3 ms·
Many of the comments in here are getting hung up on efficiency. Do you know how efficient your car is? Your water heater? No, and it's not because those figu
by mchannon 8y ago
Many of the comments in here are getting hung up on efficiency.
Do you know how efficient your car is? Your water heater? No, and it's not because those figures are important. What actually matters is how much it costs you to travel each mile and how much it costs you to have hot showers.
It's cost per kilo that matters, and that's it.
Carpet the grounds outside an oil refinery with this stuff and you might, just might, have a worthy competitor to natural gas-formed hydrogen used in hydrotreating, with a fair amount of development on this technology. A Bergius process might likewise benefit.
Right now, the billion dollar question is will this ever outcompete PV-powered electrolysis? PV panels are ridiculously cheap, bound to get cheaper, and they would appear to be better suited to making and concentrating hydrogen at the high pressures needed.
The notion that this could power your Mirai is doubtful, because the energy input necessary for the hydrogen pressurization the Mirai requires is equal to or greater than the energy content of the hydrogen itself.
- Retric 8y agoEfficiency can be a good proxy for cost. If this was 20,000 times as efficient solar cells would still win, but cost might make the difference. Without that you would need square miles of this per car which is just not going to happen.