this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
475 points (95.2% liked)
Technology
59200 readers
3846 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Hydrogen probably has some niche uses but there are some things that proponents like to gloss over.
All said and done, I think it's crazy to even bother with the tech unless its so niche it cannot be done some other way. Japanese automakers & oil companies looking to do a bit of greenwashing have been the major proponents of hydrogen and that should say something. Also the fact that hydrogen has been a miserable failure in areas where it has been piloted.
In the case of trains it seems more sensible to manufacture biodiesel or synthetic fuels than this. It's certainly safer to transport and store. Perhaps existing trains can be converted relatively easily. Or electrify the train line or stretches of it. Batteries would be an option too - a train might simply hook up to a fresh battery tender and off it goes. Or some kind of hybrid solution that can source power from overhead lines and/or diesel and/or battery. Or even put solar on carriages to reduce fuel consumption during daylight operations. All these things seem more viable than hydrogen.
I agree hydrogen has a lot of challenges, but as you said, it does have niche uses, and I do see some places (Steel Arc Furnace) where it could make an impact IF driven by green energy. Not really disagreeing with you persay but you are downplaying Hydrogen a bit in my opinion.
We are still finding new ways to utilize it both in the electrolyzer and in chemical synthesis so there is more ground for us to cover in the near future I feel like (opinion).
I'm not sure a train is the right place though... yeah.