Dr Peter Stoermer
Namibia can generate sustainable, unlimited, clean and safe electric energy from the sun. It ranks among the leading countries worldwide with respect to sunshine in watt per square metre (W/m2). The sun even features prominently on the national flag of Namibia.
However, since Namibia belongs to those countries where the sun never shines during the night the storage of electric energy is a problem.
Liquified hydrogen, H2 L, as secondary energy generated through hydrolysis and compression, solves the shortcoming. It can be stored and transported, according to latest developments, safely like any other liquid fuel.
And it can be used in conventional motorcars with only little modifications to the engine. Emissions are water vapour without any environmental loading.
Liquid hydrogen, as mobile and storable fuel, is the state of the art of modern industrial development in Europe, Australia the US and China.
Namibia could become a very profitable exporter of liquid hydrogen because of its enormous “natural resources” in sunlight and seawater, both needed for the hydrolysis of hydrogen.
Conventional fuel transport systems and even the infrastructure of existing filling stations can be used for liquid hydrogen. An increasing number of hydrogen filling stations can be seen in Europe already.
Fact seems to be that big aircraft e.g. can never be fuelled by direct electric energy from batteries-.
However, the still mighty oil industry lobby, based on dwindling resources, has to become a partner on a win-win basis. After Chernobyl and Fukushima the highly industrialized countreies are trying to get away from nuclear power because of its high, unpredictable risks and huge, toxic, radioactive waste disposal problems. Those wastes having half-life decay periods of thousands of years.
The new and unexpected research findings on the enormous increase of carbon dioxide (CO2) loading in the atmosphere triggered the recent emergency Climate Change Conference in New York. Global warming with all its consequences is much higher than expected. Burning, combustion of fossil fuels are responsible and need to be seriously reduced.