3. Hydrogen: production, transport, storage, distribution

Hydrogen gas, used in molecular form, is an assembly of two atoms, formally called dihydrogen, but more commonly referred to, by mistake and by default, as "hydrogen".

It was Antoine de Lavoisier, an 18th-century French chemist, who discovered the hydrogen and oxygen composition of water. Hydrogen, the most widely distributed substance in the universe but virtually non-existent in its natural state, has the advantage of being a non-toxic, low-density, high-energy gas: at equivalent mass, it is more than twice as energetic as gasoline or natural gas. Today, it is widely used as a chemical product (around 60 Mt/year worldwide), but still very little as an energy carrier, and this is where its development is mainly expected.

At present, hydrogen is overwhelmingly produced by reforming fossil fuels, mainly natural gas, and its production therefore...