Browsing the web, I found an interesting vision for a decentral, low-carbon economy of the future. Read passages here, and if you are interested simply follow the link to Rifkin's page!
"Imagine, for a moment, a world where fossil fuels are no longer burned to generate power, heat and light. A world no longer threatened by global warming or geopolitical conflict in the Middle East. A world where every person on earth has access to electricity. That world now looms on the horizon. [...] Hydrogen - the lightest and most abundant element of the universe - is the next great energy revolution. Scientists call it the "forever fuel" because it never runs out. And when hydrogen is used to produce power, the only by-products are pure water and heat. [...]
Hydrogen has the potential to end the world's reliance on oil from the Persian Gulf, the most politically unstable and volatile region of the world. It will dramatically cut down on carbon dioxide emissions and mitigate the effects of global warming. And because hydrogen is so plentiful, people who have never before had access to electricity will be able to generate it. [...]
Hydrogen is found everywhere on Earth. However, it rarely exists free floating in nature. Instead, it has to be extracted from either hydrocarbons or water. Today, the most cost-effective way to produce commercial hydrogen is to harvest it from natural gas via a steam reforming process. Yet the supply of natural gas is as finite as our oil supply, and therefore not a dependable source. But there is another way to produce hydrogen - one that uses no fossil fuels in the process. Renewable sources of energy - photovoltaic cells, wind, hydro, geothermal and biomass - are increasingly being used to produce electricity. That electricity, in turn, can be used, in a process called electrolysis, to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Once produced, the hydrogen can be stored and used, when needed, to generate electricity. Storage is the key to making renewable energy economically viable. [...] While the costs of harnessing renewable technologies and extracting hydrogen are still high, new technological breakthroughs and economies of scale are dramatically reducing these costs every year. [...]
In the new hydrogen fuel-cell era, even the automobile itself becomes a "power station on wheels" - with a generating capacity of twenty kilowatts. The average house only requires two to four kilowatts of power. Since cars are parked most of the time, owners can plug them into the home, office or the main interactive electricity network, during non-use hours, selling the electricity they produce back to the grid. If just twenty-five percent of drivers used their vehicles as mini-power plants, we could eliminate all the giant, environmentally-polluting power plants we now depend on."
Rifkin's Hydrogen Economy - the Homepage
Jonas
"Imagine, for a moment, a world where fossil fuels are no longer burned to generate power, heat and light. A world no longer threatened by global warming or geopolitical conflict in the Middle East. A world where every person on earth has access to electricity. That world now looms on the horizon. [...] Hydrogen - the lightest and most abundant element of the universe - is the next great energy revolution. Scientists call it the "forever fuel" because it never runs out. And when hydrogen is used to produce power, the only by-products are pure water and heat. [...]
Hydrogen has the potential to end the world's reliance on oil from the Persian Gulf, the most politically unstable and volatile region of the world. It will dramatically cut down on carbon dioxide emissions and mitigate the effects of global warming. And because hydrogen is so plentiful, people who have never before had access to electricity will be able to generate it. [...]
Hydrogen is found everywhere on Earth. However, it rarely exists free floating in nature. Instead, it has to be extracted from either hydrocarbons or water. Today, the most cost-effective way to produce commercial hydrogen is to harvest it from natural gas via a steam reforming process. Yet the supply of natural gas is as finite as our oil supply, and therefore not a dependable source. But there is another way to produce hydrogen - one that uses no fossil fuels in the process. Renewable sources of energy - photovoltaic cells, wind, hydro, geothermal and biomass - are increasingly being used to produce electricity. That electricity, in turn, can be used, in a process called electrolysis, to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Once produced, the hydrogen can be stored and used, when needed, to generate electricity. Storage is the key to making renewable energy economically viable. [...] While the costs of harnessing renewable technologies and extracting hydrogen are still high, new technological breakthroughs and economies of scale are dramatically reducing these costs every year. [...]
In the new hydrogen fuel-cell era, even the automobile itself becomes a "power station on wheels" - with a generating capacity of twenty kilowatts. The average house only requires two to four kilowatts of power. Since cars are parked most of the time, owners can plug them into the home, office or the main interactive electricity network, during non-use hours, selling the electricity they produce back to the grid. If just twenty-five percent of drivers used their vehicles as mini-power plants, we could eliminate all the giant, environmentally-polluting power plants we now depend on."
Rifkin's Hydrogen Economy - the Homepage
Jonas
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