I'm just happy to see support going to all those suffering people, no matter the source or the reason, humanity coming together to help in times of crisis is nice to see.

49ers defensive coordinators... so hot right now.

Indeed there is a lot of ground to cover on this and I think the more demand that can exist for hydrogen, the more emphasis will be placed on methods of acquiring it.

One method I'm thinking of, I'm not certain the name of it.

A closed system where iron filings (Fe) are combined with sulfuric acid (H2SO4) and the chemical reaction between them releases H2 (Hydrogen) and the remaining product is FESO4 (Iron Sulfate) and some water (H2O). This method was used to acquire hydrogen to fill gas balloons and airships back in the 1930's. The Iron Sulfate produced is also a valuable fertilizer for the agricultural industry.

There are many other methods as well and I'm certain that given the right appetite for hydrogen use, further development will be possible. Ultimately though you are right about the amount of time involved, we're decades from being at scale for production regardless.

Production - I replied to your other post, there are methods that we aren't using that would be able to help us acquire hydrogen both inexpensively and without massive power use.

Transport - If we're simply talking about transporting hydrogen, I agree it's a bit tricky with our current infrastructure. I am working closely with some people that are developing lightweight tank systems using a combination of carbon fiber for strength and a hydrogen membrane to prevent leakage. There is also the option of transporting hydrogen compounds that don't need the special handling that pure hydrogen does.

Storage - There are a few interesting suggestions on how to store hydrogen that I've been made aware of. One such method is to sequester the gas inside existing underground salt cones. Another option is simply to store hydrogen containing compounds and then produce the hydrogen as required by combining them as needed. There is some very interesting work happening in Germany right now with Magnesium Hydride for example.

I agree that humanity has hurdles to overcome in putting hydrogen to work for us en masse. The sooner we start figuring out how to get over them, the better off we will all be.

Indeed, and it's a valid point, but that doesn't mean hydrogen acquisition isn't a good solution. There are multiple ways of acquiring pure hydrogen without using power. One such method is combining elemental compounds with hydrogen atoms attached in a closed system. This allows hydrogen to be released in the reaction (and captured) in the process.

The idea of hydrogen being energy intensive to acquire comes from a limited consideration of the methods available to us. Just because we aren't doing them currently, doesn't mean it should stay that way.

All good, I think we generally can agree that as a clean method to store energy, hydrogen is a good option. The efficiency of that production is perhaps the hurdle to overcome. I learned recently about chemical reactions that allow hydrogen to be released. These processes rely upon the reactivity of the elements rather than electrical energy. I think the more humanity can explore these options, the better off we all will be :)

>Where is all this hydrogen?

It's attached to all kinds of other things

From the encyclopedia Britannica:

As part of innumerable carbon compounds, hydrogen is present in all animal and vegetable tissue and in petroleum. Even though it is often said that there are more known compounds of carbon than of any other element, the fact is that, since hydrogen is contained in almost all carbon compounds and also forms a multitude of compounds with all other elements (except some of the noble gases), it is possible that hydrogen compounds are more numerous.

This is nonsense. Hydrogen is the most abundant element on the planet. It's pure folly that we aren't working at doing everything possible to convert to using it on masse.