
After many false starts, hydrogen power might now bear fruit - helsinkiandrew
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/07/04/after-many-false-starts-hydrogen-power-might-now-bear-fruit
======
threatripper
Hydrogen has an efficiency problem. You need to convert other forms of energy
to hydrogen at a loss. Then you need to store it and transport it, which is
costly and may impose quite some energy cost for cooling or compression. Then
you need to convert it back to electricity, also at a loss. If you start at
electricity, the electrical grid and batteries would be much more efficient.
If you start at oil or gas, you could use convention ICEs and get comparable
overall efficiencies. For them transport and delivery is a solved problem.

Hydrogen fuel cells are clean where you use them. But so are batteries. Inner
cities could be kept cleaner using either. Inner city traffic is mostly short
range, so batteries are at an advantage.

Batteries have a rare earth problem. But so do Hydrogen fuel cells. There is
work to reduce it for both technologies.

Hydrogen fuel cells have a problem with varying loads. You would use
additional batteries in cars to supply peak demand when accelerating or store
braking energy. For comparable weight, range, and price you could replace all
hydrogen technology with more batteries. Those bigger batteries would also
wear out slower because the power demand per cell is lower.

So, when would hydrogen make sense? I think only if you don't care for
efficiency. When you have so much electrical power that it costs you nothing
and is available at least a few hours every night. Hydrogen would do well in a
combination with large scale nuclear fission/fusion. It could take decades
until we get there if we ever go that route.

I see that, as batteries become less and less expensive, the niche where
Hydrogen could have good advantage is getting smaller and smaller. However you
twist and turn it, either oil&gas or batteries have the advantage.

~~~
svara
Many of the things you're saying aren't correct, see my other comment (sibling
to yours) for references.

Nuclear is not cheap compared to photovoltaics, wind and hydro. Since the
former two are bursty, overcapacity in them leads to cheap excess energy at
times, which needs to be stored.

Which storage method is the best depends on multiple factors, particularly on
the duration of storage, capacity required and frequency of
charging/discharging.

Batteries are great for relatively short term storage, but for long term,
seasonal storage, hydrogen and pumped hydro are the options we have. Pumped
hydro capacity is limited, and the cost of hydrogen production and storage is
coming down. So that's where hydrogen makes sense: Long term, high capacity
storage.

~~~
nicoburns
Do we really need long-term storage? Wouldn't it be cheaper just to
overprovision production?

~~~
sacred_numbers
It's almost always cheaper to overbuild renewables than to use seasonal
storage. Seasonal storage is used once a year, so if you can store a Kwh of
energy for $1 it still increases the cost of the stored electricity by 4-5
cents per Kwh. Let's look at a 1 Kw average output. Assume that you have 6 Kw
of solar, along with 18 Kwh of batteries. This will work fine 7-8 months out
of the year, but will not be sufficient for winter, so you will need seasonal
storage. About 2000 Kwh should be sufficient to make up for the deficit.
Alternatively, how much solar would you need to avoid seasonal storage? About
10-12 Kw would probably work. That would mean an additional $3,200 to $4,800
in capital costs, assuming 80 cents per watt of solar. In order for seasonal
storage to compete it would need to cost less than about $2 per KWh. For
hydrogen this would equate to about $40 per kg. That's on the low end of
estimates I've seen for underground hydrogen storage, and doesn't even take
into account the cost of generating the hydrogen. It also doesn't take into
account revenue generated from selling excess electricity in summer. Even if
you sold excess electricity for only 1 cent per Kwh you could still offset
about half the cost of the extra solar capacity.

I think many people see excess capacity as a form of waste to be reduced, but
it's like thinking that gigabit fiber is a waste because it's not used to it's
full capacity. The value of oversupply is that it's always available when you
need it. The fact that new industries can spawn from the super cheap rates for
excess electricity or data is just a bonus.

~~~
pfdietz
> It's almost always cheaper to overbuild renewables than to use seasonal
> storage.

I disagree, especially at high latitudes. Try that in the UK, for example, at
[https://model.energy/](https://model.energy/)

~~~
nicoburns
Can't we just use more wind in the UK?

~~~
pfdietz
You can. It's cheaper to also have some hydrogen. Not just for seasonal
storage, but to act as a backup for rare long lulls during winter. Without
this insurance policy, the renewables have to be sized for extreme worst
cases.

------
svara
I've been diving into this literature a bit recently, and it's been mostly
encouraging. Affordable clean energy is realistic.

Clean energy sources are typically the cheapest sources of energy [0]. The
intermittent production issue is solvable: At ~150 $/kWh storage, a
combination of storage and renewables is the cheapest energy source 95% of the
time [1].

The cost of different energy storage methods is coming down exponentially [2].
A combination of Li-Ion battery (short-term), pumped hydro (medium-term) and
hydrogen (long-term, i.e. seasonal) storage is probably how to smooth out the
burstiness of renewable energy production eventually [3].

When green hydrogen infrastructure is commonplace, the hydrogen can also be
used to make synthetic jet fuel and feedstocks for the chemical industry.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source)

[1]
[https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(19)30300-9](https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351\(19\)30300-9)

[2]
[https://www.nature.com/articles/nenergy2017110/figures/1?pro...](https://www.nature.com/articles/nenergy2017110/figures/1?proof=true)

[3]
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S254243511...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S254243511830583X)

~~~
dmix
I've read about a couple of solar projects that projected x/kWh and turned out
to be much worse in production.

Pakistan's big deployment is one example, it was planned to be 100MW but only
produced 18MW. Mostly because they didn't factor in the dust that would cover
the panels, keeping them clean was very expensive (I'm curious how this
applies to other proposed desert deployments). Nor factoring in the typical
malaise of public projects adding significant delays/costs, which is hardly
unique to Pakistan when it comes to major infrastructure in 2020.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaid-e-
Azam_Solar_Park](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaid-e-Azam_Solar_Park)

Then there's the famous Solyandra which got half a billion in US tax payer
money and flopped without ever being competitive price-wise:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solyndra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solyndra)

Tesla's famous Australian battery factory only has enough to power 30k homes
for about 1-2hrs each day. It was on-schedule, which is rare, and also makes
money but scaling it up to millions of homes to make a real dent in coal would
be much more challenging, especially sourcing enough lithium.

I think it's safe to take any cheery prediction from green projects and add
1.5x time/production costs and/or minus 30% of the expected output.

Note: I'm not trying to rain on the parade, I'm otherwise all for this stuff
as long as it's realistic on a large scale.

~~~
walrus01
I'm honestly curious what is the big challenge with keeping large arrays of
ground mounted panels clean in Pakistan. The prevailing wage for unskilled
labor for a 6 day a week, 45-hour work week for one laborer to clean panels is
probably about $250-300 a month (USD equivalent, in rupees) in that area. That
would be a _good_ wage compared to construction work or farm work in that
region.

With some basic equipment like rolling carts with sprayers and squeegees on
extension sticks, how many individual 72-cell sized panels (1.99 x 0.99 meter
size) can one person clean in one day? Multiply by probably 4 to 6 full time
staff positions.

~~~
zamfi
Quoting the Wikipedia page cited above:

> It required one litre of water to clean, each of 400,000 installed panels. A
> total 15 days cleaning cycle required, 124 million litres of water enough to
> sustain 9000 people, while rain in Cholistan desert is rare and far between.
> Providing such huge amount of water in desert terrain, became a challenging
> and daunting task for management team. Besides, the manual cleaning methods
> allowed setting of dust before it was re-cleaned.

~~~
mdorazio
This seems kind of like a bullshit excuse where they just didn't really want
to fix the issue. There are a number of waterless cleaning systems that have
been available for years, for example [1]. Additionally, why the hell would
you throw away the water used for cleaning? Filtering the dust particulate out
of the water is pretty straightforward (hell, you can go from muddy to fairly
clean water with nothing more than a cotton t-shirt), then you reuse it to
clean more panels. 1L/panel with even basic reclamation is ridiculous.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdidbRQaUEY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdidbRQaUEY)

~~~
ianai
Agree. They could probably just have people walk around with blowers to blow
the sand off.

~~~
smnplk
Would those be a gasoline powered blowers ? ( ͜ʖ)

~~~
datameta
Perhaps a step down transformer that directly feeds a dyson blade style blower
at one of the edges of each panel. More up front equipment and infrastructure
cost but no employee wages. However I'm sure this is full of holes due to cost
multiplied by number of solar panels and the number of transformers needed. It
is also only able to clean only during the day assuming no battery or pumped
hydro storage.

------
speedgoose
I used to drive a hydrogen car once in a while a few years ago. It was nice to
fill the car in a few minutes and get about 300km of range, but that was it.

With the hydrogen you have so few refueling stations, they are very expensive,
that range anxiety is a thing. To not improve things, reliability is very
poor. My work had a hydrogen refueling station on its parking. It was often
broken and actually a bit scary to walk past it. They eventually removed it,
which was a good call. Another hydrogen station sharing the same design
exploded a few months later. The hydrogen car sales dropped from not much to
virtually zero since in the country.

So to resume, hydrogen cars are expensive, refueling stations are expensive,
the energy is expensive.

Electric cars with large batteries are a much better solution to hydrogen cars
IMHO. You can charge everywhere, the eletric grid is very will developped, the
energy is cheap. The cars are also much more powerful thanks to the large
batteries pack, it's useless but it feels nice.

~~~
Dumblydorr
The issue of charging was also there with BEVs, until Tesla straight up built
a huge network of superchargers. The players in hydrogen say they will do the
same. But for personal vehicles, hydrogen won't math out, it's greatest
advantage is its energy density for trucks.

It's for long range trucks that we will see hydrogen first. Green hydrogen
will act as energy storage, big renewables grids can dump excess into green
hydrogen and thus avoid curtailment. Then, you replace heavy duty trucks,
which need to be able to not have heavy batteries, with fuel cell trucks, and
you build out 1000 large hydrogen stations across the transit network.

~~~
RobertoG
Maybe ships is an even better fit than trucks?

~~~
Eric_WVGG
I was wondering the same thing, from a density perspective. And similarly for
airplanes.

As planes and boats expend fuel, they get lighter, so less fuel is needed to
move the second half of the journey, and less for the last quarter, etc. That
“bonus” doesn’t work out with batteries, you need to move all the weight for
all the journey. The energy density of batteries, to my understanding, just
doesn’t add up correctly for boats or most airplanes.

What I would like to know is, wouldn’t a hydrogen-powered boat or plane not
only have a similar calculation on how much fuel is needed, but also (in the
case of boats) be even cheaper to move because its fuel payload is lighter
than water? Water 997kg/m3 vs liquid hydro 71kg/m3, also gasoline 783kg/m3,
sounds like a nice bonus for jumbo jets too. (I am NOT a physicist or
mechanical engineer)

Gasoline-powered sea vessels are terrible polluters, incidentally, accounting
for 18% of all air pollution. Between the air pollution benefits and
possibility of the vessels being so much more fuel efficient, it seems like
hydrogen would be a benefit even if the production isn’t completely clean.

~~~
dredmorbius
_with batteries, you need to move all the weight for all the journey_

For metal-air batteries, one of the more promising areas of research, the
problem is actually worse: the cells _gain mass_ as oxygen is reacted with the
metal anode, discharging the battery.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal–air_electrochemical_cell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal–air_electrochemical_cell)

For marine propulsion, heavy fuels are typically preferred (bunker fuel
typically, thogh deisel and petrol engines do exist). Much of the pollution is
in the form of particulates and sulfer emissions. You can actually see major
shipping routes on atmospheric sensing maps by SO2 emissions:

[https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/chem/surface/level/ove...](https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/chem/surface/level/overlay=so2smass/orthographic=-257.23,7.16,346)

As long-term risks these are ... somewhat minor as these contaminants settle
out quickly: in days to months rather than centuries to millennia for CO2 and
methane. Not great for respiratory health, but not the long-term planetary
risk fossil fuel combustion overall is.

~~~
MayeulC
> For metal-air batteries, one of the more promising areas of research, the
> problem is actually worse: the cells gain mass as oxygen is reacted with the
> metal anode, discharging the battery.

That's interesting, thank you for the info. Having a different characteristic
from the usual one might lead to interesting applications. For instance,
airplanes use a lot of fuel for takeoff, as they pay double the price for the
weight of their fuel: they need to carry it up, when they have the most. This
could actually be a game-changer, I think.

That could also be exploited: raise the battery when it is charged, have it
gain weight, generate electricity while lowering it. Perpetual motion doesn't
exist, of course. But gaining a bit of extra mileage is theoretically possible
here :)

~~~
dredmorbius
More likely, rethinking flight-segment dynamics and design.

The bulk of energy expenditure is on takeoff and climb segments of flight.
Cruise is relatively low energy, and during approach and landing, aircraft are
frequently effectively gliding. Pilots and aviation engineers speak of the
amount of energy in the aircraft, exclusive of fuel, represented by its mass,
altitude, and velocity.

Ideas I've seen suggested include catapult or towed launch, ejectable or
jettisonable batteries, and/or hybrid fuel/electric designs, exploiting these
factors.

The general problems are:

\- These all increase complexity and failure risks.

\- They are novel (and hence risky) concepts.

\- Virtually all have scaling issues, being possibly feasible for smaller
(drone, single-passenger, or few-passenger craft), but not heavy or superheavy
jumbo jets. (Square-cube relations mean, generally, small aircraft are easier
than large ones).

\- The typical power requirements are violated in emergencies. Fuel-driven
aircraft can apply TOGO (take-off/go-around) power on demand, whilst a hybrid
or compound design likely could not. And final flight-phase aircraft typically
have half their takeoff weight, having burnt the difference in fuel, further
expanding performance options.

As for "lowering the battery", you'd do better to fly the entire aircraft at a
gradually descending flight path, trading lower-drag high altitude for higher-
drag lift as the battery gains mass. Current long-haul aircraft (sometimes)
practice this in reverse, reching higher flight levels as fuel is consumed,
lift requirements reduced, and lower-drag high-elevation flight being
possible.

------
Majromax
This article looks like a fine discussion about the economics of hydrogen
production, but unless I've missed something it skips over the immense storage
difficulty.

Hydrogen is a difficult thing to manage in quantity. Its density is
fantastically low, so storing it in gas form requires absurd pressures -- an
inherent risk to any vehicle. Storing it in liquid form goes a long way
towards solving the density/pressure problem, but now the system must have a
full cryogenic process to _keep_ the hydrogen liquified. (Worse yet: over time
hydrogen embrittles
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_embrittlement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_embrittlement))
metals, making storage even more complicated)

This isn't much different than the problems faced by rockets, and it's why
liquid hydrogen is not considered a 'storable propellant' for long-duration
flight.

In a zero-net-carbon economy, residual demand for high power density may still
have to be filled by some kind of bio-derived or synthetic hydrocarbon.

~~~
darksaints
We don't need to rely on metals for hydrogen storage...composites work just
fine. And for use cases like maritime and aviation power systems, cryogenic
storage _isn 't necessary_. At all. Because even with simple styrofoam
insulation, consumption rates vastly exceed evaporation rates.

------
jakozaur
Main points:

1\. The only hydrogen produced from electricity is ecological. Carbon capture
doesn’t work today.

2\. The hydrogen from electricity is expensive, though as wind and solar get
exponential cheaper, we will end up with spikes excess cheap electricity
(negative prices today or disconnecting plants). It makes sense to produce
hydrogen during those spikes.

3\. Cars on hydrogen don’t make sense at all. The massive cost of
infrastructure plus batteries are superior and getting better on that front.

4\. Hydrogen from electricity can replace the first reformation from natural
gas.

5\. Next promising use cases are industrial heating, such as steel production
(instead of coal).

6\. Least profitable, but still plausible, uses hydrogen as long-term energy
storage and mixing it with natural gas.

7\. I wonder whether generating hydrogen from seawater and getting back
freshwater would improve the economics of this form of energy storage.

~~~
maxerickson
1 kg of (electrically produced) hydrogen costs more than 1000 gallons of
desal.

(1 kg of hydrogen would make a few gallons of water)

~~~
hwillis
edit: misinterpreted "desal" as diesel rather than desalinated water.

Well that's just not at all true. Hydrogen by electrolysis costs <$20/kg. A
much more interesting fact about a kg of hydrogen is also that it has very
close to the same energy content as a gallon of diesel, and significantly more
when used in a fuel cell vs an ICE.

[https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/36734.pdf](https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/36734.pdf)

~~~
maxerickson
1000 gallons of desalination costs $2 or $3.

I was responding to point 7, not comparing hydrogen to _diesel_.

~~~
hwillis
ah, I thought you had misspelled.

------
mdavis6890
I wish I'd stop hearing about Hydrogen as a fuel source. It's not. It's just a
battery, and should simply be compared to other types of batteries, like Li-
Ion. Maybe Hydrogen fuel cells are better batteries, maybe not.

But it's still just a battery, and needs to be charged from the electric power
grid (by using the electricity to separate hydrogen from water), just like any
other battery would.

~~~
boublepop
The defining difference between fuel-cells and batteries is that fuel-cells
don’t need to be “recharged” as in running an electrochemical reaction in
reverse, they just need you to change the fuel.

~~~
acidburnNSA
But the fuel was charged from another source in fuel cells too. You don't mine
hydrogen. The energy carrier point remains. The primary energy will be from
gas, oil, coal, nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, or tidal.

------
spenrose
A summary of the virtuous cycle created by cheap renewables and hydrogen
electrolyzation:

[https://www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2020/6/17/renewables-p...](https://www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2020/6/17/renewables-
plus-hydrogen-almost-all-that-we-need)

Lots of comments on this thread that reveal folks are up to date with the
state of hydrogen infrastructure c. 2017. It's changing really fast as
billions of dollars are poured into R&D and pilot projects. For example,
storage and transport:

[https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-japan-hydrogen-chiyoda-
cor...](https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-japan-hydrogen-chiyoda-corp/japans-
chiyoda-says-hydrogen-pilot-project-begins-to-fuel-power-plant-idUKKBN23W1LR)

Siemens has pledged to make turbines that run on 100% hydrogen by 2030:
[https://new.siemens.com/global/en/company/stories/energy/hyd...](https://new.siemens.com/global/en/company/stories/energy/hydrogen-
capable-gas-turbine.html)

Hydrogen trains: [https://www.snam.it/en/Media/Press-
releases/Agreement_Alstom...](https://www.snam.it/en/Media/Press-
releases/Agreement_Alstom_and_Snam_hydrogen_trains_in_Italy.html)

Hydrogen in steelmaking: [https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-
insights/latest-ne...](https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-
insights/latest-news/metals/061620-interview-gfg-alliance-readies-liberty-
alvance-simec-for-ipos)

I could post 15 more. Our collective priors were well-grounded just a couple
years ago, but it is time for a big update.

------
superklondike
EV owner here. Why would I want to drive to a fueling station when I can fuel
up at home with electricity? And from a maintenance level, ev’s have
substantially fewer parts and almost zero maintenance, whereas hydrogen
perpetuates the ICE-engine paradigm... frequent oil changes, many moving
parts, lots of service costs at the dealership. The economics of H2 may be
different at the commercial scale, but we use a Chevy Bolt in a far northern
climate and get nearly 200 miles of range in the winter. The future is already
here, and H2 missed the consumer vehicle bandwagon.

------
jitendrac
I think article missed a really large sector which uses coal and produces
millions of tons of co2 each year, That is cement industry. Heating clinker to
produce cement is energy intensive long process, where big investments towards
technology for using Hydrogen can be fruitful.

~~~
jillesvangurp
Wood is basically emerging as an alternative in this sector lately. There are
some wood based building materials coming on the market that are cheap,
sustainable, light, safe, strong, etc.

Think people building sky scrapers in areas with exposure to earthquakes and
tropical storms safe. I'm talking about Tokyo.
[https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/feb/16/plyscraper-
ci...](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/feb/16/plyscraper-city-tokyo-
tower-wood-w350)

Hydrogen is not really needed to fix this.

~~~
jitendrac
yup, new innovation is needed in construction. But wood is not gonna replace
all cement-concrete use-cases.Cement-concrete has far more usecases from
skyscrapers like bridges,Dams to road construction.

------
tomxor
Following Musk's thinking... i'd really like to see that energy density volume
vs mass chart adjusted for average vehicle weight. i.e see the total system,
engine, storage components and fuel converter etc.

On that graph, compared to petrol, liquid hydrogen appears to be about 4x
larger by volume but interestingly only 2/5ths of the weight.

The electric motors are lighter sure, but then what about the mass and volume
of the compressed storage tank and the fuel cell itself? difficult to know if
it starts to gain on IC engine again. lots of questions that make that graph
feel pretty meaningless.

~~~
ecpottinger
Not once you include the storage tanks.

~~~
tomxor
That's my entire point.

------
jacquesm
Hydrogen, to put it simply is a battery, not a fuel, and a relatively poor
battery at that. For all the money dumped into it and the amount of research
that has been done BEV is now generally considered the way forward. It also
doesn't suffer from the problem that Hydrogen tends to go FOOF when you least
expect it, and there isn't the pesky problem of Hydrogen embrittlement to deal
with.

------
carapace
Hydrogen is sexy but alcohol matches our existing context better.

Small-scale alcohol fuel production integrated into regenerative agriculture
farms is different from mass ethanol production.

You can ferment anything that has starch or sugar, the leftovers from the
distillation can be composted or fed to livestock. Most existing internal
combustion engines can be modified to use alcohol fuel. And it's carbon-
neutral.

~~~
dredmorbius
Feedstock is the problem here: there's simply not enough net primary
productivity on the planet, and humans already appropriate ~20%.

There are some marginal gains possible, but on the order of single-digit
percentages of present fossil fuel consumption. _Maybe_ low double-digits.

The US had a largely biofuel based transport system in 1900. Horses consumed
20% of all US grain production, the population was under 100m, and transport
generally was a small fraction of today's values (or at least last year's) per
capita: closer to 300 mi/yr, much of that walking, than 15,000.

~~~
elago
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. has 434,164,946
acres of “cropland”—land that is able to be worked in an industrial fashion
(monoculture). This is the prime, level, and generally deep agricultural soil.
In addition to cropland, the U.S. has 939,279,056 acres of “farmland.” This
land is also good for agriculture, but it’s not as level and the soil not as
deep. Additionally, there is a vast amount of acreage—swamps, arid or sloped
land, even rivers, oceans, and ponds—that the USDA doesn’t count as cropland
or farmland, but which is still suitable for growing specialized energy crops.

Of its nearly half a billion acres of prime cropland, the U.S. uses only 72.1
million acres for corn in an average year. The land used for corn takes up
only 16.6% of our prime cropland, and only 7.45% of our total agricultural
land.

Even if, for alcohol production, we used only what the USDA considers prime
flat cropland, we would still have to produce only 368.5 gallons of alcohol
per acre to meet 100% of the demand for transportation fuel at today’s levels.
Corn could easily produce this level—and a wide variety of standard crops
yield up to triple this.

~~~
dredmorbius
I (and many others more qualified) have run the numbers. It's not pretty.

A decade ago biofuels were my first thought. The maths simply don't add up.
Our options are far less energy per person, far fewer people, other sources of
energy, or, most likely, some combination of these.

The highest claimed yields are for algae, at a rather improbable 1,000
gal/(acre * year):

 _[Y]ou might consider floating the algae offshore, along the Pacific and
Atlantic costs. It 's roughly 1,300 miles from San Diego, CA to Port Angeles,
WA, and 1,800 miles from Homestead, FL to Lubec, ME. Dividing our 443,000
square miles by those two added together, we find we'd have to extend our grow
region some distance off-shore. That is, 143 miles off-shore. The full length
of both coasts._

 _Or perhaps you 'd prefer to re-purpose the Gulf of Mexico. Its total area is
about 600,000 mi2, we'd need about 3/4 of it dedicated to algae growth._

[https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2cvap7/the_int...](https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2cvap7/the_intractable_problem_of_biomass_for_fuels_is/)

Tom "Do the Math" Murphy:

[https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/11/the-biofuel-
grind/](https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/11/the-biofuel-grind/)

[https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/08/garbage-in-garbage-
out/](https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/08/garbage-in-garbage-out/)

The late David MacCay's _Alternative Energy Without the Hot Air_ gives a
comprehensive breakdown for the UK of alternative energy options. Again, the
picture is bleak.

[https://withouthotair.com](https://withouthotair.com)

The takeaways are _we use a lot of energy_ and _there are a lot of us_.

~~~
dredmorbius
Correction: that's David _MacKay_.

------
goda90
The article didn't touch on this at all, so has anyone heard updates on
attempts at doing in-vehicle hydrogen production from water and some sort of
reactant? It's been years since I saw something on it, but if I recall, it
used some pellets made of certain metals that react with the water to produce
hydrogen. You'd fill the tank with water, and after some number of fill ups
you'd also need to replenish the pellets which could be sent off for
recycling.

Edit: I found an article about this. It appears to have been developed by the
military and has been licensed out for more development:
[https://techxplore.com/news/2019-07-h2-power-hydrogen-
fuel-s...](https://techxplore.com/news/2019-07-h2-power-hydrogen-fuel-
startup.html)

~~~
Erlich_Bachman
A theory like that ignores most of known basic physics.

What would the energy source be? It does not matter what chemical or
electrochemical reactions are possible in general, what matters is where does
the energy come from. Water does not contain any energy. (Not any chemical
energy that can easily be extracted. Of course it contains energy in the sense
that E=MC^2, but in that sense we have about the same chance to run a car on
sand, or rocks or oreos.)

On the other hand, if you do have an energy source, then why would you need
water at all?? You would just use the energy to drive the car (like EVs do),
you wouldn't waste half of it to hydrolysis of water into hydrogen first to
use that hydrogen...

A theory about a "car running on water" (which, at least in my experience is
often followed by conversations about how Nicola Tesla could transfer energy
through the air, or about how government has all the technology for infinite
energy, but they block it from being used because they are evil) - is a pipe
dream which is heavily based on ignorance about physics and gross
underestimation of the difficulty of real engineering problems.

~~~
goda90
I found the Wikipedia article:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminum_based_nanogalvanic_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminum_based_nanogalvanic_alloys)

Saying this ignores basic physics is like saying gasoline engines ignore basic
physics. No one is saying that it's free energy. The question is, what is the
energy to produce/recycle the alloy? How many miles can you get out of a
reasonable supply of the alloy before replacing it? If those numbers are good
enough, maybe they'll perform better than battery vehicles. And so I'm asking
what's the state of that research.

------
admax88q
Hydrogen production is almost entirely produced from fossil fuels currently.
Its not really a low carbon energy source unless electrolysis can be made much
more efficient.

Its a shame this article didn't examine the production side of hydrogen.

~~~
hnick
I don't think most people consider it an energy source, more so a battery or
storage medium. And cheaper storage is an important part of the renewables
story because local supply can be unpredictable.

I saw this article earlier today along those lines:
[https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/alchemy-
of...](https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/alchemy-of-energy-
breakthrough-offers-mass-hydrogen-storage-options-20200702-p558dj.html)

Supposedly this stores hydrogen metal hydrides cheaper than lithium batteries,
whatever that means, but I'm not qualified to judge.

~~~
dghughes
There is a video on YouTube about Bob Lazar the area 51 guy. Only it's about
how he uses solar and wind to break down water into oxygen and hydrogen. He
stores the hydrogen as a metal hydride. The tanks are heated to release the
hydrogen and it's used to power his car.

------
Animats
If you want an hydrogen-powered car, buy a Toyota Mirai. They've been on sale
in California since 2016. There are a few hydrogen stations where you can fill
it. 5 minute refuel, about 300 mile range. (400 miles in the 2021 model.) The
first three years of hydrogen are included with the vehicle purchase. Vehicle
price about US$60K. (Expected to be higher for the 2021 model.)

Total US sales in 2019: 1502.

It's just not selling.

~~~
userbinator
_There are a few hydrogen stations where you can fill it._

...and that's the problem. Gasoline, diesel, and electricity are all far
easier to find than hydrogen.

(Electrolysis is also extremely inefficient, for those who might be
wondering.)

------
mrtnmcc
Something practical not mentioned here is that the proton exchange membrane in
fuel cells generally degrade in a few years and need to be replaced. This is a
major expense. Degradation is accelerated if the hydrogen (fuel) or oxygen
(from environment) are not pure.

------
gandalfian
I think the charts are saying roughly a litre of lithium battery has 1kwh, a
litre of liquid hydrogen 3kw and a litre of petrol 10kw. By 2050 your litre of
green hydrogen might cost 10 cents to make or 3c per kWh.

~~~
jillesvangurp
Electricity is approaching 1c per kWh in some recent solar plant bids. For
example, there were a few bids in the middle east recently that were getting
close to that. Battery cost is on track to dip below 100$ per kwh. E.g. Tesla
is rumored to be at or below that already/in the near future.

By 2050, energy cost is going to be measured differently. IMHO it stops being
a variable cost once it dips substantially below 1c per kwh. Your basically
spending more on coffee to keep yourself going on an average journey,
Arguably, if you have access to square meters, it's a cost that is amortized
over the one time cost of installing wind turbines, solar panels, batteries
and other infrastructure. Kind of expensive today but doable; that will be
very much different 3 decades from now.

Any business operating fleets of vehicles will want to minimize this cost.
That means investing in cheap sources of energy and a mass switch to battery
electric vehicles that is already kicking off right now. This takes time
obviously and doesn't happen overnight. But it's also not going to take
decades. It's one of those things where the payoff is non linear meaning it
goes from "oh wouldn't that be nice" to "I must do this now to survive as a
business" in just a few years. In other words, this will have largely been
completed by 2050.

This is good news for hydrogen as well because it means that there will be
plenty of excess energy from peak solar/wind that's basically there to be
used. Producing hydrogen and other synthetic fuels (and water) is an obvious
way to put that to use and can be used as a solution to fix e.g. shipping,
heavy industrial use, and other sectors currently depending on oil or coal.
That's after we've topped up our TWH of deployed grid and ev batteries of
course.

And maybe we'll figure out fusion as well by that time.

------
willis936
So many comments saying hydrogen, like lithium, is not a power source. They
are in a fusion device ;)

------
superklondike
Why would I want to drive to a fueling station when I can plug my ev in at
home?

------
jsilence
The explosion limits of hydrogen are very wide. I do not want to live in a
world with a widely deployed hydrogen infrastructure. Stuff is going to blow
up. People are going to die. Disclaimer: chemical engineer, German University.

~~~
MayeulC
People said that about electricity, too. A lot of people died. Houses burned.
Norms were changed regarding cabling and earthing. Hopefully, whatever we
decide to adopt as a technology will come with adequate safety norms.

While only tangentially related, a lot of people think about the Hindenburg
accident when talking about either hydrogen or dirigibles. But those contain
less fuel than an airplane, at least in terms of energy. And 35 people died,
around a third. To contrast with airliner accidents. But it sure left a mark
on collective psyche. And I agree that hydrogen is incredibly volatile and
explosive, which isn't a good fit for every application.

~~~
jsilence
The physical threat ranges of electrocution and explosions vastly differ.

------
nchase
Sorry, haven’t read the mountain of comments yet: will it be possible to have
a hybrid car that runs on Electric, with Hydrogen fuel cells as an alternative
fuel source?

------
cheesecracker
"might" \- so it won't, again.

------
mitchtbaum
pedal power also propels

------
kumarski
Okay, going to chime in here because this is categorically wrong on so many
fronts.

Tldr: Impossible for civilization to make an instantaneous non-gradual switch
to hydrogen fuel cells.

People like Hydrogen because they're hyped about how it is:

\- Clean

\- Plentiful

\- Emission-less

Hydrogen is difficult to handle.

\- Unwieldy as a gas

\- Boils at 20 degrees F/ \- 6 degrees C / ~420 Kelvins

\- Tough to maintain at a high pressure.

To go 300+ miles or ~480km or more on hdyrogen is ugh tough.

H - 120 MJ/kg

Gasoline - 44 MJ/kg

Volume wise, ugh.

H- 8 MJ/L

Gasoline - 32 MJ/L

You need ~5-10 kilograms of H2 to deal with light duty vehicles.

Compressing the stuff is annoying.

Training and retraining all the gas station attendants to deal with cryogenic
materials is no small undertaking.

There's 100K gasoline/diesel stations in the USA.

Very special handling for hydrogen.

Hydrogen penetrates metals.

Makes metals the enemy and things can wear down unexpectedly. Scary stuff.
Preventative maintenance is complicated.

Gasoline has ~4x-8x the kwh per a gallon to compressed hydrogen fuel. (my
calculation might be a bit off, but not that far off.)

Pumping hydrogen into a vehicle is done slowly from my recollection.

Hydrogen's explosion risk is extreme, the spark from the leak could cause it.
eekkkkk.

Hydrogen's flames are invisible. It's a pale blue flame that's difficult to
see during the day.

People might come back and say there's progress with magnesium adn/or carbon
nanotubes or other things, but they're all meh and don't scale.

Hydrogen has a shitty power to mass ratio. It escapes independently/leaks out
easily without you knowing. It's dangerously explosive!

It emits lots of CO2 to make the stuff. CH4+O2 = CO2+2H2 Makes the whole thing
seem like a pointless exercise.

The efficiency of manufacturing hydrogen for fuel usage is probably like 10%
to 30%. Can't imagine it being more than that.

I'm not a Chem E though.

To make a cryogenic pipeline system in the USA for H2 would cost $1T+

Every year I get asked about Hydrogen, it's all BS.

Any scientist that says it's highly viable has me wondering how much money
they wasted on their degree.

~~~
threatripper
Hydrogen might make some sense for long haul trucks. Then you need fewer
refueling stations on only the major routes. You could also generate the
hydrogen locally by using electricity.

Alternatively you could equip the trucks with batteries and connect them to
the electrical grid via overhead lines similar to trains for recharging.
Combined with autonomous driving those trucks could go non-stop and leave the
highway with full batteries.

~~~
postingawayonhn
Do we really need to convert long distance trucks to fully electric? Why not
just work on hybrid trucks to increase efficiency and allow them to operate
with zero emissions while in urban areas.

------
xivzgrev
As soon as I read hydrogen stored in a tank - did anyone else think potential
to explode in an accident?

~~~
sgt
Right. Based on the Hindenburg accident, we should just give up on Hydrogen.

