By Kelvin Kemm
At a shopping mall or amusement park one can see vendors selling balloons filled with Helium. Kids love them and dance around trailing their balloons, which float above them. From time to time some kid accidentally lets go and you see the balloon soaring high into the sky, to the delight of many watching, but to the heartbreak of the kid. The balloon soars up into the sky because it is filled with Helium, and Helium is a gas much lighter than the Oxygen and Nitrogen which make up most of the atmosphere.
Atoms are made-up of a nucleus, and electrons which orbit around the nuclei, Each nucleus is composed of neutrons and protons. The mass of each atom is essentially the mass of the total number of neutrons and protons in a nucleus. The scientifically quoted masses are not whole numbers because the atoms of a single element have slight variations in the number of neutrons. These variations are called isotopes. So, the quoted mass of Oxygen, for example, is 15.999 which is not a round number. But for now, I will just use the closest round number, so Oxygen will be 16. These numbers are measured in Atomic Mass Units, so Oxygen is 16 amu. Nitrogen is 14, and Helium is 4. As you can see, the Helium is way lighter than Oxygen or Nitrogen, and that is why a Helium balloon shoots up into the sky so fast when the kid lets go. But there is an additional factor, and that is that in nature the atoms exist as molecules. Both the Oxygen and Nitrogen molecules consist of two atoms each, but the Helium molecule is only one atom. So, the molecular masses in the air are actually; Oxygen 32, Nitrogen 28, and Helium is still 4.
Golf balls in a fishing net
But now a universal disappointment for kids. The kid has fun with the balloon all day, and then usually ties it to a chair so that he can play with it again in the morning. But when he comes to look at it in the morning it is nearly flat and typically lying on the floor. This disappointing sight then generates much discussion as to what went wrong during the night. The answer is quite simple. The Helium atom is not only light in mass, but is also very small in comparison to the Oxygen and Nitrogen atoms. It is like comparing a soccer ball and a golf ball, if you are looking at Oxygen and Helium. In fact, two soccer balls glued together, because the Oxygen has to exist as a 2-atom molecule. Imagine filling a fishing net with pairs of soccer balls glued together. You can easily carry a whole load of double soccer balls in a fishing net with no problem. But you can’t fill the fishing net with a load of golf balls, because they will all fall through the net holes. In the case of a balloon the wall of the balloon is not solid, it is in effect a net. The spaces between the big molecules which make up the balloon are small enough that Oxygen and Nitrogen can’t get through, but Helium can. So what actually happens during the night, is that the Helium just leaks out through the wall of the balloon, much to the disappointment of the child.
These difference in sizes of the molecules also present problems in industry. Pipelines which have joints, valves, and all sorts of steps in a production process will readily contain Oxygen or Nitrogen, but can very easily leak Helium. So, making a Helium pipeline is far more difficult than making an Oxygen pipeline.
Hydrogen heartache
But now let us turn our attention to Hydrogen. The atomic mass of Hydrogen is 1, and yes, in nature, Hydrogen exists as a 2-atom molecule, which means that its molecular mass is 2. So, Hydrogen comes out way smaller even than Helium. So now just imagine the industrial challenges of moving Hydrogen around and trying to store it. If Helium leaks out of a pipeline joint which has not been tightened correctly it is a nuisance because it costs the production company money for lost Helium. But if Hydrogen leaks out, it’s even worse because Hydrogen can explode or burn.
For a while now there has been much hoopla in the media about Hydrogen as a fuel, and how wonderful it is. Hydrogen has been known for centuries, so how come nobody came up with this idea long before this? Think about that. This whole Hydrogen thing came about as a result of the politically induced introduction of solar and wind energy all over the place. The big downside of solar and wind is that they are highly intermittent and therefore unreliable. In the case of solar, you quite likely get excess over lunch time but then nothing as the Sun goes down. This was clearly a serious limitation of solar power. So in Germany, under political inducement, the scientists came up with the idea of taking the surplus solar at lunchtime and storing it so that you could use it as dinner-time approaches.
The one method of storage proposed was to take the surplus solar and put it through a water electrolyzer which breaks the H2O water molecule into Hydrogen and Oxygen. You then store the Hydrogen until later in the day and then burn it to recreate the excess electricity collected at lunchtime. Sounds great, but that’s an incredibly complex route. Firstly, there’s a law of physics that says that every time you change energy from one type to another, you lose some of it. So, each one of those changes loses energy and therefore pushes up the price of the remaining energy.
As we have already found out, storing and transporting Hydrogen is extremely difficult, requiring much higher specifications than storing or moving Oxygen or Nitrogen. The costs of installing a Hydrogen transport and storage system are way higher than for Oxygen or Nitrogen.
But it gets a lot worse.
Ice blocks are hot in comparison
To store even a moderate amount of Hydrogen energy requires a large volume. To make storage practical, Hydrogen must either be compressed to very high pressures, or cooled to extremely low temperatures until it becomes a liquid.
Both methods require expensive equipment. High-pressure tanks must be specially designed to very high specs.
Liquid Hydrogen requires temperatures close to minus 2530 Celsius, and needs advanced insulation. Transporting Hydrogen is also clearly very difficult.
Hydrogen fuel is absolutely not a fantastic new scientific development. It was known a couple of centuries ago. The reason why people didn’t use it in the past was because of all the practical difficulties of industrialising and retailing Hydrogen gas. It has been brought into the popular media now because of the political need to solve the intermittent nature of wind and solar. Hydrogen is not being developed because it’s a good engineering idea but because of desperation to try and make the financial equations of variable excess solar and wind become a bit more palatable to the consumer. The whole problem is compounded manyfold more when one talks of producing vast volumes of Hydrogen in African countries and then transporting it to Europe.
So when you see excited chats about the glories of Hydrogen in the media, bear in mind that Hydrogen as a fuel was created as a political response to the politically induced problem of the huge variability of solar and wind. Solar and wind were thought up as a response to the political reaction to a perceived fear of global warming and climate change. The Hydrogen issue was never developed by scientists and engineers in response to a genuine engineering requirement.
Maybe if we captured hydrogen with carbon? Called it carbon capture. CH4. Any market for that? The big old carbon molecule will plug the leaks and weighs only 12. Less than air. Rockets filled with CH4 float into space. It is so lite.
I have a silly question. Why can’t Oxygen exist as a single Atom?
Monatomic oxygen (O) exists predominantly in Earth’s upper atmosphere, specifically within the mesosphere (about 50 to 85 km up), thermosphere (85 to 600 km up), and exosphere.
Web search engines can be your friend.
I asked Grok, it said because monoatomic O is highly reactive, it wants to bond with whatever it can.
That’s fine, but completely different from your question as to where monatomic oxygen exists.
he did not ask that
No, but Jeff Alberts did ask why can’t oxygen exist as a single atom (i.e., be monatomic). I pointed out where, in fact monatomic oxygen naturally exists, stably, in copious quantities.
IMHO, Jeff Alberts’/Grok’s subsequent comment did not address the fact that O does indeed exist naturally, albeit that comment does explain why monatomic oxygen is only found in trace amounts in the troposphere.
My apologies for any confusion I caused.
Copious quantities?
We must have different definitions of the word “copious”.
The thermosphere is also known as “space”, as both begin 50 miles above the surface.
The atmosphere (if you can call it that) is about a millionth as dense as at sea leval.
According to Google’s AI bot:
“The estimated total mass of atomic oxygen in the upper thermosphere is roughly 10^11 to 10^12 kg.”
That’s equivalent to 50–500 million metric tons of monatomic oxygen. Yeah, “copious” fits in my world.
You may call the thermosphere “space” but it has sufficient density, even at 85 km altitude, generally defined as the start of the upper thermosphere, to cause fairly rapid re-entry of orbiting satellites. In fact, satellites begin experiencing a severe, exponential increase in high atmospheric drag below 200 km (124 miles). This is the primary reason the ISS is kep at a nominal orbiting altitude of 400 km, and even so it still requires period “drag makeup” propulsive maneuvers.
BTW, according to Wikipedia, the Kármán line is the most widely accepted conventional boundary defining the beginning of space. Located at an altitude of 100 kilometers (62 miles) above Earth’s mean sea level, it marks the point where the atmosphere becomes too thin for conventional aircraft wings to generate enough lift to fly.
wrong place
It can and does under certain conditions.
In the air below the stratosphere, each electron in the outer electron shell shares a valence electron position so that there in an energy minimum. Just like all other covalent bonds.
In Chemistry 101 you will find it in the section about how and why elements combine into compounds.
As a chemist, I can say for that explanation is clear as mud.
Above the stratosphere atoms don’t share the valence electron?
Say what???
For O2 in the troposphere, each oxygen atom is bound to its mated oxygen atom via a double covalent bond wherein two pairs of electrons are shared.
Nitrogen (N2) involves a covalent bond with three shared pairs of electrons, but there are no cases of diatomic gases where “each electron in the outer shell” on one atom is shared with those of its mated atom.
It can exist, but not for long.
When UV breaks up O2 high in the atmosphere, monatomic O exists, but only until it bumps into something it can react with.
That’s pretty much what Grok told me.
Hence the formation of the Ozone layer: O2 + O → O3
Carbon has a molecular weight of 12, but CO2 has a molecular weight of 44. In comparison the averag molecular weight of “dry air” at sea level is only about 29.
As to your claim that “Rockets filled with CH4 float into space”, I’ll just let that rest on its own merits.
CH4 has a molecular weight of 16. Just over half the weight of air. We bury NG pipelines lest they float away.
We bury pipelines to protect them. Believing they would float away is one of the silliest things I’ve read in awhile.
Helium has an atomic weight of 4, yet a balloon filed with it, can only lift a fraction of an ounce.
Hydrogen has an atomic weight of 1, yet canisters of them don’t have to be tied down in order to keep them from floating away.
I can’t seem to find any balloons made of pipeline quality carbon steel.
One additional thing, you can pull a hard vacuum on a steel pipe and it will still not have enough bouyancy to float away.
The title made me laugh & come to comment .
CH4 is also a hell of a lot easier to deal with . Ask Elon Musk .
Elon Musk/SpaceX might not agree, since they’ve executed 12 integrated test flights of vehicles using LCH4 as the fuel for their various Raptor engine variations used on Starship Super Heavy (booster ) and Starship flight vehicle, but have yet to successfully achieve one orbit of Earth.
The LOX/LCH4 Raptor engines, and plumbing to them, have figured prominently in many Starship flight failures.
“…..but have yet to successfully achieve one orbit of Earth…”
But not because they were unable to do so. In several Starship flights they could easily have achieved full orbit simply by a slightly longer engine burn. But they chose not to until they had thoroughly tested the ability to re-light the engines in orbit. They will probably achieve full orbit on Flight 14. Meanwhile they seem to have launched huge numbers of Starlink satellites. SpaceX is the most successful space launch company on – and off – Earth.
Based on IFT-12, and its demonstrated multiple* failures to relight the new Raptor 3 engines, it appears SpaceX still has a substantial amount of development work remaining.
*At start of Starship IFT-12 boostback burn, eight (8) of planned 28 Raptor 3 engines to be used failed to restart, resulting in the Super Heavy booster impacting the ocean at an estimated speed of 1,450 km/h, or about 900 mph.
Their guiding philosophy is move fast and break things.
These are not failures, they are inexpensive and informative tests.
Some people will never forgive Musk for working with Trump to reduce government waste.
That and stopping ‘X’ from banning anyone to the right of Mao.
For sure, SpaceX is staying true to that philosophy with regards to Starship.
Anyone that believes NASA’s officially announced timeline to use a Starship Human Landing System (HLS) for crewed lunar landings starting in 2028, during the Artemis IV mission, is simply dreaming.
Look for NASA to announce, before end-2026, that the planned date for a manned lunar landing has, once again, been delayed by another 2-3 years. That should be, ummmm, “informative”.
Nature has solved both the brittlement issue and the molecular leakage issue. Nature simply bonded 4 Hydrogen Atoms with a single Carbon atom and both issues are resolved making both storage and usage far more convenient.
Yep. But CH4 has that one atom of carbon, which is evil according to some climate scientists. Because, when it burns, the reaction is CH4 + 2O2 → CO2 + 2H2O. Can’t have that being produced by humans, it’s an existential back radiation problem according to them. Of course, they never worry about twice the amount of water produced, which will drown you too.
“. . . when it burns, the reaction is CH4 + 2O2 → CO2 + 2H2O.”
That reaction only holds for a stoichiometric mixture ratio. In many cases, stoichiometric combustion is not practical due to the peak temperature resulting from such, in which case other reaction byproducts species are produced, including CO, H2, and C (soot).
Which is why catalytic converters were applied to ICE vehicles. Turns the nasty pollutants into HARMLESS CO2 and water vapor.
CH4, methane, is no more a pollutant than carbon dioxide
It is part of the chemistry of life on the planet, occurs in abundance naturally and is the major component in natural gas having been collected in deep ocean pockets after drizzling out of solution in the cold and high pressure of the deep.
Catalytic converters do not remove soot from ICE exhausts, In fact, excess soot can coat and clog a catalytic converter’s honeycomb structure over time.
Malarkey.
That’s only true if the catalytic converter never gets up to temperature.
Poorly worded and mostly just plain wrong.
“So, Hydrogen comes out way smaller even than Helium. So now just imagine the industrial challenges of moving Hydrogen around and trying to store it. If Helium leaks out of a pipeline joint which has not been tightened correctly it is a nuisance because it costs the production company money for lost Helium. But if Hydrogen leaks out, it’s even worse because Hydrogen can explode or burn.”
When Hydrogen was supplied to houses throughout Britain as the major component of town gas fires or explosions weren’t a problem because Hydrogen diffuses so rapidly that a combustable mixture isn’t formed. When after about a hundred years of supplying town gas it was replaced with natural gas (methane) fires and explosions from leaks became a problem and preventative measures had to be undertaken.
https://sps-support.honeywell.com/s/article/What-does-Hydrogen-LEL-equivalent-mean
I believe you are confusing coal (Town) gas with hydrogen.
“as the major component of town gas”
He did not.
or he inhaled some of it…
It all depends on how well ventilated the room that is being leaked into, is.
The town gas had a smelly component added to it (the ‘rotten egg’ gas) so any leakage in a house was rapidly noticed and the room ventilated, the major hazard being gassed by CO (a minor component).
I was always under the impression that town gas had naturally occurring sulphur based compounds in it as the coal used was of poor quality, whereas natural gas (Methane) didn’t and was artificially made to have a smell so that people were aware of any leaks.
You are correct. There was a coke works in the village of my birth, and you could smell it for miles around.
Well ventilated rooms in traditional British housing stock was never a problem 😁 – but now it is for anyone wanting to install a heat pump and heat the locality.
“as the major component“
I’ve found 40%.
Typical historical compositions included:
The presence of high levels of carbon monoxide made town gas highly toxic, requiring careful handling and eventual replacement by safer natural gas in the UK between 1967 and 1977.
I remember (as a youngster) hearing or reading accounts of people committing suicide by putting their head into an oven with the gas flowing, having a toxic CO component would make that a way more effective process than with more or less pure NG.
If memory serves, town gas was used by a serial killer in the U.K. in the 1940’s or 50’s.
The town gas had self sealing properties from bitumen also.
Also the town gas had an odourant added to quickly locate leaks, and the line pressure was generally less than 0.5 psi. Originally town gas contained up to 50% of carbon monoxide, which was handy for committing suicide by sticking one’s head in the oven after turning the gas on.
These days, some people who are terrified of CO2 have proposed extracting CO2 from the atmosphere, breaking it down to carbon monoxide plus oxygen using catalysts, then burning the carbon monoxide as fuel, creating CO2, breaking it down . . ., etc.
Millions of dollars in Government grants involved, so it must be practical – mustn’t it?
Sounds like a variation of perpetual motion to me, and complete nonsense, but who am I to contradict the experts?
“Also the town gas had an odourant added to quickly locate leaks, and the line pressure was generally less than 0.5 psi.”
That would be 0.5 psig.
“Originally town gas contained up to 50% of carbon monoxide,”
Actually much less than that.
In the UK Town/Coal Gas was stored in Gasometers/Gasholders to balance intermittent supply with constant demand. These were large telescopic collapsible structures whose bases were filled with water. As gas was pumped in, the increased volume raised the telescopic structure; as gas was drawn off the structure slowly collapsed, its weight providing constant, low pressure to the gas transmitted through cast-iron or copper pipework.
This is entirely different to what is proposed for modern day storage and transmission of hydrogen.
While hydrogen may have its challenges, if the choices are CCP EVs, or hydrogen use, then isn’t hydrogen the better option? Yes it’s more complicated than diesel or petrol, but if oilfields either aren’t available, or cannot be touched because of ecofascist insanity or financial impracticality, and foreign imports are unviable because of cost, military action, or ecofascist insanity, then what alternatives exist?
California is forcing its way into this very paradigm. Sure they may have the option of American made Teslas, assuming they aren’t banned for wrongthink, but can they rely on foreign imports for all their fuel needs? And while the Left may not have a problem relying on imports for all their needs – anything’s better than relying on Red America in their view, what if those imports become unavailable, or the cost becomes prohibitive? The Left not only don’t have a problem with ICEVs being eliminated, that’s a stated goal of theirs, except are they prepared for the consequences? And are they prepared to accept the cost of that?
Or will they realise that they need a third option before completely destroying themselves? If oil is out, and EVs don’t work despite how much the Left want them to replace ICEVs, what alternative to hydrogen is there? Sure there’s been ideas around nuclear power, but most of those don’t get much further than fantasy. Is there any alternative form of power, one presently available rather than limited to the realms of SF?
The federal government should place small refineries at all Ca military installations and create their own fuels. Why depend on Wakyfornia?
Wouldn’t that increase risk at those locations? And scaling means a single refinery would be better for efficiency and cost, though also a bigger target no?
Yes the (US) federal government might need to do something that extreme to support military operations, but state and federal Democrats would likely scream blue murder! (pun intended?)
Could ‘waste’ fuel not fit for military use be sold on the public market?
But Ca. might then try and regulate its transport throughout the state making it difficult to get from base to base.
Plus, it’s the “Government” cost is no object.
As far as “Waste Fuel” might be concerned… making it available to the public without Ca. taxes applied (since it is being purchased on federal lands) might give Ca. legislators a much deserved “Black Eye”
Neither is a viable option.
Not every country is blessed with extensive oilfields, let alone affordable refineries. If you don’t want EVs, and don’t want hydrogen, what is the alternative to fuel that you don’t have? (Think Europe, Australia, NZ, …)
Refusing to buy oil merely because it isn’t sourced locally is not a logical decision.
If you insist on being stupid, you end up with non-viable results.
Nothing I can do about that.
As usual, the elephant in the room is ignored. There is no “hydrogen mine” or “hydrogen well” that you can extract hydrogen from. Hydrogen is “The Elizabeth Taylor of Elements.” It is always “married” to something else here on Earth, and the “divorce” will consume more energy than will ever be gained by burning the hydrogen.
And all that energy, barring the “nuclear option,” will be coming from COAL, OIL AND GAS. And to avoid any doubt, that INCLUDES all wind and solar, the apparatus for the collection of which is all produced using…COAL, OIL AND GAS.
Thank you. There are 2 main sources of hydrogen on Earth, water(H20) through electrolysis or methane(CH4) by using super heat to split the molecule. Both require vastly more energy to produce than will be created by the hydrogen molecules created.
Isn’t it about a 50% energy penalty?
California’s eco fascists have created a place which imports 25 to 30% of the electricity consumed in the state. This is why California’s electricity costs are more than double the national average. The same eco fascists have forced 2 major refineries to close. Now California will be forced to import 20+% of the refined petroleum products used in the state from South Korea and India.
California eco fascist logic appears to be that if they can increase the cost of fuel high enough, it will force people into EVs in spite of the fact that their is not sufficient electricity to re-charge the EVs and keep the state functioning.
Problem(s) solved!!
https://tech.yahoo.com/science/articles/airbus-wants-build-world-first-180200823.html
/s
Runway accident with a full load of H2, another Hindenburg
Airbus needs a few government billions to get this development scam underway.
Trust me, to fuel an airplane, hydrogen will not be tanked as a pressurized gas; almost certainly—if ever used for such—it will tanked as a cryogenic liquid to achieve the energy density needed for aircraft flight.
Hence, no real comparison to the Hindenburg airship.
Yes, in that case the embrittlement will lead to the brittle aluminum alloy wings to break off during the stress of takeoff.
THEN the aircraft will crash and ignite the hydrogen “fuel.”
🤪
Only an inexperienced, unqualified engineer would design an aircraft where the structural components of the aircraft’s wings were exposed to liquid hydrogen.
That would make the planes even bigger and heavier. In wing tanks, the skin and spars of the wing make up the wing tanks.
The only way I can think of to build a wing tank that isn’t also a structural component would be to create many wing tanks, each between the wing spars. This would also require connections between each of the individual tanks, along with pumps to move it the fuel between each of the tanks. That’s also a lot more piping and connections, each of which could leak if not maintained properly.
A lot of extra wait, less fuel, more maintenance, more points of failure.
What a deal.
Drop tanks.
Make sure the plane doesn’t fly over populated areas.
Liquid Hydrogen has three times the energy per pound of jet fuel. So an uncontrolled release would be much worse than a Hindenberg, where the density is a trivial comparison.
How do you warm the cryogenic fuel so it can be burned.
rockets use the cryogenic fuel to cool the rocket nozzles (which need cooling anyway) and in the process warm up the hydrogen.
Jet engines are hot, but not as a rocket nozzle. Also taking heat from the exhaust means less thrust and whatever heat exchanger you build is going to add even more weight.
“ tanked as a cryogenic liquid to achieve the energy density needed for aircraft flight.”
I’m just a Layman asking a few questions based one my personal experience.
Where I worked (a drinking water treatment plant), we used 3 different liquified gases, Chlorine, CO2 and Oxygen. The last two required at least compressors to keep the gases liquified. All three presented a frostbite danger if a leak occurred and your flesh was in the path of the liquid turning back into a gas. (Of course, with the Chlorine, frostbite would be the least of your concerns.) All containers were thick and heavy.
We used one ton cylinders of Chlorine. (They did not require compressors.) That is, they contained one ton of liquefied Chlorine. Each cylinder was made about 1 inch thick steel. An empty cylinder itself weighed between 1,300 and 1,500 pounds, depending on when it was made. (Each was stamped with a manufacturing date and the dates it was tested. The older ones, going back to the 30’s that I saw, were the heavier ones.
How heavy would the liquid H2 containers need to be to supply the fuel for an H2 powered commercial flight? How heavy would the compressors and other equipment need to be?
Those.who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Like all the times Communism/Socialism has been tried and failed.
If you keep the populace ignorant, it’s a lot easier to fool them again.
It’s really sad to talk to the brainwashed youth that are supposedly well educated. Propaganda works.
Another reason why hydrogen is not well received. It is expensive to produce.
When using electricity to separate water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen, and then directly burning the hydrogen, you are lucky to get much more than half to 2/3rds of the energy applied back.
In reality, when you add the energy needed to either compress or chill the hydrogen, your efficiency goes down even further.
Hydrogen is one of the few things that make batteries look good.
The other main source is super heating methane. The hydrogen created using this technique provides less than 30% of the energy than just using the methane would have generated.
How do you get to Hydrogen Land?
Hmm, ask Alice (whoever she is…funny song) or try to clap the heels of your red shiny shoes? 😉
She’s the one with the restaurant, right?
Dorothy had the red shoes, ruby slippers.
I believe the above article’s reference to Alice, as used in the title, is to the main character of story “Alice in Wonderland”, written by Lewis Carroll.
If you listen to the original song, Alice is Alice Avery, who has lived next door all his life and is now moving away.
“Who the hell is Alice” is a classic example of not listening by younger generations.
Here is the song.Very funny when I first heard it back in 1995.
I thought you had to fall down a rabbit hole.
WE’re living in a rabbit hole. Just ask any “trans” person.
It’s not required to fall down a rabbit to eat the mushrooms.
In a General Motors H2H Hummer, as demonstrated by Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2004:
https://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/index.php/gm-h2h-hummer/
According to Schwarzenegger, “The H2H is a bold experiment that along with the Hydrogen Highway Network will help California demonstrate the economic and technical viability of hydrogen. Californians invent the future and the H2H shows that a vehicle of today can run on the fuel of tomorrow.”
Twenty-two years later, for reasons he has yet to explain, those millions of hydrogen-powered cars that Arnold was predicting could be sold in California have yet to make their appearance on California’s roads.
In Texas we have 27 million registered vehicles (2025). Of those, 12 are hydrogen fuel cell powered. It’s a joke.
Except he never said “California”, he said “Kullyfawnia”.
Don’t wait on Arnold . . . the explanation is simple: there is no practical infrastructure for refueling hydrogen-power vehicles— whether Hummers or more practically-sized passenger vehicles—that would use hydrogen as their fuel.
Hydrogen dispensers will make EV charging stations look cheap and reliable.
In the 90s I participated in a DOE meeting in which one of the topics was Hydrogen powered cars. The fuel suppliers argued that they could supply Hydrogen but needed demand to build the supply network, the car manufacturers said that they could supply the vehicles but would need an existing supply network. The conclusion was that the government would need to set up the supply network in advance! Needless to say that didn’t happen.
For those with some knowledge of “da german language”, hydrogen reads somehsow like “hi Drogen”….hello drugs, might be the reason why these world saving retards are so high on it. sarc?
Curiously the same retards insist that you must not idle your engine to defrost your car’s windows (namely because of enviroment AND energy saving issues) but are completely fine by wasting truckloads of resources and energy to produce, distribute and transform hydrogen into heat/movement or whatever pipedream they come up with.
HIGH AS FUCK…it sickens me.
Time they all overdose and go the way of the Dodo bird instead to hell…I feel a bit sorry for the devil.
Disclaimer: bold/italic bitchers, yes I use capital letters once in a while 😉
Hydrogen needs to be manufactured as it doesn’t exist as a gas on Earth. Uh and it’s manufactured from natural gas i.e., methane, so why not burn methane if the first place?
Oh yeah burning methane releases CO₂ and the steam reforming method requires energy and releases CO₂ (Blue) hydrogen. And (Green) hydrogen by electrolysis uses a renewable source like a wind mill. So why not use the energy from the wind mill in the first place?
Years ago Scientific American (When it wasn’t a left wing house organ) had a neat article about the “Hydrogen economy” There were some interesting things to say about hydrogen, but the article was silent about the source of H₂.
Google AI runs this graphic
Pointing to a tree as CO₂ management is to say the least, amusing (-:
There actually are natural hydrogen deposits that are being studied for development. For some reason it was decided to call it “white” hydrogen. Whether any significant economic and commercial production takes place is to be determined.
https://www.aga.org/natural-hydrogen-has-been-underestimated/
I haven’t seen many of your witty posts. I was getting worried.
Some say childish and cowardly, I say young at heart and risk averse.
Anyway, I was busy travelling, thanks for your concern.
Sure. There’s no risk to a childish, anonymous coward to make fun of someone else’s looks.
Rube Goldberg would approve of hydrogen. /H
Your Rube Goldberg comment is spot on the money. Right in there with raising hamsters to run in squirrel cages to provide our renewable energy.
People today are already complaining about the cost of Natural Gas related energy generation. Now imagine just how much more expensive the cost of energy will be if Gas is converted to Hydrogen prior to using it to generate electricity!
Just use the trees, and skip the hydrogen.
Great article and great discussion. Having spent a significant portion of my life dealing with hydrogen I need to point out a couple of problems. In order to supply gaseous hydrogen for autos, the pressure of the tank is very high and requires special metals. The high pressure also means leaks will self ignite. The flames are invisible so present a life threatening situation Can you imagine what happens when a car is in an accident?
An alternative is fuel cell electric generation. But in order to operate, you need either high pressure storage or an onboard reformer to turn natural gas in to hydrogen.
Most hydrogen is produced by reforming natural gas. Electrolysis can also produce hydrogen but again the amount of energy required makes this economically impractical.
We saw the Hindenburg bursting into flames which pretty much put an end to the zeppelin aera.
We saw the Challenger disintegrating live on TV which partly contributed to the end of the space shuttle concept.
The utter lack of interest of the main stream media to cover those cases where a house burns down due to a exploding lithium ion battery pack makes me wonder how much of a cover-up or ignorance on their behalf it would require if half a city block goes ballistic due to a hydrogen explosion….just a thought of a worst case scenario.
My observation is that hydrogen tends to go boom if applied on a large scale. So the “future” won’t be much different from the past, it’s just a question of time..and then what?
Heading for trouble while on the quest to find a hyper expensive and inefficient solution for a non-existing problem. SAF
The Toyota Mirai hydrogen fuel-cell car has two carbon fiber fuel tanks containing hydrogen gas at 70 megapascals (690 bar). This is over three times the pressure of common aluminum scuba tanks (200 bar). Dive shop workers have been killed by scuba tanks rupturing during filling or other handling. Ask me if I want to sit on top of hydrogen tank at 690 bar. (Hard pass).
Alan listed the specs on the Mirai CF tanks. I have engineering experience with CF, no thanks.
Hindenburg anyone. I think it’s still on YouTube.
So the Hindenburg disaster has been forgotten. I suggest watching it on YouTube!
Oh please stop this Hindenburgh stuff.
You have probably a thousand incidents like Hindenburgh.
Just in Aeronautics.
It gots its fame as great failure of Nazi engineering.
That’s all.
You won’t stop advocating for fossil fuel jets or ships just because there have been and still are occasional catastrophies.
And let’s not even start with nuclear and tschernobyl, Fukushima.
There are enough arguments against Hydrogen – using tech failures from 100 years ago isn’t one, especially when the people who died died from falling down.
“And let’s not even start with nuclear and tschernobyl, Fukushima.”
Complete non-issues.
Fukushima was the result of equipment placement and an unexpectedly high tsunami. It’s not really a nuclear problem.
Pan-Am flight 214 was destroyed by a lightning strike, in that case it was due to fuel vapor in a wing tank exploding and breaking the wing.
The Hindenburg disaster was not due to hydrogen.
It was due to flammable fabric.
Hydrogen just made the disaster more spectacular.
That said, cost-risk-benefit analysis of hydrogen directs us to look elsewhere.
Cost is too high. Risk is to high to manage. Benefits are negligeable.
No no, it was George C Scott trying to disarm the explosive.
The fabric coating theory was debunked. The coating was the most flame-resistant paint known at the time.
Benefits?! Non-existent.
There are no “benefits” to replacing affordable, reliable energy with worse-than-useless, vacuous notions that wouldn’t solve their imaginary “problem” even if it were real.
One minor quibble – while molecular hydrogen (H2) is half the weight of helium atoms, it’s actually somewhat larger, so it’s likely a little slower to diffuse through its container than helium.
Hydrogen can interact chemically with substances in ways that helium cannot because helium is inert. There is an effect called hydrogen embrittlement in which hydrides can induce cracks and leaks to form with various metallurgy.
Notably with palladium, hydrogen has very high solubility in it and thus diffuses through it quite rapidly, especially at elevated temperature.
Don’t make the tanks out of palladium, check.
Actually palladium is a very good storage mechanism for Hydrogen, it can absorb up to 900 times its volume of Hydrogen.
Well, the sponge inside the tank can be palladium, but the tank itself, no.
Palladium is running about $1,300/oz, I don’t think it makes economic sense for hydrogen storage.
To an alarmist, eco-fascist half-wit, it would make perfect sense. Anything to advance their agenda of collectivist mass poverty (under their iron boot, of course).
Worst is when atomic hydrogen migrating through other materials recombines to a diatomic molecule when it reaches an inclusion in a steel vessel and creates blisters, ultimately causing mechanical failure and catastrophic results.
Its molecular velocity that matters as much
IIRC wouldn’t it take something of the order of 16 tankers to supply a filling station with the same amount of energy as a single tanker of petrol/gas?
Another example of the risk: Hindenburg.
The hydrogen just made the disaster worse.
Well, the golfball – fishernet analogy worked extremely well according to experts – during Covid.
The “holes” of those masks are magnitudes bigger than the virus and even N95’s have a warning on the package that they don’t protect from Covid.
Yet they were totally effective according to Fauci( who said before Covid that masks don’t protect) and factcheckers instantly “debunked” the warning as missinterpretation.
Therefore masks and fishernets should be great for storing hydrogen.
Good, we can store it at Fauci’s house;-)
If you can find him-he seems to have dropped out of sight, or he’s on the lam.
Along with the matches…
And it is even worse. Hydrogen at between 4% and 75% of air by volume is explosive meaning that almost any leak can lead to an explosion Compare with natural gas at 5% to 15% explosive range. We already have enough houses blowing up because of natural gas leaks. Just wait till we have hydrogen heated houses, and hydrogen as Mr. Kilty explains is very leaky. Furthermore, it requires far more electricity to compress hydrogen compared to natural gas and it is hard to liquify, as Mr. Kilty explains, requiring reducing the gas to within about 20K of absolute zero compared to natural gas at about 111K. Also, it carries far less energy per unit volume than natural gas so it takes more to get nearly anything done with hydrogen-produced energy.
Hydrogen as a fuel has been a non-starter, except in thermonuclear bombs, from the git go.
“And it is even worse. Hydrogen at between 4% and 75% of air by volume is explosive meaning that almost any leak can lead to an explosion Compare with natural gas at 5% to 15% explosive range. We already have enough houses blowing up because of natural gas leaks. Just wait till we have hydrogen heated houses, and hydrogen as Mr. Kilty explains is very leaky.”
As I pointed out above Hydrogen has such a high rate of diffusion that a leak is diluted so fast that it doesn’t lead to an explosive mixture. A hundred years of heating houses in the UK with town gas, the major component of which was Hydrogen, houses blowing up wasn’t a problem, when replaced with natural gas it became one!
Phil:
Gemini AI regarding the UK experience with Town Gas vs NatGas mentioned the “total annual fatalities were ~ 1000/year during the peak of Town gas [which included poisonings from leaked CO + explosions] falling to ~ 35/yr after the switch to NatGas.” Apparently, the majority of Town gas deaths were from CO poisoning from leaks [not including suicides].
Town gas was distributed via low pressure cast-iron pipes, and they initially tried using these for NatGas too, but too many leaks led to replacement with plastic pipes.
Yes, the deaths were due to CO nothing to do with Hydrogen.
The article mentioned CO AND explosions.
Yes, the AI said that but gave no justification for it, leakage of natural gas through cast iron pipes was much higher than those of town gas due to much drier nature of natural gas.
Lots and lots more ignition sources in modern buildings now than back then.
And many of them are LI batteries being charged, which is why house fires in many places are up 400%.
Now add leaking hydrogen pipes to the mix.
My neighbor was charging an LI battery for a power tool in his garage and burned down half his house. Fortunately nobody was hurt. The firemen were relieved to hear that it was not an EV burning in the garage.
Hydrogen is significantly more sensitive to ignition than methane. The Minimum Ignition Energy (MIE) of hydrogen in air is roughly 0.02 MJ, whereas methane requires about 0.29 mJ.
You should correct your typing error, you’ve stated that Hydrogen is millions of times less sensitive to ignition than methane!
Still not corrected!
Here’s the corrected statement: The Minimum Ignition Energy (MIE) of hydrogen in air is roughly 0.02 mJ, whereas methane requires about 0.29 mJ.
They’re trying to make solar suck less, by making H2 from it when there is too much solar. Here’s a thought: how about stop trying to make electricity out of sucky solar in the first place? Boom. Problem solved.
No pun intended? 😆😅🤣
From the above article’s last paragraph:
“So when you see excited chats about the glories of Hydrogen in the media, bear in mind that Hydrogen as a fuel was created as a political response to the politically induced problem of the huge variability of solar and wind. . . .The Hydrogen issue was never developed by scientists and engineers in response to a genuine engineering requirement.”
Well, that’s really not true.
The obvious—well, perhaps not so obvious to some—exceptions are the technology areas that have successfully developed hydrogen as a practical fuel, not as just political expediency, such as:
1) Refineries use hydrogen to remove impurities (like sulfur) from crude oil and to break down heavy hydrocarbons into lighter, usable fuels (hydrocracking).
2) Hydrogen is combined with nitrogen in the Haber-Bosch process to produce ammonia, which is fundamental to making artificaal fertilizers and many higher-level chemicals throughout the world.
3) In steel manufacturing, hydrogen can replace coal and coke to remove oxygen from iron ore (directly reduced iron), releasing water instead of CO2.
4) Hydrogen is used in the production of glass and cement because it provides a much higher flame temperature, required for such, compared that available from burning natural gas, coal or oil.
5) LOX/LH2-based military and commercial rocket launch systems and space vehicles, such as the current NASA/Boeing/ULA SLS boost stage and the current Ariane 6 launch vehicle, the current Centaur upper stage used on both SLS and the ULA Vulcan launch system, and perhaps most famously the STS/Space Shuttle Main Engines.
6) GOX (or air)/GH2 fuel cells for space vehicle electrical and drinking water generation, and as used in land-based FCEV’s (fuel cell electric vehicles) where the electric output from the fuel cell(s) directly powers electric motors at the drive wheels; examples of FCEVs that reached commercial production levels are Toyota Mirai, Hyundai Nexo, Honda Clarity Fuel Cell, and Honda CR-V e.
‘Nuff said.
1, 2, and 3, i don’t call a practical fuel. 3, a steel manufacturing is a particularly bad example of virtue signaling – except for some special steel. 4 is not yet in widespread use; benefits – if any – unknown. 5 is OK, if you consider a rocket fuel a practical fuel. 6 is it, except I haven’t seen yet a practical fuel cell burning alcohol or gasoline. Burning – a wrong word; actually, “consuming”, because a “fuel cell” generates electricity directly, not from heat.
Nobody ever said that there were no uses for hydrogen, just that it is a lousy fuel for cars and heating.
In fact, the quote that you provide says exactly that.
For space vehicles, solar panels and batteries are lighter and cheaper.
In fact, the quote that I referenced came directly from the above article’s last paragraph and has NO mention whatsoever of “cars” or “heating”.
Reading comprehension 101.
As for your last sentence, solar panels and batteries are incapable of being used for rocket propulsion (i.e., propellant mass), unlike hydrogen.
Science comprehension 101.
You mentioned fuel cells. I was not aware that fuel cells were ever used for rocket propulsion.
As usual, you don’t know half what you think you know and 90% of what you do know is wrong.
I never claimed that fuel cells were used for rocket propulsion.
I did assert above, correctly, in my Item 5 that hydrogen was used as a rocket propellant, and in my Item 6 that hydrogen was used in fuels cells to provide electricity and drinking water aboard space vehicles.
That you have confused the two separate concepts is not at all surprising . . . again, Reading Comprehension 101.
Now, you were saying something about 90% of what “you do know” is wrong . . .
Vehicular fuel cells have a practical life of about 75,000 miles. That certainly is a consideration for consumers.
Stick with the safest renewable energy-NUKES, and the most efficient, cheapest and widely available energy-hydrocarbons. End of discussion.
Really? One acronym fo you: NIMBY.
Hopefully education will work on the ignorant.
Have these people really forgotten the Hindenberg?
The thermodynamics of the hydrogen system just don’t make sense.
If it were to be done in a fully renewable powered system with a 1GW nameplate capacity wind farm dedicated for your exclusive use, including the requisite amount of energy storage to maintain steady state H2 production, the accumulation of losses in the system, wind turbine capacity factors, energy conversion, energy storage and conversion losses, grid transmission losses, hydrogen storage losses, etc., etc, the net power you could deliver to a consumer would be only about 50 MW to 60 MW
Oh! Your BESS energy storage need would be about 330 GWh for a bargain price of about 100 billion for which only 13 sq km of land would be needed.
When you consider that all the energy (and source material) inputs into the production of wind turbines and solar panels come from COAL, OIL AND GAS, you realize pretty quickly that the whole idea of wind and solar “power” amounts to a much less efficient way to get your energy from COAL, OIL AND GAS.
Not to mention the “double down on stupid” idea of using THAT boondoggle to feed YET ANOTHER boondoggle in the form of “The Elizabeth Taylor of Elements.”
Every step in “solving” the intermittency problem of Ruinables to reduce prices, involves an even greater, additional expense.
Solving intermittency is like the infinite search for the Holy Grail.
Yes a search for a solution to the very real problems caused by a non-solution to an imaginary problem.
Now where’s that dog chasing its tail gif?
The infuriating thing is the amount of money being wasted on this circle jerk.
Let’s see! CO2 is a greenhouse gas so let’s consider burning Hydrogen as an alternative. Burning hydrogen creates Water Vapor. Water Vapor is a much more important greenhouse gas than CO2. Plus, imagine hydrogen-fueled vehicles spewing water vapor over roadways in below-freezing temperatures. Makes so much sense.