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BallardRex t1_iyea5yc wrote

Hydrogen burned in highly efficient power plants, which is then used to charge car batteries, makes more sense.

Edit: Please read this before replying, unless you’re already familiar with the tech described https://www.americanscientist.org/article/generating-a-greener-future

Edit 2: For people unable to get past the paywall: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/memagazineselect/article/141/03/52/366557/Hydrogen-Fueled-Gas-Turbines

Edit 3: “But it’s inefficient!”

> Dr. Langston responds:

> You are correct that taking useful electrical power to electrolyze water in order to produce hydrogen—which in turn would produce more electrical power—would result in a fairly great loss of available energy. However, the key words in my explanation (on page 82) are “created from a surplus of renewable energy.“ One problem with wind- and solar-generated electricity is what to do with those electrons when there is no market for them, because there is no economical means of storing them.

> For instance, Denmark has on occasion resorted to paying neighboring countries to take surpluses of its extensive wind power electricity rather than shut down whole arrays of wind turbines. Germany has had a similar problem with surplus solar power generated in its southern states.

> Wheeling electrical power from one electrical grid to another certainly leads to electrical losses. And some grids don’t talk to one another. That problem was made evident last year in Texas when millions of people lost power following an ice storm, and neighboring states could not supply energy to Texas’s isolated grids.

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GreenAdvance t1_iyee14s wrote

Doesn't matter how efficient your hydrogen power plant is. Producing the hydrogen itself is extremely inefficient. It requires massive amounts of power.

There are far better storage options for power than hydrogen. Hydrogen has it's uses, but electricity generation and passenger vehicles aren't it.

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BallardRex t1_iyeemn1 wrote

What is your better storage medium for energy than hydrogen, which can work at the scale renewable-generated Hydrogen can in existing pipeline infrastructure?

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GreenAdvance t1_iyef3hz wrote

Flywheels, pumped hydro, batteries, and compressed air are all superior storage methods to hydrogen.

Hydrogen also cannot use the existing pipeline infrastructure. For that synthetic methane would work while being more efficient and actually cleaner than most hydrogen sources.

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LuckyEmoKid t1_iyejlg7 wrote

Flywheels for grid-scale power storage? You're out of your mind.

Compressed air? Very lossy on account of the compressible fluid.

Pumped hydro is great... if you've got the necessary geological features nearby.

Batteries? Well... maybe.

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BallardRex t1_iyefab7 wrote

You’re behind the times, here’s a good read https://www.americanscientist.org/article/generating-a-greener-future

Edit: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/memagazineselect/article/141/03/52/366557/Hydrogen-Fueled-Gas-Turbines

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GreenAdvance t1_iyefm9a wrote

How so?

Your link is paywalled and if you can't explain it yourself you don't actually know what it says anyway.

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BallardRex t1_iyeghjb wrote

I already gave you the short explanation, the article contains the details which you’re welcome to read or ignore. As far as paywalls yeah, real work takes money, it isn’t free.

I can however link you to a non-paywalled Q and A with the author which addresses your and some others concerns.

https://www.americanscientist.org/article/combined-cycle-turbines

Edit: And another paper from the same author, Dr, Langston. https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/memagazineselect/article/141/03/52/366557/Hydrogen-Fueled-Gas-Turbines

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GreenAdvance t1_iyeh5vg wrote

> I already gave you the short explanation

Got it. You have no clue what your talking about and are deflecting. "You're behind the times" is not an explanation. I'm done here.

EDIT: /u/ersatzgiraffe I have to edit to respond due to user blocking:

There are plenty of uses for hydrogen and this sounds like a much better way to produce it at first glance. My point wasn't that hydrogen is bad, just that it's a bad for electrical storage and passenger vehicles.

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ersatzgiraffe t1_iyejmut wrote

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_uTZWaJU6ho

Japan is working to produce hydrogen as a byproduct of their new meltdown-proof nuclear reactors. It actually may be a new era re: hydrogen generation, because yes, in the 2010s it was incredibly foolhardy to bother electrically creating hydrogen to convert it back to running an electric motor when you could just use electricity directly. This video is three weeks old, so maybe things are changing?

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DonQuixBalls t1_iyet99h wrote

>Hydrogen can in existing pipeline infrastructure?

It can't. Hydrogen atoms are insanely small, and hydrogen makes metal brittle. It requires it's own infrastructure.

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CaliforniaF0g t1_iyekr6y wrote

Let me introduce you to algal H2 production: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biohydrogen#Production_by_algae

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lonewolf420 t1_iyesl9x wrote

any industrial scale algae photobioreactors in working order outside of a lab? sure it might work but at what scale would be needed to run a nations energy grid or consumer car infrastructure?

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CaliforniaF0g t1_iyev7j4 wrote

At scale 10% of the land mass currently devoted to growing soy could produce enough H2 to replace gasoline. So about 8 million acres.

It’s doable but Elon Musk cast his lot with lithium batteries.

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VincentNacon t1_iyec8y8 wrote

Does it? Where do you get the Hydrogen from? In order to produce it, you must use energy to split it from water.

​

And where do you get this energy from? 🤔

​

Solar Panel to Battery is simpler than having Hydrogen in the middle of it all.

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dayburner t1_iyehwvn wrote

Years ago there was talk about Iceland cornering the hydrogen market with their abundant geothermal energy and ready access to the N. American and European markets.

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DonQuixBalls t1_iyetvn3 wrote

How'd that work out?

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dayburner t1_iyevmdd wrote

Turns out working with hydrogen it hard, only thing harder is shifting most of the energy economy away from fossil fuels.

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BallardRex t1_iyecrcy wrote

Use renewables such as solar and wind where they’re most abundant to generate the hydrogen, which is a nicely portable fuel not subject to transmission losses. There are already pipeline conversion and power plant conversion tests underway for just this sort of scheme.

Edit re your edit: Energy is often needed far from ideal locations for solar energy harvesting.

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raygundan t1_iyermkg wrote

> a nicely portable fuel not subject to transmission losses

Transporting hydrogen is pretty lossy, mostly because of its bulk. Compression or liquefaction for transfer (and storage-- keeping liquid hydrogen stored requires you to either continuously input energy to refrigerate it, or continuously let some of it boil away) will eat 30-40% of the energy in the hydrogen you started with. And there's no such thing as "not subject to transmission losses" in general. Pipelines have losses just like the grid-- fluids don't just move to where you want them to go on their own. Pumping stations are required and leaks are inevitable.

Average transmission and distribution loss on the US power grid is about 5%.

That's not to say there aren't going to be some uses for hydrogen-- but as a general rule, if what you're doing can be done via the grid or another storage option, hydrogen seems like it will have a hard time competing.

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Debesuotas t1_iyeeafv wrote

Make electricity to make hydrogen to make electricity?

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BallardRex t1_iyeeiz5 wrote

Yes. Make electricity in places like deserts where people don’t live, where the sunlight is plentiful and year-round. Convert it to hydrogen and pipe it to combined cycle power plants to make electricity.

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____Theo____ t1_iyefmwq wrote

If only we could make a pipeline for electricity…

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BallardRex t1_iyegmyl wrote

I should have known better than to expect people in the technology sub to have a working understanding of the relevant technology, silly me.

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Seattle2017 t1_iyetbqi wrote

Clearly you are a hydrogen enthusiast. But I don't feel like you are acknowledging the issues people are raising. Like using electricity from the desert to split water to get hydrogen. Why not just use power lines to send that power to people? Hydrogen has potential, but it has big issues that aren't solved: (1) making it efficiently (lots of ideas like use solar power electricity but you can just put that power in the grid). (2) in practice virtually all h2 comes from fossil fuels. (3) almost no h2 vehicle market (did toyota give up yet?), almost no fueling places (california had 2, are there more?). (4) expensive to add new fueling places, unlike ever-present electrical outlets (5) doesn't really get cars very far, because it's not very compressed I take this back I checked at https://www.toyota.com/mirai/ and they say 400 miles for their best car. So that's good.

It has two great advantages, (1) once it's separated, it's not creating any exhaust when burned, (2) refuel your car in 5 minutes like a gas station.

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DonQuixBalls t1_iyetr81 wrote

You're the one pretending not to knownvasic arithmetic to prove your points.

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Straight_Ship2087 t1_iyef4mk wrote

Screw pipeline, I got two words for you: DRONE. BLIMPS.

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BallardRex t1_iyefc68 wrote

Lets just go full Arsenal Bird, I looooove the Ace Combat series.

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Zip95014 t1_iyes7ze wrote

Hydrogen doesn't have transmission losses...

That's a remarkably dishonest statement.

Electricity to hydrogen to truck to compression to thermodynamic losses to cost of tires on the truck. But yeah they aren't overhead power transmission losses.

The energy generated and the energy available to the end user is FAR LESS with hydrogen.

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defcon_penguin t1_iyee1ce wrote

Hydrogen must be produced by electrolysis, which is only 75% efficient. It must be compressed and refrigerated for transport, which takes energy. It needs to be converted back to electricity in fuel cells, which are at most 60% efficient. There are losses everywhere, much more that in long distance HVDC lines.

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BallardRex t1_iyeeere wrote

There’s so much wrong there, Jesus Christ.

First of all 75% efficiency from solar -> hydrogen is absolutely incredible, yet you say that likes it’s a bad thing.

Second compression and refrigeration on site using solar power, and once it’s in a pipeline that’s that.

Third What are you talking about? I’m not suggesting that hydrogen be used for fuel cells, I’ve already stated “power plant” more than once, specifically combined cycle plants.

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defcon_penguin t1_iyeh941 wrote

The energy that would be used to compress and refrigerate is also a loss, even if you use solar, because it could otherwise be transmitted and sold.

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BallardRex t1_iyehfp7 wrote

https://www.americanscientist.org/article/combined-cycle-turbines

You’re not the first to raise that concern, here it is answered by a researcher in the specific field in question.

> Dr. Langston responds: You are correct that taking useful electrical power to electrolyze water in order to produce hydrogen—which in turn would produce more electrical power—would result in a fairly great loss of available energy. However, the key words in my explanation (on page 82) are “created from a surplus of renewable energy.“ One problem with wind- and solar-generated electricity is what to do with those electrons when there is no market for them, because there is no economical means of storing them.

> For instance, Denmark has on occasion resorted to paying neighboring countries to take surpluses of its extensive wind power electricity rather than shut down whole arrays of wind turbines. Germany has had a similar problem with surplus solar power generated in its southern states.

> Wheeling electrical power from one electrical grid to another certainly leads to electrical losses. And some grids don’t talk to one another. That problem was made evident last year in Texas when millions of people lost power following an ice storm, and neighboring states could not supply energy to Texas’s isolated grids.

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defcon_penguin t1_iyeieac wrote

Sure, using surplus energy to produce hydrogen is better than simply discarding it. But I am arguing that long distance interconnections are even better.

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defcon_penguin t1_iyeimxn wrote

The fact that the Texas grid is not connected to the other American grids is more a testament to the stupidity of the local politicians than a demonstration of why long distance connections don't work

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badDuckThrowPillow t1_iyejahp wrote

75% efficiency is incredible... if compared to gas combustion. Its horrible if you compare it to solar->battery directly. As solar panels get more common in homes/businesses, the infrastructure model will change completely.

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defcon_penguin t1_iyeh2gw wrote

HVDC lines have less than 5% losses every 1000 km. 75% efficiency, which is the theoretical maximum of electrolysis, means 25% loss, the same of a 5000km line. Combined cycle plants also have around 60% efficiency

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BallardRex t1_iyeh7gf wrote

Those lines still have to be maintained, built, constantly inspected, and you’d need a staggering volume of them to achieve what Dr. Langston was describing.

https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/memagazineselect/article/141/03/52/366557/Hydrogen-Fueled-Gas-Turbines

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defcon_penguin t1_iyeheua wrote

Why? Pipelines don't need to be built and maintained? Or hydrogen transport ships?

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BallardRex t1_iyehogv wrote

The pipelines already largely exist. Again, you would save us both a lot of time and trouble if you’d read the damned link.

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DonQuixBalls t1_iyetl7e wrote

Existing pipelines can not move hydrogen. They're still exploring how much it would take to convert them and if it's even possible.

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