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Except hydrogen is not a renewable source of energy. It’s at best a carrier. And it’s a really bad carrier at that. Hydrogen will never be cheaper than the ele

Except hydrogen is not a renewable source of energy. It’s at best a carrier. And it’s a really bad carrier at that. Hydrogen will never be cheaper than the electricity you make it from. The electrolyzers are expensive and the rest of the equipment for them is already mass produced and as cheap as it’s going to get. The transportation and production is expensive and inherently difficult. As for the certainty that they will go hydrogen, the only certainty is that they will not go hydrogen. Here’s from only 2 days ago, news of actual mines explicitly choosing electric over hydrogen for the obvious concerns: https://cleantechnica.com/2023/07/05/australian-mining-companies-chose-battery-electric-over-hydrogen-fuel-cell-mining-trucks/ https://cleantechnica.com/2023/07/05/australian-mining-compa...

wkat4242 3y ago
It also tends to leak out through its high pressure tanks and it's a way worse greenhouse gas than CO2.
- _hypx 3y ago
  The first claim is not true. The second claim is a dishonest distortion of facts. It is an "indirect" greenhouse gas whereby it extends the life of methane in the atmosphere. This is a pretty meaningless thing to say because it is directly replacing methane. So the more hydrogen we use, the less global warming there will be.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    Euh yes it's true. There is no tank which can contain hydrogen at the pressue we store it. The atoms are so small they migrate directly through the material and cause chemical changes as a result that weaken the tank over time (hydrogen embrittlement). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_embrittlement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_embrittlement It happens quite fast, a tank will lose most of its capacity over a month. As most tanks will be full most of the time (after all where else are you going to store the hydrogen for your car?) they will lose significant amounts to the atmosphere. Regardign the methane it's already there and is also expelled by natural resources (e.g. meat industry and marshes for example). So even if we would stop burning fossil, there is no end of it. I don't think Hydrogen is a bad option for some usecases by the way. I just wish people wouldn't view it as a magic bullet.
    - _hypx 3y ago
      > It happens quite fast, a tank will lose most of its capacity over a month. A claim backed up by nothing. In fact, no hydrogen tank is allowed to leak that fast by regulation. Something you can easily verify: https://newsletters.inficon.com/AUTOTEST/April2020/LeakTestingOfHydrogenTanks.html https://newsletters.inficon.com/AUTOTEST/April2020/LeakTesti... You can do the math and realize that at 8 * 10⁻³ mbar * L/s, the maximum leakage rate, it will take a tank of 30L and 700 bar about 80 years to leak away: 700 bar * 30 L / (0.008 millibar * L/s) = 83.1830072 years That's the danger of swallowing random BEV propaganda from some propagandist. Those people are liars and are know for making shit up. In reality, this is not an issue.
_hypx 3y ago
It technically is since natural hydrogen exists. The problem with this logic is that renewable energy is regularly plunging to zero or even negative prices. Renewable leads to massive swings between excess production and massive shortages. Hydrogen is significantly more valuable than the electric used to make it, even if the end goal is just make more electricity. The best way to describe it is that hydrogen is dispatchable energy, but the energy used to make it is non-dispatchable energy. The former is necessary and will always be worth something, but the latter is often totally worthless. That claim is purely delusional. This is a repeat of anti-photovoltaic arguments, that solar panels could never be cheap. In reality, there are simply no substantial raw material requirements preventing either electrolyzers nor PVs from plunging in cost. History will just repeat itself and the critics will be outed as closedminded fools. Hydrogen is 10x cheaper to move around that electricity. It will be more practical to build a hydrogen infrastructure than an electrical one: https://www.brinknews.com/could-hydrogen-replace-the-need-for-an-electric-grid/ https://www.brinknews.com/could-hydrogen-replace-the-need-fo... Your article is thoroughly distorting the real story. The situation actually being described is as followed: > Rio Tinto executive John Mulcahy told the summit that hydrogen was less efficient than batteries for mine trucks under a scenario where a miner had to produce its own hydrogen from solar or wind power. > “Hydrogen at the moment isn’t our preference, but it doesn’t mean it is dead by any means,” he said. https://www.afr.com/companies/mining/fortescue-and-rio-say-batteries-will-beat-hydrogen-for-trucks-20230614-p5dgj4 https://www.afr.com/companies/mining/fortescue-and-rio-say-b... In short, it doesn't make sense to make hydrogen on the spot when you already have access to that energy and can use it directly. But this is just one scenario, and they haven't ruled out other ones. This is not a particular relevant situation for the rest of us. Very few people will have direct access to renewables in a remote area. It is ultimately just one possible outcome. And honestly, there's very little chance they are moving away from diesel trucks anytime soon. This is just them speculating about what they will do, not that they are obligated to actually do it.
- _aavaa_ 3y ago
  > It technically is since natural hydrogen exists. A pedantic point which makes little difference given how much there is and how much we need. Further, being natural makes it as renewable as natural gas. > The problem with this logic is that renewable energy is regularly plunging to zero or even negative prices. Renewable energy does not swing to negative prices. Their excess production causes gas, coal, and nuclear to have to go negative. Remove those from the grid and the negative price magically goes away. And to reiterate with your point from earlier: "But just like other types of renewable energy, this is actually heading towards nearly zero." If renewable energy costs are getting that cheap we can simply keep overbuilding them and have no need for hydrogen in the first place. The made for hydrogen is often as an energy storage for when we don't have renewables, well if the renewables are so cheap let's just build them until we don't have times where we're short electricty and then skip all the complexity of making and storing hydrogen. > Hydrogen is significantly more valuable than the electric used to make it, even if the end goal is just make more electricity. Black Hydrogen right now is a commodity chemical sold at 1.50 $/kg + transportation. I don't see the use cases often touted taking off. Instead I see wind, solar, hydro, and batteries eating hydrogen's potential market. > The best way to describe it is that hydrogen is dispatchable energy, but the energy used to make it is non-dispatchable energy. As a dispatchable energy source that requires lots of equipment and loses >70% of the energy put into the it, it's a pretty bad storage system. > That claim is purely delusional. This is a repeat of anti-photovoltaic arguments, that solar panels could never be cheap. In reality, there are simply no substantial raw material requirements preventing either electrolyzers nor PVs from plunging in cost. I never claimed it's about raw materials. Again, the electrolyzers are not the only equipment required, there are lots of valves, and pumps, and shit. And all of those have been mass produced for a long time. So they won't see the cost reductions that come from learning. Solar panels went down in cost because they provided something other energy sources did not and had people willing to pay a premium to bring the cost down. Electrolyzers don't have that market right now, and by the time they get cheap enough what market will be left for them? > Hydrogen is 10x cheaper to move around that electricity. It will be more practical to build a hydrogen infrastructure than an electrical one: https://www.brinknews.com/could-hydrogen-replace-the-need-fo https://www.brinknews.com/could-hydrogen-replace-the-need-fo... That is an ludicrus thing to claim, especially when presenting zero evidence to back the claim. > For economic reasons, it is much better to transport energy over long distances by molecules. When you transport hydrogen over a distance of about a thousand miles by pipeline, the costs are about half a cent per kilowatt-hour. When you do the same with electricity, it is about 5 cents per kilowatt-hour. I'd like to know how many pipelines there are that transport hydrogen that kind of distance, I'm betting on the very low single digits, if any. It's easy to make claims about the efficiency of things that exist on paper and then compare them to the reality of things actually build. > Your article is thoroughly distorting the real story. The situation actually being described is as followed: > > In short, it doesn't make sense to make hydrogen on the spot when you already have access to that energy and can use it directly. But this is just one scenario, and they haven't ruled out other ones. The very next sentence is: "What we are looking at primarily is the efficiency of the cycle, to go from charging and discharging a battery and powering a truck, versus powering an electrolyser, creating hydrogen, liquefying and compressing it and then converting it back into a fuel cell." It doesn't matter where it's made, the argument for why they don't want it doesn't change. All of those steps are there even if the hydrogen is made off-site. > This is not a particular relevant situation for the rest of us. Very few people will have direct access to renewables in a remote area. They will have even less access to hydrogen distribution/transmission in that case.

wkat4242 3y ago

It also tends to leak out through its high pressure tanks and it's a way worse greenhouse gas than CO2.

_hypx 3y ago
The first claim is not true. The second claim is a dishonest distortion of facts. It is an "indirect" greenhouse gas whereby it extends the life of methane in the atmosphere. This is a pretty meaningless thing to say because it is directly replacing methane. So the more hydrogen we use, the less global warming there will be.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Euh yes it's true. There is no tank which can contain hydrogen at the pressue we store it. The atoms are so small they migrate directly through the material and cause chemical changes as a result that weaken the tank over time (hydrogen embrittlement). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_embrittlement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_embrittlement It happens quite fast, a tank will lose most of its capacity over a month. As most tanks will be full most of the time (after all where else are you going to store the hydrogen for your car?) they will lose significant amounts to the atmosphere. Regardign the methane it's already there and is also expelled by natural resources (e.g. meat industry and marshes for example). So even if we would stop burning fossil, there is no end of it. I don't think Hydrogen is a bad option for some usecases by the way. I just wish people wouldn't view it as a magic bullet.
  - _hypx 3y ago
    > It happens quite fast, a tank will lose most of its capacity over a month. A claim backed up by nothing. In fact, no hydrogen tank is allowed to leak that fast by regulation. Something you can easily verify: https://newsletters.inficon.com/AUTOTEST/April2020/LeakTestingOfHydrogenTanks.html https://newsletters.inficon.com/AUTOTEST/April2020/LeakTesti... You can do the math and realize that at 8 * 10⁻³ mbar * L/s, the maximum leakage rate, it will take a tank of 30L and 700 bar about 80 years to leak away: 700 bar * 30 L / (0.008 millibar * L/s) = 83.1830072 years That's the danger of swallowing random BEV propaganda from some propagandist. Those people are liars and are know for making shit up. In reality, this is not an issue.

_hypx 3y ago

It technically is since natural hydrogen exists. The problem with this logic is that renewable energy is regularly plunging to zero or even negative prices. Renewable leads to massive swings between excess production and massive shortages. Hydrogen is significantly more valuable than the electric used to make it, even if the end goal is just make more electricity. The best way to describe it is that hydrogen is dispatchable energy, but the energy used to make it is non-dispatchable energy. The former is necessary and will always be worth something, but the latter is often totally worthless. That claim is purely delusional. This is a repeat of anti-photovoltaic arguments, that solar panels could never be cheap. In reality, there are simply no substantial raw material requirements preventing either electrolyzers nor PVs from plunging in cost. History will just repeat itself and the critics will be outed as closedminded fools. Hydrogen is 10x cheaper to move around that electricity. It will be more practical to build a hydrogen infrastructure than an electrical one: https://www.brinknews.com/could-hydrogen-replace-the-need-for-an-electric-grid/ https://www.brinknews.com/could-hydrogen-replace-the-need-fo... Your article is thoroughly distorting the real story. The situation actually being described is as followed: > Rio Tinto executive John Mulcahy told the summit that hydrogen was less efficient than batteries for mine trucks under a scenario where a miner had to produce its own hydrogen from solar or wind power. > “Hydrogen at the moment isn’t our preference, but it doesn’t mean it is dead by any means,” he said. https://www.afr.com/companies/mining/fortescue-and-rio-say-batteries-will-beat-hydrogen-for-trucks-20230614-p5dgj4 https://www.afr.com/companies/mining/fortescue-and-rio-say-b... In short, it doesn't make sense to make hydrogen on the spot when you already have access to that energy and can use it directly. But this is just one scenario, and they haven't ruled out other ones. This is not a particular relevant situation for the rest of us. Very few people will have direct access to renewables in a remote area. It is ultimately just one possible outcome. And honestly, there's very little chance they are moving away from diesel trucks anytime soon. This is just them speculating about what they will do, not that they are obligated to actually do it.

_aavaa_ 3y ago
> It technically is since natural hydrogen exists. A pedantic point which makes little difference given how much there is and how much we need. Further, being natural makes it as renewable as natural gas. > The problem with this logic is that renewable energy is regularly plunging to zero or even negative prices. Renewable energy does not swing to negative prices. Their excess production causes gas, coal, and nuclear to have to go negative. Remove those from the grid and the negative price magically goes away. And to reiterate with your point from earlier: "But just like other types of renewable energy, this is actually heading towards nearly zero." If renewable energy costs are getting that cheap we can simply keep overbuilding them and have no need for hydrogen in the first place. The made for hydrogen is often as an energy storage for when we don't have renewables, well if the renewables are so cheap let's just build them until we don't have times where we're short electricty and then skip all the complexity of making and storing hydrogen. > Hydrogen is significantly more valuable than the electric used to make it, even if the end goal is just make more electricity. Black Hydrogen right now is a commodity chemical sold at 1.50 $/kg + transportation. I don't see the use cases often touted taking off. Instead I see wind, solar, hydro, and batteries eating hydrogen's potential market. > The best way to describe it is that hydrogen is dispatchable energy, but the energy used to make it is non-dispatchable energy. As a dispatchable energy source that requires lots of equipment and loses >70% of the energy put into the it, it's a pretty bad storage system. > That claim is purely delusional. This is a repeat of anti-photovoltaic arguments, that solar panels could never be cheap. In reality, there are simply no substantial raw material requirements preventing either electrolyzers nor PVs from plunging in cost. I never claimed it's about raw materials. Again, the electrolyzers are not the only equipment required, there are lots of valves, and pumps, and shit. And all of those have been mass produced for a long time. So they won't see the cost reductions that come from learning. Solar panels went down in cost because they provided something other energy sources did not and had people willing to pay a premium to bring the cost down. Electrolyzers don't have that market right now, and by the time they get cheap enough what market will be left for them? > Hydrogen is 10x cheaper to move around that electricity. It will be more practical to build a hydrogen infrastructure than an electrical one: https://www.brinknews.com/could-hydrogen-replace-the-need-fo https://www.brinknews.com/could-hydrogen-replace-the-need-fo... That is an ludicrus thing to claim, especially when presenting zero evidence to back the claim. > For economic reasons, it is much better to transport energy over long distances by molecules. When you transport hydrogen over a distance of about a thousand miles by pipeline, the costs are about half a cent per kilowatt-hour. When you do the same with electricity, it is about 5 cents per kilowatt-hour. I'd like to know how many pipelines there are that transport hydrogen that kind of distance, I'm betting on the very low single digits, if any. It's easy to make claims about the efficiency of things that exist on paper and then compare them to the reality of things actually build. > Your article is thoroughly distorting the real story. The situation actually being described is as followed: > > In short, it doesn't make sense to make hydrogen on the spot when you already have access to that energy and can use it directly. But this is just one scenario, and they haven't ruled out other ones. The very next sentence is: "What we are looking at primarily is the efficiency of the cycle, to go from charging and discharging a battery and powering a truck, versus powering an electrolyser, creating hydrogen, liquefying and compressing it and then converting it back into a fuel cell." It doesn't matter where it's made, the argument for why they don't want it doesn't change. All of those steps are there even if the hydrogen is made off-site. > This is not a particular relevant situation for the rest of us. Very few people will have direct access to renewables in a remote area. They will have even less access to hydrogen distribution/transmission in that case.