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Stop trying to make hydrogen happen. It's not going to happen.
by gaganyaan 3y ago
Stop trying to make hydrogen happen. It's not going to happen.
- Kuinox 3y agoWe are finding renewable pocket of helium, why do you want it not to happen ?
- gaganyaan 3y agoIt's a fantasy used to greenwash oil & gas companies. It'd be nice if it were practical, but it's not for a variety of solid technical reasons such as leaking through metal.
- memling 3y agoI was under the impression that this is why hydrogen tanks have special liners and are made of composites?
- gaganyaan 3y agoHere's a good thread detailing the issues: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37836237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37836237 Leakage is one of many issues, but it's also not just solved by a special liner.
- Kuinox 3y agoAre you talking about this one ? https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/29/climate/white-hydrogen-fossil-fuels-climate/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/29/climate/white-hydrogen-fo... > solid technical reasons such as leaking through metal. Where the heck did you read that.
- gaganyaan 3y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37836237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37836237
- KennyBlanken 3y agoHigh school chemistry class? H2 is such a tiny molecule that leaks out of everything making it a nightmare to try and seal pipework, and it will permeate (and embrittle) metals, namely steel. It's idiotic to try and use it as a fuel. The money being wasted on H2 research should just go into purchasing more renewable power sources.
- Bud 3y agoIf it were renewable, you wouldn't need to "find" a "pocket" of it. That's not what renewable means.
- standeven 3y agoHydrogen could be very useful for CO2-free iron smelting, powering cargo ships, and many other use cases. The problem is getting it - cheap green hydrogen requires excess green power, something we don’t have yet.
- gaganyaan 3y agoNot relevant to the article, but also: > could I'll believe it when I see it.
- natmaka 3y agoWe already have excess green power (spot prices are sometimes 0 or even negative). There is (now) just not enough of it. However as renewables quickly ramp up there will be more and more of it.
- bertil 3y agoI vehemently agree with your impression that a lot of that is pushed by misinformed interest, trying to hawk one more century of steam-reforming and other polluting ideas. However, a couple of processes do need hydrogen, chief among them is making steel: the coke-based approach generates far too much CO2. If you are a little allergic to calling hydrogen blue or green, depending on how much greenwashing it receives, that might not be the best keywords to type in a search engine. But hydrogen should become a needed industrial step for the world's second or third most widely used commodity (it goes: sand, cement, steel, glass, gravel, petroleum, macadam, wheat…) I’m not sure what’s #2 on the list of actual hydrogen uses, as most big potential applications could use an easier fuel to handle than a literal cloud of angry protons. It's often a good first step, though: ammonia, synthetic methane, etc. Far down that list, there’s also a project to put hydrogen back into dirigibles, which I find very engrossing (and yes, the people working on that have heard of the Hindenburg), but it's less solid than making steel.
- gaganyaan 3y agoThanks for the extra info. My comment was targeted at the article mentioning automobiles, and Toyota especially. Hydrogen might find use cases elsewhere, but companies need to admit it is inappropriate for cars.
- photonbeam 3y ago> sand, cement, steel, glass, gravel, petroleum, macadam, wheat… ‘Sand’ caught me by surprise, my uninformed view was that it was just for glass
- fanf2 3y agoconcrete = sand + cement + gravel
- natmaka 3y agoHydrogen will probably not happen for transportation, but it is a serious contender for power grid backup.