More use of Hydrogen

[Aargent]

I am a great believer that Hydrogen is the answer to our fuel and climate change problems, including cars, but now they are working on something else as well. The argument about the expense is somewhat mitigated by the use of wind turbines off peak.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-50873047

and things can only improve.

[Devil]

There is a big misconception about hydrogen. It is not a fuel; it is a means of using energy. There are 2 basic ways of making hydrogen: electrolysis and transforming methane. In both cases, energy that you already have is lost in the transformation as physics disallows any gain in energy, so why not use the original energy, rather than try to transform it, with losses, into a different form?

[Aargent]

I know that you keep saying that Hydrogen is not a ' Fuel ', but every article that I read calls it as such and this one now shows how to make it cheaper

https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/scien ... -out-water

[Devil]

OK, let me expand on the 'fuel' issue you raise; I suppose it is my slightly loose terminology. Let me expand on it in better language. Hydrogen is not a source of energy, but only a carrier of energy supplied from outside (electricity in electrolysis or gas derived by stripping the carbon out of methane). In reality, the energy cost is horrifically high from a power station to car wheels via H2, compared with an electric battery car, as the diagram shows.

2020-01-03_172235.jpg (93.8 KiB) Viewed 1864 times

If you want a high-level techie article on why hydrogen is economically inefficient for any application, try https://www.industrializedcyclist.com/ulf%20bossel.pdf published by the IEEE. Its concluding sentence is:

'The title question "Does a hydrogen economy make sense?" must be answered with a definite "Never". However, niche applications for the use of hydrogen energy are abundant and should be addressed.'

[Devil]

As a quickie rejoinder, I published a web page on the subject at
http://bnellis.eu/global/glhydrogen.html

[jagwheels]

Not that long ago people thought there was only one galaxy. Science proved that wrong. Scientists are working on trying to solve things like hydrogen as an alternative fuel some others are trying to solve the fusion problem while others are trying to solve Dark matter. In my own lifetime I have seen so many advances from science in my daily life that I think that given time these problems will be resolved by the next generation of young scientists