I’ve never jumped on the hydrogen bandwagon. I know it’s technically renewable, but I feel hydrogen is a stop-gap resource.
Hydrogen is a stop-gap resource that is being pushed by oil companies to continue both producing destructive energy sources and slowing our transition by wasting money on less efficient projects.
“As at the end of 2021, almost 47% of the global hydrogen production is from natural gas, 27% from coal, 22% from oil (as a by-product) and only around 4% comes from electrolysis.”
Everytime someone hears or talks about or supports hydrogen we should cautiously assume oil companies are funding the project and it’s worse than other already established solutions.
Will there be a place for hydrogen? Yes, probably in several niche or minority cases. But it won’t be good for 90% of cars, trains, energy storage, etc because in each of those situations we have a clear path to full electrification or cheaper less harmful solutions that don’t require an oil/gas byproduct.
This is a magnificent post. Thanks for providing data to go with my gut feeling.
Hydrogen will be very useful as an energy storage solution that can be transported. I don’t buy it for this. It makes a lot more sense to electrify rail. It already requires infrastructure, and the destination of rail needs electricity, so it should be part of the electrical infrastructure and trains can utilize that.
Where it makes sense I think is shipping. It’s already on the coast, where you have access to water to produce hydrogen, and you can easily load it onto ships to sell to places with an electrical deficit. It also only makes sense when you have an energy surplus.
The issue with hydrogen is it has very poor energy density. Even when liquid, which requires extra energy to cool and maintain and it’s still not energy dense. Ship size almost doesn’t matter, making it a great option for transporting it. Rail cares about this less than a car, but more than a ship. I don’t know if it overcomes that issue.
Very good points.
Particularly that it only makes sense to generate hydrogen when electricity is in surplus - because otherwise we might as well use the electricity directly to offset use of other fuels.
I don’t mind hydrogen as such a storage even if it’s inefficient, but I do have 3 more reasons to dislike hydrogen:
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It’s going to be used to whitewash fossil fuels. Look at all the colours for hydrogen. These will be mixed up because it’s impossible to tell from the end product. Hell, we can’t even transport polluted dirt without someone suddenly classifying it as “clean”. It will be completely impossible to keep track of dirty hydrogen through the supply chain.
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It will keep users dependent on expensive physical fuel distribution that serves no purpose but to transport the fuel while keeping the supplier in charge of the price.
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Refueling of any kind is a massive waste of time. Sure, it takes longer to charge batteries, but at least the users don’t have to watch it happening. It makes no sense for grid connected trains of all things.
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Thanks for the insightful response. I learned something from you.
Imho hydrogen on trains is only a good idea, for long distance trains running on not electrified track. Hydrogen is more energy dense and easier to refill then a battery so a good idea for say US freight trains.
However Germany has all its mainlines electrified. In this case all three towns have electrified main stations. Battery trains are a good solution for that relativly short sections of unelectrified track, as long as charging can be done in stations. This would be the case here, as in most of Europe to be honest.
Oh, I thought hydrogen was colourless. TIL.
I haven’t been on that train for a while but I thought the entire line was electrified, the three stations and parts of the line definitely are. Either way it doesn’t make sense to me to build up hydrogen infrastructure instead of electrifying the sections of rail that aren’t yet. Can’t be that much in Germany. In parts where it just isn’t possible for whatever reasons why not install a few batteries?
Just build some power line SMH my head
How will this be any better than colourless-hydrogen-powered trains?
