Why a hydrogen economy doesn't make sense

Why a hydrogen economy doesn't make sense

In a recent study, fuel cell expert Ulf Bossel explains that a hydrogen economy is a wasteful economy. The large amount of energy required to isolate hydrogen from natural compounds (water, natural gas, biomass), package the light gas by compression or liquefaction, transfer the energy carrier to the user, plus the energy lost when it is converted to useful electricity with fuel cells, leaves around 25% for practical use — an unacceptable value to run an economy in a sustainable future. Only niche applications like submarines and spacecraft might use hydrogen.

"More energy is needed to isolate hydrogen from natural compounds than can ever be recovered from its use," Bossel explains to PhysOrg.com. "Therefore, making the new chemical energy carrier form natural gas would not make sense, as it would increase the gas consumption and the emission of CO2. Instead, the dwindling fossil fuel reserves must be replaced by energy from renewable sources."

http://www.physorg.com/news85074285.html

This simply confirms what Darell and others have been saying here for years. The future is not with hydrogen, biofuels, coal, oil etc. Rather it is with electric vehicles powered by renewable methods of generating electricity (solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, themonuclear). The sooner those in charge can accept this simple fact the sooner we'll have policies to make it a reality. I look forward to the cleaner air/reduced cancer rates plus reduced noise pollution we will all have as a result of this.

not a solution... just a part of an attemt at the solution

It is typical how people have picked up on hydrogen fuel, at best just a niche fuel, and elevated it into some miracle that is going to solve all the worlds energy and pollution problems.

That is true, but that's also with our current technologies of making Hydrogen. What about wind powered H2 generators? That way they could produce it in the middle of nowhere, where the infrastructure to transfer the electricity might be cost prohibitive. Also many Gen IV Nuclear reactors are capable of being used in H2 generation as a side product.

What if nuclear power was used to make the hydrogen energy? Wouldn't it be more economical, then?

I think the old theory was to use nuclear power during the "off peak" hours to hydrolyze sea water. Problem now, though, with exploding populations is there are no longer "off peak" times.

Geoff

What if nuclear power was used to make the hydrogen energy? Wouldn't it be more economical, then?

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Sure, but the other methods of converting electricity into stored energy would still be more economical than hydrogen.

I think the old theory was to use nuclear power during the "off peak" hours to hydrolyze sea water. Problem now, though, with exploding populations is there are no longer "off peak" times.

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There still is some off-peak time where it is desirable to store energy but there are much better/easier ways of doing this than hydrogen.

What about wind powered H2 generators? That way they could produce it in the middle of nowhere, where the infrastructure to transfer the electricity might be cost prohibitive.

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It is hard for me to see how the infrastructure to produce and transport hydrogen would cost less than the infrastructure to transport electricity.

Hydrogen might make sense as a niche fuel to very remote areas where laying electrical lines would be cost prohibitive. Then again, wind or solar might work equally well in these areas. Other than that, it makes very little sense. It makes no sense at all to use it in vehicles due to its explosive potential. After seeing newsclips of the Hindenburg I dread to think of a road full of hydrogen-powered vehicles driven by today's incompetent drivers.

Another big fallacy is that electric cars won't be viable until we have some sort of super battery. Well, current technology could already make a vehicle with a range of over 300 miles along with 5 or 10 minute recharge times. However, the real point is that there may be no need for EVs to carry much onboard energy at all. We can easily bury high-frequency AC cables under roads, and EVs can get their power directly off the grid via inductive pickup. The battery will simply serve to power the vehicle over dead spots, or places where it's not economically feasible to lay power cable. Electric railways have been operating successfully this way for years so the technology is mature other than perfecting an inductive pickup system (railways use direct pickup via a catenary or a third-rail)

While private industry continues it increasingly rapid march towards low cost batteries and cleaner energy generation (solar/wind), the federal government and big companies like GM continue to pour billions into the hydrogen boondoggle. Normally this wouldn't concern me that much, but wasting all this money is going to put people out of work and increase my taxes.

Peter

Good thread topic, cy.

This should twig people to question the logic in the gov't/industry choices.

Although, slightly annoying at times, the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car?" was good food for thought.

As I understand it;
Hydrogen can be made from scrap iron mixed with water.
Oxygen bonds with the iron (rust)
Hydrogen is then released and ready for "packaging".
But this would only help a little, rather than a lot.

I hotshotted a load of auto parts all the way from Dallas, Tx. to Lubbock, Tx. a few months ago.

I found a bunch of wind turbines among the oil fields there.
Especially up on the ridges.

It just doesn't look good for hydrogen to be the main player at this stage imho.

During my time as a PhD student (or rather, the German equivalent), I was part of a University department heavily into research of alternative energy sources. The consensus in this group was mostly the same as yours, that Hydrogen currently makes no sense.

The biggest problem is that there's no cheap way to produce bulk quantities of Hydrogen, preferably with solar energy. Some hopeful characters added a "yet", but most research project failed. For all other things (storage, transport, electricity production with fuel cells) are technologies in existence that can make them economically similar to current fossil fuel energy, except the production of Hydrogen.

One example for a new technology that was very promising are TiO2 nanoparticles. It's a high bandgap semiconductor, so it absorbs UV from sunlight, and from this makes quasi-free electrons on the surface that can be used to induce chemical reactions (good enough to kill a lot of surface bacteria). The energy of this electrons is that of the TiO2 bandgap, and is higher than the binding energy of the two electrons in water making the Oxygen-Hydrogen bond. So the idea was to pour TiO2 into water, let the sun shine on it, and you get free Oxygen and Hydrogen. Turns out that it doesn't work; the two electrons in the water molecule cannot be changed simultaneously, but have to be treated one after another in a 4-step process. One of the steps requires a higher activation energy than TiO2 can provide.

However, I am convinced that alternative energies can be economically viable right now. One of the things that most people do not take into account is that you do not have to change the whole energy infrastructure to another technology. For fixed installations (factories, houses) you can use other energy systems (like solar panels and intelligent building that uses solar energy passively for heating and cooling) than for transporting and cars.

Strangely, although I firmly believe that more alternative energies should be used, my car is Ford T-Bird with V8 engine...

Thanks for the thread, cy.

It reminds me of a study I heard about on gasahol (alcohol from distilling fermented grain-mash combined with gasoline). The study said that it just doesn't make sense because the amount of hydrocarbon fuels involved in creating the gasahol exceeded the amount from the end product. In other words, they said you'd be better off taking the diesel fuel used in growing the corn, and the fuel used in boiling and distilling it, and just using that in the first place instead of the alcohol produced from the whole process.

Well, it makes a lot of sense if you are a big Agribusiness growing corn.

I read an article / news story that mentioned hydrogen is a greenhouse gas to some extent so with hydrogen leaking from pipelines and boiling off from vehicle fuel tanks there would be a significant effect if the world switched from petrolium to a hydrogen economy.

Anyone know if this is true or how big an effect this would be?

Thanks - Greg

Scientific American had a good article discussing the different energy sources and the viabality and efficiency of each. Hydrogen was not high on the list.

itmt (in the mean time) nanosolar.com has bought 600,000 + sq. ft. of production space (in US and Germany) for their solar panels, to start in '07..