Yep. It takes more energy to split water than is released from the comustion of hydrogen. It is like taking electricity to MAKE electricity. It just does not work.
Yep. It takes more energy to split water than is released from the comustion of hydrogen. It is like taking electricity to MAKE electricity. It just does not work.
Its best to think of hydrogen as a battery
it CAN be done. not on a scale large enough at this time, but efficiency is increasing. Its a simple law.. you can never generate more energy that you input. But, if the source is free or dirt cheap (fission heat, wind power, solar, etc), it is extremely viable conversion.
Just a quibble. Hydrogen works as a battery. It stores electrical energy in a chemical form for later use. And that's OK and may have real economic potential. For example, today, there is no way to use the output of nuclear power plants to power cars. So if we would build nukes and use the electricity to split water into Hydrogen, that could be a real alternative to imported oil--albeit, probably more expensive than imported oil.
What frosts me is the green campaign on hydrogen is that they try to pawn it off as an energy source. (A lot of gullible conservatives have been taken in by the campaign.)
A conversion to a 'hydrogen economy' without also developing alternative energy sources (like nukes or coal) would leave us in the worst possible energy world. We would have to produce our hydrogen for our cars with imported oil and it would be a lot less efficient than using the oil directly. So we would end up even more dependent on imported oil than we are now. All in the name of being more green.