[AntiKev]

The thing with hydrogen is that it’s one of the most energetic fuels. But, most hydrogen is produced by cracking methane. Which requires a LOT of energy. Sure if you have a nuclear power plant you can use the electricity to electrolyze water, but why? It’s more efficient to just produce the electricity to feed the grid.

Unless we figure out how to run a pipeline to Jupiter and suck molecular hydrogen out of the atmosphere, we won’t be running on a “hydrogen economy” any time soon.

[samtheman]

I can see some use for hydrogen. Not to produce electricity, since as you say it is much more efficient to use your primary energy source (solar, nuclear, etc) to produce the electricity directly rather than to waste energy extracting hydrogen to burn to produce electricity.

But imagine for a moment a sane US. I know, it’s impossible, but just imagine it. And imagine we had a very large number of nuclear reactors, and we extracted huge amounts of hydrogen from water or methane and used that hydrogen to power our cars.

Just think of all those useless and powerless ragheads sitting off in their deserts pounding sand up their butts. Isn’t that a dream worth working towards?

[Sudetenland]

Yep, and where do we get that methane?.....from refining oil.

This is (as Spock would say) "fascinating," but it is still pie-in-the-sky technology. Hydrogen is one of the most dangerous combustible gases because it heats up with expansion rather than cooling with expansion, Thus any leak in the system becomes an instant ignition hazard.

It embrittles steel (as was already stated), it attacks most elastomers so the choice of seals in joints is critical, and (also as stated previously) it takes a heck of a lot more energy to produce than it generates...Oh yeah and the molecule is really-really small, so leaking is difficult to control.

Not saying it's impossible, just a long way from being practical.