cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/8569504
How is the hydrogen made?
this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2024
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To save you all a google: it's made from natural gas, at a pretty significant energy loss compared to just burning the gas. It generates about 4 times more co2 than burning diesel.
Time to arm the swans and Canada geese, too.
That is true of all colours of hydrogen other than green (and possibly natural stores of 'fossil' hydrogen if they can be extracted without leakage).
Green hydrogen is better thought of as a battery than a fuel. It's a good way to store the excess from renewables and may be the only way to solve problems like air travel.
How hydrogen is transforming these tiny Scottish islands
That's not to say it's perfect. Hydrogen in the atmosphere slows down the decomposition of methane so leaks must be kept well below 5% or the climate benefits are lost. We don't have a good way to measure leaks. It's also quite inefficient because a lot of energy is needed to compress it for portable uses.
And, of course, the biggest problem is that Big Carbon will never stop pushing for dirtier hydrogens to be included in the mix, if green hydrogen paves the way.
Storing hydrogen is also really hard. It needs to be kept extremely cold, and when it isn't, it tends to pass right through most storage units.
But as a local battery, it can be very useful. Or for applications in large machinery where batteries aren't a useful option yet.
If the leaks of hydrogen should be kept under 5%, we don't have a good track record of keeping gas leaks under control anyway...
https://youtu.be/K2oL4SFwkkw?si=Kn-uO64U4X5B_szD
Yes. I'm not watching a video but it is a serious problem, especially as hydrogen degrades metals and finds its way out anyway. The private sector cannot be trusted to self-regulate nor the government to meaningfully regulate.
Trying very hard not to succumb to nihilism here ...
Or, in other words, the hydrogen economy is prone to bubbles and explosions here and there.
Well then we won't be chasing this technology until we can find a way to blame the consumer when it wrecks the environment...
And better yet, if the excess heat can be used. Last Friday i heard a sales rep from a (green) hydrogen company describe their solution as a heating solution that produce hydrogen at an energy storage conference. Seems fair to me😊
I really don’t get why hydrogen remains popular. Hydrogen is significantly less efficient than lithium batteries in storing electricity. There are currently dozens of technologies on the way for improving batteries beyond what’s possible with lithium. So what’s the market potential for green hydrogen again?
It wins by a huge margin on the energy to weight ratio. In scenarios where weight doesn't matter it's dumb, but there is potential in places like air travel where it does make sense.
I had to scroll way too far to find this - surely the main pro/con if hydrogen.
Storage was an issue in the past. Is it better now?
Batteries are too heavy for many applications (including, arguably, cars).
That doesn't make hydrogen the only solution but it is at least a currently available solution. I posted a link about why the Orkneys (population 23k) are producing hydrogen and switching much of their transport to it: they have so much wind the UK (population 70m) national grid can't take all the power they generate from it.
Hydrogen is useful in a lot of industrial processes. It also maybe win the race for green aviation fuel, but this one is not likely. There is plenty of market for green hydrogen.
There is also absolutely no reason to hype about any of it. Everybody hyping it on the media is trying to make global warming worse.
Industry uses A LOT of Hydrogen and that would increase dramatically if we stopped using fossil fuels as chemical feedstocks. eg. plastics, pharmaceuticals, dyes etc.
In case anyone wants to read up on it
Oh great, and I was wondering why some of our policians were pushing hydrogen cars as an alternative to electric cars, despite even the car industry telling them to shut the fuck up.
Some of car industry. Some are dumb or corrupt. Then a lot people/consumers just see the range and zero 'direct' emissions. They don't look at cost per mile, total energy efficiency, fuel storage and distribution, etc.
Finally, a correct answer within the context.
Didn‘t we have a process to electrically synthesize hydrogen out of water?
Electrolysis, it works but it takes a lot of energy to produce, so burning hydrogen from this would be a fools errand.
Wouldn't you spend almost same amount of energy to split water compared to heat produced by burning hydrogen?
Probably more because of entropy: Nature's IRS.
The only way for electrolysis to be greener than fossil fuels is to use renewable energy sources like wind or solar. It wouldn't produce enough to gain much market share in any case. So the oil lobby is pushing to derive it from petroleum, because they're Captain Planet villains.
That's why I said almost.
Yep. Basically gas battery.
But you could technically build huge solar panel areas in deserts and bring that hydrogen to populated areas. Or you could use excess energy from renewables to produce hydrogen, storing at least some of the excess energy for times where renewables produce less.
I thought it's made through electrolysis
You can, but it is totally inefficient
You get about 30% of the energy out that you put in
So it's more like a really bad battery
But with all the disadvantages of having to handle gas!
Yup! It has really good gravimetric energy density, but really bad charging efficiency.
Not THAT bad, really, it potentially has a much better mileage-to-weight ratio and sidesteps the issue of lithium recycling and politics
Great to gravametric energy density, okay volumetric energy density, great availability, terrible charging efficiency, and complicated handling and storing mechanisms. Lots of tradeoffs.