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How is the hydrogen made?
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this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2024
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Hah! It's amazing how many people are still hanging onto the delusion that hydrogen is made from renewables when almost every ounce of commercial hydrogen fuel is made by cracking petroleum products.
What you're saying is true. I still want to point out that developing hydrogen infrastructure based on non-renewable hydrogen today, helps lay the groundwork for using primarily renewable hydrogen tomorrow, because we're developing storage, transportation, and fuel cell technology.
Also: Methane can be produced from renewables, so developing steam reforming technology today, using non-renewable methane, helps lay the groundwork for renewable-based hydrogen production tomorrow.
Finally: Steam reforming lends itself well to CCS, so hydrogen production from renewable methane + CCS is a potentially viable path to a carbon-negative future.
But hydrogen infrastructure isn't better long term than regular electric and battery infrastructure. You need quite unique circumstances like being highly dependent on high energy density while being located in a place where you're far from an electric grid. Like an island in a stormy place (without access to wave power, etc) or long haul trucks out in nowhere or electric airplanes. Almost anything else should use better options
Not clear on what you’re trying to say here. The energy generated from a fuel cell is electricity. The entire fuel cell assembly is essentially a battery, using hydrogen and oxygen as the electrochemical components.
But, I think you’re trying to argue that one is better than the other. To that all I can say is we all are just getting out of being locked into a singular infrastructure (combustion engines) for the last 90 so years, it’s probably best to invest concurrently in multiple alternative energies instead of putting all of our eggs in one basket. Hydrogen has some strengths where lithium ion does not and vis versa. I’d assume it would be best to diversify so if one fails we have multiple backups. Kinda like investing money, don’t put all your money behind one horse.
Storage and transfer are the complicated parts, remember that hydrogen leaks VERY easily (even right through most metals) and require very high pressure. It's never going to be the cheapest option unless you're weight constrained
This is the dream we follow while driving our gasoline cars.