this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2023
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I've said it before and I'll say it again: most new hydrogen technology is snake oil.
Its main source right now is as a byproduct to petrochemical processing, so a lot of the motivation behind it is really about maintaining these production lines, rather than "going green".
Some things do require hydrogen, eg science applications. Hydrogen can be made using green electricity, but the energy cost is incredibly high. In order to fulfill just the things that require hydrogen, where there is no other alternative, we would need 3x the global renewable capacity solely dedicated to hydrogen production. If we start adding mass transport into that mix, or things like this hydrogen heating system, then we're only exacerbating the problem.
We need our renewable electricity to power things that already use electricity. We don't have enough capacity to be pouring it away into all the potential uses for hydrogen - which are often far less efficient. You lose so much energy creating hydrogen (as well as losses due to leaks) that you may as well just power it with electricity directly.
There could not have put up a bigger sign saying, "I didn't bother to read the article."
Otherwise I don't disagree with most of what you're claiming. But most of the problems you posed do not even apply to this relatively new system.
Lol you caught me out, I skimmed over most of the article. I've also realised later down the thread that one of my main sources actually includes hydrogen for heating as a viable use case.
I still stand by my claim that most hydrogen consumption proposals are snake oil, which would be better served by using electricity directly (particularly in transport), but perhaps this could be good.
This is anti-hydrogen propaganda. It is basically a marketing spiel for the battery industry. In reality, hydrogen is going to power nearly all transportation, mainly because batteries are not a sustainable solution.
And the notion that we can't build enough renewable energy capacity is a classic climate change denial argument. People who say this are unknowingly (or sometimes knowingly) trying to get everyone back onto fossil fuels.
I can't tell if you're trolling or not. Well done.
Absolutely, I see no problem with using excess energy to produce hydrogen or other stuff. Maybe it's arguably better to put that into battery storage or something, but it takes time to build all of that, and diversity isn't a bad thing in most cases.
Like I said, we do need hydrogen for some things - what I'm saying is that we should be focusing on using it for things that have no other option, rather than trying to grow the hydrogen consumption market by moving anything that can be over to it, regardless of whether or not that is a good idea. Particularly if we're basing long term predictions on the current rates of hydrogen production, primarily black hydrogen ie produced from petrochemicals, which would be expected to decline and rise in price alongside a decline in petrochemical use.
And where did I say we can't build enough renewable capacity? I said we would need at least 3x the current renewable capacity dedicated to producing hydrogen to meet our current demand with green hydrogen for things that have no other option. The point I'm making is that running everything on hydrogen will drastically increase this demand, thus delaying the path to net zero as we'll need to use fossil fuels for longer while we build even more renewables than if we were just aiming to meet our current, essential hydrogen demand.
If you are totally honest, you'd admit that for a huge percentage of the transportation, we don't have any real option other than hydrogen. That's certainly the case for many types of commercial vehicles, ships and airplanes. But it is also true for a large percentage of passenger cars. Not everyone can accept a battery powered car in their lifestyle. So it is inevitable that transportation is part of what hydrogen is good for. And once we start using hydrogen for this, batteries quickly become the odd-man out. After all, why spend trillions on a highly destructive and arguably unsustainable technology that will have to be replaced anyways?
The reason why it is a climate change denial tactic is that it completely ignores the fact that we can easily build enough renewable energy for pretty much whatever we want. It is thousands of times more plentiful than fossil fuels, and won't run out either. So even if we accept your claim of needing 3x more capacity, that is still no problem. However, it won't actually need that, since renewable energy requires vast amounts of energy storage to be viable. That storage is most easily done using hydrogen. So in reality, hydrogen is pretty fundamental to renewable energy altogether.
We do have another option: electric vehicles. Looking at cars, a hydrogen fuel cell car uses 3.2x as much energy and costs over 5.4x as much per mile driven vs electric. The cost difference is huge, one that no one can ignore. If people can't stand the charge times, then we'll start swapping out batteries - this has already been proven successful in some Asian countries with scooters.
Aircraft is another matter, as current batteries are too heavy, but even then hydrogen is worse than conventional combustible fuels. Pending significant advances in battery technology, we'll probably use biofuels. It would be more efficient to convert hydrogen and CO2 to e-fuels than to use hydrogen directly - airlines prioritise efficiency.
We can easily build renewable technology (I've spent the last 7 years building windfarms) but the issue is speed. We need to get off fossil fuels now, or failing that as quickly as possible.
It's not that we need 3x our current capacity, it's that we need 3x our current capacity just for essential hydrogen, on top of all the rest of the capacity that renewables have yet to meet. Bear in mind, when a country claims to have "100% of their demand met by their renewable generation" there's a lot of statisical fiddling involved, where they ignore that they still generate a significant amount through fossil fuels and that they are net exporters to other countries. We have a long way to go to meet even our current electrical demand with renewables, let alone any extra.
Energy storage with hydrogen is not easy. It's hard, and even if it's perfect it is still woefully inefficient. Batteries are the best long term bet there, however it's still a very new sector in the energy market, so it has a ways to go. Elevated water storage is another good one, but the installation costs are pretty high (though not as high as nuclear).
Overall, our current goal should be to phase out fossil fuels as quickly as possible. The best way to do that is to go hard on current renewable technology, over all else. This includes sidelining nuclear, as it takes a long time to build nuclear and we'll use more fossil fuels waiting for it than we would subsidising renewables when they're not available. Nuclear also takes finite funding away from renewables, where it would be more effective.
Similarly, hydrogren detracts from these efforts, as it pushes the bar that renewables have to meet even higher. A large growth in hydrogen consumption, beyond that which genuinely requires hydrogen, will only prolong our reliance on fossil fuels.
For millions of people, that is not an option. And I'm assuming you mean "BEVs" not electric vehicles. FCEVs are also electric vehicles. Furthermore, the claims of the BEV industry are not to be trusted. It is no different than citing the oil industry's claim that BEVs cost the the equivalent of $17/gallon to drive.
Battery swapping will explode the logistical and resource requirements of BEVs. It makes the problem even worse.
Airplanes will probably use some combo of e-fuels or LH₂ setup. The latter is doable via a new type of airframe like a blended wing body.
If speed is important, you'd support the rapid adoption of hydrogen, not oppose it. These are not credible arguments unless you do not actually believe in climate change.
Renewable energy is leading to vast curtailment and excess production. That energy is pretty much wasted. Turning it into hydrogen will not cost that much money nor require that much more generation capacity.
Large scale storage of hydrogen is done with natural occurring salt caverns. These cost far less than just about anything else ever conceived.
Again, if the goal is to phase fossil fuels, you would go hard in favor of green hydrogen, alongside many other ideas. You would not oppose any green energy ideas.
The claims of most commercial industries should not be trusted. I prefer academic sources, or at least those that are more energy agnostic.
I'm sure people said the same about gas stations.
[^1]: Dammit, for a moment there I thought you'd done some funky new markdown code to write "LH₂". But I bet you didn't know about the citation function that lemmy has - which apparently even works out of order (check the comment source).
I disagree with the latter part of that. I'm sure LH₂ will be tried, and it might temporarily prove effective under current conditions (with cheap, untaxed black and brown hydrogen) but as soon as you start trying to fulfill that with green hydrogen it just won't be efficient enough.
Who knows though. Hydrogen right now is mainly a byproduct, so maybe there is some scope for that excess cheap hydrogen to be used in the short to medium term.
That is exactly what we should be aiming for. It might be slightly less commercially palatable for renewable generation businesses to be running at curtailment, but what we need right now is to build a large excess of renewable generation. The wind is always blowing somewhere, and (during the day, when most power is used) the sun still shines through the clouds.
Extrapolating from the latest UK National Grid's Future Energy Scenarios report[^2], we need to focus on building an excess of renewable generation as quickly as possible to get off fossil fuels as quickly as possible. Once we have the excess, we can pad out our generation portfolio with nuclear. Then, when the nuclear is ready to start generating, there is every likelihood that demand will have grown to the point that our excess renewable generation will have become the current requirement.
The report[^2] does include significant use of hydrogen, but that is focused on heating and high energy applications. Transportation is a ridiculously large sector that does not benefit from the inefficiencies of hydrogen.
[^2]: UK National Grid's 2023 Future Energy Scenarios report: https://www.nationalgrideso.com/document/283101/download (pdf) The graphs are very pretty, NGESO make exceptionally good documentation.
That's a new thing to me, I'll have to read up on that. I'd appreciate any sources you could offer.
My blind guess is that it is similar to elevated water storage in feasibility, though. In particular, investors might not be interested in developing the technology.
I'm all for green hydrogen production. The issue I take is with the reckless expansion of hydrogen consumption. More specifically, I feel that many people who work with hydrogen are too keen to expand the consumption market, because doing so benefits their industry commercially.
Edit: Damn, just saw you're on kbin, which doesn't have the citation function. If you click the 3 dots and select "copy url to fediverse" you can see what I see, or alternatively click here.
Edit2: I just realised that we're commenting on an article about hydrogen heating, and that coincides with my main source saying that hydrogen heating should be developed. Maybe I should give the article and its heating technology more leeway. Nonetheless, I remain firm that hydrogen in transportation is not really a viable solution, all things considered.
A lot of those "agnostic" sources are secretly working for the BEV companies. There's a lot of misinformation out there. Anyways, given that a fuel cell is vastly more efficient than a conventional ICE, there shouldn't be an issue on efficiency. FCEVs are more than good enough. Anyone bringing this issue up as a problem is either confused or has an agenda. After all, FCEVs are also EVs.
Gas stations are much cheaper than battery swapping. In fact, that is the main argument in favor of FCEVs. Replacing existing gas stations with hydrogen stations is a much cheaper solution than putting up millions of charging stations, battery swapping stations, DC fast charging stations, etc.
I'm on Kbin FYI. It mostly works for my needs.
Excess green energy will likely flood the system. We will have an overabundance of all types of green energy, including hydrogen, in the long-run.
Critics of hydrogen are basically contradicting themselves. If you admit the need for energy storage in the form of hydrogen, you are also admitting the existence of very cheap hydrogen. That will be available for a variety of tasks. It will become the go-to solution for anything that needs a chemical fuel. If it is cheap enough for heating or steel production, it will be cheap enough for transportation solutions too.
Yes, you should read up on salt cavern storage: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/06/16/hydrogen-storage-in-salt-caverns/
The kind of agnostic sources I was referring to are like the one I provided - system operators, who don't really care what provides the generation or what uses it, but instead try to optimise the network.
Yes, there is misinformation out there. Just like your claim that FCEV's are more efficient - they're more efficient at the end stage of converting a fuel into motion, but the overall process including hydrogen production and getting the fuel cell ready to use is far, far less efficient. It's more efficient to pull oil out the ground, process it and then run a car on it than it is to run an FCEV. Spinning up renewable generation to charge a battery requires more energy than using current oil infrastructure, but is definitely more efficient than FCEV, even when accounting for the production and lifecycle of a current battery. Oil only wins on efficiency right now because the infrastructure is already there, and because the fuel was made over millions of years prior.
Yes, it would be cheaper to adapt current gas stations to hydrogen. My point was referring to the time before gas stations were built - back then, it would have been cheaper to stick with horses than to move to widespread adoption of the new technology. Models for adapting current gas stations to hydrogen also typically ignore the cost of green hydrogen, and instead assume it will continue to be as cheap as it is now while it is produced by fossil fuel processes.
Hydrogen is cheap right now because it is a byproduct of dirty fuel production. If we stop using dirty fuel, we will stop having cheap hydrogen, and then all the people who invested in hydrogen because it was cheap will be left holding the bag. This is why I referred to it as "snake oil" in my initial comment.
I realised you were on kbin, hence my edits :o) I did also contradict myself, but clarified my objection to hydrogen consumption. The edits probably didn't make it through to kbin that quickly, but they seem to be there now.
That's wild speculation, there. We need to focus on the big problem right now, not the long-run. Right now, we need to get off fossil fuels as quickly as possible - trying to ease the transition with similar technologies (particularly ones focused on a byproduct of and reliant on current technology) will only slow things down by furthering demand for the existing infrastructure.
Thank you for the link, however pv-mag is a source I am very skeptical of. They're very focused on the growth of their industry, and generally give a marketeer's approach to things rather than an objective technical view. Hell, the first source link in that article is supposed to be about the Jülich Institute for Energy and Climate Research, but instead links to another one of their own articles that has little if anything to due with the institute or the topic of your article. pv-mag spew a lot of hyperbole, in my experience.
The source paper isn't so bad, though, and has been widely cited. I remain skeptical about the commercial viability of it (in particular, they seem to give no consideration to the risk of explosion when filling a cavern with hydrogen), but it still sounds like a cool technology.
Yet in some places there’s an excess of wind production at times and it’s economically viable to throw it into hydrogen and ammonia production. Do you think Maersk is designing ammonia powered ships for nothing?
https://hydrogenisland.dk/en https://www.maersk.com/news/articles/2021/02/23/maersk-backs-plan-to-build-europe-largest-green-ammonia-facility
Production and consumption are two different things. We need more green hydrogen production (currently at 0.1% of all hydrogen production), and we need to heavily tax black and brown hydrogen to balance the environmental cost against the low price of dirty production.
With hydrogen consumption, we already have a significant demand for scientific and other uses that have no alternative. This currently relies on black and brown hydrogen, but will eventually need to be fulfilled by green hydrogen. If we throw anything and everything that could use hydrogen on top of that, then we'll be using fossil fuels for even longer while we build enough renewable generation capacity for it all to be provided by green hydrogen.
Also, the vast majority use scenarios proposed for hydrogen could be fulfilled directly by electricity at a much greater overall efficiency. Maybe hydrogen would be cheaper right now, while it's all produced by petrochemicals, but when you factor in the cost of green hydrogen the long term projections simply do not work.
I think Maersk is designing ammonia powered ships because they're not far removed from conventional ICE's, which they're already proficient in. They're less concerned with what is the best solution overall, but which is the most profitable to them right now.