+bonifartius 𒂼𒄄
maybe someone can enlighten me:
why is/was hydrogen as energy storage torpedoed for decades now (that it is too late)? it's clean after burning it, can be produced from either electrolysis or natural gas. storage is a bit complicated, but manageable. why should this be worse than batteries?
i've read so many shitty reasons why H2 is "bad":
- "converting natural gas isn't green": yes no shit, but it helps to fill the gap. should've started earlier.
- "not enough power to do electrolysis": every other energy storage solution seems worse at large scales, especially batteries.
- "not enough platinum to use as catalyst for fuel-cells": i bet you can throw enough research on it and find another catalyst. hell, _we_ are full of catalysts that don't contain platinum.
I also suspect the general problem of storage are the 2/3 wasted for storage... as long as oil just jumps out of the ground it always wins.
@CapitalB
you can even make methane out of H2 in a bioreactor. i left that out ;)
it just smells funny that for decades H2 was written off as too problematic etc. and not we get batteries shoved down our throats. where 9/10 are wasted storage and problematic waste. H2, while more complicated, requires "something to pressurize gas in".
As much as I am skeptical about increasing Li-on battery production, @bonifartius @CapitalB, their use cases are rather different. Usually you don’t want a highly explosive and pressurized gas being mobile. Li-on battery can also go brrr, but at least it gives you time to run away. Using hydrogen in place of organic gases might alright, albeit not profitable enough for there to be an incentive for the moment.
@cnx
> Usually you don’t want a highly explosive and pressurized gas being mobile
well, here in germany there are cars which use natural gas/LPG. the only restriction is that you can't park them in underground garages.
the nice thing with hydrogen is that you might either use it for combustion or with fuel cells. only toyota bothered using fuel cells so far (afaik). safety doesn't seem to be the problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Mirai#Safety . it still has a battery, but that's 1.6 kWh instead of teslas 100 kWh.
