Will hydrogen solve our energy needs?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 8 June 2023
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A fifteen minute test flight of a plane fuelled only by hydrogen was successfully completed over recent months. Trucks are already running on the fuel in the US, as are trains in Canada and the UK. Both Toyota and Hyundai have expressed a desire to explore the gas as an option for their smaller vehicles. The UK has announced plans to use hydrogen as a replacement for natural gas in two trial villages, Whitby and Redcar, having already completed tests at Keele University. Several glass and tiling companies are also testing the potential energy source.
There is a lot of buzz around the idea of replacing our current fossil fuel usage with hydrogen, and for good reason too. Hydrogen is everywhere and it can be made via green methods and its only by-product is water. It almost sounds almost too good to be true, and perhaps it is. That’s why this week we ask, will hydrogen solve our energy needs?
Presenter: David Baker Producer: Christopher Blake Editor: Tara McDermott
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the inquiry on the BBC World Service, with me, David Baker. |
| 0:05.0 | Each week, one question, four expert witnesses, and an answer. |
| 0:13.7 | Cast your mind back to science lessons at school. |
| 0:17.0 | You may remember an experiment in which you took a beaker of water |
| 0:21.2 | and put two metal electrodes in it, |
| 0:23.6 | perhaps a couple of nails, and connected them to a battery. |
| 0:27.7 | As the electricity started to flow, little bubbles appeared on the metal surface. |
| 0:33.3 | On one side, hydrogen, on the other, oxygen. |
| 0:37.4 | H's and O's, as the electricity broke down the H2O of water into its component parts. |
| 0:45.8 | Oxygen we know about, we could use it in hospitals. |
| 0:49.5 | But hydrogen is incredibly useful, too, because it burns. |
| 0:54.4 | And we could use it to heat our homes, cook our food, and power our vehicles. |
| 1:00.4 | And, crucially, when it burns, unlike the gas we get from the ground, |
| 1:05.6 | all it produces is water vapor. |
| 1:08.6 | Those H's and O's combining again, and disappearing into the air. |
| 1:13.6 | Now, imagine that school experiment scaled up to an enormous size. |
| 1:18.7 | Perhaps generating renewable energy with solar panels, |
| 1:22.3 | maybe in the Sahara Desert, or somewhere like that, |
| 1:24.9 | and using that to produce totally green hydrogen to power our lives. |
| 1:30.3 | Wouldn't that be an amazing way to reduce our carbon emissions and tackle climate change? |
| 1:36.0 | So, for this episode of The Inquiry, we're asking, |
| 1:39.4 | Will hydrogen solve our energy needs? |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.