Eric McFarland, Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of California Santa Barbara, likes fossil fuels and nuclear energy and is unimpressed by the menu of renewable energy technologies. But he is worried about climate change and he has an original view on how to modify our current energy system so that we don’t overload the atmosphere with CO2. He believes the key will be to separate fossil hydrocarbons into gaseous hydrogen and solid carbon. The chemistry he is developing in this area involves transferring “electrochemical potential” from hydrocarbons to alternative energy carriers. Ammonia is an energy carrier that McFarland believes is especially promising.
