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Nature 418, 928-929 (29 August 2002) | doi:10.1038/418928a

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Renewable fuels: Harnessing hydrogen

Esteban Chornet & Stefan Czernik

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Biomass can produce clean fuels and could be a vital, renewable energy source for the future. The demonstration of hydrogen production from biomass-derived molecules marks progress towards this goal.

Fossil-fuel stocks are a limited resource and, as the world's governments struggle to agree on a strategy to combat pollution and greenhouse-gas emissions, the search for clean, renewable energy sources has never been more intense. On page 964 of this issue, Cortright et al.1 provide experimental evidence that simple biomass-derived molecules, such as glucose and glycerol, can be treated to produce hydrogen with reasonable efficiency.

  1. Esteban Chornet and Stefan Czernik are at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Colorado 80401, USA. Esteban Chornet is also in the Department of Chemical Engineering, Université de Sherbrooke, Québec J1L 1H3, Canada.

Correspondence to: e-mail: Email: esteban_chornet@nrel.gov