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> The production of hydrogen is energy-intensive. It takes 50-55 kilowatt-hour to make 1 kg of hydrogen and 60 kg of hydrogen to make 1 ton of steel.47 The prod
by jl6 3y ago
> The production of hydrogen is energy-intensive. It takes 50-55 kilowatt-hour to make 1 kg of hydrogen and 60 kg of hydrogen to make 1 ton of steel.47 The production of 1 ton of steel from hydrogen thus consumes 3,000 kWh of electricity, which is ten times higher than the electricity use of an electric arc furnace making steel from scrap. Consequently, hydrogen-based steelmaking requires roughly ten times more wind turbines and solar panels than scrap-based steel production – and thus ten times more steel.
Despite being very inefficient, it feels like this is the option we’re going to go with anyway, because the suggested alternative of reducing material consumption seems completely out of reach of human behavior as we know it. Sadly.
- boerseth 3y agoI was left with more hope than you, upon completing the article. Smaller cars, less cars in general, more bikes, public transportation, urbanization, smaller living spaces. All these things are quite in vogue these days. At their list towards the end, I felt like I had heard of online communities in favor of all of them, for more reasons than just the climate impact that they have.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y agoWe tried the "no material consumption" thing for a few hundred thousand years. It was slightly unpleasant. This material consumption thing though, it's got its pluses. We probably need to feed higher up on the energy food chain, now lower. Fission, fusion, and whatever is above that.