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Cheap, green hydrogen would be a breakthrough in clean energy

121 points by mhb 4y ago

deleted 4y ago
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craig1f 4y ago
It would. Yet there is no promising tech in this field. Hydrogen is supported only to draw support away from EVs. If hydrogen becomes inexpensive to produce, it will by by way of solar power used to generate it. It will never be easy to store. Hydrogen is the smallest element, and can move through solid objects over time. It is violently explosive. You think these EV fires you see all the time are bad? They're nothing compared to gasoline fires. And gasoline fires are nothing compared to a hydrogen explosion.
- rstuart4133 4y ago
  > Hydrogen is supported only to draw support away from EVs. No, or at least not by everyone. Hydrogen is seen as a replacement for natural gas. For example: https://reneweconomy.com.au/australia-japan-consortium-explores-queensland-renewable-hydrogen-export-hub/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/australia-japan-consortium-explo... There is no fancy fuel cell converting it to electricity in this plan. They are just going t burn it for heat, just as they do for natural gas. Now there are a few problems, such as cost. Producing hydrogen costs around 4 times what it costs to produce natural gas. Or at least it did before the Ukraine broke out. Right now, if anyone was making renewable hydrogen, they would ge getting a tidy profit. Another is storage. You can't economically liquefy it, it literally passes through metal walls and damages them on the way through. Converting to Ammonia is well understood, but getting hydrogen back was a problem. Until: https://www.csiro.au/en/research/environmental-impacts/fuels/hydrogen/membrane https://www.csiro.au/en/research/environmental-impacts/fuels... It might work. 100's of millions are being invested into finding out if it does.
- cagenut 4y ago
  downvoted because the author makes it explicitly clear he's not talking about cars in the very first paragraph.
- liketochill 4y ago
  I know ammonia has safety challenges as well, but transport and storage of ammonia is routine. I believe there are new developments in using ammonia for hydrogen storage and transport, so ammonia has potential to enable hydrogen to be the fuel of the future.
  - foobarian 4y ago
    And what would ammonia be? Yellow hydrogen? :-)
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      Chartreuse?
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- clouddrover 4y ago
  > Hydrogen is supported only to draw support away from EVs. I always find this false hydrogen versus batteries narrative bizarre. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are EVs. It isn't an exclusive choice between hydrogen or batteries. Choose both hydrogen and batteries, both FCEVs and BEVs. In any case, if you want your EV to be manufactured with green steel then you want hydrogen to be used in the production of that steel: https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/05/f34/fcto_may_2017_h2_scale_wkshp_ripke.pdf https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/05/f34/fcto_may... https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/06/the-race-to-produce-green-steel/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/06/the-race-to-produce-...
  - taneq 4y ago
    The hydrogen-is-the-enemy-of-EVs thing comes from the way that car manufacturers in the '90s pushed hydrogen as the "fuel of the future" in order to stall the CARB EV mandate from interfering with their ICE car sales. It was a cynical bait-and-switch where they simultaneously insisted that it was impossible to build acceptable BEVs (despite both the GM EV1 and the Rav4-EV being universally lauded) and extolled hydrogen fuel cell EVs as the Bright New Future that was "only 10 years away". This let them continue business as usual in exchange for the occasional puff piece on hydrogen. If they hadn't been allowed to get away with it, we'd have had practical EVs by 2000 instead of having to wait another decade for Tesla.
    - clouddrover 4y ago
      That doesn't seem very likely. Nissan was mass producing EVs before Tesla: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_electric_vehicles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_electric_vehicles The hydrogen conspiracy theory doesn't make any practical sense.
- deleted 4y ago
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smm11 4y ago
Thermodynamics, blah, blah. Such fun at parties.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
> the world will have to get better at balancing energy supply and demand so we don’t go dark when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. Thanks Bill, that's really helpful, was there really no other way you could have phrased that? > Another option is to produce hydrogen using the current methods that burn fossil fuels and then capture the CO2 produced in the process before it’s released in the atmosphere. It may never be economical to capture 100 percent of the carbon released using incumbent technologies, but while we’re waiting for thousands of industrial facilities to retrofit their infrastructure, carbon capture can help drive emissions way down. Oh dear. Was expecting him to shill for expensive nuclear generated (aka pink) hydrogen but he went one better and started pushing the dead end that is blue hydrogen. Make green hydrogen, make lots of it. The more we make the cheaper it'll get. This is not complicated.
- phkahler 4y ago
  - arbol 4y ago
    I was confused by this comment until I read this: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/08/hydrogen-carbon-intensive-energy-solution/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/08/hydrogen-carbon-inten...
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      Point is that it is hard and anyway probably unwise to divert renewable power to hydrogen synthesis from things that are using the electricity without conversion losses. It is just about as good or bad to burn NG making hydrogen as to burn NG to make electricity. But once we have got renewable overbuilt, all the math changes. Until then, unquestionably the right place to spend capital is building out renewables. Building up hydrogen infrastructure, in the meantime, and even fueling it with gray hydrogen, is OK provided it doesn't cost money that could have gone to renewable generating capacity instead. Often capital has strings attached, and can't go for renewables. Then, spending on readiness to use the coming, cheap hydrogen or ammonia (and burning gray fuel for now), or generally on energy storage, is better than most choices. Thing is, money is fungible. Each dollar goes to one place and therefore not another. Energy is too, albeit with conversion losses. So, green hydrogen and NG electric is no better or worse than gray NG hydrogen and renewables. Anywhere we can displace NG entirely is good. Moving use of it around, much less so.
cagenut 4y ago
This is such generic analysis all it serves as is just a big-name-person blog post that can be linked to as an example of status-quo conventional wisdom. The question is all in the numbers. What are the estimated prices of the four methods he mentions? What are their near term prospects for price reduction and/or efficiency gains? What are the crossover points between the economics of exiting methane steam reformation and the alternatives? What would drive those crossover points (a certain cost for solar? a certain scope of carbon pricing?). I realize gatesnotes aren't meant to be deep dives, but it is genuinely infuriating how childishly oversimplified this discourse always is.
- hannob 4y ago
  > This is such generic analysis all it serves as is just a big-name-person blog post that can be linked to as an example of status-quo conventional wisdom. I thought the same thing, but reading through the comments here makes me realize how many people seem to be completely unaware about the hydrogen discussion.
oh_sigh 4y ago
Why are we all wrapped up with hydrogen when we already have a perfectly adequate hydrocarbon infrastructure? Sure, digging up old buried hydrocarbons and burning them isn't good, but couldn't we start synthesizing light hydrocarbons using green technology, so at least those usages are carbon neutral?
- cagenut 4y ago
  All of the synthetic light hydrocarbons (e-fuels) involve extra energy on top of the hydrogen production. Its pretty much right there in the name (hydro carbon). So for instance, we could make a ton of hydrogen and then burn it for energy, or we could make a ton of hydrogen, add in a few hundred kilos of carbon and more energy to produce e-fuels that we then burn for energy. For logistics reasons it will almost certainly have its place, but because by definition it takes a greater energy investment than just the hydrogen, it will economically come after hydrogen production has been scaled to solve the cases where it is not logistically constrained.
  - oh_sigh 4y ago
    Right, but the problem is really with hydrogen handling, and all the complexities that would be pushed onto, say, every vehicle. Keeping a hydrocarbon in a container is much, much easier than keeping a single hydrogen atom in a container.
    - cagenut 4y ago
      once again we are not talking about cars
      - oh_sigh 4y ago
        Who isn't? I'm talking about cars(among other things). I know the article discounts cars as being solved by lithium ion batteries, but there is still a huge group pushing for hydrogen vehicles.
  - worik 4y ago
freemint 4y ago
Yeah, so would cheap nuclear power or cheap batteries. I find cheap batteries way more likely then either of those.
- partiallypro 4y ago
  I think the current problem with batteries is that it presents a geopolitical risk that is akin to (maybe worse than) oil.
  - UncleOxidant 4y ago
    There are lots of efforts in creating battery chemistries that do not rely on hard to source elements. Lithium sulfur (no cobalt required), Sodium ion (much more readily available than Li), and many other efforts - some showing good results.
  - freemint 4y ago
    Unlike oil once there are enough batteries in a country that country is good for a long time as a batteries can be recycled quiet well (lead acid batteries have a recycling rate of 99.99x%, it is just a question of political will and new batteries being cheap right now).
- ortusdux 4y ago
  Hydrogen is a battery. We have no free source of H2. We have to put energy into making it, storing it, and transporting it. We get less energy back than we put in. The most generous lifecycle analyses that I have seen estimate 60-70% roundtrip efficiency.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Pumped hydro is often no better. 60% is plenty, if electricity is cheap enough. And it already is.
causi 4y ago
It's too late for hydrogen. For hydrogen to be green is has to either A) be more green than storing the generating power in batteries and using it from there or B) be created with something other than electricity. It's too late for A, batteries are already too good. As for B), feel free to come up with some kind of metamaterial that can produce hydrogen mechanically and in doing so bypass the efficiency loss of electrolysis.
- hnlmorg 4y ago
  > For hydrogen to be green is has to either A) be more green than storing the generating power in batteries I thought batteries had some pretty toxic elements inside them? I don’t know much about using hydrogen as a power source so I’m interested to understand how it’s less green than batteries.
  - causi 4y ago
    Correct. For hydrogen to be green it has to be more green that producing and using batteries. We're already past that point. Well past it, in fact. The generation-to-tires efficiency of BeVs is 77%. For hydrogen it's 33%. Modern fuel cells have an H2 to electricity efficiency of 55%. You could make that 100% and it would still be less green than using batteries.
    - deleted 4y ago
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    - ncmncm 4y ago
      Round-trip efficiency is not actually very important when generation has zero marginal cost. You just add more panels. It matters, but other things matter more. Panels are very cheap.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    There are lots of different battery chemistries. All are pretty expensive as places to store utility-scale energy. Prices are still falling. Toxicity will not be any sort of long-term problem, although in the short term lithium batteries will explode fairly often (e.g. in Teslas) releasing gas that turns into drain opener when it hits your lungs. In the future we will prefer safer forms, such as solid-state electrolytes.
goethes_kind 4y ago
I think the thing with hydrogen that people miss is that you have to accept that there will be huge energy losses. But then also have to remember that hydrogen allows you to easily handle and transport energy in the form of stable hydrocarbon fuels (if combined with power-to-gas) for example. Maybe something like scaling a solar farm to 300% of needed capacity and then combining it with hydrogen storage/transportation, might be financially viable.
- syntaxing 4y ago
  A standard car is like 25% efficient… a PEM fuel cell is like 40% efficient
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Solar farms will be massively overprovisioned, in large part to be able to produce hydrogen and ammonia for sale to an insatiable market.
derriz 4y ago
I don't see hydrogen playing any role for energy storage or grid demand balancing. Even if all the technical and engineering challenges associated with storing and transporting it safely could be addressed, I just don't see how the economics of green hydrogen is supposed to work. The round-trip energy efficiency of electrolysis-fuel cell is poor - currently about 40%. The counter-argument is that such inefficiency doesn't matter as it can be used as a sink for excess/almost free renewables (solar or wind) but for this to work, it means leaving your capital-expensive electrolysis plant idle for half or 2/3rds of the day. Since the cost of green hydrogen production is mostly cap-ex not op-ex, this makes the proposition almost completely infeasible. Looking at the trajectories of grid-scale battery storage and that of hydrogen technology, I don't see how anyone could bet on hydrogen. The best hope is that we can replace the current industrial consumption of grey hydrogen with that of green but this currently needs massive subsidy as a kg of green hydrogen current costs about 5 times that of gray (admittedly I think the multiple will be less given the current high NG prices).
- vkou 4y ago
  > Since the cost of green hydrogen production is mostly cap-ex not op-ex Is it? I always thought that it was always op-ex, because you need to burn two joules of energy, in order to produce one joule of hydrogen-potential energy. Which, in a world where you can dig coal out of the ground for $30/tonne, is uneconomic.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    When electricity op-ex is free, as from panels, electrolysis is too.
    - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
      Thats like fantasy ecobomics - you have to consider electricity at market price for the comparison to be meaningfull. Electricity is currently much more expensive than it was last year. Aluminium refineries use OP-ex heavy, so the day your dream of cheap electricity materialises, aluminium will become nearly free
jxramos 4y ago
Is that metal hydride stuff feasible? I heard about it and saw videos around the claims of the substance but was curious why it never took off if it was so great. What are the challenges around it precisely? https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/metal-hydride-storage-materials https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/metal-hydride-storage-...
- timerol 4y ago
  Metal hydrides are a great way to store hydrogen that bypasses the alternatives of very highly compressed hydrogen or liquid hydrogen. However, storage is only part of the equation here.
syntaxing 4y ago
I did a grad course on energy generation. I think the biggest problem for hydrogen is that there is not enough money in it (kind of like nuclear). IMO, a hydrogen fuel cell PHEV would would the sweet spot for a “green vehicle”. Like 70% today of hydrogen is made from fossil fuel because the reality is, there’s just not enough incentive to shift from that (like how we use so much plastic). If we put the same amount of money and research into hydrogen that we did with batteries, non platinum fuel cell and solar hydrogen is definitely technically feasible.
L_226 4y ago
Sad that there is no mention of ammonia, everyone knows this is the most efficient method of storing and transporting hydrogen.
- chicob 4y ago
  I didn't know that. It certainly is safer. Ammonia production, as I already mentioned in another reply, currently requires natural gas as as source of hydrogen. Regardless of its use as a way of storing energy, it is already a very important industrial ingredient. Namely for fertilizer production. As I see it, the only major problem with the current technology is that it might not be adaptable to new sources. New plants would have to be built.
  - moralestapia 4y ago
    My bet is on ammonia but yeah the economics will get tricky as producers are going to ask themselves "will I get more money if I sell this as fertilizer or as fuel?" Kind of what happens with corn-based bioethanol, where they have to compete with the regular food market and viceversa.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      There is no natural upper limit on ammonia produced. Add more panels, make more ammonia. The panels, placed intelligently, do not use up land needed for other things. Compare to bioethanol, strictly limited by acreage under cultivation.
      - moralestapia 4y ago
        >There is no natural upper limit on ammonia produced. Weird, I've heard there's some fertilizer shortage going on ... Anyway, the point is why would sell ammonia as fuel for $20 when you could sell it as fertilizer for $40+.
        ncmncm 4y ago
choeger 4y ago
There is, as far as I know, no fundamental physical reason that prevents us from having high-efficiency electrolysis and high-efficiency fuel cells. As an example (I did not try to corrobate the report) here is a company that claims 95% for the former: https://newatlas.com/energy/hysata-efficient-hydrogen-electrolysis/ https://newatlas.com/energy/hysata-efficient-hydrogen-electr... So while it is true that current technology doesn't make hydrogen look like a viable option, improvements like we have seen in the field of lithium ans other batteries are probably possible and could change that outlook massively. If someone manages to produce 1kg of hydrogen for $1, that would, more or less, equal the current high spot price of natural gas ($9 for 1 million BTU, according to Wolfram alpha that's 293kwh).
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Hydrogen is certainly viable, but it will take a long time to build out the equipment to produce enough of it. Every last kg produced will be spoken for. Once LH2 aircraft enter any route, kerosene craft will suddenly be wholly unable to compete. But it needs abundant renewables, and synthesis equipment and underground tankage at airports.
tambourine_man 4y ago
I can get behind the round-trip inefficiencies if it gets terribly cheap, but I can't imagine how storage and transportation can ever be economical. We are trying to contain the most volatile substance in the universe. It needs incredible pressure just to be manageable and even then, it freaking diffuses within the steel walls themselves, leaking and making it brittle over time. It's not hard to imagine single protons wandering by in high pressure H2. I mean, it's doable, but economical? It's hard for me to believe it ever will be, no matter the scale.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Handling LH2 is really not so different from handling LNG, which we do in the millions of tons.
  - tambourine_man 4y ago
    It’s very, very different: −160 °C vs -250 °C and liquid density of 450 vs 70 kg/m3
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      Both are easily carried in a Dewar flask. LH2 takes up more room, but that is just a matter of how big the ship carrying your flasks is, and how many of them. The number of kg in a flask of some volume is much less, but you also need to oxidize many fewer kg to get the kWh you paid for. The ratio is not 1, but is much less than 450/70. There is nothing special about the size and laden mass of the LNG vessels we use. It was chosen by immediate convenience. Details of vessels for LH2 will be chosen the same way.
UnchartedSystem 4y ago
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- ncmncm 4y ago
  Guess you mean dimethoxyethane, or "glyme". To "extract bitumen" appears to mean mine tar sands for hydrocarbons. I expect demand for mined oil to decline to the point where only the absolute cheapest producers of it will be able to stay in business. Extracting from tar sand will be right out.
  - UnchartedSystem 4y ago
    I mean dimethyl ether: DME. Unfortunately, I really doubt we are nearing a collapse in demand for oil. This technology seeks to convert the transportation industry to safe, cheap, and green hydrogen power, but bitumen derived products are used as an industrial feedstock for countless products that make modern society. This technology can reduce the CO2 emissions of extracting and distributing bitumen by 85% - >100%, while reducing the capital costs by 65% - 85%. It allows transitional oil to be produced cheaply, relatively cleanly, and in countries that don't violate human rights or fund terrorists.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      Both are called DME. Only one is described on its WP page as principally a solvent. So, you probably should be more specific when describing your process, to avoid misapprehensions. When we have no need or desire to oxidize mined hydrocarbons for heat, our remaining demand for mined hydrocarbons (e.g. to make into plastic) will surely be less than today. Then, the most easily obtained natural hydrocarbons will be the ones we mine, because we are not wasting them by oxidizing them to CO2, water, and heat. Unless there is no bitumen dissolved in that readily obtained oil? It is just possible that hydrocarbons made from gathered and cracked CO2 will end up cheaper than fractions of extracted oil. But I have doubts.
kkfx 4y ago
I see exactly NO explanation about clean hydrogen production: - electrolysis demand so much energy that there is no point in using it, yes we can even use p.v. power to made hydrogen, only issue: with a large stadium of panel we can produce less than a pencil volume in H. Natural H reserves given it's atomic size sound a bit sci-fi to me; - since we can't store it safely we need to use it almost directly, witch is doable in fuel-cell but since decades we fail to see real practical applications on scale. Long story short: yes if we can produce hydrogen in a clean way in quantity and we can store it the Green New Deal is solved, actually we can't. Similar thing for p.v./eolic for electricity: if we can find hyper-cheap, hyper-effective, hyper-capable batteries the renewable revolution is solved, again we can't. Lithium is the best we have now and is far to be usable on scale. Honestly, considering myself a REAL environmentalist, witch means someone who really care about nature, not simply dream about sci-fi like tech on advertisement, the sole practical Green revolution for a spring grass green, not a dollar-green, I see are: - nuclear fission, since we have it, we can enlarge it, it's already working and can give us nearly enough energy for almost needs, waiting for something better, perhaps fusion if it ever arrive. To be safe and usable enough it MUST BE a PUBLIC ONLY scenario; - mountain hydro as much as we can, p.v. and eolic for SMALL plants, like individual homes or to give extra power when possible to small community; - pushing electric logistic witch means nuclear ships and electric trains powered by public NPP, eventually receiving p.v./eolic surplus where possible; - pushing AT MAXIMUM new modern homes constructions to need FAR LESS energy to keep them comfortable; - pushing as much as possible electrification of industries, for some is easy (aluminum, glass for instance) for some next to impossible so fare (steel, ceramic etc) trying to favor via taxes the electrified ones, like "aluminum products cost less than iron one, use steel only if is REALLY needed"; - gas for the needed interim because so far we have not enough nuclear and we can't create new one quickly. Methane is the least pollutant of all oil&gas products we have available in sufficient quantity with sufficiently spread infra. The rest is nothing grass green, just suicidal propaganda to milk money keeping the ship running toward rocks.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  I don't know where you get your facts, but they are all way, way off.
Barraketh 4y ago
Ammonia has been mentioned a few times in this thread, but I will expand a bit, because I believe it is the most promising hydrogen-based approach. Essentially, the idea is to use ammonia directly as fuel. There is an ARPA-E funded project (that I'm currently failing to find) that cracks ammonia into hydrogen and nitrogen using heat. They claim that they can create a mixture of H2 and ammonia that will burn at any required flame temperature (H2 burns too fast / hot for existing turbines, ammonia too slow, so a mixture is the right way to go). Theoretically, with this process, you could use ammonia as a drop-in replacement for LNG. The LNG infrastructure can also be converted to carry ammonia instead. Now, there are still obvious energy losses from creating and then burning ammonia. One thing that this technology could be very helpful with is overcoming the NIMBY-ism around nuclear power - that is, build nuclear reactors to produce ammonia, then ship the ammonia to where it will be used. It would obviously be more efficient to just run power lines from nuclear power plants, but given the wide-spread opposition, it could be politically easier to build the nuclear plants in the middle of nowhere.
- rstuart4133 4y ago
  Are you referring to this: https://www.csiro.au/en/research/environmental-impacts/fuels/hydrogen/membrane https://www.csiro.au/en/research/environmental-impacts/fuels... ?
- deleted 4y ago
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- ncmncm 4y ago
  Diverting money from building out renewables to building nukes, for whatever purpose, brings climate catastrophe nearer. If ever there was a process forgiving of intermittently available energy, it is chemical synthesis. The same money spent on wind and solar would produce a lot more ammonia. Conversion losses don't matter much when marginal cost of generation is near zero, as we get with renewables, but very much not, with nukes. You just build out more panels.
  - rini17 4y ago
    Technically it may be forgiving, but not economically. Imagine electrolyzer or ammonia plant that uses only 20% of full capacity on average because of using only peak electricity surplus. The rest 80% is basically wasted. Classical plant with higher capacity factor might still be more profitable even if it uses more expensive electricity.
mro_name 4y ago
Of course, the philosopher's stone has always been a great solution, hasn't it? The technicalities can't be that hard, can they?
taneq 4y ago
The question isn't whether cheap, green hydrogen would be great to have. It's whether there is any physically possible world in which cheap, green hydrogen is better than cheap, green electricity in general. The problems with hydrogen aren't just absolute, they're relative.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  We will need both. Given cheap, green electricity, there will be unlimited industrial market for as much cheap, green hydrogen as can be produced. And a very great deal will be produced.
tiffanyh 4y ago
It’s odd hydrogen fuel cells wasn’t mentioned in the article.
_hypx 4y ago
Bill Gates is seeing the light now.
greggeter 4y ago
Why isn't anyone talking more about nuclear?
photochemsyn 4y ago
Using hydrogen made from electrolysis of water (using solar/wind inputs) as a fuel for electricity generation is basically a futile cycle, and the only advantage would be temporal storage. For short term storage (hours/days) batteries are far more efficient. For long term storage, hydrogen is a bad idea other than as feedstock for production of longer-chain hydrocarbons (Fischer-Tropsch synthesis) or methane (Sabatier reaction). The more obvious immediate use (not mentioned in article) is for steel production by the H2-DRI-EAF method, the direct reduction of iron in an electric arc furnace. https://bellona.org/news/industrial-pollution/2021-05-hydrogen-in-steel-production-what-is-happening-in-europe-part-two https://bellona.org/news/industrial-pollution/2021-05-hydrog... > "Iron ore is reduced with hydrogen while in a solid state, hence the name direct reduction, to produce direct reduced iron (DRI) called sponge iron. Sponge iron is then fed into an EAF, where electrodes generate a current to melt the sponge iron to produce steel. Some carbon is needed so that steel can be produced. This carbon can come from pulverized coal, biomethane or other biogenic carbon sources." The other obvious use is as a replacement for natural gas feedstocks for ammonia production via the Haber-Bosch process, and there are similar uses in traditional petrochemical production where hydrogen is often used in various large-scale organic chemistry transformations with names like 'hydrocracking' (breaking apart long-chain molecules) and 'dearomatization' (converting benzene to cyclic hydrocarbons), see: https://www.linde-gas.com/en/processes/petrochemical-processing-and-refining/hydrogen_applications_refineries/index.html https://www.linde-gas.com/en/processes/petrochemical-process... Direct air capture of carbon dioxide and conversion to methane via addition of hydrogen (Sabatier process) as a means of making rocket fuel for Starship, that's also an idea Musk should take up. That's how you'd have to fuel a spaceship on Mars as well.
- carbonguy 4y ago
  > the only advantage would be temporal storage. This is not an insignificant advantage, to be fair. However, I agree that using electrolytic hydrogen as a Fischer-Tropsch or Sabatier feedstock is the way to go.
- shawndrost 4y ago
  DRI is great! I am [CEO at a hydrogen startup, and] very bullish on hydrogen in the power sector, at least in North America. I should also say, I agree that batteries and "electrify everything" will play a much larger role in the electricity sector vs hydrogen. You've noted that temporal storage is a value prop of hydrogen. I'd like to add on that this is a real value prop driving real $B-scale spend at utilities in eg Los Angeles [1]. Depending on the researcher, hydrogen usually looks like the cheapest form of seasonal energy storage (vs eg iron oxide or flow batteries, excluding pumped hydro in ideal sites). Hydrogen can move electricity around cheaply in space, and is arguably cheaper than HVDC for long distances [2]. If hydrogen can move electricity in time and space, that is kind of the holy grail for wind and solar. As you may know, there are endless square miles of CA/AZ desert and OK panhandle we we can produce power at insanely cheap prices, but we do not, because there is no cheap way to move power around in time and space. (And, because America can't permit those HVDC lines. We're much better at permitting pipelines.) If you believe in consensus cost curves for solar/electrolysis, you probably think that hydrogen will get cost-competitive with natgas @ $8/mmBTU in the next decade or so, then keep dropping. That's basically yesterday in utility years! I'd also list "reliability" as a unique value prop, which is a key goal for grid operators with mandated zero-carbon timelines. This is a one of the things driving Los Angeles utility's acquisitions and cost/risk modeling. (There are other major factors: Utilities own lots of turbines and are building more, and can mostly start using hydrogen today alongside natural gas, and turbines fit their business model and operational expertise.) For these reasons and others, models of zero-carbon power systems are usually more expensive without hydrogen. That is, wind/solar/geothermal/hydro/nuclear/etc, plus 4-12h storage/batteries, tends to be more expensive than the same mix plus hydrogen. Example study at [3]. "24/7 clean energy" is another related concept, and is the holy grail for corporate energy buyers like Google. I haven't even brought up wind/solar interconnection yet, which is another problem which I see driving momentum for hydrogen, but that'll have to wait for another rant. Thanks for reading! [1] https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2020-07/ladwp_cn_fuels_infra_july2020.pdf https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2020-07/ladwp_cn_... [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211467X21000444 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211467X2... [3] https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy21osti/79444-ES.pdf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy21osti/79444-ES.pdf
gumby 4y ago
I thought H2 was so small that it is hard to store, thus the tanks would be heavy. Is this not the case or is that just being ignored? (I hope it’s not the case…but I’m asking)
mytwocentsworth 4y ago
The second paragraph of TFA passingly mentions liquid fuels, then fails to elaborate. A blockbuster point is thereby deprived of appropriate emphasis. According to Wikipedia[1], "Electrofuels, also known as e-fuels or synthetic fuels, are a type of drop-in replacement fuel. They are manufactured using captured carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide, together with hydrogen obtained from sustainable electricity sources such as wind, solar and nuclear power." I'm not against other approaches (such as vehicles using compressed hydrogen and fuel cells), but the implications of a drop-in replacement fuel are surely immense. As a short-term solution, synthetic fuels would allow us a slower and gentler transition away from our existing fleet of cars and trucks... and, where aircraft are concerned, e-fuels may even be a solid solution for the long term. I'm sure there are challenges involved, so please no complaints that I'm expecting a miracle. But it disappoints me that so many discussions about hydrogen revolve around the same old topics... stuff like the energy losses associated with electrolysis, or the embrittlement of tanks used to store compressed hydrogen. With due respect, these are valid subjects... but it seems to me that HN readers (and Mr Gates) ought to find synthetic fuels a subject worthy of a great deal more ink. Darn! -- am I the only one who thinks this is exciting?? [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrofuel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrofuel
- sumy23 4y ago
  E-fuels don’t do anything other than make the original carbon consumption more efficient. Let’s say you have a coal power plant and capture the carbon to make e-fuel. You’ve made the coal more efficient, as you get the same amount of electricity + fuel, but it’s still carbon positive due to the laws of thermodynamics. E-fuels, while cool, aren’t that promising to me.
  - jml7c5 4y ago
    The assumption is both that the carbon is obtained via atmospheric capture and that the energy for fuel synthesis comes from renewables.
    - sumy23 4y ago
osigurdson 4y ago
>> Electricity can be converted into hydrogen through a process called electrolysis Who is this written for?
ggm 4y ago
The FF industry is leaping (has leapt, historically) on CCS as a getout clause and has sunk french metric tonnes of money into CCS. So far, its uneconomic except for the specific use of pumping gas into wells to make them more productive, which leads to more fugitive gas. No significant CCS experiment worldwide has achieved its goals as sequestration. The one in Western Australia releases so much CO2 it has to pay a penalty cost, to maintain status. (its a gas field associated with other extractive industry I believe) This money they've sunk: its not their money: they've been doing it off the public teat as "research" or, when it is their money, its booked to R&D and has massive royalty & tax offset benefits. Its a shellgame. The inclusion of blue hydrogen+CCS in this piece is really regrettable: its being used to avoid having to wear the cost of going to green hydrogen, which is abandoning FF inputs. For holders of shares in coal and gas, this is not optimal so they oppose green and argue abatement by CCS is "the one" It doesn't work. CCS is a giant con. The evidence is strong that at scale CCS is not working, and will waste years of time, billions of dollars of cost, and gigatonnes of CO2, to prove it. Overall I like Gates trying to help. He's been badly advised when it comes to CCS.
- otikik 4y ago
  Carbon Capture and Storage works by capturing research funds and burying it deep, deep into fossil fuel companies accounts, where no tax officer can reach them. https://youtu.be/MSZgoFyuHC8 https://youtu.be/MSZgoFyuHC8
- sitkack 4y ago
  Gates knows exactly what he is doing. Same Gates, different pasture.
- ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago
  FF: fossil fuel. CCS: carbon capture and storage.
  - Jabihjo 4y ago
    FFS..for fucks sake
  - 4y ago
anovikov 4y ago
Not quite true, 1/3 of energy may be from cars and household electricity but it doesn't mean the rest 2/3 are from industry. It's mainly from heating. And for heating there is a solution in form of heat pumps and energy-efficient buildings.
mrtweetyhack 4y ago
jhallenworld 4y ago
I'm interested if you could have a hydrogen stove, or hydrogen space heater- just as diesel, kerosene, propane, methane, electricity, alcohol, wood, and coal are all viable. What practical problems would arise? For example, gasoline camping stoves exist, but are too dangerous for indoor use. If hydrogen is widely available, surely someone will want to do this.. This is what the flame looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-8H5u4YzuY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-8H5u4YzuY
- beambot 4y ago
  For heating, you are probably better off converting to electricity (burning or fuel cell) and driving a high-COP heat pump. Good heat pumps are ~250-300% "efficient" at "converting" electricity to heat. (Efficiency isn't in the Carnot sense, and heat pumps move heat rather than generating heat... Semantics, but point stands.) For example: I recall reading that it is more efficient (ie BTUs generated) to use natural gas peaker plants generating electricity to drive a heat pump than to run a furnace. (Except at very low temps where COP drops quickly.)
  - midasuni 4y ago
    A modern heat pump claims a cop in the 4.8 range It’s more efficient to burn the gas in a grid power station, convert to electricity, and use the electricity to drive the heat pump, then it is to burn the gas for heat directly.
    - serpix 4y ago
      And that is why heating with gas needs to die a quick death.
    - yvdriess 4y ago
      Watch out, cop ranges wildly (1.1-5+) depending on the type of heat pump, output temperature and intake temperature. Ideal are water-water heat pumps connected to a deep well, but these cannot be installed everywhere and carry a significant (roughly double) capital investment. Air-water heat pumps are very sensitive to outside air temperature and output temperature. Low-temperature heating (30-40C) still gets an OK ~2-2.5 cop in freezing temperatures, but sanitary water (65deg C) tanks the efficiency significantly. Another consideration is that you lose efficiency in converting chemical to electrical energy, plus there is a higher transport and distribution loss to factor in.
manquer 4y ago
As a happy mirai owner I am really encouraged to see all positive news and efforts around hydrogen economy recently
AtlasBarfed 4y ago
Cheap, green nuclear would be a breakthrough in clean energy. Cheap, green fusion would be a breakthrough in clean energy. Cheap, green synthetic fuels would be a breakthrough in clean energy. Cheap, green antimatter reactors would be a breakthrough in clean energy. Cheap, green vacuum point energy reactors would be... you get the idea. However, the cheap, green sources of energy today are solar and wind, and no one is going to beat them for a decade. Here's more fun stuff: - Hydrogen has been and will be sold as green and extracted from fossil fuels. - Hydrogen has been and will be propped up by desperate industries to delay or obfuscate EV and actual green energy - Hydrogen has no significant infrastructure, while EVs and green energy have extant and robust delivery infrastructure (aside from battery storage). - and I didn't even get into the inefficiencies and engineering challenges. Hydrogen will have it's niches. But right now it is a trojan horse, and suffers the same issues as new nuclear or fusion: solar and wind are kicking so much ass and still getting stronger/cheaper/better year on year, that any application that involves even a five year schedule can't target the price to be competitive. Usually, they'll be disingenuous and only talk about current prices, and complain about "subsidies" for their competitors and hide the "subsidies" they need or will redirect. The path forward is solar, wind, battery, and PHEVs and EVs. Oh look, Russia's war on Ukraine being sold to prop up an uncompetitive approach (well it is a trojan horse by the oil industry, what would one expect). You know what would have made us ready for Russia? If we took an auto design that is 25 years old (the hybrid vehicle) and slapped a charging plug on it (aka a PHEV) and about 10 or 15 years ago forced or incented every new car to have that design, and pushed incentives to get the all-electric range improved each year as batteries got better and better. To emphasize, that design was not rocket science. It was superior efficiency on highway (atkinson cycle), far greater efficiency in city driving, better torque, quieter, less emissions, all-electric for 80-90% of city trips, blah blah blah. We'd need less military, would have kneecapped Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, averted Daesh (funded by oil), Ukraine (it's over pipelines, dummies), and Syria (also was over pipelines) in all likelihood.
TedShiller 4y ago
Funny how Bill Gates always talks about global warming, but then owns mega mansions, super yachts, and flies all over the world in private jets
- padjo 4y ago
  I see the same cognitive dissonance repeated all the time. Most people say they understand climate change is a problem but they are unwilling to make any changes that might make their life slightly less comfortable.
- Gatsky 4y ago
  It’s because reducing your personal footprint feels good but doesn’t achieve much globally.
  - guerrilla 4y ago
    Yes, "your" (my) personal footprint, but not his. His matters.
jacquesm 4y ago
He forgot: safe, easy to store under pressure and without materials related challenges.
aaron695 4y ago
immmmmm 4y ago
Ah, Bill's again advocating for a techno-optimist utopian world where he can fly his private jet with Green Hydrogen (TM) while saving us from climate change. Can't wait for the Veritasium video! Science is clear and simple: we have to half (at least) our energy consumption in the next decades to avoid the worst of the Catastrophe. Sorry Bill, your private jet should be grounded and the rich much be steeply taxed.
typhonic 4y ago
In 1973 I visited the office of a chemistry professor. He and his research partner seemed to be on somewhat of a downhill slide. For years they had dreams of discovering a catalyst that would let water break into hydrogen and oxygen from exposure to direct sunlight. They never found that catalyst, and after nearly fifty years, I never even hear the concept any more.
- taneq 4y ago
  Looks like it's still an active area of research (the catalyst bit, not necessarily the sunlight bit): https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/ideal-water-splitting-catalysts-actually-exist-simulations-find/4010741.article https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/ideal-water-splitting-ca...

121 points by mhb 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

It would. Yet there is no promising tech in this field. Hydrogen is supported only to draw support away from EVs. If hydrogen becomes inexpensive to produce, it will by by way of solar power used to generate it. It will never be easy to store. Hydrogen is the smallest element, and can move through solid objects over time. It is violently explosive. You think these EV fires you see all the time are bad? They're nothing compared to gasoline fires. And gasoline fires are nothing compared to a hydrogen explosion.

rstuart4133 4y ago
> Hydrogen is supported only to draw support away from EVs. No, or at least not by everyone. Hydrogen is seen as a replacement for natural gas. For example: https://reneweconomy.com.au/australia-japan-consortium-explores-queensland-renewable-hydrogen-export-hub/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/australia-japan-consortium-explo... There is no fancy fuel cell converting it to electricity in this plan. They are just going t burn it for heat, just as they do for natural gas. Now there are a few problems, such as cost. Producing hydrogen costs around 4 times what it costs to produce natural gas. Or at least it did before the Ukraine broke out. Right now, if anyone was making renewable hydrogen, they would ge getting a tidy profit. Another is storage. You can't economically liquefy it, it literally passes through metal walls and damages them on the way through. Converting to Ammonia is well understood, but getting hydrogen back was a problem. Until: https://www.csiro.au/en/research/environmental-impacts/fuels/hydrogen/membrane https://www.csiro.au/en/research/environmental-impacts/fuels... It might work. 100's of millions are being invested into finding out if it does.
cagenut 4y ago
downvoted because the author makes it explicitly clear he's not talking about cars in the very first paragraph.
liketochill 4y ago
I know ammonia has safety challenges as well, but transport and storage of ammonia is routine. I believe there are new developments in using ammonia for hydrogen storage and transport, so ammonia has potential to enable hydrogen to be the fuel of the future.
- foobarian 4y ago
  And what would ammonia be? Yellow hydrogen? :-)
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Chartreuse?
deleted 4y ago
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- deleted 4y ago
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clouddrover 4y ago
> Hydrogen is supported only to draw support away from EVs. I always find this false hydrogen versus batteries narrative bizarre. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are EVs. It isn't an exclusive choice between hydrogen or batteries. Choose both hydrogen and batteries, both FCEVs and BEVs. In any case, if you want your EV to be manufactured with green steel then you want hydrogen to be used in the production of that steel: https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/05/f34/fcto_may_2017_h2_scale_wkshp_ripke.pdf https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/05/f34/fcto_may... https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/06/the-race-to-produce-green-steel/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/06/the-race-to-produce-...
- taneq 4y ago
  The hydrogen-is-the-enemy-of-EVs thing comes from the way that car manufacturers in the '90s pushed hydrogen as the "fuel of the future" in order to stall the CARB EV mandate from interfering with their ICE car sales. It was a cynical bait-and-switch where they simultaneously insisted that it was impossible to build acceptable BEVs (despite both the GM EV1 and the Rav4-EV being universally lauded) and extolled hydrogen fuel cell EVs as the Bright New Future that was "only 10 years away". This let them continue business as usual in exchange for the occasional puff piece on hydrogen. If they hadn't been allowed to get away with it, we'd have had practical EVs by 2000 instead of having to wait another decade for Tesla.
  - clouddrover 4y ago
    That doesn't seem very likely. Nissan was mass producing EVs before Tesla: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_electric_vehicles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_electric_vehicles The hydrogen conspiracy theory doesn't make any practical sense.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

smm11 4y ago

Thermodynamics, blah, blah. Such fun at parties.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

> the world will have to get better at balancing energy supply and demand so we don’t go dark when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. Thanks Bill, that's really helpful, was there really no other way you could have phrased that? > Another option is to produce hydrogen using the current methods that burn fossil fuels and then capture the CO2 produced in the process before it’s released in the atmosphere. It may never be economical to capture 100 percent of the carbon released using incumbent technologies, but while we’re waiting for thousands of industrial facilities to retrofit their infrastructure, carbon capture can help drive emissions way down. Oh dear. Was expecting him to shill for expensive nuclear generated (aka pink) hydrogen but he went one better and started pushing the dead end that is blue hydrogen. Make green hydrogen, make lots of it. The more we make the cheaper it'll get. This is not complicated.

phkahler 4y ago
- arbol 4y ago
  I was confused by this comment until I read this: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/08/hydrogen-carbon-intensive-energy-solution/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/08/hydrogen-carbon-inten...
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Point is that it is hard and anyway probably unwise to divert renewable power to hydrogen synthesis from things that are using the electricity without conversion losses. It is just about as good or bad to burn NG making hydrogen as to burn NG to make electricity. But once we have got renewable overbuilt, all the math changes. Until then, unquestionably the right place to spend capital is building out renewables. Building up hydrogen infrastructure, in the meantime, and even fueling it with gray hydrogen, is OK provided it doesn't cost money that could have gone to renewable generating capacity instead. Often capital has strings attached, and can't go for renewables. Then, spending on readiness to use the coming, cheap hydrogen or ammonia (and burning gray fuel for now), or generally on energy storage, is better than most choices. Thing is, money is fungible. Each dollar goes to one place and therefore not another. Energy is too, albeit with conversion losses. So, green hydrogen and NG electric is no better or worse than gray NG hydrogen and renewables. Anywhere we can displace NG entirely is good. Moving use of it around, much less so.

cagenut 4y ago

This is such generic analysis all it serves as is just a big-name-person blog post that can be linked to as an example of status-quo conventional wisdom. The question is all in the numbers. What are the estimated prices of the four methods he mentions? What are their near term prospects for price reduction and/or efficiency gains? What are the crossover points between the economics of exiting methane steam reformation and the alternatives? What would drive those crossover points (a certain cost for solar? a certain scope of carbon pricing?). I realize gatesnotes aren't meant to be deep dives, but it is genuinely infuriating how childishly oversimplified this discourse always is.

hannob 4y ago
> This is such generic analysis all it serves as is just a big-name-person blog post that can be linked to as an example of status-quo conventional wisdom. I thought the same thing, but reading through the comments here makes me realize how many people seem to be completely unaware about the hydrogen discussion.

oh_sigh 4y ago

Why are we all wrapped up with hydrogen when we already have a perfectly adequate hydrocarbon infrastructure? Sure, digging up old buried hydrocarbons and burning them isn't good, but couldn't we start synthesizing light hydrocarbons using green technology, so at least those usages are carbon neutral?

cagenut 4y ago
All of the synthetic light hydrocarbons (e-fuels) involve extra energy on top of the hydrogen production. Its pretty much right there in the name (hydro carbon). So for instance, we could make a ton of hydrogen and then burn it for energy, or we could make a ton of hydrogen, add in a few hundred kilos of carbon and more energy to produce e-fuels that we then burn for energy. For logistics reasons it will almost certainly have its place, but because by definition it takes a greater energy investment than just the hydrogen, it will economically come after hydrogen production has been scaled to solve the cases where it is not logistically constrained.
- oh_sigh 4y ago
  Right, but the problem is really with hydrogen handling, and all the complexities that would be pushed onto, say, every vehicle. Keeping a hydrocarbon in a container is much, much easier than keeping a single hydrogen atom in a container.
  - cagenut 4y ago
    once again we are not talking about cars
    - oh_sigh 4y ago
      Who isn't? I'm talking about cars(among other things). I know the article discounts cars as being solved by lithium ion batteries, but there is still a huge group pushing for hydrogen vehicles.
- worik 4y ago

freemint 4y ago

Yeah, so would cheap nuclear power or cheap batteries. I find cheap batteries way more likely then either of those.

partiallypro 4y ago
I think the current problem with batteries is that it presents a geopolitical risk that is akin to (maybe worse than) oil.
- UncleOxidant 4y ago
  There are lots of efforts in creating battery chemistries that do not rely on hard to source elements. Lithium sulfur (no cobalt required), Sodium ion (much more readily available than Li), and many other efforts - some showing good results.
- freemint 4y ago
  Unlike oil once there are enough batteries in a country that country is good for a long time as a batteries can be recycled quiet well (lead acid batteries have a recycling rate of 99.99x%, it is just a question of political will and new batteries being cheap right now).
ortusdux 4y ago
Hydrogen is a battery. We have no free source of H2. We have to put energy into making it, storing it, and transporting it. We get less energy back than we put in. The most generous lifecycle analyses that I have seen estimate 60-70% roundtrip efficiency.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Pumped hydro is often no better. 60% is plenty, if electricity is cheap enough. And it already is.

causi 4y ago

It's too late for hydrogen. For hydrogen to be green is has to either A) be more green than storing the generating power in batteries and using it from there or B) be created with something other than electricity. It's too late for A, batteries are already too good. As for B), feel free to come up with some kind of metamaterial that can produce hydrogen mechanically and in doing so bypass the efficiency loss of electrolysis.

hnlmorg 4y ago
> For hydrogen to be green is has to either A) be more green than storing the generating power in batteries I thought batteries had some pretty toxic elements inside them? I don’t know much about using hydrogen as a power source so I’m interested to understand how it’s less green than batteries.
- causi 4y ago
  Correct. For hydrogen to be green it has to be more green that producing and using batteries. We're already past that point. Well past it, in fact. The generation-to-tires efficiency of BeVs is 77%. For hydrogen it's 33%. Modern fuel cells have an H2 to electricity efficiency of 55%. You could make that 100% and it would still be less green than using batteries.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Round-trip efficiency is not actually very important when generation has zero marginal cost. You just add more panels. It matters, but other things matter more. Panels are very cheap.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  There are lots of different battery chemistries. All are pretty expensive as places to store utility-scale energy. Prices are still falling. Toxicity will not be any sort of long-term problem, although in the short term lithium batteries will explode fairly often (e.g. in Teslas) releasing gas that turns into drain opener when it hits your lungs. In the future we will prefer safer forms, such as solid-state electrolytes.

goethes_kind 4y ago

I think the thing with hydrogen that people miss is that you have to accept that there will be huge energy losses. But then also have to remember that hydrogen allows you to easily handle and transport energy in the form of stable hydrocarbon fuels (if combined with power-to-gas) for example. Maybe something like scaling a solar farm to 300% of needed capacity and then combining it with hydrogen storage/transportation, might be financially viable.

syntaxing 4y ago
A standard car is like 25% efficient… a PEM fuel cell is like 40% efficient
ncmncm 4y ago
Solar farms will be massively overprovisioned, in large part to be able to produce hydrogen and ammonia for sale to an insatiable market.

derriz 4y ago

I don't see hydrogen playing any role for energy storage or grid demand balancing. Even if all the technical and engineering challenges associated with storing and transporting it safely could be addressed, I just don't see how the economics of green hydrogen is supposed to work. The round-trip energy efficiency of electrolysis-fuel cell is poor - currently about 40%. The counter-argument is that such inefficiency doesn't matter as it can be used as a sink for excess/almost free renewables (solar or wind) but for this to work, it means leaving your capital-expensive electrolysis plant idle for half or 2/3rds of the day. Since the cost of green hydrogen production is mostly cap-ex not op-ex, this makes the proposition almost completely infeasible. Looking at the trajectories of grid-scale battery storage and that of hydrogen technology, I don't see how anyone could bet on hydrogen. The best hope is that we can replace the current industrial consumption of grey hydrogen with that of green but this currently needs massive subsidy as a kg of green hydrogen current costs about 5 times that of gray (admittedly I think the multiple will be less given the current high NG prices).

vkou 4y ago
> Since the cost of green hydrogen production is mostly cap-ex not op-ex Is it? I always thought that it was always op-ex, because you need to burn two joules of energy, in order to produce one joule of hydrogen-potential energy. Which, in a world where you can dig coal out of the ground for $30/tonne, is uneconomic.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  When electricity op-ex is free, as from panels, electrolysis is too.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    Thats like fantasy ecobomics - you have to consider electricity at market price for the comparison to be meaningfull. Electricity is currently much more expensive than it was last year. Aluminium refineries use OP-ex heavy, so the day your dream of cheap electricity materialises, aluminium will become nearly free

jxramos 4y ago

Is that metal hydride stuff feasible? I heard about it and saw videos around the claims of the substance but was curious why it never took off if it was so great. What are the challenges around it precisely? https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/metal-hydride-storage-materials https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/metal-hydride-storage-...

timerol 4y ago
Metal hydrides are a great way to store hydrogen that bypasses the alternatives of very highly compressed hydrogen or liquid hydrogen. However, storage is only part of the equation here.

syntaxing 4y ago

I did a grad course on energy generation. I think the biggest problem for hydrogen is that there is not enough money in it (kind of like nuclear). IMO, a hydrogen fuel cell PHEV would would the sweet spot for a “green vehicle”. Like 70% today of hydrogen is made from fossil fuel because the reality is, there’s just not enough incentive to shift from that (like how we use so much plastic). If we put the same amount of money and research into hydrogen that we did with batteries, non platinum fuel cell and solar hydrogen is definitely technically feasible.

L_226 4y ago

Sad that there is no mention of ammonia, everyone knows this is the most efficient method of storing and transporting hydrogen.

chicob 4y ago
I didn't know that. It certainly is safer. Ammonia production, as I already mentioned in another reply, currently requires natural gas as as source of hydrogen. Regardless of its use as a way of storing energy, it is already a very important industrial ingredient. Namely for fertilizer production. As I see it, the only major problem with the current technology is that it might not be adaptable to new sources. New plants would have to be built.
- moralestapia 4y ago
  My bet is on ammonia but yeah the economics will get tricky as producers are going to ask themselves "will I get more money if I sell this as fertilizer or as fuel?" Kind of what happens with corn-based bioethanol, where they have to compete with the regular food market and viceversa.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    There is no natural upper limit on ammonia produced. Add more panels, make more ammonia. The panels, placed intelligently, do not use up land needed for other things. Compare to bioethanol, strictly limited by acreage under cultivation.
    - moralestapia 4y ago
      >There is no natural upper limit on ammonia produced. Weird, I've heard there's some fertilizer shortage going on ... Anyway, the point is why would sell ammonia as fuel for $20 when you could sell it as fertilizer for $40+.
      - ncmncm 4y ago

choeger 4y ago

There is, as far as I know, no fundamental physical reason that prevents us from having high-efficiency electrolysis and high-efficiency fuel cells. As an example (I did not try to corrobate the report) here is a company that claims 95% for the former: https://newatlas.com/energy/hysata-efficient-hydrogen-electrolysis/ https://newatlas.com/energy/hysata-efficient-hydrogen-electr... So while it is true that current technology doesn't make hydrogen look like a viable option, improvements like we have seen in the field of lithium ans other batteries are probably possible and could change that outlook massively. If someone manages to produce 1kg of hydrogen for $1, that would, more or less, equal the current high spot price of natural gas ($9 for 1 million BTU, according to Wolfram alpha that's 293kwh).

ncmncm 4y ago
Hydrogen is certainly viable, but it will take a long time to build out the equipment to produce enough of it. Every last kg produced will be spoken for. Once LH2 aircraft enter any route, kerosene craft will suddenly be wholly unable to compete. But it needs abundant renewables, and synthesis equipment and underground tankage at airports.

tambourine_man 4y ago

I can get behind the round-trip inefficiencies if it gets terribly cheap, but I can't imagine how storage and transportation can ever be economical. We are trying to contain the most volatile substance in the universe. It needs incredible pressure just to be manageable and even then, it freaking diffuses within the steel walls themselves, leaking and making it brittle over time. It's not hard to imagine single protons wandering by in high pressure H2. I mean, it's doable, but economical? It's hard for me to believe it ever will be, no matter the scale.

ncmncm 4y ago
Handling LH2 is really not so different from handling LNG, which we do in the millions of tons.
- tambourine_man 4y ago
  It’s very, very different: −160 °C vs -250 °C and liquid density of 450 vs 70 kg/m3
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Both are easily carried in a Dewar flask. LH2 takes up more room, but that is just a matter of how big the ship carrying your flasks is, and how many of them. The number of kg in a flask of some volume is much less, but you also need to oxidize many fewer kg to get the kWh you paid for. The ratio is not 1, but is much less than 450/70. There is nothing special about the size and laden mass of the LNG vessels we use. It was chosen by immediate convenience. Details of vessels for LH2 will be chosen the same way.

UnchartedSystem 4y ago

[dead]

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ncmncm 4y ago
Guess you mean dimethoxyethane, or "glyme". To "extract bitumen" appears to mean mine tar sands for hydrocarbons. I expect demand for mined oil to decline to the point where only the absolute cheapest producers of it will be able to stay in business. Extracting from tar sand will be right out.
- UnchartedSystem 4y ago
  I mean dimethyl ether: DME. Unfortunately, I really doubt we are nearing a collapse in demand for oil. This technology seeks to convert the transportation industry to safe, cheap, and green hydrogen power, but bitumen derived products are used as an industrial feedstock for countless products that make modern society. This technology can reduce the CO2 emissions of extracting and distributing bitumen by 85% - >100%, while reducing the capital costs by 65% - 85%. It allows transitional oil to be produced cheaply, relatively cleanly, and in countries that don't violate human rights or fund terrorists.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Both are called DME. Only one is described on its WP page as principally a solvent. So, you probably should be more specific when describing your process, to avoid misapprehensions. When we have no need or desire to oxidize mined hydrocarbons for heat, our remaining demand for mined hydrocarbons (e.g. to make into plastic) will surely be less than today. Then, the most easily obtained natural hydrocarbons will be the ones we mine, because we are not wasting them by oxidizing them to CO2, water, and heat. Unless there is no bitumen dissolved in that readily obtained oil? It is just possible that hydrocarbons made from gathered and cracked CO2 will end up cheaper than fractions of extracted oil. But I have doubts.

kkfx 4y ago

I see exactly NO explanation about clean hydrogen production: - electrolysis demand so much energy that there is no point in using it, yes we can even use p.v. power to made hydrogen, only issue: with a large stadium of panel we can produce less than a pencil volume in H. Natural H reserves given it's atomic size sound a bit sci-fi to me; - since we can't store it safely we need to use it almost directly, witch is doable in fuel-cell but since decades we fail to see real practical applications on scale. Long story short: yes if we can produce hydrogen in a clean way in quantity and we can store it the Green New Deal is solved, actually we can't. Similar thing for p.v./eolic for electricity: if we can find hyper-cheap, hyper-effective, hyper-capable batteries the renewable revolution is solved, again we can't. Lithium is the best we have now and is far to be usable on scale. Honestly, considering myself a REAL environmentalist, witch means someone who really care about nature, not simply dream about sci-fi like tech on advertisement, the sole practical Green revolution for a spring grass green, not a dollar-green, I see are: - nuclear fission, since we have it, we can enlarge it, it's already working and can give us nearly enough energy for almost needs, waiting for something better, perhaps fusion if it ever arrive. To be safe and usable enough it MUST BE a PUBLIC ONLY scenario; - mountain hydro as much as we can, p.v. and eolic for SMALL plants, like individual homes or to give extra power when possible to small community; - pushing electric logistic witch means nuclear ships and electric trains powered by public NPP, eventually receiving p.v./eolic surplus where possible; - pushing AT MAXIMUM new modern homes constructions to need FAR LESS energy to keep them comfortable; - pushing as much as possible electrification of industries, for some is easy (aluminum, glass for instance) for some next to impossible so fare (steel, ceramic etc) trying to favor via taxes the electrified ones, like "aluminum products cost less than iron one, use steel only if is REALLY needed"; - gas for the needed interim because so far we have not enough nuclear and we can't create new one quickly. Methane is the least pollutant of all oil&gas products we have available in sufficient quantity with sufficiently spread infra. The rest is nothing grass green, just suicidal propaganda to milk money keeping the ship running toward rocks.

ncmncm 4y ago
I don't know where you get your facts, but they are all way, way off.

Barraketh 4y ago

Ammonia has been mentioned a few times in this thread, but I will expand a bit, because I believe it is the most promising hydrogen-based approach. Essentially, the idea is to use ammonia directly as fuel. There is an ARPA-E funded project (that I'm currently failing to find) that cracks ammonia into hydrogen and nitrogen using heat. They claim that they can create a mixture of H2 and ammonia that will burn at any required flame temperature (H2 burns too fast / hot for existing turbines, ammonia too slow, so a mixture is the right way to go). Theoretically, with this process, you could use ammonia as a drop-in replacement for LNG. The LNG infrastructure can also be converted to carry ammonia instead. Now, there are still obvious energy losses from creating and then burning ammonia. One thing that this technology could be very helpful with is overcoming the NIMBY-ism around nuclear power - that is, build nuclear reactors to produce ammonia, then ship the ammonia to where it will be used. It would obviously be more efficient to just run power lines from nuclear power plants, but given the wide-spread opposition, it could be politically easier to build the nuclear plants in the middle of nowhere.

rstuart4133 4y ago
Are you referring to this: https://www.csiro.au/en/research/environmental-impacts/fuels/hydrogen/membrane https://www.csiro.au/en/research/environmental-impacts/fuels... ?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ncmncm 4y ago
Diverting money from building out renewables to building nukes, for whatever purpose, brings climate catastrophe nearer. If ever there was a process forgiving of intermittently available energy, it is chemical synthesis. The same money spent on wind and solar would produce a lot more ammonia. Conversion losses don't matter much when marginal cost of generation is near zero, as we get with renewables, but very much not, with nukes. You just build out more panels.
- rini17 4y ago
  Technically it may be forgiving, but not economically. Imagine electrolyzer or ammonia plant that uses only 20% of full capacity on average because of using only peak electricity surplus. The rest 80% is basically wasted. Classical plant with higher capacity factor might still be more profitable even if it uses more expensive electricity.

mro_name 4y ago

Of course, the philosopher's stone has always been a great solution, hasn't it? The technicalities can't be that hard, can they?

taneq 4y ago

The question isn't whether cheap, green hydrogen would be great to have. It's whether there is any physically possible world in which cheap, green hydrogen is better than cheap, green electricity in general. The problems with hydrogen aren't just absolute, they're relative.

ncmncm 4y ago
We will need both. Given cheap, green electricity, there will be unlimited industrial market for as much cheap, green hydrogen as can be produced. And a very great deal will be produced.

tiffanyh 4y ago

It’s odd hydrogen fuel cells wasn’t mentioned in the article.

_hypx 4y ago

Bill Gates is seeing the light now.

greggeter 4y ago

Why isn't anyone talking more about nuclear?

photochemsyn 4y ago

Using hydrogen made from electrolysis of water (using solar/wind inputs) as a fuel for electricity generation is basically a futile cycle, and the only advantage would be temporal storage. For short term storage (hours/days) batteries are far more efficient. For long term storage, hydrogen is a bad idea other than as feedstock for production of longer-chain hydrocarbons (Fischer-Tropsch synthesis) or methane (Sabatier reaction). The more obvious immediate use (not mentioned in article) is for steel production by the H2-DRI-EAF method, the direct reduction of iron in an electric arc furnace. https://bellona.org/news/industrial-pollution/2021-05-hydrogen-in-steel-production-what-is-happening-in-europe-part-two https://bellona.org/news/industrial-pollution/2021-05-hydrog... > "Iron ore is reduced with hydrogen while in a solid state, hence the name direct reduction, to produce direct reduced iron (DRI) called sponge iron. Sponge iron is then fed into an EAF, where electrodes generate a current to melt the sponge iron to produce steel. Some carbon is needed so that steel can be produced. This carbon can come from pulverized coal, biomethane or other biogenic carbon sources." The other obvious use is as a replacement for natural gas feedstocks for ammonia production via the Haber-Bosch process, and there are similar uses in traditional petrochemical production where hydrogen is often used in various large-scale organic chemistry transformations with names like 'hydrocracking' (breaking apart long-chain molecules) and 'dearomatization' (converting benzene to cyclic hydrocarbons), see: https://www.linde-gas.com/en/processes/petrochemical-processing-and-refining/hydrogen_applications_refineries/index.html https://www.linde-gas.com/en/processes/petrochemical-process... Direct air capture of carbon dioxide and conversion to methane via addition of hydrogen (Sabatier process) as a means of making rocket fuel for Starship, that's also an idea Musk should take up. That's how you'd have to fuel a spaceship on Mars as well.

carbonguy 4y ago
> the only advantage would be temporal storage. This is not an insignificant advantage, to be fair. However, I agree that using electrolytic hydrogen as a Fischer-Tropsch or Sabatier feedstock is the way to go.
shawndrost 4y ago
DRI is great! I am [CEO at a hydrogen startup, and] very bullish on hydrogen in the power sector, at least in North America. I should also say, I agree that batteries and "electrify everything" will play a much larger role in the electricity sector vs hydrogen. You've noted that temporal storage is a value prop of hydrogen. I'd like to add on that this is a real value prop driving real $B-scale spend at utilities in eg Los Angeles [1]. Depending on the researcher, hydrogen usually looks like the cheapest form of seasonal energy storage (vs eg iron oxide or flow batteries, excluding pumped hydro in ideal sites). Hydrogen can move electricity around cheaply in space, and is arguably cheaper than HVDC for long distances [2]. If hydrogen can move electricity in time and space, that is kind of the holy grail for wind and solar. As you may know, there are endless square miles of CA/AZ desert and OK panhandle we we can produce power at insanely cheap prices, but we do not, because there is no cheap way to move power around in time and space. (And, because America can't permit those HVDC lines. We're much better at permitting pipelines.) If you believe in consensus cost curves for solar/electrolysis, you probably think that hydrogen will get cost-competitive with natgas @ $8/mmBTU in the next decade or so, then keep dropping. That's basically yesterday in utility years! I'd also list "reliability" as a unique value prop, which is a key goal for grid operators with mandated zero-carbon timelines. This is a one of the things driving Los Angeles utility's acquisitions and cost/risk modeling. (There are other major factors: Utilities own lots of turbines and are building more, and can mostly start using hydrogen today alongside natural gas, and turbines fit their business model and operational expertise.) For these reasons and others, models of zero-carbon power systems are usually more expensive without hydrogen. That is, wind/solar/geothermal/hydro/nuclear/etc, plus 4-12h storage/batteries, tends to be more expensive than the same mix plus hydrogen. Example study at [3]. "24/7 clean energy" is another related concept, and is the holy grail for corporate energy buyers like Google. I haven't even brought up wind/solar interconnection yet, which is another problem which I see driving momentum for hydrogen, but that'll have to wait for another rant. Thanks for reading! [1] https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2020-07/ladwp_cn_fuels_infra_july2020.pdf https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2020-07/ladwp_cn_... [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211467X21000444 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211467X2... [3] https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy21osti/79444-ES.pdf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy21osti/79444-ES.pdf

gumby 4y ago

I thought H2 was so small that it is hard to store, thus the tanks would be heavy. Is this not the case or is that just being ignored? (I hope it’s not the case…but I’m asking)

mytwocentsworth 4y ago

The second paragraph of TFA passingly mentions liquid fuels, then fails to elaborate. A blockbuster point is thereby deprived of appropriate emphasis. According to Wikipedia[1], "Electrofuels, also known as e-fuels or synthetic fuels, are a type of drop-in replacement fuel. They are manufactured using captured carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide, together with hydrogen obtained from sustainable electricity sources such as wind, solar and nuclear power." I'm not against other approaches (such as vehicles using compressed hydrogen and fuel cells), but the implications of a drop-in replacement fuel are surely immense. As a short-term solution, synthetic fuels would allow us a slower and gentler transition away from our existing fleet of cars and trucks... and, where aircraft are concerned, e-fuels may even be a solid solution for the long term. I'm sure there are challenges involved, so please no complaints that I'm expecting a miracle. But it disappoints me that so many discussions about hydrogen revolve around the same old topics... stuff like the energy losses associated with electrolysis, or the embrittlement of tanks used to store compressed hydrogen. With due respect, these are valid subjects... but it seems to me that HN readers (and Mr Gates) ought to find synthetic fuels a subject worthy of a great deal more ink. Darn! -- am I the only one who thinks this is exciting?? [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrofuel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrofuel

sumy23 4y ago
E-fuels don’t do anything other than make the original carbon consumption more efficient. Let’s say you have a coal power plant and capture the carbon to make e-fuel. You’ve made the coal more efficient, as you get the same amount of electricity + fuel, but it’s still carbon positive due to the laws of thermodynamics. E-fuels, while cool, aren’t that promising to me.
- jml7c5 4y ago
  The assumption is both that the carbon is obtained via atmospheric capture and that the energy for fuel synthesis comes from renewables.
  - sumy23 4y ago

osigurdson 4y ago

>> Electricity can be converted into hydrogen through a process called electrolysis Who is this written for?

ggm 4y ago

The FF industry is leaping (has leapt, historically) on CCS as a getout clause and has sunk french metric tonnes of money into CCS. So far, its uneconomic except for the specific use of pumping gas into wells to make them more productive, which leads to more fugitive gas. No significant CCS experiment worldwide has achieved its goals as sequestration. The one in Western Australia releases so much CO2 it has to pay a penalty cost, to maintain status. (its a gas field associated with other extractive industry I believe) This money they've sunk: its not their money: they've been doing it off the public teat as "research" or, when it is their money, its booked to R&D and has massive royalty & tax offset benefits. Its a shellgame. The inclusion of blue hydrogen+CCS in this piece is really regrettable: its being used to avoid having to wear the cost of going to green hydrogen, which is abandoning FF inputs. For holders of shares in coal and gas, this is not optimal so they oppose green and argue abatement by CCS is "the one" It doesn't work. CCS is a giant con. The evidence is strong that at scale CCS is not working, and will waste years of time, billions of dollars of cost, and gigatonnes of CO2, to prove it. Overall I like Gates trying to help. He's been badly advised when it comes to CCS.

otikik 4y ago
Carbon Capture and Storage works by capturing research funds and burying it deep, deep into fossil fuel companies accounts, where no tax officer can reach them. https://youtu.be/MSZgoFyuHC8 https://youtu.be/MSZgoFyuHC8
sitkack 4y ago
Gates knows exactly what he is doing. Same Gates, different pasture.
ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago
FF: fossil fuel. CCS: carbon capture and storage.
- Jabihjo 4y ago
  FFS..for fucks sake
- 4y ago

anovikov 4y ago

Not quite true, 1/3 of energy may be from cars and household electricity but it doesn't mean the rest 2/3 are from industry. It's mainly from heating. And for heating there is a solution in form of heat pumps and energy-efficient buildings.

mrtweetyhack 4y ago

jhallenworld 4y ago

I'm interested if you could have a hydrogen stove, or hydrogen space heater- just as diesel, kerosene, propane, methane, electricity, alcohol, wood, and coal are all viable. What practical problems would arise? For example, gasoline camping stoves exist, but are too dangerous for indoor use. If hydrogen is widely available, surely someone will want to do this.. This is what the flame looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-8H5u4YzuY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-8H5u4YzuY

beambot 4y ago
For heating, you are probably better off converting to electricity (burning or fuel cell) and driving a high-COP heat pump. Good heat pumps are ~250-300% "efficient" at "converting" electricity to heat. (Efficiency isn't in the Carnot sense, and heat pumps move heat rather than generating heat... Semantics, but point stands.) For example: I recall reading that it is more efficient (ie BTUs generated) to use natural gas peaker plants generating electricity to drive a heat pump than to run a furnace. (Except at very low temps where COP drops quickly.)
- midasuni 4y ago
  A modern heat pump claims a cop in the 4.8 range It’s more efficient to burn the gas in a grid power station, convert to electricity, and use the electricity to drive the heat pump, then it is to burn the gas for heat directly.
  - serpix 4y ago
    And that is why heating with gas needs to die a quick death.
  - yvdriess 4y ago
    Watch out, cop ranges wildly (1.1-5+) depending on the type of heat pump, output temperature and intake temperature. Ideal are water-water heat pumps connected to a deep well, but these cannot be installed everywhere and carry a significant (roughly double) capital investment. Air-water heat pumps are very sensitive to outside air temperature and output temperature. Low-temperature heating (30-40C) still gets an OK ~2-2.5 cop in freezing temperatures, but sanitary water (65deg C) tanks the efficiency significantly. Another consideration is that you lose efficiency in converting chemical to electrical energy, plus there is a higher transport and distribution loss to factor in.

manquer 4y ago

As a happy mirai owner I am really encouraged to see all positive news and efforts around hydrogen economy recently

AtlasBarfed 4y ago

Cheap, green nuclear would be a breakthrough in clean energy. Cheap, green fusion would be a breakthrough in clean energy. Cheap, green synthetic fuels would be a breakthrough in clean energy. Cheap, green antimatter reactors would be a breakthrough in clean energy. Cheap, green vacuum point energy reactors would be... you get the idea. However, the cheap, green sources of energy today are solar and wind, and no one is going to beat them for a decade. Here's more fun stuff: - Hydrogen has been and will be sold as green and extracted from fossil fuels. - Hydrogen has been and will be propped up by desperate industries to delay or obfuscate EV and actual green energy - Hydrogen has no significant infrastructure, while EVs and green energy have extant and robust delivery infrastructure (aside from battery storage). - and I didn't even get into the inefficiencies and engineering challenges. Hydrogen will have it's niches. But right now it is a trojan horse, and suffers the same issues as new nuclear or fusion: solar and wind are kicking so much ass and still getting stronger/cheaper/better year on year, that any application that involves even a five year schedule can't target the price to be competitive. Usually, they'll be disingenuous and only talk about current prices, and complain about "subsidies" for their competitors and hide the "subsidies" they need or will redirect. The path forward is solar, wind, battery, and PHEVs and EVs. Oh look, Russia's war on Ukraine being sold to prop up an uncompetitive approach (well it is a trojan horse by the oil industry, what would one expect). You know what would have made us ready for Russia? If we took an auto design that is 25 years old (the hybrid vehicle) and slapped a charging plug on it (aka a PHEV) and about 10 or 15 years ago forced or incented every new car to have that design, and pushed incentives to get the all-electric range improved each year as batteries got better and better. To emphasize, that design was not rocket science. It was superior efficiency on highway (atkinson cycle), far greater efficiency in city driving, better torque, quieter, less emissions, all-electric for 80-90% of city trips, blah blah blah. We'd need less military, would have kneecapped Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, averted Daesh (funded by oil), Ukraine (it's over pipelines, dummies), and Syria (also was over pipelines) in all likelihood.

TedShiller 4y ago

Funny how Bill Gates always talks about global warming, but then owns mega mansions, super yachts, and flies all over the world in private jets

padjo 4y ago
I see the same cognitive dissonance repeated all the time. Most people say they understand climate change is a problem but they are unwilling to make any changes that might make their life slightly less comfortable.
Gatsky 4y ago
It’s because reducing your personal footprint feels good but doesn’t achieve much globally.
- guerrilla 4y ago
  Yes, "your" (my) personal footprint, but not his. His matters.

jacquesm 4y ago

He forgot: safe, easy to store under pressure and without materials related challenges.

aaron695 4y ago

immmmmm 4y ago

Ah, Bill's again advocating for a techno-optimist utopian world where he can fly his private jet with Green Hydrogen (TM) while saving us from climate change. Can't wait for the Veritasium video! Science is clear and simple: we have to half (at least) our energy consumption in the next decades to avoid the worst of the Catastrophe. Sorry Bill, your private jet should be grounded and the rich much be steeply taxed.

typhonic 4y ago

In 1973 I visited the office of a chemistry professor. He and his research partner seemed to be on somewhat of a downhill slide. For years they had dreams of discovering a catalyst that would let water break into hydrogen and oxygen from exposure to direct sunlight. They never found that catalyst, and after nearly fifty years, I never even hear the concept any more.

taneq 4y ago
Looks like it's still an active area of research (the catalyst bit, not necessarily the sunlight bit): https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/ideal-water-splitting-catalysts-actually-exist-simulations-find/4010741.article https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/ideal-water-splitting-ca...