Three, two, one, zero Hydrogen has powered some pretty cool things.
Liftoff. We have liftoff.
We've been using hydrogen in space since the 1960s.
But on Earth, the technology is still in its infancy.
We're trying to figure out how we can use it for cleaner energy.
It can really be the cleanest, best way to decarbonize our society.
Hydrogen is the first element on the periodic table.
It's the most abundant element in the entire universe.
And it's really reactive.
And it's explosive and it's hard to manage.
That also means it bonds with other elements,
and rarely exists as a single energy carrying atom in nature.
So, to get it we have to separate it from oxygen, carbon and other elements in things,
like water, fossil fuels or renewables.
Now, doing that requires a lot of energy.
But once we have hydrogen, it can be used as fuel.
And some electrified cars and trucks are using it already.
We're at the very beginning of a trend now, where I think you'll start
to see a lot more hydrogen fuel cells.
Vehicles can use hydrogen fuel cells to run.
Inside the fuel cell, hydrogen mixes with air to make electricity.
That powers the car, and water comes out the tailpipe.
Automakers have been talking about using fuel cells to power their automobiles for a while,
but in fact, it actually makes a lot more sense with heavy trucks.
That's because of insufficient fueling infrastructure.
We have refineries for gasoline and pipelines that run all over our country,
but we don't have the same thing for hydrogen.
Which means it's really not a very useful technology,
if you can't get your hydrogen car refueled.
In fact, there's only been fewer than 10,000 fuel cell cars sold in the United States so far.
So, trucks and some busses are taking advantage of hydrogen fuel more than cars.
That's because they run on predictable routes, and return to depots every day,
making it easier to supply or even produce the hydrogen at a central location.
If we figure out how to work with hydrogen at scale,
we could use it for a lot more than just cars.
Hydrogen can be used to power a lot of buildings.
And things like steel production and power plants.
But that's not all.
Hydrogen can also be used to store energy from other sources,
like wind, solar, and other renewables.
And this has a lot of potential.
Imagine a Google or Amazon data center that has a power outage.
They can't afford to go down.
So a fuel cell is a way to store backup power for these data centers.
Hydrogen still has a long way to go.
We need to figure out how to produce it from clean sources,
and then build the infrastructure to scale it.
The problem with hydrogen today is that most of it comes from natural gas reformation.
And that's not good for the environment.
But what we are working on, solar and wind power, even water power, nuclear power.
There are many ways we could make hydrogen, we're not there yet.
The good news?
More companies and governments are committing to develop hydrogen technology today.
Hydrogen is definitely a fuel of the future.
But we have so much to learn and understand about it first.
So we're just at the beginning of the trend.
Here's what you should know now.
Hydrogen could be used as an alternative to fossil fuels and to store excess energy
from renewables and other sources.
Trucks are paving the way to using hydrogen fuel cells more widely.
The hydrogen economy is still small, but it's growing.
I think we'll be seeing a lot more in the next few decades with hydrogen.