Giving Compass' Take:

· Lloyd Alter from TreeHugger reports on new technology showing the role of hydrogen in creating a clean-energy future.

· How is technology changing the way we approach a clean-energy future? How is hydrogen being sourced for fuel? 

· Read more about hydrogen and the future of clean energy.

This TreeHugger has long been skeptical of hydrogen, suspecting it to be a way of keeping us tied forever to the oil and gas companies who would distribute "grey" hydrogen made from natural gas while promising "green" hydrogen some day. I have repeatedly called the hydrogen economy a fantasy.

But Tyler Hamilton, a respected science writer writes in the Globe and Mail that Hydrogen has a major role to play in the clean-energy future.

Over the past year, hydrogen has re-emerged as one of the most promising answers. Mostly because it’s such a versatile fuel, but also because the cost of producing “green” hydrogen using renewable electricity or other low-carbon processes is rapidly falling. Our cars, buses and delivery vans may be going battery-electric, and batteries may be a big part of the answer to energy storage on the electrical grid. But green hydrogen, according to the International Energy Agency, offers what batteries can’t – a flexible way to decarbonize ships, trains, and big airplanes, displace the use of natural gas for heating, and replace fossil fuels used by heavy industry.

Hamilton points to a company in Calgary, Proton Technologies Inc, which has developed a way of separating hydrogen from the oil sands while leaving the carbon in the ground, a process that they call Hygenic Earth Energy or HEE. "We’re creating a continuous source of green, clean and affordable energy from deep earth. We’re meeting a huge market need with a rapidly scalable solution."

Read the full article about a clean-energy future by Lloyd Alter at TreeHugger.