It is over fifty years since Japan's "Sunshine Project" started governments pouring money into green hydrogen as a replacement for fossil fuels. How is it going? TLDR: not well.
How did so many people get so suckered into thinking that the "hydrogen economy" was just around the corner? I get that magical thinking is a potent force, but hydrogen seems like an odd place for it to take root in such a deep, deep way 🤨
Point taken! The one that makes the most sense is the behavior change one. As soon as I’d written my comment I thought, I guess people were really hoping for some magical substitute for gas they could just channel through the same tubing. So much for that white whale!
touche! and, not enough. In all seriousness, after listening to Zero Avia's Val Miftakhov on Volts podcast, he did stop and make me think. Techno-analysis is still too fuzzy for my liking, but he makes some good points. I'd love to hear you interview him!
I like four of these five graphs, but think one is misleading - your electrolysis one. First it seems it does not account dor the hydrogen produced by the chlor-alkali process. Second and more importantly, it's only recently,.less than 10 years ago, that we envisaged the possibility of massive production of cheap solar and wind power. Third, the production of green hydrogen ammonia has finally started here and there... You would have challenged a similar graphe on wind power twenty years ago, on solar power fifteen years ago and.say they are correct but misleading.
Do you still see a role for hydrogen in the energy system in some places, Michael? My personal take is that hydrogen is like a decent actor who’s been in a couple of terrible movies. Been given the wrong parts to play, but in the right one(s), it could be pretty impressive.
Per my hydrogen ladder, there is a need for clean hydrogen (clean probably not green) to replace current fossil hydrogen in fertilisers and petrochemicals (Row A). In the energy space, there are a few potential applications areas (Row B) like fuel production for shipping and air travel, steel and long-duration storage - but frankly even those look less and less plausible with every passing month. Some actors appear in a couple of movies that bomb and then go back to working on building sites and serving in bars for the rest of their lives.
How did so many people get so suckered into thinking that the "hydrogen economy" was just around the corner? I get that magical thinking is a potent force, but hydrogen seems like an odd place for it to take root in such a deep, deep way 🤨
In a way, I think it’s the opposite of an odd place to find wishful thinking. Here are 24 reasons, off the top of my head:
Can be used in lots of different ways ✓
Could help solve climate change ✓
Can be made anywhere ✓
Can be made in lots of different ways ✓
Could use existing gas infrastructure ✓
Doesn’t seem to have any downsides ✓
Already used safely in industry ✓
Seems like it could get really cheap, like PV or batteries ✓
Thermo / value chain complexity make it hard to prove it won’t get cheap ✓
Doesn’t require changes in behaviour ✓
Very high gravitational energy density ✓
Everyone remembers it was fun making it at school ✓
High-school physics not enough to understand challenges ✓
Opportunities for intellectually interesting science ✓
Sounds very whizzy and modern ✓
Must be a good fuel because rockets ✓
Meets political need for easy climate solutions ✓
Creates impression of climate action where none is occurring ✓
Supports business models of rich, powerful people ✓
Takes several years for projects to fail ✓
Great way of slowing down solutions some people don’t like ✓
Offers lots of conferences around the world ✓
Easy to characterise opponents as self-interested ✓
Journalists love a simple technology story ✓
Point taken! The one that makes the most sense is the behavior change one. As soon as I’d written my comment I thought, I guess people were really hoping for some magical substitute for gas they could just channel through the same tubing. So much for that white whale!
Yep. For most things I'm team electron. I do wonder about green steel and also aviation though....
How much money have you got?
touche! and, not enough. In all seriousness, after listening to Zero Avia's Val Miftakhov on Volts podcast, he did stop and make me think. Techno-analysis is still too fuzzy for my liking, but he makes some good points. I'd love to hear you interview him!
うまくいかない. (Umaku ikanai) unsuccessful, not going as planned
Hello. By the same logic we would not have duscovered Blue LED's.
I like four of these five graphs, but think one is misleading - your electrolysis one. First it seems it does not account dor the hydrogen produced by the chlor-alkali process. Second and more importantly, it's only recently,.less than 10 years ago, that we envisaged the possibility of massive production of cheap solar and wind power. Third, the production of green hydrogen ammonia has finally started here and there... You would have challenged a similar graphe on wind power twenty years ago, on solar power fifteen years ago and.say they are correct but misleading.
Western Australia still has hopes to reduce its iron ore to iron and I still can’t work out what we do with long haul aviation.
This is brilliant. Though I suspect some people will be silenced neither by information nor by these very eloquent graphics.
Do you still see a role for hydrogen in the energy system in some places, Michael? My personal take is that hydrogen is like a decent actor who’s been in a couple of terrible movies. Been given the wrong parts to play, but in the right one(s), it could be pretty impressive.
Per my hydrogen ladder, there is a need for clean hydrogen (clean probably not green) to replace current fossil hydrogen in fertilisers and petrochemicals (Row A). In the energy space, there are a few potential applications areas (Row B) like fuel production for shipping and air travel, steel and long-duration storage - but frankly even those look less and less plausible with every passing month. Some actors appear in a couple of movies that bomb and then go back to working on building sites and serving in bars for the rest of their lives.