Scientific adviser to PM CNR Rao eyes water to end energy crisis

A team of scientists at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) has embarked on a project to utilise water — or, precisely, the hydrogen in it — for power generation.

JNCASR director and scientific advisor to Prime Minister, Professor CNR Rao, on Wednesday said his team had begun work on mastering how to harness hydrogen from water to use it for power generation.

He said his team was working along the same lines as the US department of energy which had initiated the work earlier this year and had received a grant of $120 million sanctioned by US president Barack Obama with an eye on enhancing power generation using hydrogen.

In 2003, the then US president George W Bush had predicted that one day research would enable creation of a water-fuelled car that would be powered by the hydrogen present in it. In 2010, Japan-based, FUKAI Environmental Research Institute claimed that it had developed technology to extract hydrogen from water by adding aluminium or magnesium to boiling water.