
The Hydrogen Hoax (2007) - dTal
https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-hydrogen-hoax
======
scottlocklin
Zubrin is not an honest interlocutor in this issue, though the basic message
is probably sound. Examples of his dishonesty:

1) The price argument. Hydrogen will generally be more expensive than
gasoline; his argument about current prices is like making an argument about
gasoline before it was a widely used industrial product.

2) The delivery argument: this doesn't even begin to make sense. Straw man
argument where he claims it couldn't be delivered efficiently in the domains
he suggests. It _is_ harder to deliver hydrogen than hydrocarbons, but the
numbers he quotes are just garbage.

3) Limiting the vehicle storage to compressed gas (muh hindenberg) and cryo.
No serious people really talk about this to my knowledge. Metal hydrides
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_storage#Metal_hydride...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_storage#Metal_hydrides))
are the way hydrogen probably would be transported in a hydrogen economy. It's
still less efficient volumetrically than hydrocarbons, but then _so is
everything else._ The argument that it must be as dense as hydrocarbons is
just goalposting. People like electric cars just fine, and the batteries they
use are 100x less efficient in energy density. At least at one point, the
envisioned hydrogen economy was you just retrofit hydride "gas tanks" to
existing internal combustion machines. If you can make everything else work,
that's a fairly reasonable thing to do. Which is probably why Zubrin never
mentions it.

4) Fuel cells; yes, these are very hard to do for a consumer product. They are
amazingly cool though, and they should still be invested in. I think this is
Zubrin's biggest fear. His goalposting about fuel cell efficiency is silly: so
what if they're not more efficient on some measurement than an ideal diesel
motor? They don't smell as bad either.

Zubrin is a neocon type who works in the defense industry. For all we know
this could have been commissioned by some oil company types, or maybe he's
just being cussed. I don't disagree with the over all message though. You'd
have to change a lot of major infrastructure to make hydrogen work for a
portable energy source.

~~~
bcoates
Do hydrides have any advantages at all over synthetic hydrocarbons or
biofuels? It seems like an effort to shoehorn hydrogen in there _somewhere_
instead of just admitting that it has literally no place at all in the energy
economy

~~~
kortex
Carbon-free. Synthetic hydrocarbons and biofuels still give off carbon
dioxide. Hydrides are just a vector for hydrogen.

The advantage of hydrides over hydrogen is you don't release all the flammable
gas at once, improving safety.

~~~
dTal
Is that a problem, though? CO2 emissions aren't locally toxic. The main issue
with it today is the fact that the carbon comes from the ground and doesn't
get put back. Water vapor is a greenhouse gas too!

~~~
petra
Water vapor is a greenhouse gas, but it is always kept in balance and the air
cannot hold more than it is. All that will happen is that it rains. And no
amount of water vapor from hydrogen cars compares to what all the oceans
contribute to the water vapor. It will basically have no effect.

Source:[https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qhj31/e...](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qhj31/eli5wont_hydrogen_cars_produce_a_lot_of_water/)

~~~
dTal
Right, I wasn't actually suggesting that water vapor emissions from hydrogen
vehicles would be a climate issue - on the contrary, I was drawing the
comparison to illustrate that greenhouse gas emissions aren't necessarily a
problem, if part of a closed loop (or other stabilizing influences like you
point out).

------
reidacdc
I think the article's issues with hydrogen as a small-vehicle fuel have mostly
been borne out -- one thing that seems to have happened since 2007 is that
battery technology has gotten a lot better, and electric cars are proving to
be a practical solution for a lot of use-cases.

But the article seem to condemn Hydrogen as any part of any zero-carbon
economy because of this, as though any energy medium unsuitable for cars is
automatically disqualified entirely from the green economy. I can imagine
other use-cases where Hydrogen actually works well.

In large vehicles, for example, where a heavy reinforced tank isn't as much of
a liability, like maybe a locomotive.

The use of hydrogen as an energy-storage medium for large stationary power
plants also seems reasonable, maybe a solar power plant could split water when
sunlight is abundant, and recombine it in the fuel-cell when energy-demand is
high, using hydrogen storage to bridge the gap.

Or, similarly, a nuclear plant could split water at an efficient, steady
"base-load" rate, and recombine it at different rates to match demand.

Viewed as an industrial-scale energy-storage medium, it makes more sense. It
still has to compete with other industrial-scale energy storage media, but
it's a very different landscape from vehicle fuels.

~~~
pfdietz
Hydrogen storage in underground caverns is not only feasible, it's actually
practiced in several places around the world.

Hydrogen's place is for rare times when renewables or short term storage can't
do it. This is the last 10-20% of the electrical power market, the part
nuclear fans seem to harp on (even though nuclear would be terrible for
filling it also.) For such rare uses fuel cells would be inappropriate; gas
turbines would be better (even if the round trip efficiency were lousy.)

~~~
lazyguy
Hydrogen is only useful as 'short term storage' of energy.

So whether or not Hydrogen is useful really boils down to whether or not
hydrogen is a superior source of energy storage versus Lithium batteries,
compressed air, flywheels or whatever.

> This is the last 10-20% of the electrical power market

It's not the 'last 10-20% of the electrical power market'.

What renewables like solar and wind can't cover, without effective energy
storage, is 100% of the power requirements 30-40% of the time.

Solar only works when the sun is shining. Wind mills only work when the wind
is blowing at a appropriate speed. Unless you produce a massive excess of
energy and then store it somewhere then neither of these two technologies can
ever replace traditional power generation.

The best you can can achieve otherwise is to have solar power during the
bright hours of the day and then massive number of natural gas turbines to
pick up the slack the rest of the time.

Traditional power generation plants are a poor match with renewable because
they can't vary their output quick enough to match the wildly variable
capacity of solar and wind.

So the important part of the question is whether or not hydrogen is a useful
mechanism to store the energy. And so far it has not been.

~~~
kortex
My take on energy storage is this: Ultimately, hydrogen is more scalable than
almost any other energy storage method, save sodium/air batteries (if we can
figure that out) and using electric vehicles as batteries (dependent on
consumer behavior to scale).

\- lithium has scarcity issues which will only get worse with electric
vehicles \- liquid batteries likewise require some more rarer elements,
corrosive enough to require \- underground storage (of air pressure, CO2, etc)
requires caverns/mines on site \- pumped hydro has even tighter site
constraints \- biofuel/synfuel is decent for mid-to-long term storage, but
slow to generate \- flywheel has energy density issues

Hydrogen, your main limits are basically steel for tanks, and some rare metals
in catalytic amounts.

There hasn't been enough incentive in energy storage deployment to push the
scaling up and costs down. But I think we are closest to an "embarrassingly
parallel" deployment of hydrogen as energy storage.

~~~
pfdietz
Lithium comprises only a very small fraction of the mass of Li-ion batteries.
The resource constraints are on other elements, like cobalt, used in the
electrodes. Lithium could become much more expensive without greatly affecting
the economics of Li-ion batteries.

------
curtis
It's pretty clear that hydrogen-powered automobiles are not going to be a
thing -- electric batteries work very well for that use case. There are some
cases where I think hydrogen might still work better than the alternatives.

The most obvious one is aviation. There are a few battery-electric aircraft
flying today but they have very short range. I don't think there's any
conceivable battery chemistry that will allow anywhere near the range of
hydrocarbon-powered aircraft.

However, liquid hydrogen has much greater energy density than hydrocarbon
fuels. It's also quite difficult to work with. But when you're talking about a
vehicle the size of a 737 (much less an A-380), the economics might ultimately
be favorable.

It would probably require aircraft models specifically designed for liquid
hydrogen -- the tanks are so large that the aircraft will have to be designed
around them. That's probably a major impediment to adoption. It's possible
that biofuels or synthetic fuels made from CO2 will instead replace fossil
fuels in aviation, instead.

~~~
nradov
The additional costs related to cryonics, aerodynamic drag, safety issues, and
material embrittlement mean that liquid hydrogen will never be a viable
commercial aviation fuel. It seems attractive in theory but ends up being
totally impractical when you get into real world details.

The way forward is absolutely going to be battery power for short flights and
synthetic liquid hydrocarbons for longer distances.

~~~
kortex
Totally agree. Airliners have a fuel fraction (fuel wt / total wt at takeoff)
around 50%. Half the gross weight of the entire system is fuel. And that's
with liquid, room-temp, atmospheric pressure fuel that's easy to transfer and
can fit into every liquid-tight nook and cranny. Furthermore, you can pump it
around for weight trim.

I don't see hydrogen in any form, including hydrides, meeting these criteria.
Not to mention, the entire distribution infrastructure is tooled out for
liquid hydrocarbons.

Synfuel is expensive compared to fossil fuel, but not _dramatically_ so.

You're currently looking at ~$0.64/L for FF jet fuel, ~$0.95/L for biodiesels,
and $1.15/L for fully synthetic fuels eg Fischer-Tropsch.

[https://s3.wp.wsu.edu/uploads/sites/192/2018/01/Bann-
Seamus-...](https://s3.wp.wsu.edu/uploads/sites/192/2018/01/Bann-Seamus-
Endres-2016-17.pdf)

~~~
curtis
> _Half the gross weight of the entire system is fuel._

That's true for jet propellant, but it's not true for hydrogen. A hydrogen
powered airplane would have to have a much greater volume than an equivalent
airplane fueled with regular jet fuel, but it would have substantially less
weight. I'm not sure how this would work out for overall performance, though
-- you'd have substantially more direct drag to overcome, but on the other
hand you'd have a lot less lift-related drag simply because you'd need a lot
less lift.

As a thought-experiment, you could imagine an aircraft roughly the size and
shape of a 757 but with the weight and payload capacity of a 737. This might
be an acceptable design for a cargo carrying aircraft, but realistically, a
passenger-carrying aircraft would need large cylindrical tanks on the wings
for safety reasons, but also with increased drag.

> _Not to mention, the entire distribution infrastructure is tooled out for
> liquid hydrocarbons._

In the specific case of hydrogen-powered commercial aviation, this doesn't
matter at all, because there would not be a distribution infrastructure, at
least as we generally think of it. Instead, we'd need to distribute water and
electricity to airports, and the hydrogen would be produced and stored on-
site. The equipment to make and store liquid hydrogen wouldn't necessarily be
cheap, but over any significant period of time it would likely be dominated by
the cost of electricity necessary to produce the hydrogen through
electrolysis.

The economics of synthetic fuels for aviation are probably still better, but I
think that it might be a lot closer than people imagine. If you could cheaply
retro-fit existing airframes for hydrogen they'd be a lot closer still, but I
don't think that's likely. It's an interesting possibility to think about
though.

~~~
kortex
> realistically, a passenger-carrying aircraft would need large cylindrical
> tanks on the wings for safety reasons, but also with increased drag.

Precisely. Any weight savings of energy density per wt of hydrogen are offset
by the poor energy/volume, plus the need for cylindrical tanks for stress
reasons. Wing fuel tanks are roughly wing-shaped, meaning no increase to cross
section. Hydrogen would require sets of cylinders, which add walls which add
weight yet don't directly aid the engineering constraints, or exist outside
the current flight envelope, adding drag.

Maybe some big advancement in construction methods could allow synergy of
hydrogen tanks walls with aircraft structure, but you are still stuck with
1/3rd volumetric density of energy, meaning larger cross section, more drag,
and more fuel usage.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#/media/File%3...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#/media/File%3AEnergy_density.svg)

------
advertising
Scroll to bottom to see it’s a piece pushing for ethanol flex-fuel

~~~
nothrabannosir
Is that bad? Is there a similar article debunking/discussing (m)ethanol as an
energy source?

~~~
xphilter
You don’t really need an article. Just have a critical mind. The net energy in
exceeds energy out (for us based corn ethanol at least).

~~~
bcoates
I don't think anyone's trying to run an aluminum smelter off ethanol, if it's
a reasonable transport/peaking/storage fuel EROI is irrelevant.

------
cjensen
Are we just going to ignore the fact that hydrogen cars exist now in
California, they work, the fuel is affordable, and the efficiency is fine?

Hydrogen is useful as a solve for the energy storage problem in green energy.
For example, excess solar energy can be stored as hydrogen fuel. Also this
solves the "fuel quickly" problem for people who need to drive long distances.

~~~
nradov
Yes we should ignore those. They are compliance vehicles sold only to satisfy
CARB rules and are not otherwise economically viable. Most of the hydrogen is
created from natural gas, which means zero reduction in greenhouse gas
emissions. Yes in theory hydrogen could be created by electrolysis with
renewable energy, but the efficiency is so low as to make it pointless.

------
techlands
I miss this old "Desktop Friendly" website design

------
garmaine
2007.

~~~
ccsalvesen
June 2019: [https://www.autoblog.com/2019/06/12/norway-hydrogen-
station-...](https://www.autoblog.com/2019/06/12/norway-hydrogen-station-
explodes-toyota-hyundai-halt-sales/)

We heard the explosion 7km away.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
And yet nobody was hurt. What do you think the outcome had been if a petrol
station went up like that?

~~~
mktmkr
Considering the number of such stations, explosions are rather rare, although
one did recently explode in the USA. It turns out to be difficult to get a
decent explosion out of bulk liquid petrol. Even setting it on fire is not as
easy as some think. Try it with liquid diesel, practically inert. What you
really need for a good time is empty petrol tanks.

------
KibbutzDalia
I think using hydrogen as an energy store for excess solar and wind generated
electricity may pencil put as these methods get more efficient.

------
cjbenedikt
Too many people commenting who have absolutely no idea nor knowledge about how
hydrogen works or anything related to it. Plus: the old "efficiency" argument
should go out of the window altogether and be replaced by an "environmental
impact" argument.

