We’ve written about this before and now here’s a study backing it up.
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.
In his study, Bossel analyzes a variety of methods for synthesizing, storing and delivering hydrogen, since no single method has yet proven superior. To start, hydrogen is not naturally occurring, but must be synthesized.
“Ultimately, hydrogen has to be made from renewable electricity by electrolysis of water in the beginning,” Bossel explains, “and then its energy content is converted back to electricity with fuel cells when it’s recombined with oxygen to water. Separating hydrogen from water by electrolysis requires massive amounts of electrical energy and substantial amounts of water.”
Also, hydrogen is not a source of energy, but only a carrier of energy. As a carrier, it plays a role similar to that of water in a hydraulic heating system or electrons in a copper wire. When delivering hydrogen, whether by truck or pipeline, the energy costs are several times that for established energy carriers like natural gas or gasoline. Even the most efficient fuel cells cannot recover these losses, Bossel found. For comparison, the “wind-to-wheel” efficiency is at least three times greater for electric cars than for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
Another headache is storage. When storing liquid hydrogen, some gas must be allowed to evaporate for safety reasons—meaning that after two weeks, a car would lose half of its fuel, even when not being driven.
It depends if you look at these inefficiency areas as insurmountable obstacles or challenges requiring innovation.
I imagine a study like this could have been done looking at the early motor car and comparing its efficiency with the horse and arriving at a similar damming conclusions.
Ok so right now it is a wasteful process, but often the only way to improve these processes is to start using it industrially for profit, then the R&D happens to develop tech to overcome the limitations.
Who knows in 10 years time we might be talking about “3rd generation” hydrogen technology and how efficient it is.
Its only inefficient because we haven’t put enough money into research to have it at its peak value, we shouldn’t brush off a relatively new technology before its power is fully known. I am sure when we first discovered gas as a new energy source, it was pretty messy and inefficient as well.
It depends if you look at these inefficiency areas as insurmountable obstacles or challenges requiring innovation.
By all means, let’s not abandon the idea. But meanwhile, be realistic. Hydrogen has been overhyped for several years now as some sort of be-all end-all solution, that that simply ain’t so. We may be able to overcome these problems in a generation or so, but meanwhile time grows short and the water rises, and there are other more promising technologies out there being robbed by the hydrogen fairy. That’s not even taking into account that hydrogen is some SERIOUSLY dangerous stuff to have around.
This reminds me of BMW’s recently released Hydrogen 7 vehicle, which uses hydrogen in its internal combustion engine, which can also use gasoline once the hydrogen has been spent.
This vehicle cannot be parked inside an enclosed parking space since the manufacturer doesn’t certify the safety of its tanks in this environment. Now I see this is the case since the Hydrogen must be allowed to evaporate, as it’s stated in this story.
C R A P !
Hydrogen will never be economically viable. We are wasting our time and resources on this concept. Until Science can develop working fusion reaction we should be concentrating on solar cell electrical production. The initial costs of solar cells is high and require a lot of fossil fuel to produce, but once installed they produce electricity essentially free. Yes there would be some upkeep issues but you have these same cost(probably much higher) with current power production facilities. Just imagine if every building in every city had solar electrical production cells on their roofs all connected to the local grid. We could cut our fossil fuel electrical production in half.
Why not use the ocean’s motion to create electricity (you have water and electricity in the same place)? Then fill balloons (which are remote controled for safety, and cost) these balloons would be lighter than air and can be of extreamly large sizes because they don’t have to travel on the roads and take up road space.
I’m sure I’ll take heat for this post but it seems many of the problems described can be solved.
I’m sure there are many smarter people than me that could figure out the rest of it. Let me know if you have a better idea!
Let me know if you have a better idea!
We have a HUGE source of hydrogen very close by.
The Sun is mostly hydrogen, and it’s not all that far away, really. We could come up with some way to mine all that hydrogen and bring it back here, and all our problems would be solved.
Best of all, nobody owns the sun so there wouldn’t be any pesky a-rabs to mess with.
The truth is, there is no power source other than nuclear to produce enough hydrogen for the needs of the US in this ‘hydrogen economy’. The ploy here is to push the american people to accept nuclear power once again.
Whenever the president or politicians talk about hydrogen, just replace the word hydrogen with nuclear and it will all make sense as to why they are hyping hydrogen.
Speaking of hydrogen, has anyone seen the movie “who killed the electric car ?”.
It’s simple thermodynamics – when you convert energy from one form to another, part of it is lost (usually as heat). Converting fossil fuels to electricity, electricity to hydrogen and hydrogen to mechanical energy will *always* involve more loss than converting fossil fuel to mechanical energy directly, all else being equal.
atom,
Sorry, you are wrong. Went to a thing here in Michigan the other night. The off shore winds along the west coast of lake Michigan have enough energy density in them to power the entire world for the next forever. Hundreds of petawatts produced annually.
They are saying the amount of wind energy there makes the entire world reserves of oil, coal, and nuclear look totally insignificant by comparison.
Leave it up to us Michiganders to save the entire rest of the world from themselves… again…
So, what’s wrong with nuclear, atom? Say, as compared to the mining and burning of coal….
#13,
If you look at my prior post, you will see that what is wrong with nuclear power is that it has a clean up cost assiciated with its use, and it exists in fairly insignificant quantities.
Wind power is the way to go, and is way more abundant then nuclear. A lot cleaner too.
Olo: Nothing is wrong with nuclear, I would rather deal with radioactive waste at Yucca than deal with middle east terrorists with oil money.
The point is that the real government agenda here is to promote nuclear.
Grega: The probem with having all the wind in the world in michigan is that you cannot economically trasport it to all parts of the us, let alone the world. Ideally we would have a good mix of nuclear power and wind/solar for power generation.
#15: YOU might want to deal with radioactive waste at Yucca Mtn, but that is in my backyard. (waving stick at the kids) Get out of my backyard and go mess up your own!
Remember, for equal volume, gasoline is 300x more powerful than pure Hydrogen.
Hydrogen cars will happen, because for city use, it makes sense. Plus the Pump Economy where you also get a coffee, gum / chips.
Electrolysis with a catalyst has reduced the amps required by 50%. Windmills have become cheaper. Hydro electricity.
I can imagine Quebec being a premier maker and exporter of Hydrogen, however Greenland and Hawaii can produce even cheaper (volcano heat).
The big issue is do you use an ICE + pressure tank,
or,
Electric motor + fuel cell.
The cheapest way to go is with an ICE + pressure tank on a Hybrid system. Fuel cells are cost prohibitive right now.
Instead of a pressure tank, other materials are being studied, like a sponge, can absorb Hydrogen and release on demand for an ICE.
Are you People saying that given the vastness of the ocean, and the power it stores, (and does not stop unlike wind), that nuclear power is better? I can see we will exchange one bad idea for another!
Umm, i hate to tell you this, but Hydrogen can be made with the Use of 2 natural materials, in abundance.
I dont see Why or HOW this person decided to use 1 form, electrolisis.
Another THINK: comes from the idea of NOT burning the material int he first place…Use of heat expansion technology would make a closed loop system that could recover, and reuse the hydrogen many times, before it became inert.
the process would use a gas mixture to make a heat element, and expand the material to run the engine, probably turbine, and then recover the material, and compress it back into the tank.
18,
Please consider something about water,
Take 3,000,000,000 gallons away from the ocean, and watch the salt level Kill baout 1/2 the ocean, before it can be replenished.
20,
Since there are 6 billion people on the earth, this is only 1/2 gallon per person…that doesn’t seem like much water. I see your point though. However, when H is burned it turns back into water, which then eventually ends back at the ocean. If most of the power generated off shore is used in the form of electricity, and Hydrogen as a “back up” inside the country, I fail to see how enough water is taken from the ocean to change the salinity.
besides the glaciers are melting at such a rapid rate, making H might not be such a bad idea.
21,
I was only counting the USA… but its the time between Fillup and return to rivers, thats the bad part. Lots of cisterns in my area, and the turn around time is upto 10 years, IF ever.
Cold water does not absorb Salt, it dont mix with the ocean waters, or havent you seen that Documentary. it sits on the bottom of the ocean filling up the Valleys.
Salts come from the soil, and end up in the water, from the rivers. as well as the rest of polution. Its not readily mixed with fresh water.
Is that then not the answer to your first question? (use the water at the bottom of the ocean)
look I’m not an expert on ocean life but It would be nice to see the use of renewable non-poluting energy, and I’m sure we can overcome these minor technological problems.
As always it is a question of will.
The nuclear power industry only turns a profit because it produces weapons grade radio isotopes and because it still hasn’t dealt with the ever growing problem of waste disposal. I guess that cost will be borne by our children. Won’t they be pleased.
The petrochemical industry is only profitable because the economic model we use does not count any of the detrimental environmental and health effects of extracting, refining, and using fossil fuels as a cost to the industry.
The study is probably correct in its assertions, but it also probably assumes that no further progress will be made in the production and storage of hydrogen.
If we were to direct even 1% of the current spend on nuclear research toward research on other forms of energy production progres would likely be quite rapid.
Why not use all that hot air being blown around here?
As others have said, the best solution will involve several alternatives. The burning of fossil fuels will very soon be history.
What someone pointed out to me…
That solar take up alot of ground to make enough power…
i pointed out that So does a Dam, that creates alot of power, what do you think happened to 234 square miles of land??
As to Nuke power, its not the power, or the size, its the waste. you can only put so many clothes into a closet, and How much room do we have to store something with a half life(before it Starts to degrade) of 15,000+ years? Esp, when Someones idea of protection, NOW, is 100 years..according to the US gov.
I want you to consider something different. Steam power DOES work. Its very efficent, and many ships and Subs still use it. that Nuke engine is only a STEAM engine. Even nuke plants, are only Steam power. If you already didnt know this.
And with current tech, a few things can be said.
1. It dont have to be water, check out Propane.
2. it dont have to be a BIG engine.
3. it can be recycled, reused many time, thru a condencor system, and hardly Expelled.
Watch this, please. Thomas Friedman explaining to Tim Russert that “green is the new red, white and blue”
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2Hd4irktfAo
Energy efficiency is becoming a major concern to the industry:
New approaches to efficient computing
The entities controlling power are currently controlling the world.
Hydrogen would be a better transportable storage technology than batteries. Hydrogen might permit longer power usage on planes, in cars, in space ships than Lithium Ion batteries can store and discharge compared to it’s weight and explosivity.
Energy should be free and unlimited. That is not the taste of certain power controlling monopolies, be it the entities who are currently pumping free oil in Irak, corrupting politicians, confusing the blogosphere and managing the unidirectional non democratic media.
I am very positive about the future, soon enough, very soon enough we will all have unlimited free power, we will have a better life, less pollution and noiziness in the cities.
you really want it free…?
Then Get it OFF the stock market and BACK under Utility controls that were DROPPEd by nixon.
THEN get the corps AWAY from it.
natural gas company’s and and oil company’s do not want Hydrogen flue to be explored, It will cut deep into there pockets. So of course they will claim things like it are going to destroy our oceans. When we can so plainly see it is the oil companies that are destroying the oceans and sending Gods creatures into extinction, If they belive it took millions of years for these animals to evolve They need to hide their heads in a a barrel of oil for shame! And If they belive in creation they need to tie a millstone about their necks and be cast into the sea, for the the destruction they have unleashed upon this living planet.