Hydrogen isn't green

[Loren Pechtel]

http://cleantechnica.com/2014/06/04/hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicles-about-not-clean/

I knew it wasn't a sensible idea but I didn't realize it emitted even more than gasoline.

Note that the greenest ones are the hybrids. (Although even there I'm not sure once you consider building the battery packs.)

 

[travc]

Fuel != energy source. Hydrogen as a fuel isn't a bad idea, given a clean energy source to make it. Just using natural gas to make hydrogen is pretty stupid though, since you can just use the natural gas directly instead.

 

[Jarhyn]

Not to mention you can use (extremely clean) nuclear to generate electricity and crack water, getting all the hydrogen you could ever need from ocean water. As a bonus you also get lots of delicious sea salt.

 

[dismal]

Fuel != energy source. Hydrogen as a fuel isn't a bad idea, given a clean energy source to make it.

And if my Aunt had a penis she'd be my Uncle...

Just using natural gas to make hydrogen is pretty stupid though, since you can just use the natural gas directly instead.

It's not "stupid" in that when you actually need hydrogen it's the most economic way to get it. The stupidity would only come in if you forced yourself to use hydogen when it didn't make sense.

 

[Jarhyn]

Dismal, the purpose of hydrogen as a fuel technology is as a battery application, not a primary fuel source. We're not talking about economy as in work. We have the manpower to spare on this. What we do not have is the means to pay the opportunity cost in using dirty fuels

 

[Tristan Scott]

Fuel != energy source. Hydrogen as a fuel isn't a bad idea, given a clean energy source to make it.

This^^ To say that Hydrogen itself is a dead end or that it isn't "green" is misleading and shortsighted.

 

[Cobalt]

Fuel != energy source. Hydrogen as a fuel isn't a bad idea, given a clean energy source to make it.

This^^ To say that Hydrogen itself is a dead end or that it isn't "green" is misleading and shortsighted.

And anything that adds another step between primary energy source and point of use lowers the net efficiency, making it less "green". As is frequently the case in design and engineering, there are other constraints which must be met first before worrying about maximizing efficiency.

 

[Jarhyn]

No, it doesn't make it less green to be secondary. Just because it takes more work or is less efficient doesn't make it less green. The 'greenness' of an energy application is a measure of consequence and environmental opportunity cost. If it doesn't wreck the other stuff we have to have it, if it only takes effort rather than destroying fragile resources, the it is green. It is a measure of sustainability and renew ability, not of net effort costs.

Labor is cheap and renewable. We have more available human effort resource than we have things to do. We do not have unlimited environment to fuck up, and we need to execute that resource very carefully if at all

 

[lpetrich]

I agree that hydrogen has lots of problems.

One has to make it, and it's usually made from natural gas. Electrolysis is a potentially good alternative, but it needs less expensive materials than platinum for its electrodes.

Storing it is difficult. It's like natural gas, but worse in some ways. One either has to store it in gaseous form under pressure, or else chill it to 20 K to liquefy it. That's 20 degrees above absolute zero.

An alternative is to make some liquid fuel from it. One can do that by extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and combining the two gases to make liquids like methanol.

 

[Togo]

Hydrogen is efficient, clean-burning, and very useful. It's also hard to store, leaks more easily than other gases, and is highly flammable. I'm not convinced of it's practicality, but I'm happy to be convinced otherwise.

But it's a store of energy, not a source. You have to make it, and the process of making it can be green or not green.

It's important to distinguish between sources of energy: solar, wind, nuclear, fossil fuel, hydroelectric etc., and energy storage: reservoirs, petrol, batteries, flywheels, storage heaters etc.

The attraction of hydrogen is it's potential as an efficient and non-polluting form of storage.

 

[Derec]

Hydrogen is not green, but chlorine is.

I knew it wasn't a sensible idea but I didn't realize it emitted even more than gasoline.

I agree it does not make much sense to make hydrogen from natural gas to power fuel cell vehicles but I still think it's a worthwhile area of research, especially in regard to producing hydrogen.
For example this process to produce hydrogen using sunlight directly by combining the PV and electrolysis steps in a single device.
Low-Cost Hydrogen Breakthrough Uses Solar Power And Rust

Note that the greenest ones are the hybrids. (Although even there I'm not sure once you consider building the battery packs.)

According to the chart in the article you linked to pure EVs are the best (although they tend to have better batteries). But the environmental cost of building a large battery is at least partially offset by having a much simpler power train. Modern ICEs are very complex with a complex emission reduction system. You also need a more complex transmission than the EV's single speed tranny.

 

[Derec]

An alternative is to make some liquid fuel from it. One can do that by extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and combining the two gases to make liquids like methanol.

And you could reverse the process onboard for the fuel cell. Another possibility is to have hydrogen-battery hybrid with the advantage over regular hybrids is that you only need an electric motor, not electric motor and an ICE.

Also given the problems Europe is facing with their dependence on Russian natural gas, solar or nuclear hydrogen can be used to make methane to heat homes while using existing infrastructure for the medium term.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Hydrogen is not green, but chlorine is.

I agree it does not make much sense to make hydrogen from natural gas to power fuel cell vehicles but I still think it's a worthwhile area of research, especially in regard to producing hydrogen.
For example this process to produce hydrogen using sunlight directly by combining the PV and electrolysis steps in a single device.
Low-Cost Hydrogen Breakthrough Uses Solar Power And Rust

Note that the greenest ones are the hybrids. (Although even there I'm not sure once you consider building the battery packs.)

According to the chart in the article you linked to pure EVs are the best (although they tend to have better batteries). But the environmental cost of building a large battery is at least partially offset by having a much simpler power train. Modern ICEs are very complex with a complex emission reduction system. You also need a more complex transmission than the EV's single speed tranny.

What I'm thinking of is the battery packs tend to contain chemicals that aren't very green at all.

 

[Derec]

What I'm thinking of is the battery packs tend to contain chemicals that aren't very green at all.

I do not think modern batteries contain very toxic chemicals. And in any case they typically stay sealed throughout its lifetime.

 

[Jarhyn]

What I'm thinking of is the battery packs tend to contain chemicals that aren't very green at all.

I do not think modern batteries contain very toxic chemicals. And in any case they typically stay sealed throughout its lifetime.

The problem isn't the toxicity, it's the fact that they are made with some pretty rare stuff.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What I'm thinking of is the battery packs tend to contain chemicals that aren't very green at all.

I do not think modern batteries contain very toxic chemicals. And in any case they typically stay sealed throughout its lifetime.

It's not the toxicity, it's the effects of mining the stuff.

 

[Derec]

The problem isn't the toxicity, it's the fact that they are made with some pretty rare stuff.

Lithium is not that rare and neither are other materials commonly used such as manganese or titanium.
What is rarer are so-called rare earth elements which are used for permanent magnets in electric motors. But it looks like they are being phased out.
Toyota, Tesla give China's rare earths the electric car snub
But even there the problem hasn't been environmental but rather economical with China driving rare earth mining competition out of the market through predatory pricing.

It's not the toxicity, it's the effects of mining the stuff.

Are the effects of mining lithium really that much worse than mining other materials?
Also, since the materials used to manufacture batteries are not used up in the process you only have to mine them once.