Ok, some good / bad / mistaken assumptions on here. Let me hit a few of them. BTW I work in hydrogen aviation.
So let me start with the statement that ‘Hydrogen is the answer” , no but hydrogen is part of the answer if the question is how do we ween off of using fuels that at best are sort of clean but release CO2 (Natural Gas) and at worse release a lot of C02 and lots of really bad stuff too (Coal)... without increasing cost. Just hitting the high points…
- Hydrogen is a way of STORING energy
Hydrogen works well for storing energy. It can be created many ways, for the work I am doing we are really focusing on using electricity and creating hydrogen using high temperature gigawatt size electrolyzers. Looking at the efficiency of small hydrogen generators and talking about the poor efficiency is like looking at a small gas generator to power your house vs using the grid. The efficiencies that I look at are the 'ballance of plant' , think putting a fence around the plant and measure EVERYTHING that goes in and compare that to EVERYTHING that goes out. pumps compressors cooling everything. These large scale electrolizers are around 80% efficient.
Where does the power come from? Solar and wind have peaks, at 2:00 in the after noon in the summer, electricity cost drops very low, plus many of the baseload power systems can not be just turned off for a few hours each afternoon. Creating a way to store the power actually helps people with solar panels by increasing the rate they get for ‘selling’ excess power during the day and buying it back at night.
Other sources that need ‘time / day’ shifting are hydro and geothermal power, plus nuclear.
Efficiency – Electrolysis
- Hydrogen is a way of MOVING energy
It is cheaper to turn wind power in Kansas into hydrogen, pipe it to California and new your and turn it back into electricity than to just feed it into the grid. Yes, it is. Couple of reasons for this, it isn’t cheep to build power lines and maintain them. Hydrogen pumps really well, uses significantly less energy to pump than natural gas. The losses in large power transmission lines and ‘converting equipment’ are not trivial.
One other thing that needs to be thought of with electrical power is how do you maintain a supply as the demand constantly is changing. Power plants cant just ramp up and down for quick peaks this results in the grid being over supplied, with additional losses.
A pipeline acts like an accumulator with changes in supply pressure acting like a storage tank, oh and you can add storage tanks.
Renewable energy transport via hydrogen pipelines and HVDC transmission lines
- Hydrogen is a way of creating electricity
Hydrogen can be used to create electricity. This can be done ‘old school’ burn it in a turbine just like we do for natural Gas, GE LM60000 is a 40 MW turbine. Less Nox than burning Natural Gas, much cleaner than burning ‘oil’. Large scale higher temperature fuel cells are coming up but they currently are not cost effective (getting closer) with a turbine, good for point of use or smaller systems. Again these are multi MW systems.
ge gas power hydrogen
- Hydrogen is a way of Creating ‘stuff’
Making ‘stuff’ can require heat or electrical power. Making steel does require coal (for the carbon in the steel) but also requires considerable heat for other processes, burning hydrogen as a replacement for natural gas, additional coal, or oil works. Making concrete (big contributor to greenhouse gasses) uses a lot of heat.
Many industrial processes use heat directly or steam for processing, doesn't matter if you are making plastics (yup they consume carbon but need heat for processing), or cookies, heat is an important ‘commodity’
Forbes - Hydrogen Should Be Focused On Cement And Steel, Not Cars
- Hydrogen is a way of making food
In 2022 the US made 13 million metric tones of ammonia, some went to making AP, but most of it went to making fertilizer with most of it made from natural gas, using high temperature steam (also made from natural gas!) to strip the hydrogen from methane and then combine it with nitrogen. Skip a step and use hydrogen as the feed stock not natural gas. Hydrogen goes to ammonia goes to making food.
Hydrogen to Ammonia - Final Report
- Hydrogen is a way of moving stuff
Yes you can move stuff with hydrogen. Im working aircraft between 70,000 lb and 250,000 lbs (large turboprop sized to A321 / 767 sized). No carbon just steam (and yes a little bit of Nox but significantly less than Jet Fuel). This is where ½ of all the CO2 from aviation comes from. Today the cost of hydrogen for aircraft is cost effective with jet fuel.
Long distance trucks area great application for hydrogen, using fuel cells and a small battery (think Prius not Tesla), the installation is very weight competitive with diesel. Refueling times an the order of 15 minutes plus can be used for cooling (refrigerated trailers) plus keeping the cabin comfortable. These truck are used more like trains, going from depot to depot on a regular route daily. Easy to add the infrastructure. Fuel cells are more efficient than diesel engines, plus with a battery they avoid the idling time that many trucks currently have. More than offsets the energy lost in converting electricity and compressing the hydrogen.
As pointed out already, forklfts using hydrogen fuel cells are all ready a thing. Fueled in a few minutes vs overnight for batteries. Yes you can charge them in 30 minute but that significantly reduces the life of the battery. Plus if you would need to either change out the batteries (not trivial on a fork lift) or have more forklifts to support operations (costly). See all the solar panels on top of logistic warehouses? they don't need that much power but they can generate the hydrogen they need for the forklifts.
Trains are another example, already diesel – electric, can use fuel cells or turbines burning hydrogen.
NOVAdev - Earth Friendly Flight
Kenworth - Toyota FCEV Truck
hydrogen, not THE answer but certainly a viable part of the overall plan.
Mike (Hydrogen is the day job) K