Rationale
As the consequences to the environment of anthropomorphic climate change continue to worsen, it behooves us all to do what we can to mitigate their effect. The solution is well known: cease and desist using nuclear fission and fossil fuels to generate electricity and run motor vehicles. One obvious way to do so is to replace them with hydrogen from the ocean. At issue is whether existing electrolysis technology can use seawater directly without first desalinizing it to produce hydrogen profitably. Here’s an analysis written in 2010 describing the electrochemical intricacies of three types of water used in electrolysis, including seawater. At least one water splitter able to produce hydrogen up to 99% pure from seawater exists (details here). The latter of course is of paramount importance since three fourths of our planet’s surface is covered with it. The analysis shows that chlorine, not oxygen, is the default byproduct of electrolysis of seawater. As it happens, this is fortuitous because that same chlorine could be used to treat the freshwater produced when the hydrogen is recombined with oxygen to generate electricity.

Figure 1 shows that freshwater created as a byproduct of the oxidation of hydrogen can be used and reused over and over to generate additional electricity as it flows down the mountain by gravity and turns as many turbines as the mountain can accommodate. Their combined output should recover and exceed the energy used to produce the hydrogen. Thus, not only is the system (several systems could be connected in series) self-sustaining in terms of energy, it actually should generate a surplus of it. No other method of generating electricity has the ability to create water –not even hydro, which uses existing freshwater to turn its turbines and requires costly dams that disrupt the local ecosystem.

The system’s components need not be contiguous. For example, the electrolysis could take place anywhere –at cities on sun-drenched islands such as Honolulu, San Juan, Havana or Las Palmas- in which case the hydrogen and chlorine would be exported by ship, or in (currently idle) inland potential powerhouses like Death Valley. At any port elsewhere both would be unloaded and distributed by pipeline (in the case of hydrogen, the cost would be minimal because it is the lightest element in the periodic table) to remote, suitable mountains towering over bone-dry valleys and plateaus such as the vast arid and semi-arid regions in central Asia north of the Himalayas, north-central Mexico, the Sahara Desert, the west coast of South America, the Kalahari Desert, the Middle East, and the American Southwest. That way the hydrogen systems and their associated mountaintop hydro plants could irrigate the valleys below to grow food (and other vegetation, to help recycle the carbon dioxide already in the air and reverse desertification) and support a local population where it was previously impossible to do so. Some of the electricity could be used locally; the rest could be transmitted, over long distances if necessary, to distant thirsty mega-cities like Beijing, New Delhi, Amman, Teheran, Lima, Madrid, and Phoenix.

Of particular interest is that –in effect- these systems would redistribute “frozen” (in the hydrogen) sunlight and water from sun-drenched tropical and sub-tropical shores to areas with minimal precipitation or with cold winters (mostly in the northern hemisphere) that use vast amounts of fossil fuels to power their heating systems.

Conclusion
The mass production of hydrogen in the Southwest of the United States and elsewhere with abundant sun and seawater would eventually eliminate the need for nuclear fission and fossil fuels to generate electricity. As a result, the diminished need for oil and gas in particular would greatly reduce the probability of terminal wars over them among the great powers. The manufacture of water in areas where there isn’t any would support irrigation to grow food and other plant life with the capacity to recycle excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Finally, additional food and water would be most welcome in a world expected to hit 9 billion by 2050, and the gradual reduction in the distribution of wealth without resorting to new taxes, confiscations or other drastic measures would reduce the likelihood of civil strife.