It is a mystery to me why you keep talking about heat. Heat is the lowest grade of energy, and least useful. Not taking a wasteful detour through heat is the fi

It is a mystery to me why you keep talking about heat. Heat is the lowest grade of energy, and least useful. Not taking a wasteful detour through heat is the first rule of efficient conversion. That’s because the alternative process to electrolysis of producing hydrogen, the steam reforming, uses heat, not electricity. I keep talking about heat, because electricity from solar or wind is competing not with electricity from natural gas, but with heat from natural gas. Given typical conversion efficiency of 20-30%, this means that the heat from natural gas is at the very least 3-5 times cheaper than electricity from natural gas, and in fact it’s even cheaper than that, because you don’t need expensive turbines to generate heat from natural gas, reducing your capital and maintenance costs even more. EIA doesnt expect costs of electricity from solar to go below electricity from natural gas by 2040 at all, much less 6 times. When we finally get sensible carbon taxation, 6x cheaper than CH4 will be easy to achieve. Yes, if you put a finger on a scale, you can achieve any result that you want.