The Next Energy Source?

The Hydrogen Economy: The Creation of the Worldwide Energy Web and the Redistribution of Power on Earth<br> By Jeremy Rifkin | Tarcher/Putnam. $24.95

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One way or another oil is on its way out. Either we will start to run out in the next couple of decades — and Jeremy Rifkin begins his book with a compelling case that it will be sooner rather than later — or the prospect of global warming will force us to find other fuels. As this comprehensive volume makes clear, the post-carbon world really has only one option to rely on: hydrogen fuel cells. These generators are more than twice as efficient as combustion engines and produce only water and heat as by-products. And unlike other forms of clean energy, they can be made to power anything from a Chrysler to the Chrysler Building.

Hydrogen is ubiquitous in nature, but it’s usually bound up with other elements (as in H2O). At present it is cheaper to strip it from natural gas, but if hydrogen is to sustainably replace fossil fuels, Rifkin writes, we’ll need to split it from water instead, using wind or solar power. And he’s insistent that we need to plan now for these renewables — before our other fuel supplies start to dwindle.

Rifkin also explains in workable detail how a hydrogen economy could be far more decentralized and democratic than our current energy system. An optimistic futurist, he envisions urban and rural cooperatives combining the output of locally owned fuel cells in a “hydrogen energy web,” which would let people trade electrons the way Napster let them pass around Moby tracks. As you might guess, it’s a vision that the Exxons of the world will do their best to oppose — and since at the moment they control our government, Rifkin’s book is really a call to political arms. And not a moment too soon.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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