From the post above:
” . . . where the hydrogen is produced through electrolysis by using natural gas.”
Now if you follow the link, they claim the production of hydrogen will NOT involve natural gas.
Which is not a trivial distinction - without a lot (and I mean a whole lot) of hydrogen, dependence on renewables is a pipe-dream, for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which is the intermittent nature of wind and solar (note to greenies - the power grid will not tolerate interruptions, no matter how noble your intentions).
And if you’re going to generate a boatload of hydrogen by electrolysis, you’re going to have to transduce an incredible amount of energy. You might be able to do that if you ramp up nuclear, but even in the article, it’s clear they frown on that approach. And you might be able to do it by using the chemical energy in methane (natural gas), but how you do that without oxidizing the methane (that is, converting it to evil CO2) is beyond me.
Perhaps the fellow in question has some revolutionary approach to the generation of enormous amounts of energy, but without seeing some details, this stuff looks like unicorn power transmitted by rainbows
That struck me too.
Electrolysis is a process involving splitting the water molecule with electricity and capturing the hydrogen. By definition, when you burn the hydrogen you get back a good deal less energy than was in the electricity, much less what was in the original fuel burned to generate electricity.
IOW, natgas > electricity > hydrogen > work is a LOT less efficient than just burning the natgas to produce work.
I’ve run across claims that hydrogen can be produced at 80% efficiency by using steam to convert it. Still don’t see how this can possibly be either more efficient or less polluting than just burning the gas by the time you run through the whole process.
For hydrogen to be a truly “green” fuel, it would have to be produced by electrolysis of water using nuclear, hydro, wind or solar generated electricity. And of course greenies are generally opposed to nuclear and hydro.
I suppose on could use wind and solar to produce hydrogen, in which case the intermittent nature of the power source wouldn’t be so disastrous.
It is VERY hard to find apples to apples comparisons for energy efficiencies of these various processes. For instance, while hydrogen may be able to be produced at 80% efficiency from natgas. But for it be usable offsite, it would have to be compressed to 10,000 psi. I’ve worked enough with compressed air to know that pressurizing gases is not a low-energy process.
Electricity may be 100% efficient at driving auto wheels. But by the time you factor in the energy losses at the power plant, transmission and battery charging and discharging those efficiencies aren’t a great deal higher than just burning the dang fuel to drive the car instead of produce electricity.