What could possibly go wrong???
Water vapor is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, by a couple of orders of magnitude.
All they need now is away to store hydrogen. Nothing we can can store it for long. It’s bad as electricity in that respect.
How much energy do you waste to do this ?
What could possibly go wrong???
I agree with the other guy, storage of Hydrogen is challenging, but we were able to store Helium underground, which is probably just as hard to contain.
But, if this concept does show promise, you can bet that the Left will stop it, as their objective is to SHUT DOWN THE COUNTRY, not actually find options other than carbon-based fuels. If Hydrogen is relatively cheap, it simply will not be permitted.
Sorry, but that’s who they are.
Since the “fight against Climate Change” has nothing to do with “Climate Change”, this bit of spectacular discovery, will mean nothing, if it doesn’t mean the use of American Taxpayers as parasitic hosts by the world’s Leftist elite. They don’t give a rat’s rectum about the planet, unless it means the burdening and destruction of the American Energy Economy. This kind of easy transition to H2 power is not what the tantrum throwing left wants. They will find something wrong with it, as they do hydro-electric and nuclear power.
As long as it's neither mandated nor government subsidized, I say: "Go for it." Proof of concept here is commercial viability, not some "carbon free" blather.
Hydrogen has more energy than gasoline by weight but:
“On a weight basis, hydrogen has nearly three times the energy content of gasoline (120 megajoules per kilogram [MJ/kg] versus 44 MJ/kg), but on a volume basis the situation is reversed (3 megajoules per liter [MJ/L] at 5000 pounds per square inch [psi] or 8 MJ/L as a liquid versus 32 MJ/L for gasoline). Furthermore, the electric energy needed to compress hydrogen to 5000 psi is 4 to 8 percent of its energy content, depending on the starting pressure; to liquefy and store it is of the order of 30 to 40 percent of its energy content.”
And
“Pipeline transmission of hydrogen is expected to be more capital-intensive than pipeline transmission of natural gas because of the need for pipes at least 50 percent greater in diameter to achieve the equivalent energy transmission rate, and because of the likelihood that more costly steel and valve metal seal connections will be required for pipelines for hydrogen in order to avoid long-term embrittlement and possibilities of leakage.”
https://www.nap.edu/read/10922/chapter/6#38
Translation: Besides mere production of H2 at fossil fuel well sites, there are transmission and storage issues, and their costs to be overcome. Those things are not even counting changes in motor vehicle industry for the production of vehicles using H2 as the fuel. The resolution of all those issues, and not the science of just making H2 with oxygen injected into fossil fuel wells will be what determines if H2 is a fuel of the future or not.
Changes in supply and demand of other fuels, in the future, could revise present analysis of the comparative costs of H2 vs other fuels.
When I worked on the National Aero-Space Plane (X-30) project from 1988-1995, we were using liquid H2 as the fuel.
The program had several failures, most notably the inability to get the scramjets working to necessary velocities. But we were very successful with producing, storing, pumping and burning H2 proving its worth as a fuel.
Oh, and they said they discovered that if you ran an electric current through the exhaust it would give you ozone . . . so theoretically we could have put back any of the “missing” ozone layer.
That issue kinda went away.
Unlimited energy could be found coming out of unicorn butts and the left would still never be happy. The left is not about solving problems. Problems and crisis is what fuels them.
Ahhhh, bull spittle.
Tell me the gross cost of compressing O2, injecting and recovering H2, then compute the BTU exchange and I bet it is in the negative- what else can they foist on us? Pump, frac, drill etc, get the hydro carbons out of the ground, then refine it, then burn it to produce H2O, to cool the “warming globe” of course.....
They hydrogen is not free hydrogen but is tied up as hydrocarbons in the residual oil in these “played out” oilfields.
Until the author of this article will explain the chemical reactions in detail and the cost of separation of the newly formed CO2 from the hydrogen that has been mythical released my apologies to those that read this, THIS is BULL SHIT.
I would most graciously be proven wrong as free hydrogen is good.
PS
CO2 is plant food. Why in the hell do you think we pump it into green houses. Actually we normally just burn hydrocarbons in the green house and thus have water vapor and CO2.
sigh. MASSIVE energy costs to produce that injection oxygen ...
I did my undergraduate and graduate theses on hydrogen
I realize in the late 90s that it was just going to be government work and so I got into the solar industry
I’m still a giant fan of hydrogen and hydrogen - fuel cell cars are now coming out but I don’t really care about cars
The entire planet actually can run on photovoltaics and water
There is no denying this fact
What is the only fuel with enough energy density to get a rocket into space? Hydrogen liquid hydrogen
So they want to pump oxygen which people and animals need into the ground in order to avoid creating Carbon Dioxide which plants need?
Why does that sound stupid to me?
The question is whats left AFTER you extract the hydrogen ???
Toxic waste
Also how much energy (and other resources) is used in this production process ??
They will surely bitch about water vapor being worse than CO2 once hydrogen vehicles are implemented. Then, of course, there is the Hindenburg.