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What is white hydrogen? Scientists say the clean-energy gas could save the world.
(www.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2023
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I'm not saying there's a perfect energy source (wind and solar come close but even they require some small amount of dirty manufacturing). What I'm referring to is the proportion of downsides. Hydrogen come with huge huge downsides, with very few upsides. In fact, I think hydrogen has only a SINGLE upside: it burns clean (no carbon).
Thats it though. Thats all. Every other measure its worse than every other mainstream electricity source, and its worse in much much larger proportions compared to other sources.
That "SINGLE upside" is the difference maker. What other criteria is more important?
Really?
Hydrogen fails on every single one of those compared to alternatives.
Additionally nuclear power is also clean in that it produces no carbon emissions. It does produce nuclear waste, but that's easily managed and can even be recycled somewhat. Just the amount of nuclear waste that we have in the US could be reprocessed to produce enough power to meet the entire power demand of the entire US for the next 100 years, to say nothing of new fuel. Nuclear waste is also easier and safer to dispose of than most of the waste that comes out of coal fired plants (which is also radioactive), and somewhat ironically nuclear power plants actually release significantly less radiation into the environment than coal plants do.
Hydrogen power, outside of maybe the highly specific circumstances at play in Japan, just doesn't make any sense. It's hard to get, hard to transport, hard to store, its energy density is relatively poor, and it's even dangerous to be around due to the risk of explosion and fire.
The poster's example of Hydrogen in Japan I wouldn't even call a Hydrogen solution. They're making green hydrogen from some other energy source. Japan isn't even keeping the resulting hydrogen generated, they're immediately turning it into something else for transport and storage.
The thread original premise of white hydrogen, possibly being burned in situ in France for electricity generation, I'd call a real hydrogen solution, but it is so very specific that I'm not sure its applicable anywhere else on Earth.
And yet, being carbon-free, makes it worthwhile.
I don't think you're quite grasping it. There would be an insane amount of carbon used to try to use hydrogen as a primary fuel source in overcoming all the shortcomings of hydrogen.