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Everyone I know in environmental activism hates hydrogen and sees it as green-washing the petrochemical industry.

est31 2y ago
I understand it if you look at the receiving end. Say in Germany they built natural gas plants shortly before the war under the premise that they must be Hydrogen ready, aka right now we use natural gas but promise in a few years when Hydrogen production is there, we'll switch to Hydrogen. That can be very easily criticized as green washing of the gas plants (although a gas plant is much better than what it would have replaced, brown coal). Now with the war and the pipelines destroyed, Germany went a different route and instead runs the coal plants for a longer time. But if you look at the production side, they are building a solar power plant. How is that green washing? There is no way to use a solar power plant other than to collect renewable energy. Either it is operational and collects renewable energy, to send it to various places, or it is not operational, but then it's been a bad investment for the investors. Now, maybe it could be part of some greater scheme where one uses this plant as the "source" of a multiple of the ammonium it can actually produce, and sells ammonium from fossil sources as made by Chilean sun. But that should then be addressed on its own, and not hamper the project itself (although of course a different location would be better that doesn't risk the operations of scientific instruments worth billions).
kbolino 2y ago
They may feel that way, but that seems emotional rather than rational. The choices for small-scale energy sources are: batteries with all their dirty mining, biofuels taking away lots of arable land from food/textile/etc production, or fuel cells which can still involve petrochemicals (but don't have to). There are no perfect options, and strapping enough solar panels or wind turbines to a vehicle (car, bus, train, airplane, etc) to make it drivable is just not even remotely feasible. No doubt the petrochemical companies want to continue existing, but shifting the transportation infrastructure away from directly burning gasoline and natural gas is a net win even if in the short term there are still hydrocarbons involved. Going all in on electric vehicles only is not diversifying the solution space enough.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > choices for small-scale energy sources are: batteries with all their dirty mining, biofuels taking away lots of arable land from food/textile/etc production, or fuel cells Storage also includes flywheels and pumped hydro. Hydrogen is mostly a farce.
  - kbolino 2y ago
    The key adjective there is "small-scale". There are many more alternatives when size is not an issue. Flywheels are very useful but their energy density is too low to be the primary power source for a vehicle.
- Workaccount2 2y ago
  The dirty mining and manufacturing of batteries is the dumbest red herring there is. It's like saying we need to get rid of toilet paper because it cuts down so many trees. Hydrogen on the other hand clearly is pushed by fossil fuels since it leaves the door open for them to be a major player.
  - bobthepanda 2y ago
    Hydrogen/syngas right now is the only way forward for long distance sea or plane travel, since batteries are too heavy.
    - koverstreet 2y ago
      We're going to get a 4x energy density improvement from lithium sulfur batteries, just as soon as production ramps up.
      - bobthepanda 2y ago
        Wikipedia lists the energy density of kerosene as 9.7k Wh/L, and lithium sulfur at 550 Wh/L, which is not great.
epistasis 2y ago
There's two types of hydrogen: 1) ammonia for fertilizer production and perhaps other industrial decarbonization, and 2) fantasies of energy storage, fuel, etc. Environmentalists know of the necessity of ammonia, but push back hard on the second. Michael Liebreich's hydrogen ladder is fairly good at summarizing an honest assessment of where hydrogen will be useful: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hydrogen-ladder-version-50-michael-liebreich/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hydrogen-ladder-version-50-mi... And you'll see that it gets pushed in lots of very inappropriate places. It's funny how much benefit of the doubt is given to really bad tech, like hydrogen and large nuclear reactors, despite decades of data showing that they always underperform expectations and that people who implement them always overpromise and underdeliver. It's a stark contrast to solar and wind and storage, which always seem to underpromise and overdeliver, and these technologies face huge amounts of undue skepticism not only from decision makers but also the press and the public. There's a lot of decision making in energy that is extremely disconnected from data and reality, and most of hydrogen decision making these days is disconnected from reality.
- Galaxeblaffer 2y ago
  you are right that hydrogen is a fantasy.. but wait.. what is this solar and wind plus storage you speak of that overdeliver, specifically what storage are you talking about? the wind industry has heavily been pushing hydrogen as this storage at least in Germany and Denmark and as far as i know there's absolutely zero success here despite maasny years of trying
- legulere 2y ago
  You state that energy storage is a fantasy, liebreich puts Long Duration Grid Balancing as a B on the hydrogen ladder. Sure it's going to be extremely expensive, but I don't see any cheaper alternative for countries without dark winters where also the wind can sometimes be not enough. I agree though that it gets pushed in lots of inappropriate places, where better alternatives exist.
IncreasePosts 2y ago
Environmental activists have their own biases and blind spots.

I understand it if you look at the receiving end. Say in Germany they built natural gas plants shortly before the war under the premise that they must be Hydrogen ready, aka right now we use natural gas but promise in a few years when Hydrogen production is there, we'll switch to Hydrogen. That can be very easily criticized as green washing of the gas plants (although a gas plant is much better than what it would have replaced, brown coal). Now with the war and the pipelines destroyed, Germany went a different route and instead runs the coal plants for a longer time. But if you look at the production side, they are building a solar power plant. How is that green washing? There is no way to use a solar power plant other than to collect renewable energy. Either it is operational and collects renewable energy, to send it to various places, or it is not operational, but then it's been a bad investment for the investors. Now, maybe it could be part of some greater scheme where one uses this plant as the "source" of a multiple of the ammonium it can actually produce, and sells ammonium from fossil sources as made by Chilean sun. But that should then be addressed on its own, and not hamper the project itself (although of course a different location would be better that doesn't risk the operations of scientific instruments worth billions).

kbolino 2y ago

They may feel that way, but that seems emotional rather than rational. The choices for small-scale energy sources are: batteries with all their dirty mining, biofuels taking away lots of arable land from food/textile/etc production, or fuel cells which can still involve petrochemicals (but don't have to). There are no perfect options, and strapping enough solar panels or wind turbines to a vehicle (car, bus, train, airplane, etc) to make it drivable is just not even remotely feasible. No doubt the petrochemical companies want to continue existing, but shifting the transportation infrastructure away from directly burning gasoline and natural gas is a net win even if in the short term there are still hydrocarbons involved. Going all in on electric vehicles only is not diversifying the solution space enough.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> choices for small-scale energy sources are: batteries with all their dirty mining, biofuels taking away lots of arable land from food/textile/etc production, or fuel cells Storage also includes flywheels and pumped hydro. Hydrogen is mostly a farce.
- kbolino 2y ago
  The key adjective there is "small-scale". There are many more alternatives when size is not an issue. Flywheels are very useful but their energy density is too low to be the primary power source for a vehicle.
Workaccount2 2y ago
The dirty mining and manufacturing of batteries is the dumbest red herring there is. It's like saying we need to get rid of toilet paper because it cuts down so many trees. Hydrogen on the other hand clearly is pushed by fossil fuels since it leaves the door open for them to be a major player.
- bobthepanda 2y ago
  Hydrogen/syngas right now is the only way forward for long distance sea or plane travel, since batteries are too heavy.
  - koverstreet 2y ago
    We're going to get a 4x energy density improvement from lithium sulfur batteries, just as soon as production ramps up.
    - bobthepanda 2y ago
      Wikipedia lists the energy density of kerosene as 9.7k Wh/L, and lithium sulfur at 550 Wh/L, which is not great.

epistasis 2y ago

There's two types of hydrogen: 1) ammonia for fertilizer production and perhaps other industrial decarbonization, and 2) fantasies of energy storage, fuel, etc. Environmentalists know of the necessity of ammonia, but push back hard on the second. Michael Liebreich's hydrogen ladder is fairly good at summarizing an honest assessment of where hydrogen will be useful: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hydrogen-ladder-version-50-michael-liebreich/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hydrogen-ladder-version-50-mi... And you'll see that it gets pushed in lots of very inappropriate places. It's funny how much benefit of the doubt is given to really bad tech, like hydrogen and large nuclear reactors, despite decades of data showing that they always underperform expectations and that people who implement them always overpromise and underdeliver. It's a stark contrast to solar and wind and storage, which always seem to underpromise and overdeliver, and these technologies face huge amounts of undue skepticism not only from decision makers but also the press and the public. There's a lot of decision making in energy that is extremely disconnected from data and reality, and most of hydrogen decision making these days is disconnected from reality.

Galaxeblaffer 2y ago
you are right that hydrogen is a fantasy.. but wait.. what is this solar and wind plus storage you speak of that overdeliver, specifically what storage are you talking about? the wind industry has heavily been pushing hydrogen as this storage at least in Germany and Denmark and as far as i know there's absolutely zero success here despite maasny years of trying
legulere 2y ago
You state that energy storage is a fantasy, liebreich puts Long Duration Grid Balancing as a B on the hydrogen ladder. Sure it's going to be extremely expensive, but I don't see any cheaper alternative for countries without dark winters where also the wind can sometimes be not enough. I agree though that it gets pushed in lots of inappropriate places, where better alternatives exist.

IncreasePosts 2y ago

Environmental activists have their own biases and blind spots.