Page - 52 - in Our Car as Power Plant

52 HYDROGEN An important question is how do we produce the hydrogen? Hydrogen is the simplest molecule in the universe, consisting of two hydrogen atoms, or 2 protons and two electrons. It does not exist freely in nature but can be produced in many ways: from natural gas, coal or biomass. But also from electricity, or even direct sunlight. Coal, oil, gas and biomass are hydrocarbons, containing the elements hydrogen and carbon. Natural gas mainly contains methane, CH4. Electricity or sunlight can produce hydrogen by split- ting it from water, H2O. Production from coal and biomass can be done by a process called gasification. Gasification transforms these fuels without combustion to a gaseous synthetic gas from which hydrogen can be derived, which can then be reacted into hydrogen. These processes presently have efficiencies of 56% (coal) and 44% (biomass) (24).