By Tyler Hamilton -- The Toronto Star
Dec. 10, 2007 -- Hydrogen might be an emission-free fuel when burned or put through a fuel cell, but given that fuel-cell cars for the mass market are at least a decade away – if they ever come – what if hydrogen could be used today to clean up a fossil fuel we already depend on, such as natural gas?
We use natural gas as fuel for corporate and municipal vehicle fleets, to provide power generation, and to heat our homes and buildings. The infrastructure is well developed. If we can use what we have and at the same time reduce the greenhouse gas and smog-causing emissions that result from it, then some argue it makes sense to pursue it as one slice of a larger climate-mitigation strategy.
A Fredericton-based company called Atlantic Hydrogen Inc. is making impressive inroads in this regard, having developed a new technology that can remove carbon from natural gas and replace it with hydrogen.
"Effectively what we're doing is greening the gas," says David Wagner, president and chief operating officer of Atlantic Hydrogen, which is attempting to commercialize technology developed at McGill University by chemist David Fletcher and later transferred to the University of New Brunswick.
"We are aware that in Ontario a company called Bullfrog Power is out there selling green power, so why can't we sell green gas? It's the same concept, different fuel. That's what has a number of gas companies we've talked to quite excited about this."