Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

kokanee-fish t1_j2bmjrh wrote

Reply to comment by gregorydgraham in Green Hydrogen - Not The Fuel Of The Future by Realistic-Plant3957

So, you’re correct to worry about the fact that the efficiency of electrolyzers on the market today is not at all competitive, especially the alkaline electrolyzers. Those of us who are excited about the future of hydrogen are basing our expectations on the performance of next-gen electrolyzers being developed now and economies of scale that are forthcoming.

The implication that this technology is being developed or supported primarily by the fossil fuel industry is a completely fabricated conspiracy theory.

16

bremidon t1_j2cx1cu wrote

>The implication that this technology is being developed or supported primarily by the fossil fuel industry is a completely fabricated conspiracy theory.

Are you kidding me?

First, you missed the point. The fossil fuel industry is quite happy to use the current technology for creating hydrogen. They don't care about *or want* green hydrogen. The point is to dangle the idea of green hydrogen in front of us, and once we have committed to hydrogen, then keep us on the hook with cheaper gray and blue hydrogen.

Second, are you honestly expecting an industry making billions *per day* to simply roll over and die? *Of course* they are going to fight back, hard. What would *you* be willing to do for even "just" $1 billion? Even if they can stall people for just a single day, that is how much more money they can make.

Third, who else has the incentive *and* the money to really push something like hydrogen?

Fourth, how are *you* planning to fight them? Once we are on the hook for hydrogen, they will be the ones paying the politicians. You can scream and cry about how this was supposed to be about green hydrogen, but the simple truth is that they have all the levers. You are simply a tool for them right now to avoid being shoved completely out of power. The moment they have successfully positioned hydrogen as the replacement, your services will no longer be needed or wanted.

This is do-or-die for the fossil fuel industry. They know their days are numbered. That is why they are fighting several rear-guard actions at once while desperately looking for a way to keep us depending on them.

I'm not strictly against hydrogen, but we should not allow a single atom to be used until two things happen:

  1. Practical green hydrogen exists on something besides paper
  2. Airtight and near-impossible-to-roll-back legislation to ban all hydrogen production *except* green hydrogen have been implemented.

I have some hope for the first one, although the current state of things probably means we are at least 20 years out from having it solved. We are not really close to a lab solution yet, so we probably need 10 years of research to make it practical. This is an outsider's perspective, so I will be the first to admit it's merely an educated guess. Then it will take about 10 years to get the real production lines set up *if we are fast*. So 20 years. But at least it's doable.

I have serious reservations about the second point. I do not trust any government to be able to resist Big Oil kinda money.

So no, this is not "fabricated". It was and is a logical and obvious continuation to ensure the dominance of the existing players.

9

amitym t1_j2d3npo wrote

Right on. We don't hear enough of this kind of constructive critique.

Green hydrogen will be awesome.. when it exists. Until it exists, it's a red herring.

6

katamuro t1_j2dgr2y wrote

we need nuclear power stations for green hydrogen. Because if we start adding more and more nuclear power to replace current coal/oil burning power stations then eventually we will have surplus of energy at certain times in the day and that we can use to power the electrolysis for hydrogen which we then can use to bolster the energy grid demands during peak times by burning hydrogen in the former natural gas power stations.

1

bremidon t1_j2dvnhf wrote

Or we just use batteries that are better at this.

The only places where hydrogen really excels is where we need some sort of physical interaction (industrial uses) or where the energy density is useful (planes). Only the first one is clearly going to work. The second one is still a bit iffy, because we have not yet figured out a good way to contain hydrogen within a reasonable space without it either being energy intensive or heavy.

1

gregorydgraham t1_j2bw19b wrote

Methane reformation has already been scaled, and Big Oil doesn’t even need to conspire for the bait and switch to work. As always, the accountants will do the work for them.

−4