities to explore these in more detail later.

I was, of course, taking all the typical engineering courses while I took this fuel cell class. And, to speak to my science/society interest: the semester before I had taken a course called Science and Society in Literature. But this fuel cell class is where the interest in energy issues really crystallized for me. I continued taking my engineering courses and especially enjoyed the three thermodynamics courses I took. I worked on chemical solution deposition of thin film solar cells for my senior thesis. And I now find myself pursuing a Sustainable Engineering masters degree at the Rochester Institute of Technology. And still, at every turn, this rabbit hole leads to new halls to wander in.