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>Currently, industrial production of hydrogen relies overwhelmingly on fossil fuels to power the electrolysis process. Currently 95+% of hydrogen is produced f
by schiffern 12y ago
>Currently, industrial production of hydrogen relies overwhelmingly on fossil fuels to power the electrolysis process.
Currently 95+% of hydrogen is produced from natural gas via steam reformation (releasing just as much CO2 and fugitive methane as burning it), which also uses lots of heat (read: coal). With such an enormous factual inaccuracy, it's hard to take the rest of the article seriously.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_reforming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_reforming
- wmeredith 12y agoUh, coal and natural gas are both fossil fuels. Edit: As long as we're using wikipedia links for citation, here's the one on fossil fuels. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel
- beambot 12y agoThey are fossil fuels, but extracting hydrogen from natural gas does not use electrolysis. So the article is factually incorrect, yes?
- wmeredith 12y agoAh yes, I see. I thought you were saying that coal wasn't a fossil fuel and that's what the error was.
- schiffern 12y agoThat was a different person who replied, but their explanation is correct! Furthermore, the distinction is much more than just pedantic. Hydrogen production from electrolysis (which theoretically can be carbon neutral) is about 3x as expensive as hydrogen production from steam reformation (which realistically can't be carbon-neutral). And I'll give you one guess which method all the hydrogen articles talk about… When put in those terms, it becomes quite obvious that the whole operation is a fossil fuel bait-and-switch. http://www.fsec.ucf.edu/en/consumer/hydrogen/basics/production.htm http://www.fsec.ucf.edu/en/consumer/hydrogen/basics/producti...