| NATURAL GAS | NUCLEAR | SOLAR | WIND | BIOMASS | COAL |
| Gas station-size facilities using steam reformation | Very High Temperature Reactors providing heat for electrolysis or for thermochemical cycles | Photovoltaic systems providing electricity for electrolysis with 10% efficiency | Turbines producing electricity for electrolysis, assuming they operate at 30% capacity | Gasification plants using steam reformation | FutureGen plants using coal gasification then steam reformation |
Raw
Materials
Required | 15.9 million
cu. ft. of natural gas — only a fraction of current U.S. annual consumption | 240,000
tons of unenriched uranium, five times today's global production | 2500
kilowatt-hours of sun per square meter per year, found in the Southwestern states of the Sun Belt | 7
meters per second average wind speed, typically found in many parts of the country | 1.5 billion
tons of dry biomass (initially byproducts such as peanut shells, then concentrated crops) | 1 billion
tons of coal — which would require doubling current U.S. domestic production |
Infrastructure | 777,000
facilities; though a more likely scenario would include a mix of larger central production plants | 2000
600-megawatt next-generation nuclear power plants; only 103 nuclear power plants operate in the States today | 113 million
40-kilowatt systems, covering 50% of more than 300 million acres — an area three size the size of Nevada | 1 million
2-megawatt wind turbines, covering 5% of 120 million acres, or an area larger than California | 3300
gasification plants, and up to 113.4 million acres — or 11% of U.S. farmland — dedicated to growing the biomass | 1000
275-megawatt plants; only 12 sites were proposed for a DOE demonstration plant — not all met the requirements |
Total Cost | $1 trillion | $840 billion | $22 trillion | $3 trillion | $565 billion | $500 billion |
Price Per GGE
(Gallon of Gas Equivalent) | $3.00 | $2.50 | $9.50 | $3.00 | $1.90 | $1 |
CO2 Emissions
measured in tons | 300 million | 0 | 0 | 0 | 600 million* | 600 million** |
| *Zero net emissions because crops pull CO2 from the air. **90% will be captured and stored underground. |
Time Frame | There are four fueling stations that now produce hydrogen from natural gas. | The first Very High Temperature Reactor in the U.S. will be built at Idaho National Laboratory in 2021. | Honda built an experimental solar-powered hydrogen refueling station at its lab in California in 2001. | A 100-kilowatt turbine is now being built at the National Renewable Energy Lab in Colorado. | Government funded bio-mass research will be transferred to private industry in 2015. | By 2012, the first FutureGen demonstration plant should be running at 50% capacity. |