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Did you read past the headline? It's not anathema because of aesthetics, it's anathema because it doesn't work. There's nothing wrong with shooting down an idea

Did you read past the headline? It's not anathema because of aesthetics, it's anathema because it doesn't work. There's nothing wrong with shooting down an idea that you have studied and found to be counterproductive.

rich_sasha 4y ago
It doesn't say anything like it, and your comment doesn't address mine either. 1. That particular approaches don't work is irrelevant. TFA focuses on a particular Japanese policy, which may or may not be misguided. The article is light on discussion, but let's take it at face value. Should we say wind+solar is stupid because Germany is currently in an energy mess? I don't think so. 2. I don't think it's dumb at all to experiment with various synthetic fuels via fossil fuels initially. With both hydrogen and battery storage, the real devil is in the details, in particular in seasonal storage. If we can make battery, or hydrogen, or ammonia economies work, then we know how to produce things, and thanks to cheap intermittent renewables we can do it. Frankly, efficiency hardly matters at this point. If, as predicted by renewables evangelists, energy will be almost free soon, storage efficiency matters not. All that will matter is long term storage cost, an open question for any approach. 3. Regardless, my comment is aimed mostly at other comments. "Duh everyone knows batteries are better", "hydrogen is a dead end". The part of my comment you tacitly ignored is that burning fossil fuels is somehow ok en route to renewables+batteries without a viable concrete plans on how to decarbonize fully, but not for other synthetic fuels such as hydrogen.
- rnk 4y ago
  There's one key problem, making hydrogen without creating more carbon in the atmosphere. If they solve that, then it's worth considering. If we have fusion providing endless electric energy (which could be used to split water), then we could just use it to fuel electric cars too. There's the classic problems of lack of energy density, and hydrogen fires not being visible. I think we can probably make hydrogen containment systems better, and figure out how to make fires visible. To me it all comes back to getting the fuel. When we can do that we can consider it.
  - shagie 4y ago
    https://www.powermag.com/fukushima-hydrogen-energy-research-field-demonstrates-hydrogen-integration/ https://www.powermag.com/fukushima-hydrogen-energy-research-... > For the past two years, FH2R has consistently been ranked as one of the world’s largest projects of its kind. According to project participants, FH2R uses a 20-MW solar PV array built on a 180,000-square-meter site along with grid electricity to power a single-stack 10-MW-class electrolyzer. Its developers say it can produce, store, and supply up to 1,200 Nm 3 /hr of hydrogen at rated power operation. This is a "its not completely there yet but this is where its trying to go."

rich_sasha 4y ago

It doesn't say anything like it, and your comment doesn't address mine either. 1. That particular approaches don't work is irrelevant. TFA focuses on a particular Japanese policy, which may or may not be misguided. The article is light on discussion, but let's take it at face value. Should we say wind+solar is stupid because Germany is currently in an energy mess? I don't think so. 2. I don't think it's dumb at all to experiment with various synthetic fuels via fossil fuels initially. With both hydrogen and battery storage, the real devil is in the details, in particular in seasonal storage. If we can make battery, or hydrogen, or ammonia economies work, then we know how to produce things, and thanks to cheap intermittent renewables we can do it. Frankly, efficiency hardly matters at this point. If, as predicted by renewables evangelists, energy will be almost free soon, storage efficiency matters not. All that will matter is long term storage cost, an open question for any approach. 3. Regardless, my comment is aimed mostly at other comments. "Duh everyone knows batteries are better", "hydrogen is a dead end". The part of my comment you tacitly ignored is that burning fossil fuels is somehow ok en route to renewables+batteries without a viable concrete plans on how to decarbonize fully, but not for other synthetic fuels such as hydrogen.

rnk 4y ago
There's one key problem, making hydrogen without creating more carbon in the atmosphere. If they solve that, then it's worth considering. If we have fusion providing endless electric energy (which could be used to split water), then we could just use it to fuel electric cars too. There's the classic problems of lack of energy density, and hydrogen fires not being visible. I think we can probably make hydrogen containment systems better, and figure out how to make fires visible. To me it all comes back to getting the fuel. When we can do that we can consider it.
- shagie 4y ago
  https://www.powermag.com/fukushima-hydrogen-energy-research-field-demonstrates-hydrogen-integration/ https://www.powermag.com/fukushima-hydrogen-energy-research-... > For the past two years, FH2R has consistently been ranked as one of the world’s largest projects of its kind. According to project participants, FH2R uses a 20-MW solar PV array built on a 180,000-square-meter site along with grid electricity to power a single-stack 10-MW-class electrolyzer. Its developers say it can produce, store, and supply up to 1,200 Nm 3 /hr of hydrogen at rated power operation. This is a "its not completely there yet but this is where its trying to go."