3 ms·
I'm not particularly knowledgeable, but my impression is that hydrogen might work for specific applications, but we don't have a very efficient of generating it
by CabSauce 4y ago
I'm not particularly knowledgeable, but my impression is that hydrogen might work for specific applications, but we don't have a very efficient of generating it. It still takes substantially more energy than if we just store the energy in batteries.
- buescher 4y agoSteam reforming of methane from natural gas to product hydrogen is in fact very efficient (up to ~85% iirc). It is not, however, carbon-neutral. At a system level, the weak point is the fuel cell and they can be about 50% efficient. So you have an overall efficiency of a little over 40%. Batteries can be very efficient but that is not an apples-to-apples comparison. You have to get the energy somewhere. Good solar systems are about 30% efficient. Turbines are about 30% efficient. Energy efficiency isn't the problem with hydrogen and fuel cells. They have other problems.
- pasttense01 4y agoThe cost of storing energy in batteries is truly enormous when talking about large amounts (for example two weeks of U.S. total energy usage); this would probably costs trillions of dollars. But instead if you stored this in caverns or convert it to ammonia or another fuel... the storage cost will be a small fraction of this.