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What Drives This Madness on Hydrogen?

2 points by onychomys 3y ago

bell-cot 3y ago
Even without all those folks whose financial futures depends on them refusing to understand that hydrogen is bunk - my guess is that hydrogen would still have billions of True Believers. There seems to be a profound mythical/religious aura around it - "magically pure, as natural as the sun, creates only pure carbon-free water when it burns...". The stuff pushes far too many emotional buttons in a lot of people, and seems to have gotten incorporated into America's culture wars.
- _hypx 3y ago
  The only true believers are battery fanatics. They've already put billions of dollars in li-ion batteries, and now comes a new electrochemical system with none of the resource dependency and cost problems. People who can think critically about the evidence have already concluded that hydrogen is likely the future of energy and transportation in most cases. The critics are just repeating the same arguments as anti-wind and anti-solar critics of the past. They are in steadfast denial of the fact that we are turning wind, sunlight and water into useful chemical energy. Since none of those things are limited resource, this is inevitably going to drive out all competing ideas can't claim the same. Delusion is holding fast to the old ideas instead of embracing the new ones.
anenefan 3y ago
I don't agree with the sentiment that the experts have written off hydrogen. Actually I had a lot I'd say on that but it would come off as completely snarky. While hydrogen and electric via battery storage will form a large part of the path ahead, especially in urban and industrial sectors, there are other paths which haven't got much light. For one, certain interests keep prodding bio fuels ... while the oil industry keeps very very quiet that the fuel crackers in their refineries could utilise ordinary renewable organic based oils as a feed stock to produce the same as presently used in vehicles. Green hydrogen certainly will be a product of huge demand in the future, based on what I've read the last couple years ... the smart money is on anhydrous ammonia, for which its production requires a lot of hydrogen. However I guess why this sector is attracting so much interest, if there's a better path than ammonia as a means to utilise hydrogen, those successful will reap the rewards. They are already trialling using ammonia as a fuel for the same large engines found in cargo ships. [1] Fuel cells installations using ammonia already exist [2] [1] https://www.ammoniaenergy.org/articles/man-ammonia-engine-update/ https://www.ammoniaenergy.org/articles/man-ammonia-engine-up... [2] https://www.gencellenergy.com/our-products/gencell-a5/ https://www.gencellenergy.com/our-products/gencell-a5/

2 points by onychomys 3y ago

Even without all those folks whose financial futures depends on them refusing to understand that hydrogen is bunk - my guess is that hydrogen would still have billions of True Believers. There seems to be a profound mythical/religious aura around it - "magically pure, as natural as the sun, creates only pure carbon-free water when it burns...". The stuff pushes far too many emotional buttons in a lot of people, and seems to have gotten incorporated into America's culture wars.

_hypx 3y ago
The only true believers are battery fanatics. They've already put billions of dollars in li-ion batteries, and now comes a new electrochemical system with none of the resource dependency and cost problems. People who can think critically about the evidence have already concluded that hydrogen is likely the future of energy and transportation in most cases. The critics are just repeating the same arguments as anti-wind and anti-solar critics of the past. They are in steadfast denial of the fact that we are turning wind, sunlight and water into useful chemical energy. Since none of those things are limited resource, this is inevitably going to drive out all competing ideas can't claim the same. Delusion is holding fast to the old ideas instead of embracing the new ones.

anenefan 3y ago

I don't agree with the sentiment that the experts have written off hydrogen. Actually I had a lot I'd say on that but it would come off as completely snarky. While hydrogen and electric via battery storage will form a large part of the path ahead, especially in urban and industrial sectors, there are other paths which haven't got much light. For one, certain interests keep prodding bio fuels ... while the oil industry keeps very very quiet that the fuel crackers in their refineries could utilise ordinary renewable organic based oils as a feed stock to produce the same as presently used in vehicles. Green hydrogen certainly will be a product of huge demand in the future, based on what I've read the last couple years ... the smart money is on anhydrous ammonia, for which its production requires a lot of hydrogen. However I guess why this sector is attracting so much interest, if there's a better path than ammonia as a means to utilise hydrogen, those successful will reap the rewards. They are already trialling using ammonia as a fuel for the same large engines found in cargo ships. [1] Fuel cells installations using ammonia already exist [2] [1] https://www.ammoniaenergy.org/articles/man-ammonia-engine-update/ https://www.ammoniaenergy.org/articles/man-ammonia-engine-up... [2] https://www.gencellenergy.com/our-products/gencell-a5/ https://www.gencellenergy.com/our-products/gencell-a5/