5 ms·

This is not a good idea. You have to expend a lot of energy to create the hydrogen. Then a lot more energy to compress, transport and re-compress at every stage

This is not a good idea. You have to expend a lot of energy to create the hydrogen. Then a lot more energy to compress, transport and re-compress at every stage of delivery. To then burn the hydrogen and get yet another terribly inefficient conversion... ugh.

rdtwo 4y ago
Umm batteries all have that problem
- CyanBird 4y ago
  Batteries don't burn anything
  - Maursault 4y ago
    except for planes
    - jimmygrapes 4y ago
      And people: https://timesofindia.com/gadgets-news/apple-watch-series-7-overheats-blows-up-in-owners-hand-report/articleshow/94683175.cms https://timesofindia.com/gadgets-news/apple-watch-series-7-o...
  - elil17 4y ago
    No, but they do require a lot of nasty metals to make, whereas hydrogen combustion can be done with more commonplace materials.
- kube-system 4y ago
  Yeah but batteries spin motors which are 90+% efficient. ICE is < 50%. And we have electrical distribution pretty much figured out already.
  - elil17 4y ago
    According to Dr. Jack Lewnard at ARPA-E, electricity costs about $100 to $250/MW-hr to deliver when amortizing the costs of the expanded grid infrastructure needed for electrification. The costs of expanding the gas grid for hydrogen (which is less energy dense than gas and requires changes to equipment) would be slightly less. Meanwhile, synthesized hydrocarbons (e.g. from direct air capture) could require essentially no changes to the gas grid Grid concerns will likely be one of the factors that determines the energy carrier of the future.
    - kube-system 4y ago
      > The costs of expanding the gas grid for hydrogen (which is less energy dense than gas and requires changes to equipment) would be slightly less. I seriously doubt this. Hydrogen is notoriously difficult to work with and also, it has no natural source. It has to be generated from some other energy source.
  - Hnrobert42 4y ago
    True in the developed world. However, there are quite a few existing Diesel engines in the developing world where the grid isn’t as sorted. Now, I don’t know if hydrogen distribution would be a bigger challenge than just solving electrical distribution. But it does seem like this is a technology that could have some purpose. I mean, what about retrofitting diesel backup generators?
    - kube-system 4y ago
      Hydrogen is more difficult to transport than electricity, by far.
      - _hypx 4y ago
        Hydrogen is easier to transport than electricity because it can be pipelined and stored in tanks/caverns.
        4y ago
- greenthrow 4y ago
  Not remotely. Batteries don't get used up in one cycle as with burning hydrogen. Batteries are far more efficient than even producing hydrogen let alone producing it and then transporting it and then burning it.
SantalBlush 4y ago
I feel like every thread about hydrogen, batteries, fusion, carbon capture, etc. rehashes the exact same discussions. It's like Groundhog Day, but with quasi intellectuals.
- dghughes 4y ago
  Elon poo-pooed hydrogen so I expect "the word of Elon" to be barfed out chapter and verse at the mere mention of hydrogen. Yes hydrogen has its problems generating and storing it but the lack of imagination of people is tiring.
- greenthrow 4y ago
  Nice personal insult with "quasi intellectuals" there. It's because hydrogen has some serious problems as a power storage and recuperation medium. To the point where it has already lost. But there's some big reasons why the fossil fuel industry keeps pushing it. So yeah, you will keep seeing the same objections. If people kept pushing the idea of heating our homes by clapping our hands you would also see the same reasons that won't work brought up.
  - _hypx 4y ago
    The word “quasi-intellectuals” is accurate. I’d even go as far as calling them pseudo-intellectuals. Very few people here know what they’re talking about. That goes for you too.
senectus1 4y ago
and this isn't the same set of rules being applied to diesel or petrol or LNG or batteries?
- kaliyarachan 4y ago
  true
- axiolite 4y ago
  No it is not. Hydrogen is laughable, absurdly inefficient as an energy storage method: "Due to its relatively low volumetric energy density, transportation, storage and final delivery to the point of use can be one of the significant costs and energy inefficiencies associated with using hydrogen as an energy carrier." https://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/delivery.html https://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/delivery.html "Natural gas stored at 20.78 MPa (3000 psig) and 21.1°C (70°F) contains five times as much energy as hydrogen stored under the same conditions." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0360319984902416 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/036031... Battery electric vehicles, by comparison, are vastly more efficient.
  - senectus1 4y ago
    its also fully renewable and in abundance, not dependent on politics, geographical locations or treaties. Its also completely green. there is nothing you can do to or with LNG that makes it green, and it's locked behind geographical locations and political lines that are costly and dangerous to work with an be relied upon. Efficiency needs to be calculated from a clean (green) slate. you cannot evaluate oil/gas in the same way because you're conveniently ignoring the dirtiness and powerbases of it. Battery has very similar issues with the rare earth problems, but its also no good for things like big aircraft. There is no silver bullet, batteries/hydrogen/pumped hydro/molten salt etc are all pieces of the puzzle that fit TOGETHER... not in exclusion of each other.
    - axiolite 4y ago
      > Battery has very similar issues with the rare earth problems Utterly false. The elements needed for Li-Ion batteries are very much "in abundance" on Earth. Elements like lithium can be extracted from seawater around the world in quantities far in excess of what humans will ever use. It's just a little less economical than current sources. Which gets us right back to hydrogen! There's no limit on the amount of hydrogen you can make, but YOU CAN'T MAKE IT ECONOMICALLY. Dismissing eminently practical, extremely efficient battery electric vehicles in favor of an insanely impractical, uneconomical, and thoroughly insane hydrogen economy that is going to vastly increase greenhouse gas emissions in the near future is utterly absurd. > but its also no good for things like big aircraft. Neither is hydrogen! Not a snowball's chance in hell of a hydrogen 737 or A320. The fuel tanks would need to be vastly too large and too heavy. Li-Ion is practical for small, short-hop aircraft TODAY. Short-hop aircraft could gradually reduce the need for larger aircraft (e.g. two short hops instead of one non-stop flight), etc. And there is absolutely potential for battery electric large aircraft in the not-too-distant future. Lower speed, propeller based flight increases efficiency. Flying wing aircraft designs can reduce power consumption by about 1/3rd. And finally, high power battery chemistries like lithium-air[1] actual have the same energy density as gasoline, BUT batteries/motors get ~90% conversion efficiency instead of the measly ~40% conversion efficiency of current turbofans! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium%E2%80%93air_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium%E2%80%93air_battery
samtho 4y ago
The benefit of Hydrogen is not as a means of energy distribution but as storage. We have grappled with this problem for a while and it’s becoming more and more pertinent as we transmission to using the electrical grid for more and more. Batteries have their limitations, they require specific materials, slow to charge, and difficult to recycle. Hydrogen is the most abundant substance in the universe, and just needs to be crested and stored. We will eventually get to point with solar that we will have excess energy that needs to be used but nothing to consume it. Modern hydrogen electrolysis is about 80% and once the hydrogen is stored, using a hydrogen fuel cell to generate electricity is about 60% efficient. That’s a 48% efficient process which is still better than 0% by letting that energy go unused. This space has not seen significant innovation because it has not been a major focus. Given a significant political or economic force, we can bring the efficiency up, waste down, and standardize hydrogen containment and pressure systems. Complaining that a solution is inefficient, which has not been innovated on, is small-minded thinking.
- greenthrow 4y ago
  Hydrogen is a horrible means of energy storage, even when stationary. Splitting water, compressing the hydrogen and then converting it back to energy even with expensive, much more rare materials intensive fuel cells, is still far less than 50% efficient. Batteries are better than 80% efficient and are much easier to produce than fuel cells. Burning hydrogen is just completely bone-headed.
  - samtho 4y ago
    You are stuck in the thinking that what we have is going to be as good as it gets and are unable to see past the details of current tech and reaching for this ideal of efficiency that batteries are frankly an outlier of. The efficiency metric does not matter if we have power being generated and no way to either burn or capture this energy at the rate at which it is generated. Yes, batteries are the most efficient at making power available to us at the moment of demand, which is why they will take over a portion of the vehicle market (think local delivery vehicles, commuter vehicles, anything that returns to the same spot or travels predictability) but other means of power storage will be required for other use-cases. Batteries have an upper limit as to how fast they can charge, and there are cases where we need to be able to sink excess power or risk losing 100% of it. There will come a time where we have excess power to burn but the fleeting nature of renewables will require that we store this energy somehow, which I fully believe that hydrogen will play a role in as you are able to create it at a rate proportional to energy you put in, which is more important that efficiency. Batteries will not scale to our needs at more than a micro-grid level. Scaling hydrogen production will bring down the marginal cost of producing each unit. Remember that current battery tech was not as easy to produce as it is today for precisely the same reasons I am hypothesizing that fuel cell technology will become easier and cheaper to produce and more efficient in its operation so I will just reiterate this from my post: > Complaining that a solution is inefficient, which has not been innovated on, is small-minded thinking.

rdtwo 4y ago

Umm batteries all have that problem

CyanBird 4y ago
Batteries don't burn anything
- Maursault 4y ago
  except for planes
  - jimmygrapes 4y ago
    And people: https://timesofindia.com/gadgets-news/apple-watch-series-7-overheats-blows-up-in-owners-hand-report/articleshow/94683175.cms https://timesofindia.com/gadgets-news/apple-watch-series-7-o...
- elil17 4y ago
  No, but they do require a lot of nasty metals to make, whereas hydrogen combustion can be done with more commonplace materials.
kube-system 4y ago
Yeah but batteries spin motors which are 90+% efficient. ICE is < 50%. And we have electrical distribution pretty much figured out already.
- elil17 4y ago
  According to Dr. Jack Lewnard at ARPA-E, electricity costs about $100 to $250/MW-hr to deliver when amortizing the costs of the expanded grid infrastructure needed for electrification. The costs of expanding the gas grid for hydrogen (which is less energy dense than gas and requires changes to equipment) would be slightly less. Meanwhile, synthesized hydrocarbons (e.g. from direct air capture) could require essentially no changes to the gas grid Grid concerns will likely be one of the factors that determines the energy carrier of the future.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    > The costs of expanding the gas grid for hydrogen (which is less energy dense than gas and requires changes to equipment) would be slightly less. I seriously doubt this. Hydrogen is notoriously difficult to work with and also, it has no natural source. It has to be generated from some other energy source.
- Hnrobert42 4y ago
  True in the developed world. However, there are quite a few existing Diesel engines in the developing world where the grid isn’t as sorted. Now, I don’t know if hydrogen distribution would be a bigger challenge than just solving electrical distribution. But it does seem like this is a technology that could have some purpose. I mean, what about retrofitting diesel backup generators?
  - kube-system 4y ago
    Hydrogen is more difficult to transport than electricity, by far.
    - _hypx 4y ago
      Hydrogen is easier to transport than electricity because it can be pipelined and stored in tanks/caverns.
      - 4y ago
greenthrow 4y ago
Not remotely. Batteries don't get used up in one cycle as with burning hydrogen. Batteries are far more efficient than even producing hydrogen let alone producing it and then transporting it and then burning it.

SantalBlush 4y ago

I feel like every thread about hydrogen, batteries, fusion, carbon capture, etc. rehashes the exact same discussions. It's like Groundhog Day, but with quasi intellectuals.

dghughes 4y ago
Elon poo-pooed hydrogen so I expect "the word of Elon" to be barfed out chapter and verse at the mere mention of hydrogen. Yes hydrogen has its problems generating and storing it but the lack of imagination of people is tiring.
greenthrow 4y ago
Nice personal insult with "quasi intellectuals" there. It's because hydrogen has some serious problems as a power storage and recuperation medium. To the point where it has already lost. But there's some big reasons why the fossil fuel industry keeps pushing it. So yeah, you will keep seeing the same objections. If people kept pushing the idea of heating our homes by clapping our hands you would also see the same reasons that won't work brought up.
- _hypx 4y ago
  The word “quasi-intellectuals” is accurate. I’d even go as far as calling them pseudo-intellectuals. Very few people here know what they’re talking about. That goes for you too.

senectus1 4y ago

and this isn't the same set of rules being applied to diesel or petrol or LNG or batteries?

kaliyarachan 4y ago
true
axiolite 4y ago
No it is not. Hydrogen is laughable, absurdly inefficient as an energy storage method: "Due to its relatively low volumetric energy density, transportation, storage and final delivery to the point of use can be one of the significant costs and energy inefficiencies associated with using hydrogen as an energy carrier." https://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/delivery.html https://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/delivery.html "Natural gas stored at 20.78 MPa (3000 psig) and 21.1°C (70°F) contains five times as much energy as hydrogen stored under the same conditions." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0360319984902416 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/036031... Battery electric vehicles, by comparison, are vastly more efficient.
- senectus1 4y ago
  its also fully renewable and in abundance, not dependent on politics, geographical locations or treaties. Its also completely green. there is nothing you can do to or with LNG that makes it green, and it's locked behind geographical locations and political lines that are costly and dangerous to work with an be relied upon. Efficiency needs to be calculated from a clean (green) slate. you cannot evaluate oil/gas in the same way because you're conveniently ignoring the dirtiness and powerbases of it. Battery has very similar issues with the rare earth problems, but its also no good for things like big aircraft. There is no silver bullet, batteries/hydrogen/pumped hydro/molten salt etc are all pieces of the puzzle that fit TOGETHER... not in exclusion of each other.
  - axiolite 4y ago
    > Battery has very similar issues with the rare earth problems Utterly false. The elements needed for Li-Ion batteries are very much "in abundance" on Earth. Elements like lithium can be extracted from seawater around the world in quantities far in excess of what humans will ever use. It's just a little less economical than current sources. Which gets us right back to hydrogen! There's no limit on the amount of hydrogen you can make, but YOU CAN'T MAKE IT ECONOMICALLY. Dismissing eminently practical, extremely efficient battery electric vehicles in favor of an insanely impractical, uneconomical, and thoroughly insane hydrogen economy that is going to vastly increase greenhouse gas emissions in the near future is utterly absurd. > but its also no good for things like big aircraft. Neither is hydrogen! Not a snowball's chance in hell of a hydrogen 737 or A320. The fuel tanks would need to be vastly too large and too heavy. Li-Ion is practical for small, short-hop aircraft TODAY. Short-hop aircraft could gradually reduce the need for larger aircraft (e.g. two short hops instead of one non-stop flight), etc. And there is absolutely potential for battery electric large aircraft in the not-too-distant future. Lower speed, propeller based flight increases efficiency. Flying wing aircraft designs can reduce power consumption by about 1/3rd. And finally, high power battery chemistries like lithium-air[1] actual have the same energy density as gasoline, BUT batteries/motors get ~90% conversion efficiency instead of the measly ~40% conversion efficiency of current turbofans! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium%E2%80%93air_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium%E2%80%93air_battery

samtho 4y ago

The benefit of Hydrogen is not as a means of energy distribution but as storage. We have grappled with this problem for a while and it’s becoming more and more pertinent as we transmission to using the electrical grid for more and more. Batteries have their limitations, they require specific materials, slow to charge, and difficult to recycle. Hydrogen is the most abundant substance in the universe, and just needs to be crested and stored. We will eventually get to point with solar that we will have excess energy that needs to be used but nothing to consume it. Modern hydrogen electrolysis is about 80% and once the hydrogen is stored, using a hydrogen fuel cell to generate electricity is about 60% efficient. That’s a 48% efficient process which is still better than 0% by letting that energy go unused. This space has not seen significant innovation because it has not been a major focus. Given a significant political or economic force, we can bring the efficiency up, waste down, and standardize hydrogen containment and pressure systems. Complaining that a solution is inefficient, which has not been innovated on, is small-minded thinking.

greenthrow 4y ago
Hydrogen is a horrible means of energy storage, even when stationary. Splitting water, compressing the hydrogen and then converting it back to energy even with expensive, much more rare materials intensive fuel cells, is still far less than 50% efficient. Batteries are better than 80% efficient and are much easier to produce than fuel cells. Burning hydrogen is just completely bone-headed.
- samtho 4y ago
  You are stuck in the thinking that what we have is going to be as good as it gets and are unable to see past the details of current tech and reaching for this ideal of efficiency that batteries are frankly an outlier of. The efficiency metric does not matter if we have power being generated and no way to either burn or capture this energy at the rate at which it is generated. Yes, batteries are the most efficient at making power available to us at the moment of demand, which is why they will take over a portion of the vehicle market (think local delivery vehicles, commuter vehicles, anything that returns to the same spot or travels predictability) but other means of power storage will be required for other use-cases. Batteries have an upper limit as to how fast they can charge, and there are cases where we need to be able to sink excess power or risk losing 100% of it. There will come a time where we have excess power to burn but the fleeting nature of renewables will require that we store this energy somehow, which I fully believe that hydrogen will play a role in as you are able to create it at a rate proportional to energy you put in, which is more important that efficiency. Batteries will not scale to our needs at more than a micro-grid level. Scaling hydrogen production will bring down the marginal cost of producing each unit. Remember that current battery tech was not as easy to produce as it is today for precisely the same reasons I am hypothesizing that fuel cell technology will become easier and cheaper to produce and more efficient in its operation so I will just reiterate this from my post: > Complaining that a solution is inefficient, which has not been innovated on, is small-minded thinking.