European energy expert Samuel Furfari sums up green hydrogen (GH) perfectly; “It’s like burning Louis Vuitton handbags for heat.” He says this because it is so very expensive. Federal law allocated $9.5 billion for GH hubs, and the Orwellian-named Inflation Reduction Act (Inflation Causing Act) expanded tax subsidies. Even with massive taxpayer subsidies, GH is a money loser.
Leftists claim GH is a way to replace batteries for transportation. It is at least five times more expensive, which doesn’t include all the extra costs associated with the production of natural gas, such as purifying massive amounts of water, which takes about 13 times more water than the hydrogen it produces. Desalination is an additional cost. Putting these processes anywhere they’ll need to compete for water resources is just plain stupid.
Infrastructure costs are astounding because we currently have none, and hydrogen is not suitable for pipelines because it escapes easily, embrittles metal, and is prone to explode. It only takes a few massive hydrogen car or truck explosions to end hydrogen use for transportation, just like the Hindenburg disaster that ended hydrogen ballon travel.
GH is an excessive waste of money, and it hasn’t ever been made at scale—even after tens of billions spent by Europeans, Australians, and the United States.
All it takes is a little critical thinking to realize that something is amiss once one understands how GH is produced. First of all, we don’t have enough wind and solar to power the hydrogen plants. Second, wind and solar are part-time and weather dependent. The GH process is required to run at all times, not just the 30 percent of the time the wind blows and the 20 percent of the time the sun shines bright enough.
Making GH requires pure water to be heated to 2,000° F and is then electrocuted. This cracks the hydrogen and oxygen molecules. The hydrogen is then chilled to 420° F below zero, turning it into a liquid, and then it is finally compressed to 10,000 psi, comparable to three times the average scuba tank or compressed natural gas (CNG). Without this chilling and compression, hydrogen has one-tenth the energy per volume as natural gas. Under normal compressed circumstances, hydrogen has less energy than CNG. A kilogram of this liquid hydrogen has the energy of a gallon of gas.
When working with the liquid near zero, compressed hydrogen is tricky, as it is the smallest molecule, escaping normal pipelines and embrittling metals, causing them to crack sooner than later.
“Every time you involve hydrogen, you get not small losses, but large, substantial losses,” an energy specialist tells us. “The main cause of the issue is that hydrogen is a molecule that is too small and volatile to be used, transported effectively using the gas pipelines, turbines, boilers, cooktops, or burner jets that are now in place.” Deep pocket oil companies are getting out of this boondoggle. BP cancelled 18 hydrogen projects because they were unprofitable, all in an effort to save $200 million a year. Shell cancelled a Norway hydrogen project and others for lack of demand, while a $750 million GH plant in Australia was cancelled because it was a money loser.
The first argument raised by climate hawks is the production of GH, which costs 40 percent more in energy than it produces. Some of the GH will leak, as it is stored in salt caverns.
When there isn’t any wind or solar power, which is usually the case, they then say we can use this stored hydrogen to create second-generation GH. Using second-generation hydrogen alone will bear 80 percent of the cost of the energy that is actually produced—not including losses—which doesn’t even factor in all the other costs associated with the process.
And what about water needs?
It’s just stupid to put hydrogen hubs in areas without enough water. Houston, Utah, and Southern California, to name a few, are recognized as government sponsored GH hotspots.
Particularly in Utah, on the edge of the desert, where solar and wind power barely account for 2 percent of total electricity generated. Or California, which suffers from droughts, and often sees water shortages.
Trump and Congressional Republicans must stop wasting billions on GH. Any money spent on GH adds to our $36.5 trillion national debt, driving up inflation. While it was reported that Trump is considering killing hydrogen hubs in blue states, Trump should kill all of them.
Green hydrogen is an expensive pipedream we simply cannot afford.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Could someone explain why water needs to be heated to 2000 degrees F before being “electrocuted” (sic)? I thought electrolysis could only be performed on a liquid.
This guy is a state politician; it seems no science qualifications, eg
“A kilogram of this liquid hydrogen has the energy of a gallon of gas.”
Well, yes, but a gallon of LNG weighs 3 kilograms.
What does liquid natural gas have to do with hydrogen?
This guy is a state politician; it seems no science qualifications,
Apart from the ‘state’ bit it hasn’t stopped Al Gore or John Kerry making pronouncements on the subject. Have you made similar objections to their pronouncements?
I don’t think either of those has spoken of electrocuting water.
And we have a winner! The most utterly irrelevant non-answer to a question today!
Even as a politician he knows more than our resident pretend scientist 🙂
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_oxide_electrolyzer_cell
It’s the most promising cost effective way to do the job but typically between 500 and 850 °C operation temp
He said it requires heating to 2000°F. First, 850°C is only 1560°F. But second, it certainly doesn’t require it. Solid oxide electrolysis may be promising, but it is not how it is mostly done. Wiki says:
“Alkaline electrolyzers are cheaper in terms of investment (they generally use nickel catalysts), but least efficient. PEM electrolyzers are more expensive (they generally use expensive platinum-group metal catalysts) but are more efficient and can operate at higher current densities, and can, therefore, be possibly cheaper if the hydrogen production is large enough. Solid oxide electrolyzer cells (SOEC) are the third most common type of electrolysis, and the most expensive, and use high operating temperatures to increase efficiency.”
So platinum group metals MAY possibly be cheaper, or not. The accompanying graph goes to 1000°C. The text reads “Theoretical thermal water splitting efficiencies.[34] 60% efficient at 1000°C”
But they don’t say what the higher temperatures for SOEC are.
Nick got caught out and pulling the old Stokes deflection, he doesn’t know enough about this area but that doesn’t stop him commenting.
SOEC is immature and there is lots of research being done but yes production wise that translates to less common. One of the huge advantages of SOEC is you can use nano structures and QM material tricks to push performance just because of the nature of the process.
CSRIO here in Australia even trialed one
https://www.hydrogen-worldexpo.com/industry-news/1000-hour-soec-trial-nsw-steelworks-completed-csiro
Australia is not exactly an R&D powerhouse in this area, so if we have the technology you can imagine what is out there.
However Scientist Nick knows best so it isn’t happening 🙂
The point of the article is to argue that hydrogen is a non-starter as a large scale consumer and business energy vehicle. That is, its impractical for heating and transport. And its not just impractical, its also far too expensive to make by conventional means and ‘Green’ hydrogen is impossible to make.
What is your view on this? Do you believe that homes heated by hydrogen and cars running on it are either possible or desirable?
There are a lot of practical difficulties with hydrogen, but they should be solvable. It’s flammable, but so are petrol and methane. We figured out how to use those safely (after many accidents). The piping and cryogenic issues are a nuisance, but can be managed.
I think the key need is for aviation fuel. Home heating should be done by heat pumps; cars with batteries, unless we get really good with hydrogen.
But hydrogen is TOTALLY UNNECESSARY and a total waste of time and money
OIL, GAS, and COAL can provide all our energy for heating and transport fuel needs for centuries to come.
Even EVs are an unnecessary and costly inconvenience intended mainly for virtue-seeking affluent twits.
Why stuff around with a product with known serious usage issues. Just DUMB.
It is almost as moronically stupid as thinking a grid can rely on wind and solar.
But you still get a GHG as a by product which defeats the purpose of all the green stupidity.
How? If you use solar electricity to electrolyse water?
Really Nick … write the equation for what happens when you burn hydrogen. Then look try the lookup and one of them is on the list
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas
You want to start to emit it from planes high up in the atmosphere 🙂
To most the problem is obvious. Your climate religion complains about plane emissions now and you want to make them worse.
Clouds, night-time…
About as stupid as using solar for grid supply !
Take a holistic view of this.
One can not reasonably look at one piece of a jigsaw puzzle and go aha, now I see it!
Let’s see a business plan that allows for a massive investment in equipment but is only able to produce a product 25% of the time. That alone makes GH using solar unviable.
Hydrogen as an alternative to FF is not economically feasible and all these pilot and demonstration projects are failing because of it. They should all be shut down immediately.
Is this all to do with reducing emissions of carbon dioxide? If so, what depthless stupidity. The rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide is unstoppable and harmless. Maybe it’s Asian coal burning? Given the lack of change in the idiosyncratic Keeling sawtooth during Covid deindustrialisation, it’s surely natural and unaffected by trivial human inputs. Get used to it and relax. Oh, btw, please explain how we can have ‘climate change’ with no change in tropic cyclones? We can’t,
In little Nick’s world, all things that are flammable, are equally flammable.
Also all problems can be solved, if only you have the will. (and money)
Also all problems can be solved, if only you have the will. (and [other people’s] money)
Fixed it for ya!
You obviously have no engineering expertise, especially in materials science.
There are basic physical constraints that make them practically insolvable. You can not just hand wave and claim it is doable and manageable.
Hydrogen as aviation fuel? No.
Back in the late 70’s – early ’80s McDonnell Douglas looked at using hydrogen for a DC-10. Cut the range and payload down to DC2 performance as most of the fuselage and wings were fuel tanks. Around 30 passengers, but it still had a much higher speed than the DC2.
Despite the fuel crunch, they decided not to go forward with the project (Duh!). That was before Gore invented the internet – I could find no information on it there.
Airbus in the UK recently announced it was extending its timeline for a hydrogen powered aircraft by 5 – 10 years beyond the original 2035 target (Feb 2025).
It also cancelled the previously planned tests of hydrogen fuel cell propulsion using an A380 as a flying test bed.
They have been working on this for a number of years. These latest announcements indicate that the project is not going well. Prepare for cancellation in a couple of years time.
Not sure how you overcome the problem of thermodynamic stupidity or renewables surplus variability and intermittency.
“Piping” is more than a” nuisance”. It is the death knell for hydrogen, at scale. Those tiny moles are leaky, and embrittle pretty much any ferrous metal.
Look elsewhere…
I never accept Wiki as a sole source of information.
This article is scientific twaddle. Hydrogen may be useful because unlike electricity which is only a CARRIER of energy, Hydrogen is stored energy. As everyone points out, renewables are intermittent which is why IMHO storing energy in the form of compressed (not liquefied) is superior to batteries. The latter have the huge disadvantage of requiring vast power to recharge in reasonable time, and are not resistant to many cycles.
Whilst battery technology might improve the laws of electrical power will not,
Where are you going to get it, and how are you going to store it? That’s why its not usable. Is it superior to batteries for energy storage? No, because its too expensive to make and its impractical to use. Its pure irrational fantasy.
I’m guessing he’s like Nick, the issues that you raise are merely problems, and the human race has been solving problems for millenia. He has no doubt that if only we throw enough money at this problem, it too will be solved.
Think of the battery fires.
In other words, you didn’t bother to read the article.
Hydrogen gas is the Houdini molecule. … It escapes from everything.
So batteries never self discharge. It’s just relative speed of escape, even Houdini needed time
Hydrogen is useful as a reactant in several important chemical processes. The manufacture of ammonia and derivatives, and desulphurisation and cracking processes in refineries being the main ones.
The description sounds similar to making H2 from natural gas with SMR, steam methane reforming, without the shocking part.
It doesn’t. I was an oxygen generator technician in the U.S. Navy, on-board an SSN 40+ years ago. Our oxygen generator used more modest temperature and a potassium hydroxide catalyst to enable DC current thru the water. We pumped the H2 overboard.
Does anyone ever ask engineers about these proposals? We all know it is all fairy dust, yet they throwing money down the shit hole
I am an engineer. It is all fairy dust.
The Green energy zealots are looking to hydrogen as a fix to their cravings in the same way an alcoholic would turn to pure alcohol as a fix to their craving.
It would work fine but only the once, then reality hits.
I particular like the argument of using Green hydrogen to produce more Green hydrogen. Pure lunacy, do they ever do anything remotely sensible or sane?
Actually, using green hydrogen to produce more green hydrogen is the key to the whole issue. If you can’t do that then there’s not much point in making any green hydrogen in the first place. The logic is very simple: if green hydrogen can’t make green hydrogen economically then you are better off using your energy directly instead of making green hydrogen with it.
Spot on.
You’re obviously exposing a great distinction between the energy intensive making/deriving a fuel (“green” hydrogen) as opposed to industrially and cost effectively gathering a fuel (e.g. NG) that already exists (Praise be to God of the Bible for Fossil Fuels).
Exclusively using “green” hydrogen to make more “green” hydrogen would be a perpetual motion machine, which defies physics, ego, I agree with you! Now if we could simply access the most abundant element in the Universe with a ~light year’s long pipeline, we’d be in business.
Mike you have answered your own question. If you can’t make Green hydrogen with Green Hydrogen, there is no point making Green hydrogen. Anyone that tries to make more Green Hydrogen using so called Green hydrogen will quickly run out of their Green energy hydrogen as each cycle of production reduces the stock of hydrogen.
Basically splitting hydrogen from water via electrolysis is pointless. It is a waste of energy and money. Without state grant support no one would ever consider doing it.
The proponents of so-called “green” hydrogen love to play whack-a-mole with the technical as well as safety issues involved with hydrogen, which are very real. But, try as they might, they can’t get around the huge costs involved, and for what? Oh right, they want to “save the planet”..You really can’t fix Stupid.
If you think battery fires are a problem (and they are), consider the next fire burning hydrogen.
This rant fails to acknowledge a host of inconvenient truths:
We already have a hydrogen economy – all oil refineries import and use large amounts of hydrogen to refine the crude oil in the hydrocracking process. Without piped in hydrogen, there is no fuel for anything from crude oil. Obviously if piped in hydrogen gas is so commonly used, it is not the hopeless wreck of a method portrayed in this rant. The hydrogen gas is produced in a natural gas processing plant via steam reforming. This is a large existing infrastructure.
The author pretends that the only way to produce hydrogen industrially is through a high temperature process, which is the solid oxide process. That’s a dumb thing to write given that virtually all industrial hydrogen gas production comes from steam reforming of natural gas. The high temperature process is only a developmental technology and it is expected to be more efficient than other forms of electrolysis.
The author also compares the volume of water required to produce hydrogen to the “amount” of water used. This grade school analysis is comparing apples from one universe to oranges from another universe. The mass of hydrogen required to power a typical passenger car for a full operating range of 300-400 miles (1 to 2 weeks of commuting) is on the order of 1.5-2 kg of hydrogen. It requires about 2.4 gal of water to produce 1 kg of hydrogen via hydrolysis. So roughly 5 gallons of water is equal to a full vehicle tank of hydrogen. This is less than half the water typically consumed in a daily shower for one person. Or three toilet flushes. As compared to the fact that 80+% of all water used goes to landscape irrigation for the typical urban single family home, with all the other water uses (showers, baths, toilets, laundry, dishwashing, cleaning, etc.) adding up to the remaining 20%.
The author also fails to acknowledge that electrolysis works with seawater, or briny water, reclaimed wastewater, or any water of less than drinking water quality.
This is not to say that transitioning to hydrogen is easy or cheap or won’t take years. But the infrastructure already exists to produce very large amounts of hydrogen – one of the most widely used industrial gases in the world. It is already used not just to refine the crude oil we burn, but also to produce ammonia, metal treatment, food processing, welding, etc. etc. The only infrastructure that is lacking is to get that hydrogen to fuel stations.
Lastly, the author fails to mention that hydrogen can be produced via existing hydrolysis local production equipment. Honda even provides a home hydrogen production machine that goes in your garage so you produce all your own fuel at home if you want. Larger units can be deployed at any location with electrical power supply.
at any location with electrical power supply…
Now that is funny !! 🙂
And so utterly and completely pointless. !
Refer to my first post – electricity storage is the problem, BTW IMHO the whole CO2 apocolyptic climate catastrophe is equally twaddle. However back in 1971 it was my opinion that oil (not coal) was too valuable just to burn.
If you want real energy out of hydrogen, fuse it. I think that was the method they used in “Back to the Future” using the flux capacitor. Then you could use the amount of water in an eye dropper to run your car for a year.
While we are on the subject of shutting down hugely expensive futile “energy research”, let’s face the facts that nuclear fusion is never going to be humanly possible on earth. Only the massive gravity of stars can contain that process.
Even though we’ve actually managed it? Not economically, yet, but still done it.
You apparently believe that because something can be done, that’s all that matters.
Because refineries create H2 and are able to pipe it a few yards at low pressure and close to room temperature, that proves that creating H2, at cryogenic temperatures will be economic and easily done.
Hydrolysis is less efficient energy conversion to storage than batteries…add in proton exchange membrane complexities, high temperatures required for improved efficiency, plus the hydrogen storage issues and you’ve got the 3rd or 4th best way to store electricity…not to say there aren’t niche markets for hydrogen for which electrolysis is useful….Hydrogen powered forklifts seem to be one…
You are correct: Your rant fails to acknowledge a host of inconvenient truths.
Most refineries produce their hydrogen on site. Before the modern fashion for very low sulphur products hydrogen coproduced by reformers converting naphtha to high octane gasoline components met most of the need. Pipeline networks for hydrogen to supply refineries from dedicated offside plant are not the norm: most refineries that need SMR hydrogen have plant onsite that is integrated into power generation and steam lines.
Until the several new catalysts are in full production to bring down prices we should quite simply make hydrogen from coal – after all town gas was used for decades in the 19C and as everyone knows that is 70% hydrogen. It is easy and safe to use for heating and lighting and can be piped through towns, streets and houses and even stored in gasometers without a problem/
The hydrogen comes from the steam injected into the process, not the coal.
Finally we’re going green, I see Nick with 4 likes…oh wait there he’s in the red zone again.
“Burning Louis Voutton handbags for hat”… yes, just stuffed with 500€ bills” would be the better comparision for this hilbilly energy bonfire H2 idiocy really is.
Since you can’t fix stupid I wouldn’t say “kill them all” but “burn them all”, dragons or wildfire the choice is yours (refrain from using gasoline, don’t want to have to pay for the sudden spike in demand) sarc
heat…darn typo
But the engineering toolbox says methane’s heat of combustion is 891 kJ/mol, while hydrogen’s is 286 kJ/mol, making the fraction just shy of one-third. What am I missing?
You are correct Joe, they are talking about cryogenic liquid storage….As far as gasses go, a gm-mole of hydrogen is only 2 grams and takes up 22.4 litres as gas at STP (0C and 1 atm), while a gm- mole of methane is 16 grams and still takes up the same 22.4 litres at STP.
Liquid hydrogen has a density of around 70 kg/m³, while liquid methane (LNG) is roughly 410-500 kg/m³. So their number is still not correct.
I’m pessimistic about hydrogen, for many of the reasons he touches on, but I don’t really know, so I’m interested in getting good information.
This post didn’t provide it.
Ever since Jimmy Carter ordered the US to switch to hydrogen fuel there has endless investment and research. Ballard Power is still milking investors and corporations. No result.
None of the miracle schemes have been economical. I just have to believe that physics is standing in the way. A more complex process is rarely more efficient.
Cui Bono explains it all.
Get the government out of the energy business and all of this nonsense simply disappears. It is that simple.
I stopped reading when he electrocuted the water. I thought that was inhumane.
Would you rather he used a guillotine ? 😉
Forget all problems with stocking or distributing hydrogen – just remember that we have used piped town gas for heating and lighting from the 19C. Town gas was of course 70% hydrogen.