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Spoiler alert, this is the fate of all Hydrogen strategies not based on massive investment into nuclear. But since when did physics ever stop anybody from beli

Spoiler alert, this is the fate of all Hydrogen strategies not based on massive investment into nuclear. But since when did physics ever stop anybody from believing in fairy tales?

RobertRoberts 4y ago
This is nearly a ludicrous leap of logic with an ad hominem attack only slightly disguised.
- slackfan 4y ago
  Call me when the energy produced by solar and wind and hydro can produce enough hydrogen to fuel the needs to even maintain the existing solar, wind, and hydro.
fomine3 4y ago
I think original report is written well, but it's written by pro-renewables anti-nuclear institute so they don't want to mention that nuclear is useful
rgmerk 4y ago
If your strategy involves massive investment in nuclear you don’t need hydrogen in Japan. Northern Europe and Canada have very seasonally-dependant energy demand that inversely correlates with solar availability. Japan has hot humid summers that require the use of air conditioners, so energy demand doesn’t vary nearly as much over the year. In most of the country you also don’t get cold enough to worry about heat pumps becoming inefficient, either. Given that, nuclear, short term storage, a bit of hydro would do the job just fine, without the round-trip losses of hydrogen. You still might well want hydrogen for other purposes (fertiliser, steel making, clean shipping, possibly long range trucks etc).
- slackfan 4y ago
  Counterpoint, there is an argument to be made for Hydrogen-fueled IC engines. Massive investment in nuclear does not solve the issue with lithium required for batteries (nevermind the environmental impact of such). I seem to recall Mazda doing a thing around their RX-8 with dual-fueling, but that went nowhere a decade and a half ago. But hey, why go for a significantly cheaper from a cap-ex perspective option where retrofititng existing vehicles to hydrogen (which can be done), and developing that tech, instead dumping more cash into rare earth development and going about hydrogen power in the most asinine way possible, because somebody is gonna get (more) rich off of doing this.
  - rgmerk 4y ago
    Yeah, in theory you can run existing vehicles off hydrogen, but hydrogen internal combustion engines have, thus far, sucked. BMW tried this with a hydrogen-fuelled 7 series V12 back in the mid 2000s. They could only get about 150 horsepower out of that massive V12. They got well over 400 out of the original gasoline version of the engine. As for lithium, I’m old enough to remember when many were convinced Peak Oil was going to be a Big Problem.
    - slackfan 4y ago
      Mazda got about 80% power in their rotaries, so they got a ~110-120 hp out of their 160-180hp rotaries. Seems like a BMW problem.
    - defrost 4y ago
      Peak Oil itself (which has almost certainly been reached) was never going to be the problem .. it's the downhill run that follows, and there's every reason to think that will bring problems and conflict, all the more reason to shift to non fossil fuels. For interest; Predicting the timing of peak oil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predicting_the_timing_of_peak_oil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predicting_the_timing_of_peak_...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pfdietz 4y ago
Hydrogen from nuclear will be more expensive than hydrogen from renewables.
- cjbgkagh 4y ago
  I figure the heat cracking is more efficient then electrolytic. It’s called Red Hydrogen. I don’t know if the actual match checks out.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    No one has ever been able to make it work economically and for prolonged periods. Engineering around high temperatures is difficult, especially when corrosive chemicals are involved. For example, the cycle the Japanese have been trying to make work involves sulfuric acid heated to 850-900 C. This high temperature step is the one that evolves the oxygen, so you've got very hot surfaces exposed to oxidizing conditions.
    - cjbgkagh 4y ago
      I don't doubt that it's difficult. I would hope that the people investing large sums into it know what they're doing. I guess we'll find out.
Panzer04 4y ago
How so? It costs more per kwh than renewables. If you are going to store electricity, it may as well be from renewables (which also benefit the most from storing power in a practical sense)
- slackfan 4y ago
  What's the total ROeI (return on energy invested) to engineer, build, deploy any piece of renewable? Multiple decades. What is is with nuclear? A day? A few weeks at most? That's why I point out the physics bit. This isn't about the cost, this is about being able to generate energy, not just try to build what is in essense a perpetual motion machine.
  - Panzer04 4y ago
    It’s on the order of a few years for solar and wind, if I recall. It sounds hilariously optimistic to me that ROEI for nuclear would be days/weeks. The amount of infrastructure required to support a nuclear plant is huge. Regardless, so long as ROEI is reasonably positive, then cost is all that really matters (and regardless cost should include the effects of ROEI anyway)
    - Schroedingersat 4y ago
      Look up an LCA or fermi estimate it yourself. It's roughly on par with solar (4mo-2yr depending on just how unreliable it is). The biggest part they don't usually include is a couple thousand people driving to and from and working for 20 years, but even that is tiny. The mines (especially in a mass expansion scenario) are a little worse. Each fuel load takes up to a few months to pay off from a low yield open pit mine. The industry always uses Ranger or Cigar Lake for comparison which are anomalously high yield.
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    The EPBT of new solar (<160 micron wafer monocrystalline on simple stakes) is 4 to 18 months depending on how far you ship it and what the weather is like. New onshore wind is about 6 months. The nuclear plant is a few months to a couple of years, but each load of fuel is up to 3 months in every six years depending on where it comes from and how it is enriched. All are firmly in the category of "you're lying and spreading fossil fuel propaganda".

Spoiler alert, this is the fate of all Hydrogen strategies not based on massive investment into nuclear. But since when did physics ever stop anybody from believing in fairy tales?

RobertRoberts 4y ago

This is nearly a ludicrous leap of logic with an ad hominem attack only slightly disguised.

slackfan 4y ago
Call me when the energy produced by solar and wind and hydro can produce enough hydrogen to fuel the needs to even maintain the existing solar, wind, and hydro.

fomine3 4y ago

I think original report is written well, but it's written by pro-renewables anti-nuclear institute so they don't want to mention that nuclear is useful

rgmerk 4y ago

If your strategy involves massive investment in nuclear you don’t need hydrogen in Japan. Northern Europe and Canada have very seasonally-dependant energy demand that inversely correlates with solar availability. Japan has hot humid summers that require the use of air conditioners, so energy demand doesn’t vary nearly as much over the year. In most of the country you also don’t get cold enough to worry about heat pumps becoming inefficient, either. Given that, nuclear, short term storage, a bit of hydro would do the job just fine, without the round-trip losses of hydrogen. You still might well want hydrogen for other purposes (fertiliser, steel making, clean shipping, possibly long range trucks etc).

slackfan 4y ago
Counterpoint, there is an argument to be made for Hydrogen-fueled IC engines. Massive investment in nuclear does not solve the issue with lithium required for batteries (nevermind the environmental impact of such). I seem to recall Mazda doing a thing around their RX-8 with dual-fueling, but that went nowhere a decade and a half ago. But hey, why go for a significantly cheaper from a cap-ex perspective option where retrofititng existing vehicles to hydrogen (which can be done), and developing that tech, instead dumping more cash into rare earth development and going about hydrogen power in the most asinine way possible, because somebody is gonna get (more) rich off of doing this.
- rgmerk 4y ago
  Yeah, in theory you can run existing vehicles off hydrogen, but hydrogen internal combustion engines have, thus far, sucked. BMW tried this with a hydrogen-fuelled 7 series V12 back in the mid 2000s. They could only get about 150 horsepower out of that massive V12. They got well over 400 out of the original gasoline version of the engine. As for lithium, I’m old enough to remember when many were convinced Peak Oil was going to be a Big Problem.
  - slackfan 4y ago
    Mazda got about 80% power in their rotaries, so they got a ~110-120 hp out of their 160-180hp rotaries. Seems like a BMW problem.
  - defrost 4y ago
    Peak Oil itself (which has almost certainly been reached) was never going to be the problem .. it's the downhill run that follows, and there's every reason to think that will bring problems and conflict, all the more reason to shift to non fossil fuels. For interest; Predicting the timing of peak oil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predicting_the_timing_of_peak_oil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predicting_the_timing_of_peak_...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

pfdietz 4y ago

Hydrogen from nuclear will be more expensive than hydrogen from renewables.

cjbgkagh 4y ago
I figure the heat cracking is more efficient then electrolytic. It’s called Red Hydrogen. I don’t know if the actual match checks out.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  No one has ever been able to make it work economically and for prolonged periods. Engineering around high temperatures is difficult, especially when corrosive chemicals are involved. For example, the cycle the Japanese have been trying to make work involves sulfuric acid heated to 850-900 C. This high temperature step is the one that evolves the oxygen, so you've got very hot surfaces exposed to oxidizing conditions.
  - cjbgkagh 4y ago
    I don't doubt that it's difficult. I would hope that the people investing large sums into it know what they're doing. I guess we'll find out.

Panzer04 4y ago

How so? It costs more per kwh than renewables. If you are going to store electricity, it may as well be from renewables (which also benefit the most from storing power in a practical sense)

slackfan 4y ago
What's the total ROeI (return on energy invested) to engineer, build, deploy any piece of renewable? Multiple decades. What is is with nuclear? A day? A few weeks at most? That's why I point out the physics bit. This isn't about the cost, this is about being able to generate energy, not just try to build what is in essense a perpetual motion machine.
- Panzer04 4y ago
  It’s on the order of a few years for solar and wind, if I recall. It sounds hilariously optimistic to me that ROEI for nuclear would be days/weeks. The amount of infrastructure required to support a nuclear plant is huge. Regardless, so long as ROEI is reasonably positive, then cost is all that really matters (and regardless cost should include the effects of ROEI anyway)
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    Look up an LCA or fermi estimate it yourself. It's roughly on par with solar (4mo-2yr depending on just how unreliable it is). The biggest part they don't usually include is a couple thousand people driving to and from and working for 20 years, but even that is tiny. The mines (especially in a mass expansion scenario) are a little worse. Each fuel load takes up to a few months to pay off from a low yield open pit mine. The industry always uses Ranger or Cigar Lake for comparison which are anomalously high yield.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  The EPBT of new solar (<160 micron wafer monocrystalline on simple stakes) is 4 to 18 months depending on how far you ship it and what the weather is like. New onshore wind is about 6 months. The nuclear plant is a few months to a couple of years, but each load of fuel is up to 3 months in every six years depending on where it comes from and how it is enriched. All are firmly in the category of "you're lying and spreading fossil fuel propaganda".