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moving hydrogen is so hilariously in efficient though. It would have to be produced right where you fill the tank of those ships, trucks and planes.

BlackSwanManZ 4y ago
Have you never heard of pipelines?
nojito 4y ago
>moving hydrogen is so hilariously in efficient though This hasn't been true for years. Not sure where you're getting your information from.
adrianN 4y ago
A megawatt electrolyser fits in a cargo container, so that's not as impractical as it sounds. But personally I think at least for ships ammonia is the nicer fuel.
- jessaustin 4y ago
  Ammonia is so much more practical than elemental hydrogen that a hydrogen-based project inherently has the appearance of a toy. This is especially true in agricultural areas where existing infrastructure already produces and distributes ammonia in massive quantity for use as fertilizer.
b112 4y ago
moving hydrogen is so hilariously in efficient though. No, no it isn't inefficient.
- CodeSgt 4y ago
  I mean, I think we know what they meant. Let's not be pedantic when the meaning of their comment is clear.
  - b112 4y ago
    If you see my other comments, I am not making fun of a space.
    - CodeSgt 4y ago
      Ah, my mistake then.
- JonChesterfield 4y ago
  What do you propose storing it in? It leaks through most materials and makes steels unusably brittle while doing so.
  - oconnore 4y ago
    The new tanks are fiber wrapped composite, not steel.
    - b112 4y ago
      But ignoring this, allows the anti-h2 crowd to continue to deride h2 tech. The heart of this often claims that h2 is polluting, based upon the fact that currently, we source a lot of h2 from Ng. Of course this disregards that electricity is often derived from dirty sources too, meaning, all the same arguments should be levied against battery based power sources too. What we need, is to get non polluting engine/point of use tech out there, asap! And h2 is the only tech which provides the range, due to refueling speed, to replace many applications. Without end of use clean tech, we have zero hope. Any environmentalist should be happy, joyful, exuberant with h2. Sadly, endless division exists.
    - JonChesterfield 4y ago
      Sounds plausible. Is the idea to build pipes out of the same stuff? Might be worth mentioning that fibre composite essentially means epoxy with fibres in, which is not necessarily environmentally superb in the thousands of miles of pipes format. Wonder how people will deal with burying very stiff pipes without them breaking when the ground moves. Maybe sections with rubber joints, though the joints would leak.
  - b112 4y ago
    This is a solved problem, why do people persist with stuff repeated in the 1980s?! There are endless h2 vehicles on the road. Do you think the tanks used, are apt to become brittle, and leak?! There are h2 refueling stations for said vehicles, all over the place. Do you think these leak, and become brittle? And amusingly, your comment is redirecting from the claim that transporting h2 is hard. You are now poking at storage, instead of at transport (which can be done with pipelines, and is done with them).
- seqastian 4y ago
  I heard on a podcast that this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suiso_Frontier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suiso_Frontier new hydrogen tanker could only go 30 days with the hydrogen it carries. Which is why it runs on diesel. It's 40 days to Europe.
luplex 4y ago
It is inefficient to produce and store, but do we have a more efficient alternative that can be rolled out at global scale? Batteries are more efficient at storing energy, but I'm not convinced we can build enough of them as quickly as we need to.
- Zigurd 4y ago
  Re "do we have a more efficient alternative that can be rolled out at global scale?" Possibly ammonia.
- parkingrift 4y ago
  Batteries aren’t an answer for anything but cars. Honestly even for cars they still aren’t a great answer. They are way too heavy and take up too much space. There are all sorts of problems to solve with hydrogen, but I think we’re closer to solving those problems than we are to increasing battery density by an order of magnitude.
  - empyrrhicist 4y ago
    > They are way too heavy and take up too much space. Can you clarify? Currently have a Chevy Bolt and it is great...
    - parkingrift 4y ago
      Sure. Electric vehicles have enormous batteries which weigh thousands of pounds and take up a substantial portion of interior volume. We’re at the bleeding edge of battery tech and the best we’re able to achieve is 300ish miles of range. We can’t realistically expand this to 500 to 1,500 miles anytime in the next decade or so. As example compare the Model 3 and a CRV. This is an absurd example because the CRV is an SUV, but the comparison is telling given the weight differences. The Model 3 weighs 4,200 pounds with 97 cubic feet of interior passenger space. A Honda CRV weighs 3,500 pounds and 103 cubic feet of interior passenger space. So we have a smaller car that is quite a bit heavier and it’s almost exclusively due to the battery. Tesla can’t cram more battery into that car so the only option is to dramatically increase energy density. There is nothing in the horizon except incremental improvements.
closedloop129 4y ago
If you transport it with airships, is transport still inefficient?
danans 4y ago
> moving hydrogen is so hilariously in efficient though. It would have to be produced right where you fill the tank of those ships, trucks and planes. Exactly! I see hundreds of H2 generation facilities adjacent to trucking routes near the massive wind resources of the US great plains. Each would have a fuel stop with high efficiency H2 electrolyzers and tanks that buffer H2 using wind piwer when it's available, so intermittency won't matter, since stationary hydrogen storage is a solved problem. Hydrolysis is also a solved problem, and getting more efficient constantly (currently up to 70%). Oh, and the facility's only exhaust is oxygen. Substitute wind with the locally abundant source of renewable energy, and presto, no shipping of hydrogen needed.

BlackSwanManZ 4y ago

Have you never heard of pipelines?

nojito 4y ago

>moving hydrogen is so hilariously in efficient though This hasn't been true for years. Not sure where you're getting your information from.

adrianN 4y ago

A megawatt electrolyser fits in a cargo container, so that's not as impractical as it sounds. But personally I think at least for ships ammonia is the nicer fuel.

jessaustin 4y ago
Ammonia is so much more practical than elemental hydrogen that a hydrogen-based project inherently has the appearance of a toy. This is especially true in agricultural areas where existing infrastructure already produces and distributes ammonia in massive quantity for use as fertilizer.

b112 4y ago

moving hydrogen is so hilariously in efficient though. No, no it isn't inefficient.

CodeSgt 4y ago
I mean, I think we know what they meant. Let's not be pedantic when the meaning of their comment is clear.
- b112 4y ago
  If you see my other comments, I am not making fun of a space.
  - CodeSgt 4y ago
    Ah, my mistake then.
JonChesterfield 4y ago
What do you propose storing it in? It leaks through most materials and makes steels unusably brittle while doing so.
- oconnore 4y ago
  The new tanks are fiber wrapped composite, not steel.
  - b112 4y ago
    But ignoring this, allows the anti-h2 crowd to continue to deride h2 tech. The heart of this often claims that h2 is polluting, based upon the fact that currently, we source a lot of h2 from Ng. Of course this disregards that electricity is often derived from dirty sources too, meaning, all the same arguments should be levied against battery based power sources too. What we need, is to get non polluting engine/point of use tech out there, asap! And h2 is the only tech which provides the range, due to refueling speed, to replace many applications. Without end of use clean tech, we have zero hope. Any environmentalist should be happy, joyful, exuberant with h2. Sadly, endless division exists.
  - JonChesterfield 4y ago
    Sounds plausible. Is the idea to build pipes out of the same stuff? Might be worth mentioning that fibre composite essentially means epoxy with fibres in, which is not necessarily environmentally superb in the thousands of miles of pipes format. Wonder how people will deal with burying very stiff pipes without them breaking when the ground moves. Maybe sections with rubber joints, though the joints would leak.
- b112 4y ago
  This is a solved problem, why do people persist with stuff repeated in the 1980s?! There are endless h2 vehicles on the road. Do you think the tanks used, are apt to become brittle, and leak?! There are h2 refueling stations for said vehicles, all over the place. Do you think these leak, and become brittle? And amusingly, your comment is redirecting from the claim that transporting h2 is hard. You are now poking at storage, instead of at transport (which can be done with pipelines, and is done with them).
seqastian 4y ago
I heard on a podcast that this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suiso_Frontier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suiso_Frontier new hydrogen tanker could only go 30 days with the hydrogen it carries. Which is why it runs on diesel. It's 40 days to Europe.

luplex 4y ago

It is inefficient to produce and store, but do we have a more efficient alternative that can be rolled out at global scale? Batteries are more efficient at storing energy, but I'm not convinced we can build enough of them as quickly as we need to.

Zigurd 4y ago
Re "do we have a more efficient alternative that can be rolled out at global scale?" Possibly ammonia.
parkingrift 4y ago
Batteries aren’t an answer for anything but cars. Honestly even for cars they still aren’t a great answer. They are way too heavy and take up too much space. There are all sorts of problems to solve with hydrogen, but I think we’re closer to solving those problems than we are to increasing battery density by an order of magnitude.
- empyrrhicist 4y ago
  > They are way too heavy and take up too much space. Can you clarify? Currently have a Chevy Bolt and it is great...
  - parkingrift 4y ago
    Sure. Electric vehicles have enormous batteries which weigh thousands of pounds and take up a substantial portion of interior volume. We’re at the bleeding edge of battery tech and the best we’re able to achieve is 300ish miles of range. We can’t realistically expand this to 500 to 1,500 miles anytime in the next decade or so. As example compare the Model 3 and a CRV. This is an absurd example because the CRV is an SUV, but the comparison is telling given the weight differences. The Model 3 weighs 4,200 pounds with 97 cubic feet of interior passenger space. A Honda CRV weighs 3,500 pounds and 103 cubic feet of interior passenger space. So we have a smaller car that is quite a bit heavier and it’s almost exclusively due to the battery. Tesla can’t cram more battery into that car so the only option is to dramatically increase energy density. There is nothing in the horizon except incremental improvements.

closedloop129 4y ago

If you transport it with airships, is transport still inefficient?

danans 4y ago

> moving hydrogen is so hilariously in efficient though. It would have to be produced right where you fill the tank of those ships, trucks and planes. Exactly! I see hundreds of H2 generation facilities adjacent to trucking routes near the massive wind resources of the US great plains. Each would have a fuel stop with high efficiency H2 electrolyzers and tanks that buffer H2 using wind piwer when it's available, so intermittency won't matter, since stationary hydrogen storage is a solved problem. Hydrolysis is also a solved problem, and getting more efficient constantly (currently up to 70%). Oh, and the facility's only exhaust is oxygen. Substitute wind with the locally abundant source of renewable energy, and presto, no shipping of hydrogen needed.