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In the past few days, a huge amount of material was deleted from this article. Is there an explanation? -- Ssilvers 16:02, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Recent edits (WpZurp)
Nice work - thanks for the cleanup and wikification.
But-
Isn't replacing "It may be" with "Critics argue" just replacing some slightly weasely words with more weaselly words? ;-)
Thanks again, Leonard G. 04:35, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)
By anon. user: 61.88.9.148
Once all hydrocarbon based fuels are either exhausted or outlawed, renewable Hydrogen, generated from wind, wave, hydro or tidal power would consume massive electricty generating capacity resulting in a transport fuel that is quite expensive, and perhaps leaving daily motoring beyond the reach of the average worker.
I pulled this as it does not seem to quite hold up as a well developed concept, paragraph, or sentence - relative to the theme and organization of the article. There will not likely be a point of hydrocarbon exhaustion - only that the price will make its use uncompetative with other sources - so it is not the price of renewables that is controlling but the price of alternative fuels relative to one another. Most of motoring at the present time is overly consumptive of energy, by a factor of at least three and possibly five or six, owing to the cheapness of fuels. It is well known that the the wind energy in a few northern tier states could supply all of the U.S. energy requirements if only it could be transported. One form of transport could be to make hydrogen and pipe it about - much as natural gas is piped around the country. It seems more likely that modern modular pebble bed reactors will have a place in the energy portfolio as they can be located closer to demand points. These are unlikely to be developed by the large U.S. companies, who have a vested interest in what is a 50 year old technology (large pressurised water reactors). Instead it appears that China will lead these developments - not because they need the energy but because they need to get away from the intense air pollution associated with coal, their primary domestic energy source.
In urban areas, daily motoring is already becoming impractical, not due to cost but due to congestion resulting from population growth combined with roadway limitations - a problem to be solved only in a relatively distant future by modern control technologies such as automated driving with "platooning", transportable micro vehicles, separation of various classess of traffic and other means of improving mobility (and parking).
Also, motoring and other travel as we know it is a social phenominum - a result of complex interactions between expectations and capablilities, driven by forces beyond individual and even collective control. A utopanist can costruct visions of postmechanical societies in which almost none of what we deal with now is necessary. Why drive daily when you can "be" anywhere in a virtual sense. Today (Sept 17, 2004) I was in the office of a patent attorney, to whom I demonstrated a software implementation related to a patent application. The examiner is in Washington, DC. Rather than carry a portable computer on a flight to Washington DC for a demonstration he will admit the examiner via telecommunications and specialized software to view (on the examiner's computer) an exact image of the screen on his computer as he demonstrates the implementation.
Note that almost no international tourists are driving individually, but travel by mass moving machines - ships, riverboats, aircraft, trains, and busses, interspersed with lots of walking.
---
Also by the same editor (left in) ...however whether Iceland can generate and store the equivelent amount of Hydrogen to displace the estimated 16,000 barrels a day ( 2001 data ) of oil it currently imports remains to be seen.
I'll work out some calculations on this when I get time (Ha!)- one need compute how much geothermal energy plant capacity is required to displace the 16KBD, allow for conversion efficiencies (especially if cryogenic hydrogen is to be used), etc. I'm rather busy right now - if anyone has the skill to do the calcs, especially capital cost/payback time etc., please do so. Better to put some real numeric projections in place of a "remains to be seen" (which it still will), but we will have a better article. It does appear that the authorities in Iceland have run the numbers and they look good to them.
Leonard G. 04:46, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I see this line:
I would like references to specific commentators and, especially, need to learn some of the "inherent inefficiencies". Also, as a point of argument, would these inefficiencies be resolved if hydrogen use became widespread? That is, which inefficiencies are a result of tooling up and which inefficiencies could be long-term?
Here are two links concerning the inefficiency of a hydrogen economy: European fuel cell forum Teslamotors technology comparison-- 85.218.17.222 07:43, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Hi Leonard. Let me know how you like the rewrite.
Oh -- I noticed you're a fellow Bay Area native!
Iain McClatchie 09:31, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Also, I'll go find references, but I'm pretty sure that hydrogen cannot be transported in natural gas pipelines. Apparently NG pipelines leak, and the same technology used to move hydrogen would leak more -- a lot more. Which is then a problem because hydrogen breaks down the ozone layer 20 times faster than NG. But I'll find a reference to quantify that, because I don't remember if 20x was volume-to-volume or BTU-to-BTU.
Leonard,
Not sure I see the transmission problem
If H2 is generated from coal or oil - transport the coal or oil by pipeline, sea, road or rail to local H2 generation stations
If H2 is produced by electrolysis - generate the H2 at plants next to the power stations, or send the electricity to local stations and generate the H2 there.
I don't see why we'd want to centralise H2 production and send large volumes of it across long distances.
That said, I agree overall that H2 isn't the panacea imagined by politicians and media imagining we'll be able to continue to drive big fast cars when oil runs out.
Exile 14:48, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Colonectomy! (continuation of Quasarstrider 22:08, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC))
Well, this goes back to the "poorly understood" nature of atmospheric chemistry in general, meaning no one really knows (I am not a professional chemist, I'd much rather have the opinion of a chemist who gets paid for this (and *not* paid by anyone who has any interest in oil vs hydrogen as fuel! darn lack of neutral POVs)). The best way to see the effects hydrogen would have on the ozone layer is to have a hydrogen economy. I don't think there is enough information to make a new article. Even just switching all our cars to hydrogen probably wouldn't have much of an effect, so no need to mention it on hydrogen car. Any mention on ozone depletion of this theory should mention and link back to hydrogen economy for more info, because hydrogen-ozone depletion (if it exists) is a natural continuous cycle at current H2 levels. Those are my reasons for the logic behind putting a mention of ozone in this article. Does that make me fanatical? :) ... Anywho, perhaps in a new section called Hydrogen_economy#Environmental_concerns (or under 'the storage problem') "Hydrogen gas (H2) may also form free radicals (H) in the stratosphere due to ultraviolet radiation, that can then act as a catalyst for ozone depletion. An increase in stratospheric hydrogen from leaked H2 could exacerbate the depletion process." Then if any new information comes, it can be added. Thoughts? Splarka 22:56, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Addendum: I put a crude (hardly encyclopedic yet) sketch of a possible article or section at User:Splarka/Sandbox:hydrogen. We could move our discussion to User_talk:Splarka/Sandbox:hydrogen as well, if you like? Splarka 00:09, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
In May 2005, NYMEX price for natural gas was $7/million BTUs. Hydrogen is 134700 BTU/kg, and at a conversion efficiency of 35%, that gives $2.70/kg, which is in good agreement with [4].
At a current worldwide production rate of 50 million metric tons per year, that's $135 billion/year of hydrogen.
Iain McClatchie 01:09, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Nice overview of current hydrogen economy: [5] Iain McClatchie 11:18, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Should this sentence go next: "Hydrogen fuel cells would then be used to produce electricity for mobile applications."
I don't think so. Hydrogen fuel-cell powered cars are not near-term technology. They can be made as research vehicles, but the economics are not there now, nor are they close at hand. Research on fuel cells may be a worthy pursuit, and justification for such a pursuit may be a reasonable point in this article, but today, they aren't near-term technology for ordinary automobiles.
Furthermore, in the near term, hydrogen is far more valuable as a chemical feedstock than as an energy supply. It's use as a chemical feedstock can suck up a very large amount (11 million tons/year just in the U.S.) of any developing cost-effective renewable supply before there is any need to burn the stuff for motive power. Iain McClatchie 02:22, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
If someone knows figures for the efficiency of each production method, could they please put them in the Production section? ie "energy in" vs "energy out" Barrylb
I don't have the data for each method, but the biggest problem for hydrogen is definitely production. I think that should be emphasized in the article. Namly hydrogen is not an energy source, but a method of energy transport. This misunderstanding is so pervasive, it would help if the article could clarify.
The second big problem is the misconception that hydrogen/fuel cell vehicles would solve much of the energy problem. In fact the % of total energy consumption by gasoline vehicles is small even in the US (which consumes more transportation energy than many other countries).
A frequently mentioned hydrocarbon-free method is producing hydrogen via electrolysis via solar or wind power and using it in fuel cells.
Let's evaluate the feasibility of powering 50% of the gasoline cars in the US via fuel cells with hydrogen from solar-driven electrolysis:
Background data:
% of total crude oil used for gasoline: 32%
% of total US energy consumption used by gasoline: 13.7%
Energy required to produce 103 billion gallons LH2 via water electrolysis: 2.27 quadrillion BTUs (liquifaction 50% efficient, electrolysis 70% efficient, overall production efficiency 35%). Therefore it takes 65% of liquid hydrogen's energy content to produce it.
2.27 quadrillion BTUs = 6.7E14 watt hours
Overall solar cell efficiency: 10% (crystaline cells can't be used in huge industrial quantities due to cost. Amorphous cells would be needed. Also must use real-world efficiency, not laboratory efficiency). Also solar cell output degrades several % per year, so after 20% output is about 1/2. Thus 10% is VERY optimistic.
Average solar insolation in US southwest: 5000 watt-hrs/m^2/day, or 1.8E6 watt-hrs/m^2/year Annual solar cell power: 186,000 watt hrs/m^2/year
Solar cell area required to produce 6.7E14 watt hrs: 3.6 billion square meters, or 890,000 acres, or 3,600 square km.
However we must factor in 20% for LH2 storage losses in transport and consumption, so say 4,320 square km
Must also add space for structure, maintenance roads, etc: say around around 5,000 square km, roughly the size of Delaware.
Summary:
A gigantic program consisting of:
Would save:
Since energy consumption increases at about 2-3% per year, within about 3-4 years total US energy consumption would be back where we started. Not being a pessimistic, just realistically looking at the numbers. Joema 19:57, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Sources:
The problem is people are apparently just assuming "hydrogen must work" since the petroleum alternatives are unfavorable ("There's gotta be something better"). Yet the most basic back-of-the-envelope calculations show it cannot possibly work. For example, consider the number of nuclear plants required to produce hydrogen for ONLY the US gasoline vehicles, which ONLY comprise 32% of total US petroleum consumption and 13.7% of total US energy consumption:
There are just 103 nuclear plants in the US. So building SIXTEEN TIMES the total number of nuclear plants now existing would only reduce US petroleum consumption by 32%. Whether you use solar thermal, wind, or nuclear, the required real estate or infrastructure is so gigantic and the payback so limited it's just not feasible. There is a huge disparity between the common perception and the mathematical reality -- so much so that it's amazing. This isn't politics -- it's physics.
I have no problem with articles on the hydrogen economy, but information providers have a responsibility to convey reality, not the common perception. The reality is the hydrogen economy is deeply flawed, and it appears to be totally unworkable based on any technology we have today. In 100 years if we have near limitless fusion power, it might work then.
It appears hydrogen is a technical "blind alley". The only semi-feasible transportation fuel alternative I've seen capable of scaling to the gigantic levels needed to support most of the gasoline vehicle fleet is biodiesel from algae: biodiesel, http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html, and even that requires more investigation to know for sure. Joema 17:30, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
While it's true that BEVs could handle a fair % of transportation needs (US national average commuting distance only 18.2 km or 11.3 miles), it would not save significant energy or petroleum. What counts is overall energy efficiency, not just vehicle efficiency.
For battery electric vehicles, this is: power plant generation efficiency 40%, transmission line efficiency 95%, charging efficiency 88%, vehicle efficiency 88%. This gives overall BEV energy efficiency of .4 * .95 * .88 = 33%
By contrast a modern diesel automotive ICE using common rail or piezoelectric injection has about 40% thermodynamic efficiency. Fuel production and processing is about 92% efficient, vehicle efficiency 88%, for an overall efficiency of about 32%, roughly the same as a BEV.
Even if BEVs use spare night generation capacity to recharge, it's not saving petroleum. The capacity is spare because the plants are throttled back at night. More nighttime demand to recharge BEVs necessitates burning more petroleum to service that.
There's also insufficient generation capacity to recharge a nation of BEVs. Total annual US gasoline energy consumption is 1.45E16 joules (4.25E15 watt hours). A 1 gigawatt power plant produces 8.76E12 watt hours per year. It would thus require about 500 new power plants to service that, or a combination of those plus using existing unused night capacity. In either case you'd be burning nearly as much petroleum in power plants as diesel cars would consume.
Wind power cannot possibly provide the needed energy (either hydrogen or electric) to service US or world transportation. US gasoline cars consume 4.25E15 watt hours per year. We already know the possible wind energy generation per acre from large current wind farms like the Desert Sky facility in Texas. A wind farm using the largest, most advanced wind turbines available would require 2,500 1.5 megawatt turbines on 225,000 acres to match ONE gigawatt power plant (wind turbine capacity factor is typically 25%). Therefore each 225,000 acres provides 8.76E12 watt hours per year. You'd need about 500 225,000 acre wind farms, or 112,500,000 acres, or 455,000 square km -- larger than California.
Even if every gasoline car in the US switched overnight to Mr. Fusion, that would only save 32% of US petroleum consumption, and only 13.7% of total US energy consumption. That's because all gasoline cars collectively only consume those percentages of petroleum and total energy. Joema 00:43, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
However, energy density of hydrogen is less again; metal hydrides are better than pressurised hydrogen (and, of course, safer), but also more dense and weighty, meaning that your typical hetal-hydride car weighs more and is therefore less fuel efficient.
Bit of a quandary, this whole cars and modern energy consumption thing. Personally, I think the US's answer to mid-east oil is LNG powered cars, because this can be implemented swift and cheaply, and requires no new technology at all, and minimal new infrastructure. Gas stations just need a big LNG tank instead of petrol tank, and LNG is already piped to most American cities, versus a whole new hydrogen economy with hydrogen plants, etc etc. Rolinator 03:02, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Consider this snippet that was in the 'Rationale' section:
... A system that produced hydrogen from other energy sources would centralize carbon emissions at the production site. This could be an advantage in that the emission control system may be better maintained and easier to inspect than systems on automobiles owned by individuals. Unfortunately, pure hydrogen is not widely available on our planet. Most of it is locked in water or hydrocarbon fuels. Pollution reduction at the production site may be offset by energy losses when converting to hydrogen. This is called the production problem |
The above is nonsensical because of several confabulations and confusions among some editors. Facts:
I edited the section in an effort to make it sensible. Similarly, there was confabulation between H2 and other emissions as suspected ozone hole creators, but I think the discussions Quasarstrider had here cleared this up.
http://www.aip.org/fyi/2005/120.html mentions two reports that I've read that inform the debate over hydrogen economy feasibility.
The section on transportation was Americanocentric, particulaarly with respect to LNG.
LNG is regularly piped hundreds if not thouands of kilometres from reservoir to market; this implies it is energy-efficient and cost-efficient to do so. It is also a much more readily accessible and utilisable source of energy than crude oil, as it does not have to be refined, cracked and reformed before use. It may need to be scrubbed and have water or sulfur dioxide taken out depending on whether it's wet gas or sour gas, which is usually done nearer the well-head than the market because otherwise energy is wasted pumping water or noxious gases, but essentially you can hook up your stove to the wellhead and cook.
It is also shipped in liquid form from Australia to China. If its inefficient at a small scale, you scale it up and build bigger ships.
In fact, the whole transportation issue boils down to cost, not energy efficiency. Cost is also worked out in terms of on-costs of refining, waste disposal and infrastructure. Shipped LNG meets the needs of societies, unlike California or the USA, where gas is in short supply and there is a deep penetration of LNG infrastruture and strong demand, with limited local supply, particulaarly for heating, industry and cooking. California also has its own oilfields and gas reserves, which is why alaskan LNG isn't utilised, because there is a nearer source.
Alaskan oilfields may also be reinjecting LNG to enhance oil recoveries via reseroiv repressurisation. If, as is the case in Australia, 3-5% of vehicles in the U.S. used LNG, then the case would probably be that more LNG would be used and the Alaskan oilfields would be piping it down via Canada to the lower 48 states.
Rolinator 02:51, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Added references, removed some POV and replaced part of the 'water as a greenhouse gas' chapter by hyperlink to greenhouse gas which covers the water effects amicably.
Overall, the current article makes it clear that H2 is an energy carrier, not an energy source and addresses other issues well. However, some parts to me still appear to be circling around problems such as efficiencies and costs; both not fully encompassed, e.g. by a life-cycle analysis. I see a few near misses of some actual issues such as energy capacity, which ironically are clearly addressed in this talk. Would the contributors care to transfer these to the main article? Also, I see some ignorance of the engineering solutions which are existing for more than a century that hydrogen has been commercially in use, where such things as "embrittlement" are not a problem at all.
Time permitting (for myself or better authors around here), I would like to see more comparisons of well-to-wheel efficiencies and cost updates and to address the main rationale for the switch to H2 - sustainability, a major part of which is to have a CO2-neutral economy to prevent a runaway greenhouse effect (which appears unlikely from water vapor).
Per the data available to me (the book by Roy McAlister) CO2-neutral energy stored as hydrogen can be replenished from solar energy at about 10% overall efficiency, whereas fossil or biofuel generated from solar energy by plants can be replenished at about 0.5% efficiency, which would simplistically spoken, just require 20 times the acreage. We can speculate whether maintaining solar cell farms is likely to remain more cost-efficient than farming and processing crops for fuel. And then what do we eat? Bernd in Japan 15:08, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
I just read about the ability to acquire hydrogen gas from 'cracking steam' in pebble bed reactors, and I wanted to learn more about this process. Steam cracking is not listed in the 'Sources' section in this article -- so is it essentially the same as steam reforming? Chris 07:03, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
I've taken the following phrase out, again:
however steam reforming and indeed any production of hydrogen from fossil fuels necessarily produces carbon by-products like CO2, which in some sense defeats the purpose of producing hydrogen as fuel.
It's true. But it's not relevant to the point of the paragraph, which is comparing the costs of different production methods. Please keep it out or explain otherwise here.
Iain McClatchie 01:40, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
This article needs some major cleanup. There are run-ons allover the place, as well as typos and simple grammar errors. I have marked this page with {{cleanup}} xxpor ( Talk | Contribs ) 16:39, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
What does this mean? I can't figure it out. Could you be more specific? KarenAnn 13:29, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Where does this language appear? -- Ssilvers 13:41, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Hydrogen also has a poor energy density per volume. This means you need a large tank to store it, even when additional energy is used to compress it, and the high pressure compounds the issues of safety, as well as adds weight. KarenAnn 13:55, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
P.S. There are two different sections called Storage. Couldn't they be condensed and put in one place? KarenAnn 14:32, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
P.S.S. Previously I condensed to different sections called Transportation. Hope that was O.K. KarenAnn 14:37, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
For example, there are two different sections headed Production. One of them is long enough to be an article of its own.
Maybe the second Production could be a new page, and under the first Procution you could have a link to main article:Production KarenAnn 14:49, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
I put the "challenges" heading back to "alternatives", since we now have only the alternatives there, ok? BTW, why are we talking about solar in that section? Or if solar, why not also wind? -- Ssilvers 03:15, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
That's at the top of the page your "Challenges/Alternatives section is going to be merged with,unless you go to Alternatives to the hydrogen economy discussion page and plea your case.
Your article has good work. You guys know what you are talking about. (Unlike you, I know little about the subject, but I learned alot today trying to edit it.) But your article really did get totally out of hand.
It might be a mess now because I started to go crazy late today, and had to chop stuff out because I felt like I was in a Stephen King maze. I ended up just throw paragraphs into the catagories that seemed to me most suited and will clean it up tomorrow. But only you guys know the subject matter so you have to tell me.
Please offer your suggesting, like where fuel cells should go. Ideas welcome. KarenAnn 03:44, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
P.S. The other section that went out on its own (still linked) but now inspected by the Wiki people is Hydrogen production (check the link). It did not fare badly, but needs much work before it should be allowed in again. KarenAnn 03:44, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
KarenAnn 18:42, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Is that an insiders term, since according to the link it means "Grid energy storage"? Is there a way of phrasing the first paragraph so the general reader clearly understands how your article relates to our everyday life)? KarenAnn 15:04, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
A main task now is referencing. Take a look at Fidel Castro to see how Wikipedia wants referencing done. Check out the reference section. (There is so much fighting going on over that page that anything that doesn't have a footnote is going to be removed.) There are 112 footnotes today and there are still whole sections that haven't been tackled yet.
See Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Reliable sources for more information about Wikipedia's policies on these matters.
Also the load balancing issue. I'm the person who wrote the definition on the page load balancing is linked to now (and I know nothing about electricty). But the page you originally had it linked to didn't even mention load balancing. So I pretty much made up the definition. Make sure it's right! It probably could be worded better also. KarenAnn 00:12, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
In the present hydrogen market section, a reference is made to "200 gigawatts of energy". A gigawatt is a unit of power. This requires some attention.
128.151.161.49 Iain Marcuson.
-- newjediorder 15:28, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
I was extremely disapointed with the "Direct Dangers in Use" section of this article. It was very negatively weighted and not very objective. I wanted to post things here before overhauling an entire section. I will outline a few myths that are misrepresented here.
so far votes are to keep the Liquid hydrogen article separated, please read: [ [10]]. Mion 00:32, 17 September 2006 (UTC) Merge proposal is withdrawn, case is closed. -:). Mion 11:26, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
A hypothetical question: If all the automobiles in Los Angeles were magically changed into hydrogen cars(either fuel cell or combustions), then their exhaust would be changed from "smog+misc." to water. How would all this water exhaust affect cloud formation, warming, and the weather in a region?
-- User:christgg 11:08, 21 September 2006 (PST)
This article is almost impossible to understand. Seems like I read it a while ago and found it very interesting and informative, so I came back to it today to show it to a friend. But now I can't make any sense out of it at all and I am really disappointed. Timmy12 15:46, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
"Hydrogen in a full "hydrogen economy" has been envisioned as a way to make renewable energy available to automobiles which are not all-electric. A final theoretical alternative to hydrogen would do this by using hydrogen locally (captive use) to make liquid fuels from a CO2 source. To be greenhouse-neutral, this source would be from air, biomass, or from CO2 which would otherwise be scheduled to be released into the air from non-carbon-capture fuel-burning powerplants (of which there should still be many in the future, since carbon-capture is site-dependent and difficult to retrofit). These alcohols would then act as greenhouse-neutral additional energy stores and carriers for transportation, but without disrupting present methods of liquid fuel transport and use. Rather than be transported from its production site, hydrogen may thus instead be used centrally/locally to produce renewable liquid fuels which may be cycled into the present transportation infrastructure directly, requiring almost no infrastructure change."
Bascially have all power plants capture the CO2 as liquid (maybe dry ice), ship it to a processing site, and get back gasoline/diesel/methanol/ethanol, and ship it back. Have the automakers develop an engine (probably some membrane/fuel cell type, you'd still have an electric car) that operates with two tanks, one a gas tank, the other a liquid CO2 tank, and either emit the water vapor through the exhaust, or see what soaps you need to keep the water/CO2 mixture well mixed, or just let it separate, and periodically vent the water(soda pop) liquid layer onto the asphalt (Liq. CO2 density=1.03, water=1.00 g/mL). Since carbon is such a good hydrogen/energy carrier, this recycling scheme may or may not beat any kind of battery setup as far as energy density/longterm robustness is concerned - lithium ion has limited life span, and it's expensive, but may not be as expensive to recycle lithium batteries as building such a CO2 capturing engine. Also lithium ion or most other batteries cannot be instantly recharged, except for zinc/air batteries that can be mechanically charged, but have low energy density. With a CO2 capturing engine, you'd pull up to a gas station and while the gas is pumped, the CO2 is unpumped, and with correct density differences/immiscibilities the two liquids might even be in the same tank, and if you don't emit the water, then have a 3 layer liquid tank, co2/water/gasoline, and let the gas station do the proper water/CO2 separation based on the slight density difference/immiscibility, which should automatically happen in the large holding tank. This way when a truck brings gas to the gas station, and it makes an empty trip back, it woudln't be empty, but ship the liquid CO2 back, up the chain. The logistics would be the same, only the infrastructure would need to be updated to correct pressure-handling and 2 fluid line systems. As far as the gas station water/CO2 separation goes, you'd have to make sure to skim only the very bottom CO2 layer and replace the very top gasoline, and have the transient separating layers intact - basically the trucks would always take only a little bit of the storage tank home, and you'd never completely drain it. Because of this water/CO2 separation need, hydrocarbons might be better than alcohols, because most alcohols are highly soluble in water. On the other hand, emmitting ethanol to the environment is not a big deal, but gasoline tainted water is. So ultimately you mgith have to develop a membrane that separates water from CO2, and just exhausts it while the car moves. Another problem with the CO2 capturing scheme that the car's weight increases as it runs, as the CO2 is 3-4 times heavier than the gasoline (Molecular Weight 12 C vs. 44 CO2), while with litium ion it stays the same as it runs. But any metal/air battery type would have similar issues, having to store the oxidized metal, except for gaseous hydrogen that can be just emitted as water. If you had a system that just carried hydrogen better than ultrasupercold liquid hydrogen or noble metal dissolved systems, that'd be great. Perhaps there is chemistry to strip off hydrogen from a carrier, such as hydrcarbons like butane, pentane, hexane, octane, that are the best carriers, and convert them into graphite, and ship the graphite back to get reloaded with hydrogen. Perhaps not quite all the way to graphite, but just some PAH's that are easier to react back (also carcinogenic). But that'd be a waste to have all that carbon uncombusted, when you could get some extra juice out of it, but every time you react carbon with oxygen, the shipping weight increases similar to CO2. Still, instead of PAH's, you might find that some partially oxidized carbon material is the best carrier to ship back, that's easy to convert back to octane, but it's also easier to handle than high pressure liquid CO2 (example citric acid solid, lactic acid liquid (muscle strains are because of lactic buildup from lack of oxygen), but these need sophisticated reactions in an engine, while CO2 doesn't.) In the end you might find that best carriers are sugars as far as ease of reaction goes, or fats as far as energy storage, and just ship liquid CO2 back to the processing plant, and ship fat back from there, and practically have a second "biosphere CO2 geologic cycle" constricted to human built pipes, but at least this would keep it out of the atmosphere to cut global warming effects. Life pretty much optimized its dealings with energy, even though probably better systems are possible, because, for instance, photosynthesis is only 2% efficient maximally, more like 0.25% on a global scale, while humans can build metallic silicon solar panels that are 8-15% efficient directly to current, but if you have to take that current and make octane from CO2 with it, you may not be able to beat photosynthesis too much, unless you find a scheme like the sulfur-iodine cycle, that takes heat inputs instead of electricity to produce hydrogen, and you can probably collect solar heat with 70-90% efficiency into a black body and store it in a salt reservoir, but you'd need a chemical cycle that does carbon dioxide to octane, CO2->C8H18, or lactic to octane. There might just be a way to beat life by a long shot in efficiency of producing fats from solar/wind energy, because things such as pn-doped metallic silicon or 1000C temperature are not available to life. Maybe pn-doped metallic silicon is available to life, we just haven't witnessed enough evolution for it to show up, most photosynthesis is based on chlorophyl, animal oxygen transport on iron based hemoglobin, even though there are some deep underwater creatures that use geothermal energy to survive based on a sulfur cycle, or species such as octopuses use copper based oxygen transport. So who knows, maybe there is a chance for a species to evolve a pn-junction silicon method of solar energy collection one of these days, just like some bacterial life can bind atmospheric nitrogen through sophisticated catalysts at normal pressures, as opposed to humans using 200+ atm to accomplish the same thing. Sillybilly 21:42, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
And what do you expect anybody to say to your suggestion that some species might someday evolve a pn-junction silicon solar energy collecter? That's so far off-topic it's, well, silly. S B H arris 22:53, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
The icon at the page header has a white opaque background, or at least it appears that way using Internet exploder version 6. 67.113.49.201 20:11, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
The accuracy of the automotive fuel efficiency chart is disputed. See Image talk:Battery EV vs. Hydrogen EV.png The chart is also unreferenced. -- Beland ( talk) 02:40, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
This discussion moved to Talk:Hydrogen safety. Mion ( talk) 18:39, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
we can make a section that states that the
variety is increasing as a logical consequence on the
Brownian motion
[11](just 2 cents)
Mion (
talk) 06:53, 2 August 2008 (UTC) Wrong approach.
Mion (
talk)
20:40, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
By bringing in Theoretical in the definition it suggests that hydrogen economy doesn't exists, which is not the case, I think that the quickest fix is to bring in the notion about scaling up the hydrogen economy to a world scale hydrogen economy. Maybe we need another article about The theoretical perfect hydrogen economy.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Mion ( talk • contribs) 08:42, 28 July 2008
Why isn't there an article on Hydrogen Power or Hydrogen Fuel? The only article is this wacky Hydrogen Economy entry? Also, this article is weirdly biased and unscientific. The whole intro and images are like some kind of PR campaign. I thought this was supposed to be an encyclopedia.( JoeTimko ( talk) 19:27, 21 October 2008 (UTC))
Excuse me, but the last time I checked, "nuclear power sources" where not one of the greatest thieves behind global warming. The first part of the introduction implies (...and not from burning carbon-based fossil fuels or nuclear power sources...) that nuclear power is behind the global warming. This is just plain wrong... Nuclear power might not be a good solution, but that's not because of global warming... / Natox ( talk) 21:45, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
The article says "there is actually more hydrogen in a liter of gasoline (116 grams) than there is in a liter of pure liquid hydrogen (71 grams)". A layman's reaction might be 'well, then why not use that?'. I assume this is bonded hydrogen, and it would be less confusing if that were explained. Actually, come to think of it, this is rather useless info. I bet there's more hydrogen in the car seats than in gaseous hydrogen, but how does it help to know something like that? It's just confusing, so shouldn't the sentence go? DirkvdM ( talk) 07:25, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Synthetic biology too is coming up with hydrogen production methods. However, at present it has not yet produced a viable organic hydrogen generator. [1] [2] [3] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.246.167.92 ( talk) 10:59, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
add in article
References
I propose to merge the Hydrogen economy section of the Fuel cell article. This section is not about fuel celss, which is the main topic of the Fuel cell article, and therefore suits better here (if contains anything useful what is not already covered here in this article). Beagel ( talk) 09:23, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
Proponents of a hydrogen economy suggest that hydrogen is an environmentally cleaner source of energy to end-users, particularly in transportation applications, without release of pollutants (such as particulate matter) or greenhouse gases at the point of end use.
Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?
69.20.226.218 ( talk) —Preceding comment was added at 17:57, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, but there is so much liquid water on the planet's surface, that overall it is in an equilibrium, and only the global average temperature determines the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, not how much you emit from vehicles. Extra water vapor above the overall equilibrium concentration precipitates out as rain, and if there isn't enough, more evaporates from lakes/oceans to get to the overall equilibrium saturation concentration. Basically you can't add more overall water vapor to the atmosphere by emitting more - it will simply precipitate out as rain. But you can add carbon dioxide and methane, which stay as gases. The only way to increase the overall water vapor concentration in the atmosphere is to increase the overall temperature of the atmosphere. In this sense water amplifies up the global warming effects: if anything causes a slight global warming, slight increase in the temperature, that will also increase the water vapor concentration too, therefore the temperature increase too. On the other hand, if a greenhouse gas concentration drops, so will the temperature slightly, so will the water concentration, and then the temperature even further. Water vapor on a global scale amplifies both the ups and downs. One note though, as the amount of water vapor increases in the atmosphere due to global warming, so might the amount of clouds, so more sunlight might get reflected back into outer space, causing global cooling, contrary to the expected global warming. Cloud formation and reflectivity also heavily depends on current pollution and fine dust/particulates in the atmosphere. The modeling and prediction of climate changes is very difficult. Sillybilly ( talk) 16:09, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Everything after the "Yes" in the preceeding paragraph can be ignored. The answer to the question is "yes, water is a greenhouse gas." Proponents of a hydrogen economy erroneously claim that greenhouse gases are not produced at the point of end use. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.168.91.156 ( talk) 19:19, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
contribs) 19:13, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
SineBot: Yes it is a greenhouse gas, but we will not be adding more of it to the atmosphere by burning hydrodgen in cars: "Water vapor is neither long-lived nor well mixed in the atmosphere, varying spatially from 0 to 2 percent (IPCC 1996). In addition, atmospheric water can exist in several physical states including gaseous, liquid, and solid. Human activities are not believed to directly affect the average global concentration of water vapor;" [15]. Technically, you are correct. But so what? Excess moisture precipitates out of air whenever the temperature drops below the dew point, so the it doesn't stay in the air very long anyway. Because the atmospheric lifetime of water is so small, the EPA and IPCC don't even bother assigning a global warming potential to it. Justin0741 ( talk) 19:27, 3 May 2009 (UTC)JB
More importantly the hydrogen is created by taking water and separating it into oxygen and hydrogen. Later it is simply recombined. In the end we have exactly the same amount of water. The same would be true if we were separating carbon dioxide into oxygen and carbon, and then using that carbon as fuel. All carbon dioxide released would have been already present. The problem with current fossil fuels is that they are releasing greenhouse gases that are currently effectively removed from play (tied up as coal/oil). In other words use of hydrogen as a fuel will have no net change in the atmosphere. 69.242.111.177 ( talk) 15:52, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
In general I support removal of energy alternatives which have nothing to do with hydrogen, of course, as about half of the ones in this section did. However, there are some interesting alternatives which begin with hydrogen production, then use it to make other fuels without distributing or storing it AS elemental hydrogen. These are "hybrid" alternatives, which use a hydrogen input, without a lot of hydrogen-specific infrastructure. I would argue that, as hydrogen-production-input technolgies, they deserve mention HERE, rather than lumped in with dozens of other energy economies discussed elsewhere under energy-economies, which don't involve making hydrogen. I've restored selected parts of this section, therefore. S B H arris 19:54, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
I'd prefer to see the opposite of a merger. There are too many topics wanting a home here. A good, cogent 5-10 paragraph discussion of hydrogen economy, history, and considerations followed by links to specific hydrogen energy uses, geopolitical concerns, and alternative forms of energy would be better. It's also be more likely that a solid definition of where the proposed hydrogen economy came from, where it is today, and a number of the hydrogen economy concepts by proponents and detractors, with conclusion and links to related concepts might have half a chance of reaching some form of consensus. Some. 64.132.32.226 ( talk) 18:11, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
I am the Information Officer of the UNIDO International Centre for Hydrogen Energy Technologies (UNIDO-ICHET). This Centre is six years old and its projects and activities have received notable attention. As you can see from our webpages, we are affiliated with many of the authoritative organizations operating in the field of hydrogen energy technologies. In my humble opinion, it now seems appropriate to me that ICHET passes the "Wikipedia visibility threshold". This is why I included a link at the bottom of this page, and this is why - after its understandable deletion by Fæ for possible Conflict of Interest - I am now here in front of you.
Gregory Dziedzic ( talk) 10:12, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
This discussion leads to economy, but digress initially to fuel. Then a fuel cell is alluded to. One has to read back to make sure they havent missed pertinent mention of said fuel cell, or that there is an assumed knowledge of such things. There needs to be clarity on what it is, or a link provided to somewhere. All professional texts give directions on how to integrate all new subects into a discussion, or give directions on where and how to obtain deeper knowledge of prerequisites for ongoing study of the subject. 110.174.207.96 ( talk) 14:08, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps that converting hydrogen to hydrogen sulphide would be a better method to store it ? Hydrogen sulphide already occurs naturally (ie in cenotes, ...) so the creation aswell as the storage (natural occurence means storage possible at room temperature) would be simple. Are there any references or information about this, and if so, include to article. 91.182.84.241 ( talk) 12:49, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
Sorry to make two new sections, but I just realised the article is very long compared to other wikipedia articles. Perhaps sections that have articles elsewhere should be summarised and linked, with information being rolled into the other article, and sections without articles should have articles created? 174.149.222.20 ( talk) 06:52, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
This article doesn't seem to be written from a completely neutral point of view. Many portions of the text seem to just talk about how battery electric vehicles are "better" than hydrogen.
Also, there seem to be some false assumptions. Given the many ways of producing and storing hydrogen (such as low pressure absorption/high pressure adsorption hydride storage systems that are being researched), sections such as "efficiency as an automtive fuel" need to be rewritten.
I will admit I am biased - I think that electric vehicles are a terrible idea. Not only are they expensive, they take a long time to charge (compared to the few minutes to fill a vehicle with gasoline and hydrogen - demonstrated by existing hydrogen pumps in California), but the batteries! Batteries wear down over time, so you get less and less use out of them, and they eventually have to be replaced, and by the time that happens the car will be worth less than the cost of replacement batteries.
Not to mention the safety aspects. Currently Hydrogen isn't safe to store (if there's a collision, for example), but future technologies may improve that. However, batteries are always going to have acid, which will at the least have to be disposed of at the end of the battery life, and at the worst, could leak in the case of an accident, requiring a hazmat team to clean it up (costing lots of money). And I personally would rather have a small hydrogen explosion than being covered in acid.
Anyways, tl;dr, think parts of the article are biased, but I can't edit because I myself am biased. 174.149.222.20 ( talk) 06:43, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
To put the shoe on the other foot: some sections of this article read like an essay, and there are quite a few paragraphs without citations. For example: "A key tradeoff: centralized vs. distributed production". Definitely not NPOV. 174.149.222.20 ( talk) 06:53, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
This claim is made in the "Fuel cells as alternative to internal combustion" section:
Currently it takes 2½ times as much energy to make a hydrogen fuel cell than is obtained from it during its service life.
Can anyone substantiate this claim? The reference indicated does not provide a source for this figure and provides an illustration that completely misinterprets the meaning (showing a 40% efficiency of converting methane to hydrogen and then to electricity). The figure would certainly be different for different types of fuel cells as well. Given the incredible energy throughput over the course of a fuel cell's service life, I'm very confident this claim is wrong, but wanted to check before editing. 128.158.1.175 ( talk) 18:18, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
I may just be guessing here, but I think about 98% of people in America don't know what a "photovalec" cell is, but about half know what a "solar panel" is. I changed the title to Electrolysis of Water using electricity from Solar Panels, since solar panel is apparently "street" for photovalec systems. The only reason I can think of to use the term "photovalec" is to differentiate between thermal panels and electrical panels. I'm thinking "Solar Panels" can be two things.
I'm not sure what the author of High-Tempature Electrolysis is trying to do, other than blind us with science, but I think I get the gist of it. Its easier to boil water and turn it into hydrogen and oxygen than it is to wait for water vapor to evaporate so you can do the same thing. So I changed the title to "Steam", which I'm pretty sure most people understand.
Sorry if I'm "dumbing down" your articles, but I speak the King's English I'm afraid. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.51.120.11 ( talk) 03:17, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
According to this article], hydrogen is a indirect ghg-gas. This means that aldough it does not act as a greenhouse gas itself, it worsens the effect of greenhouse gases already floating around in the atmosphere. This extra global warming should be calculated into the national ghg emissions in order for a emissionless economy to work. This would allow hydrogen use to remain carbon neutral in the calculation (simplifies calculation).
add in article —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.176.13.194 ( talk) 11:42, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
I thought electrolysis was specifically referred to as the method of using a direct electric current (DC) to drive an otherwise non-spontaneous chemical reaction. I don't think that superheating water until it separates into hydrogen and oxygen gas due to an increase in temperature then drawing the gases out separately qualifies, as the reaction occurred due to heat, not the application of electrical current.
Also, I thought this was about the hydrogen economy. Any process which requires 108 Mega Joules to produce 1 KG of hydrogen, is not economically feasible, and doesn't belong here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.51.120.11 ( talk) 03:59, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
Sorry guys, I think I might be headbutting the duchess on this. I'll try to use a little more tact and separate my articles instead of change yours. Apologies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.51.120.11 ( talk) 04:01, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
In light of the heavy criticism seen in the above posts, I am planning on editing the page with much needed up to date, unbiased information. Just a summary of what is in store, the below outline is what is proposed. I understand that this is an ambitious change, however, I assure you that these edits are coming from industry experts and sources will be from government agencies (dept. energy), alternative energy and technology companies, and other relevant sources. This overhaul also will address the fact that the term hydrogen economy is no longer a relevant term. Hydrogen and fuel cells are part of clean energy portfolios and future power generation, but are not intended to represent a replacement for the entire energy or transportation industries.
a. 1670-1800: Early Developments b. 1800-1920: Fuel Cell Discoveries c. 1920-1960: Hydrogen Production Refined d. 1960-1980: Space Race e. 1980-Today: Commercialization
a. Thermal b. Electrolysis
a. Distributed vs. centralized b. Storage
So leave some of this article as history, which otherwise will disappear. Personally I doubt that hydrogen fuel cells will ever play ANY significant part of future "energy portfolios." I think that's just as much a monument to stupidity, given the general difficult nature of hydrogen gas, as the larger propositions were. But see (for example) mercury-arc valve for an article on obsolete tech. We don't replace or delete articles on obsolete bits of technology on Wikipedia, to keep up with the times. At most, we keep the material and label it as a bad or obsoleted idea of previous generations. Biofuels deserve the same treatment. S B H arris 16:23, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
The main article begins,
In an (as-yet-hypothetical) hydrogen economy, the energy needed for motive power (for automobiles and other vehicle types) or electricity (for stationary applications) is derived from reacting hydrogen (H2) with oxygen. By eliminating the use of carbon-based fossil fuels, a hydrogen economy would sharply reduce the emission of carbon dioxide, which plays a central role in global warming.
This is a very poor introduction. Hydrogen used for storing motive power is a battery for electric power generated by some other means which is used to crack hydrogen from water H2O. This stored energy is recovered when the hydrogen is recombined with atmoshperic oxygen in a fuel cell. Hydrogen is not used to generate electricity for stationary applications, since to my knowledge there are no pools of free hydrogen sitting around planet Earth waiting to be tapped.
A hydrogen economy isn't a replacement for hydrocarbons it is a replacement for mercury, lithium, lead, nickel and other materials that would be otherwise used in automtive batteries in either 100% plug-in electric, small conventional gasoline engines supplimented with stored plug-in electric, or Prius-style hybrid automobles.
Only to the extent that the substantial marginal electric power needed to replace the energy derived from the combustion of gasoline and diesel is generated from something other than coal, natural gas or oil is there any reduction in the consumption of hydrocarbons.
The majority of new electric power on the scales needed to replace gasoline would come from burning coal. This means that hydrogen fuel cell cars are simply an alternative method for turning coal into motive power and is a substitute method to just burning gasoline derived via existing coal-to-liquids tech. 38.112.20.26 ( talk) 23:34, 24 June 2008 (UTC)glennscott9
Not true that it takes more energy to electrolyze water into H2 than is released during use as a fuel.
I just had a hack at removing stuff that you reasonably could claim NPOV for from the intro. I still don't like the "some futurists" bit. Is this now sufficiently devoid of content to removed the tag? 150.203.35.113 ( talk) 09:10, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
OK, the changes I made were reverted without comment. These are the sentences that I claim are---whilst not necessarily incorrect---pushing a particular perspective:
Unless someone comes onto this talk page and convinces me that these don't violate WP:NPOV, I'm deleting them again. All of these issues should be addressed in the article, but not in the introduction. Here's your chance people. 150.203.35.113 ( talk) 05:31, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm not convinced. Nuked the most loaded sentences again. 150.203.35.113 ( talk) 07:14, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Can we get rid of the neutrality warning on the intro now? Any objections? 150.203.35.113 ( talk) 10:04, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
Elon Musk called hydrogen as "an incredibly dumb car fuel". Reference: Article by Joe Romm at Think Progress 192.100.120.41 ( talk) 05:40, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
Why does this section put the electrolysis effeciency at 70% when Thermochemical Production provides for the potential of producing hydrogen off of merely the excess heat from nuclear power plants with little to no electrical input? The article even briefly alludes to this process at one point. This is not only an efficient method of producing hydrogen, but is nearly a "free" energy source, utilizing otherwise unusable heat from the nuclear core that currently escapes untapped. (The economic efficiency therefore is extremely high, all energy transfer efficiencies aside.) How does one measure the "efficiency" of free hydrogen? If nuclear plants can produce hydrogen through Thermochemical Production as a mere byproduct of the nuclear reactor, or close to it, then efficiency becomes a nonsensical comparison altogether (when compared to batteries) because any energy left over after all the "well to wheel" inefficiencies have been taken into account is essentially free energy - because it will be there to be used whether it is or not. Does anyone catch my drift or am I blowin' at a brick wall here.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.177.211.28 ( talk) 05:30, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
The picture depicting the energy efficiency is almost crude. Though the claims that a hydrogen based fuel cells are inefficient compared to direct use of electricity in cars, a more accurate description of related energy efficiencies is quoted by a Mr.Bossel at the following link. http://www.physorg.com/news85074285.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.240.4.137 ( talk) 06:01, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
This section is poorly conceived. I wouldn't endorse Bossel's article (he was working for a company that promotes hydrolysis and surprise suprise that turned out to be the best method of production in his analysis), but I do agree wity the above anonymous poster that there this section needs to be rationalized. First it discusses "efficiency as an automotive fuel" but fuels don't have efficiencies, only systems (e.g., vehicles) that convert fuels into other types of energy (e.g., motive power). That's semantics, I suppose. The section picks and chooses which aspects of hydrogen production transport and storage to discuss in order to make it look like a bad idea. There is one right way to do this, going back to Wang's article from 2002 that is cited elsewhere in the article and that is to consider well-to-wheels efficiency. The Wikipedia article sets this up in a nice conceptual paragraph but doesn't quite follow through. The bottom line is that given the efficiency of the FUEL CELL on board the vehicle, hydrogen (fuel cell) vehicles are more efficient well-to-wheels than anything in wide-spread use today or in demo phase like EVs. Let's pick one example of the poor reasoning in the artilce: the special pleading on behalf of Tesla: "Electric vehicles are typically 3 to 4 times more efficient than hydrogen powered vehicles" which is so ignorant because fuel cell hydrogen vehicles are in fact electric vehicles with electric motors. EVs are relatively efficient if you only consider efficiency but when you consider where the electricity came from (33 percent efficient for U.S. grid) and the 10 percent loss from the grid there are better alternatives. That's just from an efficiency standpoint--the focuse of the section. Elsewhere the article deals with other questions of feasibility (e.g., EVs have short ranges so their applicability is limited), cost and environmental impact. But that shouldn't cloud our thinking in this section.-- PotomacFever ( talk) 15:59, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
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Not ready for inclusion yet, since only a proposal at this stage, but has received state government funding, so likely to go ahead: "A plan for a small hydrogen-fuelled power plant at Port Lincoln is getting funding from South Australia's renewable technology fund." "Key points:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-12/hydrogen-power-plant-port-lincoln/9422022 http://reneweconomy.com.au/s-a-to-host-australias-first-green-hydrogen-power-plant-89447/ David Woodward ☮ ♡♢☞☽ 02:41, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
People have (politely) told the idea is stupid, and why. Even in previous version of the article, if I remember well. Somehow there is no trace here (anymore). Strange, isn't it? 15:32, 26 November 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.168.175.234 ( talk)
There is no lock on this article so feel free to add or re-add criticisms (you can see previous versions in the "history") if you have recent sources. Perhaps previous valid obstacles have been overcome. Chidgk1 ( talk) 17:40, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
The word "current" (the current technology) or "currently" shows up many time in the article. However, when nobody knows, when this section was written, one does not know how it looks today. Maybe the data was from 2008? Therefore we should change all the "current" into "current (2010)" or do you simply prefer "2010"? The different versions are listed here:
e.g. now: "Current best processes have an efficiency of 50% to 80%."
Version1: "Current (2010) best processes have an efficiency of 50% to 80%."
Version2: "Best processes of 2010 have an efficiency of 50% to 80%."
-- Saippuakauppias ⇄ 10:11, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
Some numbers are given for 2004-2005 which just don’t make sense: the article claims hydrogen is a 57 million tons market and is growing at 10%. Recent (2018 or so) estimates are in the range of 65M - so this seems unlikely
11M tons for US production and $135B market in 2005 make even less sense - although these seem reasonable estimates for 2018 or so — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.154.237.68 ( talk) 20:22, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
Could metric units such as joules or kWh be used in the "cost" section, instead of GGE which is a very strange unit for those of us who don't own cars or measure liquids in gallons. Chidgk1 ( talk) 07:52, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
This article is pretty useless. More than 3000 people a day are looking at this article, yet it is very confused and largely full of propaganda presumably by people with a vested interest in opposing a Hydrogen economy. The bulk of this article should be about what a hydrogen economy would look like and the basic science behind it, where the technology is at and then smaller sections on criticism and alternatives. At the moment its just a hodge podge of personal essays.-- Hontogaichiban ( talk) 12:19, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Another to add to the "very poor" list: where, under the "synthetic methanol" header is a single mention of methanol? Also, use of statements such as "It is always possible that some kind of breakthrough in hydrogen storage or generation could occur" is incredibly empty and useless. This can be said of any field of science or engineering that the authors intend to promote or show as promising. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.168.91.156 ( talk) 19:13, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
This sentence does not seem to make sense: "To enable the commercialization of hydrogen in consumer products, new model building codes and equipment and other technical standards are developed..." Should it be "...must be developed...", "...are being developed..."? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikipediacontributor38452 ( talk • contribs) 15:42, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
I'm extremely sceptical of everything in the article and utterly unconvinced (without saying what I'm unconvinced of!) Perhaps the nature of wikipedia places limits on this kind of article that authors will always struggle with. Perhaps less 'detail' might lead to a more useful article with less claims about technology and efficiency. KISS. 78.17.209.167 ( talk) 18:59, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
Currently, the defines the hydrogen economy as The hydrogen economy is an envisioned future in which hydrogen is used as a fuel for heat [1] and hydrogen vehicles, [2] [3] [4] for energy storage, and for long distance transport of energy. [5] However, if you check the sources provided, non of them provide a definition, in fact, some not even mention the hydrogen economy. They all focus on using hydrogen for certain purposes, but that's not what an hydrogen economy is and clearly doesn't define it. Please correct that and use an actual definition, as currently the definition seems to be unsourced POV. Andol ( talk) 16:55, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
References
this article says fuel cell vehicles are 2-3 times more efficient than internal combustion cars the fuel cell Wikipedia says fuel cells are 40-60% efficient the diesel engine wikipedia says diesels are 45% efficient so which of them are wrong ? 37.1.170.203 ( talk) 18:29, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
could someone improve the below. As a single sentence it does not have a clear meaning, and as an English native speaker but not a Hydrogen expert it seems to have two different meanings depending on context
"(In fact 55% of the reaction CH4 + 2 H2O = 4 H2 + CO2)."
Given that the article states that 2 different processes and therefore different chemical reactions currently make up the industrial product of H2, the stated included sentence is at best unclear. Jsmr1971 ( talk) 22:13, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
@ A455bcd9 Why they're colored gives an answer to why it's relevant at all, which gives an answer to why it's pertinent for this article to have this section at all. Fephisto ( talk) 03:17, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
Hydrogen_economy#Pipeline_storage as of 03/08/23 states:
A natural gas network may be used for the storage of hydrogen. Before switching to natural gas, the UK and German gas networks were operated using towngas, which for the most part consisted of hydrogen.
There is no reference to back up this claim. On the contrary, the linked towngas article claims 50% H2 content as common in coal gas.
Later in the section states:
The use of the existing natural gas pipelines for hydrogen was studied by NaturalHy.
However the study looked into the use of natural gas pipelines for H2 transport, not for storage purposes. Thus the usage of natrual gas pipelines for storage is not backed up by the references and looks like original research. Anttix ( talk) 09:53, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
Extended content
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Clayoquot ( talk | contribs) 20:15, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
References
Hi everyone. I just did a major rewrite of the lead section, so I am pasting the previous version below for reference. If I missed anything important, please let me know or just put it back in. Cheers, Clayoquot ( talk | contribs) 21:24, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
The hydrogen economy uses hydrogen to decarbonize economic sectors which are hard to electrify, [1] essentially, the "hard-to-abate" sectors such as cement, steel, long-haul transport, etc. [2] In order to phase out fossil fuels and limit climate change, hydrogen can be created from water using renewable sources such as wind and solar, and its combustion only releases water vapor into the atmosphere. [3] [4]
Although with a very low volumetric energy density hydrogen is an energetic fuel, frequently used as rocket fuel, but numerous technical challenges prevent the creation of a large-scale hydrogen economy. These include the difficulty of developing long-term storage, pipelines, and engine equipment; a relative lack of off-the-shelf engine technology that can currently run safely on hydrogen; safety concerns regarding the high reactivity of hydrogen fuel with oxygen in ambient air; the expense of producing it by electrolysis; and a lack of efficient photochemical water splitting technology. Hydrogen can also react in a fuel cell, which efficiently produces electricity in a process that is the reverse of the electrolysis of water. The hydrogen economy is nevertheless slowly developing as a small part of the low-carbon economy. [5] As of 2019 [update], almost all (95%) of the world's 70 million tons of hydrogen consumed yearly in industrial processing, [6] significantly in fertilizer for 45% of the world's food, [7] are produced by steam methane reforming (SMR) that also releases the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. [8]
A possible less-polluting alternative is the newer technology of methane pyrolysis, [9] [10] [11] though SMR with carbon capture and storage (CCS) may also greatly reduce carbon emissions. Small amounts of hydrogen (5%) are produced by the dedicated production of hydrogen from water, usually as a byproduct of the process of generating chlorine from seawater. As of 2018 [update] there is not enough cheap clean electricity (renewable and nuclear) for this hydrogen to become a significant part of the low-carbon economy, and carbon dioxide is a by-product of the SMR process, [12] but it can be captured and stored.
The idea of hydrogen economy has been heavily criticized from the moment it was proposed. The main issues with the H2E scenario are as follows: [13]
Clayoquot ( talk | contribs) 21:24, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
References
I removed the following as it is unsourced, poorly-sourced (Honda), or excessively detailed:
Hydrogen gas must be distinguished as "technical-grade" (five nines pure, 99.999%) produced by methane pyrolysis or electrolysis, which is suitable for applications such as fuel cells, and "commercial-grade", which has carbon- and sulfur-containing impurities, but which can be produced by the slightly cheaper steam-reformation process that releases carbon dioxide greenhouse gas. Fuel cells require high-purity hydrogen because the impurities would quickly degrade the life of the fuel cell stack.
The combination of the fuel cell and electric motor is 2-3 times more efficient than an internal-combustion engine. [1] Capital costs of fuel cells have reduced significantly over recent years, with a modeled cost of $50/kW cited by the Department of Energy. [2]
Other fuel cell technologies based on the exchange of metal ions (e.g. zinc–air fuel cells) are typically more efficient at energy conversion than hydrogen fuel cells, but the widespread use of any electrical energy → chemical energy → electrical energy systems would necessitate the production of electricity. Clayoquot ( talk | contribs) 21:21, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
References
I propose merging Hydrogen fuel into Hydrogen economy, for the following reasons:
Thank you to Clayoquot plus the other editors for making this article so much better through your revision work from September onwards! Much appreciated. How would you characterise the quality of the article now, are there still problem areas that need addressing or would you say it's pretty much "done" for now? Any remaining weaknesses? What's the reading ease like in your opinion, is some work needed in that regard to improve readability? And some more images maybe? EMsmile ( talk) 10:39, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
This entire section has no sources. A chunk of it was added in 2007 in this edit. I wonder if this text is any good (in which case sources should be found) or if it should be taken out?
"A key tradeoff: centralized vs. distributed production
In a future full hydrogen economy, primary energy sources and feedstock would be used to produce hydrogen gas as stored energy for use in various sectors of the economy. Producing hydrogen from primary energy sources other than coal and oil would result in lower production of the greenhouse gases characteristic of the combustion of coal and oil fossil energy resources. The importance of non-polluting methane pyrolysis of natural gas is becoming a recognized method for using current natural gas infrastructure investment to produce hydrogen and no greenhouse gas. citation needed
One key feature of a hydrogen economy would be that in mobile applications (primarily vehicular transport) energy generation and use could be decoupled. The primary energy source would need no longer travel with the vehicle, as it currently does with hydrocarbon fuels. Instead of tailpipes creating dispersed emissions, the energy (and pollution) could be generated from point sources such as large-scale, centralized facilities with improved efficiency. This would allow the possibility of technologies such as carbon sequestration, which are otherwise impossible for mobile applications. Alternatively, distributed energy generation schemes (such as small scale renewable energy sources) could be used, possibly associated with hydrogen stations.
Aside from the energy generation, hydrogen production could be centralized, distributed or a mixture of both. While generating hydrogen at centralized primary energy plants promises higher hydrogen production efficiency, difficulties in high-volume, long range hydrogen transportation (due to factors such as hydrogen damage and the ease of hydrogen diffusion through solid materials) makes electrical energy distribution attractive within a hydrogen economy.
In such a scenario, small regional plants or even local filling stations could generate hydrogen using energy provided through the electrical distribution grid or methane pyrolysis of natural gas. While hydrogen generation efficiency is likely to be lower than for centralized hydrogen generation, losses in hydrogen transport could make such a scheme more efficient in terms of the primary energy used per kilogram of hydrogen delivered to the end user.
The proper balance between hydrogen distribution, long-distance electrical distribution and destination converted pyrolysis of natural gas is one of the primary questions that arises about the hydrogen economy.
Again the dilemmas of production sources and transportation of hydrogen can now be overcome using on site (home, business, or fuel station) generation of hydrogen from off grid renewable sources."
EMsmile (
talk)
10:42, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
In the past few days, a huge amount of material was deleted from this article. Is there an explanation? -- Ssilvers 16:02, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Recent edits (WpZurp)
Nice work - thanks for the cleanup and wikification.
But-
Isn't replacing "It may be" with "Critics argue" just replacing some slightly weasely words with more weaselly words? ;-)
Thanks again, Leonard G. 04:35, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)
By anon. user: 61.88.9.148
Once all hydrocarbon based fuels are either exhausted or outlawed, renewable Hydrogen, generated from wind, wave, hydro or tidal power would consume massive electricty generating capacity resulting in a transport fuel that is quite expensive, and perhaps leaving daily motoring beyond the reach of the average worker.
I pulled this as it does not seem to quite hold up as a well developed concept, paragraph, or sentence - relative to the theme and organization of the article. There will not likely be a point of hydrocarbon exhaustion - only that the price will make its use uncompetative with other sources - so it is not the price of renewables that is controlling but the price of alternative fuels relative to one another. Most of motoring at the present time is overly consumptive of energy, by a factor of at least three and possibly five or six, owing to the cheapness of fuels. It is well known that the the wind energy in a few northern tier states could supply all of the U.S. energy requirements if only it could be transported. One form of transport could be to make hydrogen and pipe it about - much as natural gas is piped around the country. It seems more likely that modern modular pebble bed reactors will have a place in the energy portfolio as they can be located closer to demand points. These are unlikely to be developed by the large U.S. companies, who have a vested interest in what is a 50 year old technology (large pressurised water reactors). Instead it appears that China will lead these developments - not because they need the energy but because they need to get away from the intense air pollution associated with coal, their primary domestic energy source.
In urban areas, daily motoring is already becoming impractical, not due to cost but due to congestion resulting from population growth combined with roadway limitations - a problem to be solved only in a relatively distant future by modern control technologies such as automated driving with "platooning", transportable micro vehicles, separation of various classess of traffic and other means of improving mobility (and parking).
Also, motoring and other travel as we know it is a social phenominum - a result of complex interactions between expectations and capablilities, driven by forces beyond individual and even collective control. A utopanist can costruct visions of postmechanical societies in which almost none of what we deal with now is necessary. Why drive daily when you can "be" anywhere in a virtual sense. Today (Sept 17, 2004) I was in the office of a patent attorney, to whom I demonstrated a software implementation related to a patent application. The examiner is in Washington, DC. Rather than carry a portable computer on a flight to Washington DC for a demonstration he will admit the examiner via telecommunications and specialized software to view (on the examiner's computer) an exact image of the screen on his computer as he demonstrates the implementation.
Note that almost no international tourists are driving individually, but travel by mass moving machines - ships, riverboats, aircraft, trains, and busses, interspersed with lots of walking.
---
Also by the same editor (left in) ...however whether Iceland can generate and store the equivelent amount of Hydrogen to displace the estimated 16,000 barrels a day ( 2001 data ) of oil it currently imports remains to be seen.
I'll work out some calculations on this when I get time (Ha!)- one need compute how much geothermal energy plant capacity is required to displace the 16KBD, allow for conversion efficiencies (especially if cryogenic hydrogen is to be used), etc. I'm rather busy right now - if anyone has the skill to do the calcs, especially capital cost/payback time etc., please do so. Better to put some real numeric projections in place of a "remains to be seen" (which it still will), but we will have a better article. It does appear that the authorities in Iceland have run the numbers and they look good to them.
Leonard G. 04:46, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I see this line:
I would like references to specific commentators and, especially, need to learn some of the "inherent inefficiencies". Also, as a point of argument, would these inefficiencies be resolved if hydrogen use became widespread? That is, which inefficiencies are a result of tooling up and which inefficiencies could be long-term?
Here are two links concerning the inefficiency of a hydrogen economy: European fuel cell forum Teslamotors technology comparison-- 85.218.17.222 07:43, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Hi Leonard. Let me know how you like the rewrite.
Oh -- I noticed you're a fellow Bay Area native!
Iain McClatchie 09:31, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Also, I'll go find references, but I'm pretty sure that hydrogen cannot be transported in natural gas pipelines. Apparently NG pipelines leak, and the same technology used to move hydrogen would leak more -- a lot more. Which is then a problem because hydrogen breaks down the ozone layer 20 times faster than NG. But I'll find a reference to quantify that, because I don't remember if 20x was volume-to-volume or BTU-to-BTU.
Leonard,
Not sure I see the transmission problem
If H2 is generated from coal or oil - transport the coal or oil by pipeline, sea, road or rail to local H2 generation stations
If H2 is produced by electrolysis - generate the H2 at plants next to the power stations, or send the electricity to local stations and generate the H2 there.
I don't see why we'd want to centralise H2 production and send large volumes of it across long distances.
That said, I agree overall that H2 isn't the panacea imagined by politicians and media imagining we'll be able to continue to drive big fast cars when oil runs out.
Exile 14:48, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Colonectomy! (continuation of Quasarstrider 22:08, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC))
Well, this goes back to the "poorly understood" nature of atmospheric chemistry in general, meaning no one really knows (I am not a professional chemist, I'd much rather have the opinion of a chemist who gets paid for this (and *not* paid by anyone who has any interest in oil vs hydrogen as fuel! darn lack of neutral POVs)). The best way to see the effects hydrogen would have on the ozone layer is to have a hydrogen economy. I don't think there is enough information to make a new article. Even just switching all our cars to hydrogen probably wouldn't have much of an effect, so no need to mention it on hydrogen car. Any mention on ozone depletion of this theory should mention and link back to hydrogen economy for more info, because hydrogen-ozone depletion (if it exists) is a natural continuous cycle at current H2 levels. Those are my reasons for the logic behind putting a mention of ozone in this article. Does that make me fanatical? :) ... Anywho, perhaps in a new section called Hydrogen_economy#Environmental_concerns (or under 'the storage problem') "Hydrogen gas (H2) may also form free radicals (H) in the stratosphere due to ultraviolet radiation, that can then act as a catalyst for ozone depletion. An increase in stratospheric hydrogen from leaked H2 could exacerbate the depletion process." Then if any new information comes, it can be added. Thoughts? Splarka 22:56, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Addendum: I put a crude (hardly encyclopedic yet) sketch of a possible article or section at User:Splarka/Sandbox:hydrogen. We could move our discussion to User_talk:Splarka/Sandbox:hydrogen as well, if you like? Splarka 00:09, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
In May 2005, NYMEX price for natural gas was $7/million BTUs. Hydrogen is 134700 BTU/kg, and at a conversion efficiency of 35%, that gives $2.70/kg, which is in good agreement with [4].
At a current worldwide production rate of 50 million metric tons per year, that's $135 billion/year of hydrogen.
Iain McClatchie 01:09, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Nice overview of current hydrogen economy: [5] Iain McClatchie 11:18, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Should this sentence go next: "Hydrogen fuel cells would then be used to produce electricity for mobile applications."
I don't think so. Hydrogen fuel-cell powered cars are not near-term technology. They can be made as research vehicles, but the economics are not there now, nor are they close at hand. Research on fuel cells may be a worthy pursuit, and justification for such a pursuit may be a reasonable point in this article, but today, they aren't near-term technology for ordinary automobiles.
Furthermore, in the near term, hydrogen is far more valuable as a chemical feedstock than as an energy supply. It's use as a chemical feedstock can suck up a very large amount (11 million tons/year just in the U.S.) of any developing cost-effective renewable supply before there is any need to burn the stuff for motive power. Iain McClatchie 02:22, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
If someone knows figures for the efficiency of each production method, could they please put them in the Production section? ie "energy in" vs "energy out" Barrylb
I don't have the data for each method, but the biggest problem for hydrogen is definitely production. I think that should be emphasized in the article. Namly hydrogen is not an energy source, but a method of energy transport. This misunderstanding is so pervasive, it would help if the article could clarify.
The second big problem is the misconception that hydrogen/fuel cell vehicles would solve much of the energy problem. In fact the % of total energy consumption by gasoline vehicles is small even in the US (which consumes more transportation energy than many other countries).
A frequently mentioned hydrocarbon-free method is producing hydrogen via electrolysis via solar or wind power and using it in fuel cells.
Let's evaluate the feasibility of powering 50% of the gasoline cars in the US via fuel cells with hydrogen from solar-driven electrolysis:
Background data:
% of total crude oil used for gasoline: 32%
% of total US energy consumption used by gasoline: 13.7%
Energy required to produce 103 billion gallons LH2 via water electrolysis: 2.27 quadrillion BTUs (liquifaction 50% efficient, electrolysis 70% efficient, overall production efficiency 35%). Therefore it takes 65% of liquid hydrogen's energy content to produce it.
2.27 quadrillion BTUs = 6.7E14 watt hours
Overall solar cell efficiency: 10% (crystaline cells can't be used in huge industrial quantities due to cost. Amorphous cells would be needed. Also must use real-world efficiency, not laboratory efficiency). Also solar cell output degrades several % per year, so after 20% output is about 1/2. Thus 10% is VERY optimistic.
Average solar insolation in US southwest: 5000 watt-hrs/m^2/day, or 1.8E6 watt-hrs/m^2/year Annual solar cell power: 186,000 watt hrs/m^2/year
Solar cell area required to produce 6.7E14 watt hrs: 3.6 billion square meters, or 890,000 acres, or 3,600 square km.
However we must factor in 20% for LH2 storage losses in transport and consumption, so say 4,320 square km
Must also add space for structure, maintenance roads, etc: say around around 5,000 square km, roughly the size of Delaware.
Summary:
A gigantic program consisting of:
Would save:
Since energy consumption increases at about 2-3% per year, within about 3-4 years total US energy consumption would be back where we started. Not being a pessimistic, just realistically looking at the numbers. Joema 19:57, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Sources:
The problem is people are apparently just assuming "hydrogen must work" since the petroleum alternatives are unfavorable ("There's gotta be something better"). Yet the most basic back-of-the-envelope calculations show it cannot possibly work. For example, consider the number of nuclear plants required to produce hydrogen for ONLY the US gasoline vehicles, which ONLY comprise 32% of total US petroleum consumption and 13.7% of total US energy consumption:
There are just 103 nuclear plants in the US. So building SIXTEEN TIMES the total number of nuclear plants now existing would only reduce US petroleum consumption by 32%. Whether you use solar thermal, wind, or nuclear, the required real estate or infrastructure is so gigantic and the payback so limited it's just not feasible. There is a huge disparity between the common perception and the mathematical reality -- so much so that it's amazing. This isn't politics -- it's physics.
I have no problem with articles on the hydrogen economy, but information providers have a responsibility to convey reality, not the common perception. The reality is the hydrogen economy is deeply flawed, and it appears to be totally unworkable based on any technology we have today. In 100 years if we have near limitless fusion power, it might work then.
It appears hydrogen is a technical "blind alley". The only semi-feasible transportation fuel alternative I've seen capable of scaling to the gigantic levels needed to support most of the gasoline vehicle fleet is biodiesel from algae: biodiesel, http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html, and even that requires more investigation to know for sure. Joema 17:30, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
While it's true that BEVs could handle a fair % of transportation needs (US national average commuting distance only 18.2 km or 11.3 miles), it would not save significant energy or petroleum. What counts is overall energy efficiency, not just vehicle efficiency.
For battery electric vehicles, this is: power plant generation efficiency 40%, transmission line efficiency 95%, charging efficiency 88%, vehicle efficiency 88%. This gives overall BEV energy efficiency of .4 * .95 * .88 = 33%
By contrast a modern diesel automotive ICE using common rail or piezoelectric injection has about 40% thermodynamic efficiency. Fuel production and processing is about 92% efficient, vehicle efficiency 88%, for an overall efficiency of about 32%, roughly the same as a BEV.
Even if BEVs use spare night generation capacity to recharge, it's not saving petroleum. The capacity is spare because the plants are throttled back at night. More nighttime demand to recharge BEVs necessitates burning more petroleum to service that.
There's also insufficient generation capacity to recharge a nation of BEVs. Total annual US gasoline energy consumption is 1.45E16 joules (4.25E15 watt hours). A 1 gigawatt power plant produces 8.76E12 watt hours per year. It would thus require about 500 new power plants to service that, or a combination of those plus using existing unused night capacity. In either case you'd be burning nearly as much petroleum in power plants as diesel cars would consume.
Wind power cannot possibly provide the needed energy (either hydrogen or electric) to service US or world transportation. US gasoline cars consume 4.25E15 watt hours per year. We already know the possible wind energy generation per acre from large current wind farms like the Desert Sky facility in Texas. A wind farm using the largest, most advanced wind turbines available would require 2,500 1.5 megawatt turbines on 225,000 acres to match ONE gigawatt power plant (wind turbine capacity factor is typically 25%). Therefore each 225,000 acres provides 8.76E12 watt hours per year. You'd need about 500 225,000 acre wind farms, or 112,500,000 acres, or 455,000 square km -- larger than California.
Even if every gasoline car in the US switched overnight to Mr. Fusion, that would only save 32% of US petroleum consumption, and only 13.7% of total US energy consumption. That's because all gasoline cars collectively only consume those percentages of petroleum and total energy. Joema 00:43, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
However, energy density of hydrogen is less again; metal hydrides are better than pressurised hydrogen (and, of course, safer), but also more dense and weighty, meaning that your typical hetal-hydride car weighs more and is therefore less fuel efficient.
Bit of a quandary, this whole cars and modern energy consumption thing. Personally, I think the US's answer to mid-east oil is LNG powered cars, because this can be implemented swift and cheaply, and requires no new technology at all, and minimal new infrastructure. Gas stations just need a big LNG tank instead of petrol tank, and LNG is already piped to most American cities, versus a whole new hydrogen economy with hydrogen plants, etc etc. Rolinator 03:02, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Consider this snippet that was in the 'Rationale' section:
... A system that produced hydrogen from other energy sources would centralize carbon emissions at the production site. This could be an advantage in that the emission control system may be better maintained and easier to inspect than systems on automobiles owned by individuals. Unfortunately, pure hydrogen is not widely available on our planet. Most of it is locked in water or hydrocarbon fuels. Pollution reduction at the production site may be offset by energy losses when converting to hydrogen. This is called the production problem |
The above is nonsensical because of several confabulations and confusions among some editors. Facts:
I edited the section in an effort to make it sensible. Similarly, there was confabulation between H2 and other emissions as suspected ozone hole creators, but I think the discussions Quasarstrider had here cleared this up.
http://www.aip.org/fyi/2005/120.html mentions two reports that I've read that inform the debate over hydrogen economy feasibility.
The section on transportation was Americanocentric, particulaarly with respect to LNG.
LNG is regularly piped hundreds if not thouands of kilometres from reservoir to market; this implies it is energy-efficient and cost-efficient to do so. It is also a much more readily accessible and utilisable source of energy than crude oil, as it does not have to be refined, cracked and reformed before use. It may need to be scrubbed and have water or sulfur dioxide taken out depending on whether it's wet gas or sour gas, which is usually done nearer the well-head than the market because otherwise energy is wasted pumping water or noxious gases, but essentially you can hook up your stove to the wellhead and cook.
It is also shipped in liquid form from Australia to China. If its inefficient at a small scale, you scale it up and build bigger ships.
In fact, the whole transportation issue boils down to cost, not energy efficiency. Cost is also worked out in terms of on-costs of refining, waste disposal and infrastructure. Shipped LNG meets the needs of societies, unlike California or the USA, where gas is in short supply and there is a deep penetration of LNG infrastruture and strong demand, with limited local supply, particulaarly for heating, industry and cooking. California also has its own oilfields and gas reserves, which is why alaskan LNG isn't utilised, because there is a nearer source.
Alaskan oilfields may also be reinjecting LNG to enhance oil recoveries via reseroiv repressurisation. If, as is the case in Australia, 3-5% of vehicles in the U.S. used LNG, then the case would probably be that more LNG would be used and the Alaskan oilfields would be piping it down via Canada to the lower 48 states.
Rolinator 02:51, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Added references, removed some POV and replaced part of the 'water as a greenhouse gas' chapter by hyperlink to greenhouse gas which covers the water effects amicably.
Overall, the current article makes it clear that H2 is an energy carrier, not an energy source and addresses other issues well. However, some parts to me still appear to be circling around problems such as efficiencies and costs; both not fully encompassed, e.g. by a life-cycle analysis. I see a few near misses of some actual issues such as energy capacity, which ironically are clearly addressed in this talk. Would the contributors care to transfer these to the main article? Also, I see some ignorance of the engineering solutions which are existing for more than a century that hydrogen has been commercially in use, where such things as "embrittlement" are not a problem at all.
Time permitting (for myself or better authors around here), I would like to see more comparisons of well-to-wheel efficiencies and cost updates and to address the main rationale for the switch to H2 - sustainability, a major part of which is to have a CO2-neutral economy to prevent a runaway greenhouse effect (which appears unlikely from water vapor).
Per the data available to me (the book by Roy McAlister) CO2-neutral energy stored as hydrogen can be replenished from solar energy at about 10% overall efficiency, whereas fossil or biofuel generated from solar energy by plants can be replenished at about 0.5% efficiency, which would simplistically spoken, just require 20 times the acreage. We can speculate whether maintaining solar cell farms is likely to remain more cost-efficient than farming and processing crops for fuel. And then what do we eat? Bernd in Japan 15:08, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
I just read about the ability to acquire hydrogen gas from 'cracking steam' in pebble bed reactors, and I wanted to learn more about this process. Steam cracking is not listed in the 'Sources' section in this article -- so is it essentially the same as steam reforming? Chris 07:03, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
I've taken the following phrase out, again:
however steam reforming and indeed any production of hydrogen from fossil fuels necessarily produces carbon by-products like CO2, which in some sense defeats the purpose of producing hydrogen as fuel.
It's true. But it's not relevant to the point of the paragraph, which is comparing the costs of different production methods. Please keep it out or explain otherwise here.
Iain McClatchie 01:40, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
This article needs some major cleanup. There are run-ons allover the place, as well as typos and simple grammar errors. I have marked this page with {{cleanup}} xxpor ( Talk | Contribs ) 16:39, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
What does this mean? I can't figure it out. Could you be more specific? KarenAnn 13:29, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Where does this language appear? -- Ssilvers 13:41, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Hydrogen also has a poor energy density per volume. This means you need a large tank to store it, even when additional energy is used to compress it, and the high pressure compounds the issues of safety, as well as adds weight. KarenAnn 13:55, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
P.S. There are two different sections called Storage. Couldn't they be condensed and put in one place? KarenAnn 14:32, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
P.S.S. Previously I condensed to different sections called Transportation. Hope that was O.K. KarenAnn 14:37, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
For example, there are two different sections headed Production. One of them is long enough to be an article of its own.
Maybe the second Production could be a new page, and under the first Procution you could have a link to main article:Production KarenAnn 14:49, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
I put the "challenges" heading back to "alternatives", since we now have only the alternatives there, ok? BTW, why are we talking about solar in that section? Or if solar, why not also wind? -- Ssilvers 03:15, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
That's at the top of the page your "Challenges/Alternatives section is going to be merged with,unless you go to Alternatives to the hydrogen economy discussion page and plea your case.
Your article has good work. You guys know what you are talking about. (Unlike you, I know little about the subject, but I learned alot today trying to edit it.) But your article really did get totally out of hand.
It might be a mess now because I started to go crazy late today, and had to chop stuff out because I felt like I was in a Stephen King maze. I ended up just throw paragraphs into the catagories that seemed to me most suited and will clean it up tomorrow. But only you guys know the subject matter so you have to tell me.
Please offer your suggesting, like where fuel cells should go. Ideas welcome. KarenAnn 03:44, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
P.S. The other section that went out on its own (still linked) but now inspected by the Wiki people is Hydrogen production (check the link). It did not fare badly, but needs much work before it should be allowed in again. KarenAnn 03:44, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
KarenAnn 18:42, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Is that an insiders term, since according to the link it means "Grid energy storage"? Is there a way of phrasing the first paragraph so the general reader clearly understands how your article relates to our everyday life)? KarenAnn 15:04, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
A main task now is referencing. Take a look at Fidel Castro to see how Wikipedia wants referencing done. Check out the reference section. (There is so much fighting going on over that page that anything that doesn't have a footnote is going to be removed.) There are 112 footnotes today and there are still whole sections that haven't been tackled yet.
See Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Reliable sources for more information about Wikipedia's policies on these matters.
Also the load balancing issue. I'm the person who wrote the definition on the page load balancing is linked to now (and I know nothing about electricty). But the page you originally had it linked to didn't even mention load balancing. So I pretty much made up the definition. Make sure it's right! It probably could be worded better also. KarenAnn 00:12, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
In the present hydrogen market section, a reference is made to "200 gigawatts of energy". A gigawatt is a unit of power. This requires some attention.
128.151.161.49 Iain Marcuson.
-- newjediorder 15:28, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
I was extremely disapointed with the "Direct Dangers in Use" section of this article. It was very negatively weighted and not very objective. I wanted to post things here before overhauling an entire section. I will outline a few myths that are misrepresented here.
so far votes are to keep the Liquid hydrogen article separated, please read: [ [10]]. Mion 00:32, 17 September 2006 (UTC) Merge proposal is withdrawn, case is closed. -:). Mion 11:26, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
A hypothetical question: If all the automobiles in Los Angeles were magically changed into hydrogen cars(either fuel cell or combustions), then their exhaust would be changed from "smog+misc." to water. How would all this water exhaust affect cloud formation, warming, and the weather in a region?
-- User:christgg 11:08, 21 September 2006 (PST)
This article is almost impossible to understand. Seems like I read it a while ago and found it very interesting and informative, so I came back to it today to show it to a friend. But now I can't make any sense out of it at all and I am really disappointed. Timmy12 15:46, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
"Hydrogen in a full "hydrogen economy" has been envisioned as a way to make renewable energy available to automobiles which are not all-electric. A final theoretical alternative to hydrogen would do this by using hydrogen locally (captive use) to make liquid fuels from a CO2 source. To be greenhouse-neutral, this source would be from air, biomass, or from CO2 which would otherwise be scheduled to be released into the air from non-carbon-capture fuel-burning powerplants (of which there should still be many in the future, since carbon-capture is site-dependent and difficult to retrofit). These alcohols would then act as greenhouse-neutral additional energy stores and carriers for transportation, but without disrupting present methods of liquid fuel transport and use. Rather than be transported from its production site, hydrogen may thus instead be used centrally/locally to produce renewable liquid fuels which may be cycled into the present transportation infrastructure directly, requiring almost no infrastructure change."
Bascially have all power plants capture the CO2 as liquid (maybe dry ice), ship it to a processing site, and get back gasoline/diesel/methanol/ethanol, and ship it back. Have the automakers develop an engine (probably some membrane/fuel cell type, you'd still have an electric car) that operates with two tanks, one a gas tank, the other a liquid CO2 tank, and either emit the water vapor through the exhaust, or see what soaps you need to keep the water/CO2 mixture well mixed, or just let it separate, and periodically vent the water(soda pop) liquid layer onto the asphalt (Liq. CO2 density=1.03, water=1.00 g/mL). Since carbon is such a good hydrogen/energy carrier, this recycling scheme may or may not beat any kind of battery setup as far as energy density/longterm robustness is concerned - lithium ion has limited life span, and it's expensive, but may not be as expensive to recycle lithium batteries as building such a CO2 capturing engine. Also lithium ion or most other batteries cannot be instantly recharged, except for zinc/air batteries that can be mechanically charged, but have low energy density. With a CO2 capturing engine, you'd pull up to a gas station and while the gas is pumped, the CO2 is unpumped, and with correct density differences/immiscibilities the two liquids might even be in the same tank, and if you don't emit the water, then have a 3 layer liquid tank, co2/water/gasoline, and let the gas station do the proper water/CO2 separation based on the slight density difference/immiscibility, which should automatically happen in the large holding tank. This way when a truck brings gas to the gas station, and it makes an empty trip back, it woudln't be empty, but ship the liquid CO2 back, up the chain. The logistics would be the same, only the infrastructure would need to be updated to correct pressure-handling and 2 fluid line systems. As far as the gas station water/CO2 separation goes, you'd have to make sure to skim only the very bottom CO2 layer and replace the very top gasoline, and have the transient separating layers intact - basically the trucks would always take only a little bit of the storage tank home, and you'd never completely drain it. Because of this water/CO2 separation need, hydrocarbons might be better than alcohols, because most alcohols are highly soluble in water. On the other hand, emmitting ethanol to the environment is not a big deal, but gasoline tainted water is. So ultimately you mgith have to develop a membrane that separates water from CO2, and just exhausts it while the car moves. Another problem with the CO2 capturing scheme that the car's weight increases as it runs, as the CO2 is 3-4 times heavier than the gasoline (Molecular Weight 12 C vs. 44 CO2), while with litium ion it stays the same as it runs. But any metal/air battery type would have similar issues, having to store the oxidized metal, except for gaseous hydrogen that can be just emitted as water. If you had a system that just carried hydrogen better than ultrasupercold liquid hydrogen or noble metal dissolved systems, that'd be great. Perhaps there is chemistry to strip off hydrogen from a carrier, such as hydrcarbons like butane, pentane, hexane, octane, that are the best carriers, and convert them into graphite, and ship the graphite back to get reloaded with hydrogen. Perhaps not quite all the way to graphite, but just some PAH's that are easier to react back (also carcinogenic). But that'd be a waste to have all that carbon uncombusted, when you could get some extra juice out of it, but every time you react carbon with oxygen, the shipping weight increases similar to CO2. Still, instead of PAH's, you might find that some partially oxidized carbon material is the best carrier to ship back, that's easy to convert back to octane, but it's also easier to handle than high pressure liquid CO2 (example citric acid solid, lactic acid liquid (muscle strains are because of lactic buildup from lack of oxygen), but these need sophisticated reactions in an engine, while CO2 doesn't.) In the end you might find that best carriers are sugars as far as ease of reaction goes, or fats as far as energy storage, and just ship liquid CO2 back to the processing plant, and ship fat back from there, and practically have a second "biosphere CO2 geologic cycle" constricted to human built pipes, but at least this would keep it out of the atmosphere to cut global warming effects. Life pretty much optimized its dealings with energy, even though probably better systems are possible, because, for instance, photosynthesis is only 2% efficient maximally, more like 0.25% on a global scale, while humans can build metallic silicon solar panels that are 8-15% efficient directly to current, but if you have to take that current and make octane from CO2 with it, you may not be able to beat photosynthesis too much, unless you find a scheme like the sulfur-iodine cycle, that takes heat inputs instead of electricity to produce hydrogen, and you can probably collect solar heat with 70-90% efficiency into a black body and store it in a salt reservoir, but you'd need a chemical cycle that does carbon dioxide to octane, CO2->C8H18, or lactic to octane. There might just be a way to beat life by a long shot in efficiency of producing fats from solar/wind energy, because things such as pn-doped metallic silicon or 1000C temperature are not available to life. Maybe pn-doped metallic silicon is available to life, we just haven't witnessed enough evolution for it to show up, most photosynthesis is based on chlorophyl, animal oxygen transport on iron based hemoglobin, even though there are some deep underwater creatures that use geothermal energy to survive based on a sulfur cycle, or species such as octopuses use copper based oxygen transport. So who knows, maybe there is a chance for a species to evolve a pn-junction silicon method of solar energy collection one of these days, just like some bacterial life can bind atmospheric nitrogen through sophisticated catalysts at normal pressures, as opposed to humans using 200+ atm to accomplish the same thing. Sillybilly 21:42, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
And what do you expect anybody to say to your suggestion that some species might someday evolve a pn-junction silicon solar energy collecter? That's so far off-topic it's, well, silly. S B H arris 22:53, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
The icon at the page header has a white opaque background, or at least it appears that way using Internet exploder version 6. 67.113.49.201 20:11, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
The accuracy of the automotive fuel efficiency chart is disputed. See Image talk:Battery EV vs. Hydrogen EV.png The chart is also unreferenced. -- Beland ( talk) 02:40, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
This discussion moved to Talk:Hydrogen safety. Mion ( talk) 18:39, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
we can make a section that states that the
variety is increasing as a logical consequence on the
Brownian motion
[11](just 2 cents)
Mion (
talk) 06:53, 2 August 2008 (UTC) Wrong approach.
Mion (
talk)
20:40, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
By bringing in Theoretical in the definition it suggests that hydrogen economy doesn't exists, which is not the case, I think that the quickest fix is to bring in the notion about scaling up the hydrogen economy to a world scale hydrogen economy. Maybe we need another article about The theoretical perfect hydrogen economy.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Mion ( talk • contribs) 08:42, 28 July 2008
Why isn't there an article on Hydrogen Power or Hydrogen Fuel? The only article is this wacky Hydrogen Economy entry? Also, this article is weirdly biased and unscientific. The whole intro and images are like some kind of PR campaign. I thought this was supposed to be an encyclopedia.( JoeTimko ( talk) 19:27, 21 October 2008 (UTC))
Excuse me, but the last time I checked, "nuclear power sources" where not one of the greatest thieves behind global warming. The first part of the introduction implies (...and not from burning carbon-based fossil fuels or nuclear power sources...) that nuclear power is behind the global warming. This is just plain wrong... Nuclear power might not be a good solution, but that's not because of global warming... / Natox ( talk) 21:45, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
The article says "there is actually more hydrogen in a liter of gasoline (116 grams) than there is in a liter of pure liquid hydrogen (71 grams)". A layman's reaction might be 'well, then why not use that?'. I assume this is bonded hydrogen, and it would be less confusing if that were explained. Actually, come to think of it, this is rather useless info. I bet there's more hydrogen in the car seats than in gaseous hydrogen, but how does it help to know something like that? It's just confusing, so shouldn't the sentence go? DirkvdM ( talk) 07:25, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Synthetic biology too is coming up with hydrogen production methods. However, at present it has not yet produced a viable organic hydrogen generator. [1] [2] [3] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.246.167.92 ( talk) 10:59, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
add in article
References
I propose to merge the Hydrogen economy section of the Fuel cell article. This section is not about fuel celss, which is the main topic of the Fuel cell article, and therefore suits better here (if contains anything useful what is not already covered here in this article). Beagel ( talk) 09:23, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
Proponents of a hydrogen economy suggest that hydrogen is an environmentally cleaner source of energy to end-users, particularly in transportation applications, without release of pollutants (such as particulate matter) or greenhouse gases at the point of end use.
Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?
69.20.226.218 ( talk) —Preceding comment was added at 17:57, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, but there is so much liquid water on the planet's surface, that overall it is in an equilibrium, and only the global average temperature determines the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, not how much you emit from vehicles. Extra water vapor above the overall equilibrium concentration precipitates out as rain, and if there isn't enough, more evaporates from lakes/oceans to get to the overall equilibrium saturation concentration. Basically you can't add more overall water vapor to the atmosphere by emitting more - it will simply precipitate out as rain. But you can add carbon dioxide and methane, which stay as gases. The only way to increase the overall water vapor concentration in the atmosphere is to increase the overall temperature of the atmosphere. In this sense water amplifies up the global warming effects: if anything causes a slight global warming, slight increase in the temperature, that will also increase the water vapor concentration too, therefore the temperature increase too. On the other hand, if a greenhouse gas concentration drops, so will the temperature slightly, so will the water concentration, and then the temperature even further. Water vapor on a global scale amplifies both the ups and downs. One note though, as the amount of water vapor increases in the atmosphere due to global warming, so might the amount of clouds, so more sunlight might get reflected back into outer space, causing global cooling, contrary to the expected global warming. Cloud formation and reflectivity also heavily depends on current pollution and fine dust/particulates in the atmosphere. The modeling and prediction of climate changes is very difficult. Sillybilly ( talk) 16:09, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Everything after the "Yes" in the preceeding paragraph can be ignored. The answer to the question is "yes, water is a greenhouse gas." Proponents of a hydrogen economy erroneously claim that greenhouse gases are not produced at the point of end use. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.168.91.156 ( talk) 19:19, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
contribs) 19:13, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
SineBot: Yes it is a greenhouse gas, but we will not be adding more of it to the atmosphere by burning hydrodgen in cars: "Water vapor is neither long-lived nor well mixed in the atmosphere, varying spatially from 0 to 2 percent (IPCC 1996). In addition, atmospheric water can exist in several physical states including gaseous, liquid, and solid. Human activities are not believed to directly affect the average global concentration of water vapor;" [15]. Technically, you are correct. But so what? Excess moisture precipitates out of air whenever the temperature drops below the dew point, so the it doesn't stay in the air very long anyway. Because the atmospheric lifetime of water is so small, the EPA and IPCC don't even bother assigning a global warming potential to it. Justin0741 ( talk) 19:27, 3 May 2009 (UTC)JB
More importantly the hydrogen is created by taking water and separating it into oxygen and hydrogen. Later it is simply recombined. In the end we have exactly the same amount of water. The same would be true if we were separating carbon dioxide into oxygen and carbon, and then using that carbon as fuel. All carbon dioxide released would have been already present. The problem with current fossil fuels is that they are releasing greenhouse gases that are currently effectively removed from play (tied up as coal/oil). In other words use of hydrogen as a fuel will have no net change in the atmosphere. 69.242.111.177 ( talk) 15:52, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
In general I support removal of energy alternatives which have nothing to do with hydrogen, of course, as about half of the ones in this section did. However, there are some interesting alternatives which begin with hydrogen production, then use it to make other fuels without distributing or storing it AS elemental hydrogen. These are "hybrid" alternatives, which use a hydrogen input, without a lot of hydrogen-specific infrastructure. I would argue that, as hydrogen-production-input technolgies, they deserve mention HERE, rather than lumped in with dozens of other energy economies discussed elsewhere under energy-economies, which don't involve making hydrogen. I've restored selected parts of this section, therefore. S B H arris 19:54, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
I'd prefer to see the opposite of a merger. There are too many topics wanting a home here. A good, cogent 5-10 paragraph discussion of hydrogen economy, history, and considerations followed by links to specific hydrogen energy uses, geopolitical concerns, and alternative forms of energy would be better. It's also be more likely that a solid definition of where the proposed hydrogen economy came from, where it is today, and a number of the hydrogen economy concepts by proponents and detractors, with conclusion and links to related concepts might have half a chance of reaching some form of consensus. Some. 64.132.32.226 ( talk) 18:11, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
I am the Information Officer of the UNIDO International Centre for Hydrogen Energy Technologies (UNIDO-ICHET). This Centre is six years old and its projects and activities have received notable attention. As you can see from our webpages, we are affiliated with many of the authoritative organizations operating in the field of hydrogen energy technologies. In my humble opinion, it now seems appropriate to me that ICHET passes the "Wikipedia visibility threshold". This is why I included a link at the bottom of this page, and this is why - after its understandable deletion by Fæ for possible Conflict of Interest - I am now here in front of you.
Gregory Dziedzic ( talk) 10:12, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
This discussion leads to economy, but digress initially to fuel. Then a fuel cell is alluded to. One has to read back to make sure they havent missed pertinent mention of said fuel cell, or that there is an assumed knowledge of such things. There needs to be clarity on what it is, or a link provided to somewhere. All professional texts give directions on how to integrate all new subects into a discussion, or give directions on where and how to obtain deeper knowledge of prerequisites for ongoing study of the subject. 110.174.207.96 ( talk) 14:08, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps that converting hydrogen to hydrogen sulphide would be a better method to store it ? Hydrogen sulphide already occurs naturally (ie in cenotes, ...) so the creation aswell as the storage (natural occurence means storage possible at room temperature) would be simple. Are there any references or information about this, and if so, include to article. 91.182.84.241 ( talk) 12:49, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
Sorry to make two new sections, but I just realised the article is very long compared to other wikipedia articles. Perhaps sections that have articles elsewhere should be summarised and linked, with information being rolled into the other article, and sections without articles should have articles created? 174.149.222.20 ( talk) 06:52, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
This article doesn't seem to be written from a completely neutral point of view. Many portions of the text seem to just talk about how battery electric vehicles are "better" than hydrogen.
Also, there seem to be some false assumptions. Given the many ways of producing and storing hydrogen (such as low pressure absorption/high pressure adsorption hydride storage systems that are being researched), sections such as "efficiency as an automtive fuel" need to be rewritten.
I will admit I am biased - I think that electric vehicles are a terrible idea. Not only are they expensive, they take a long time to charge (compared to the few minutes to fill a vehicle with gasoline and hydrogen - demonstrated by existing hydrogen pumps in California), but the batteries! Batteries wear down over time, so you get less and less use out of them, and they eventually have to be replaced, and by the time that happens the car will be worth less than the cost of replacement batteries.
Not to mention the safety aspects. Currently Hydrogen isn't safe to store (if there's a collision, for example), but future technologies may improve that. However, batteries are always going to have acid, which will at the least have to be disposed of at the end of the battery life, and at the worst, could leak in the case of an accident, requiring a hazmat team to clean it up (costing lots of money). And I personally would rather have a small hydrogen explosion than being covered in acid.
Anyways, tl;dr, think parts of the article are biased, but I can't edit because I myself am biased. 174.149.222.20 ( talk) 06:43, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
To put the shoe on the other foot: some sections of this article read like an essay, and there are quite a few paragraphs without citations. For example: "A key tradeoff: centralized vs. distributed production". Definitely not NPOV. 174.149.222.20 ( talk) 06:53, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
This claim is made in the "Fuel cells as alternative to internal combustion" section:
Currently it takes 2½ times as much energy to make a hydrogen fuel cell than is obtained from it during its service life.
Can anyone substantiate this claim? The reference indicated does not provide a source for this figure and provides an illustration that completely misinterprets the meaning (showing a 40% efficiency of converting methane to hydrogen and then to electricity). The figure would certainly be different for different types of fuel cells as well. Given the incredible energy throughput over the course of a fuel cell's service life, I'm very confident this claim is wrong, but wanted to check before editing. 128.158.1.175 ( talk) 18:18, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
I may just be guessing here, but I think about 98% of people in America don't know what a "photovalec" cell is, but about half know what a "solar panel" is. I changed the title to Electrolysis of Water using electricity from Solar Panels, since solar panel is apparently "street" for photovalec systems. The only reason I can think of to use the term "photovalec" is to differentiate between thermal panels and electrical panels. I'm thinking "Solar Panels" can be two things.
I'm not sure what the author of High-Tempature Electrolysis is trying to do, other than blind us with science, but I think I get the gist of it. Its easier to boil water and turn it into hydrogen and oxygen than it is to wait for water vapor to evaporate so you can do the same thing. So I changed the title to "Steam", which I'm pretty sure most people understand.
Sorry if I'm "dumbing down" your articles, but I speak the King's English I'm afraid. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.51.120.11 ( talk) 03:17, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
According to this article], hydrogen is a indirect ghg-gas. This means that aldough it does not act as a greenhouse gas itself, it worsens the effect of greenhouse gases already floating around in the atmosphere. This extra global warming should be calculated into the national ghg emissions in order for a emissionless economy to work. This would allow hydrogen use to remain carbon neutral in the calculation (simplifies calculation).
add in article —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.176.13.194 ( talk) 11:42, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
I thought electrolysis was specifically referred to as the method of using a direct electric current (DC) to drive an otherwise non-spontaneous chemical reaction. I don't think that superheating water until it separates into hydrogen and oxygen gas due to an increase in temperature then drawing the gases out separately qualifies, as the reaction occurred due to heat, not the application of electrical current.
Also, I thought this was about the hydrogen economy. Any process which requires 108 Mega Joules to produce 1 KG of hydrogen, is not economically feasible, and doesn't belong here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.51.120.11 ( talk) 03:59, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
Sorry guys, I think I might be headbutting the duchess on this. I'll try to use a little more tact and separate my articles instead of change yours. Apologies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.51.120.11 ( talk) 04:01, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
In light of the heavy criticism seen in the above posts, I am planning on editing the page with much needed up to date, unbiased information. Just a summary of what is in store, the below outline is what is proposed. I understand that this is an ambitious change, however, I assure you that these edits are coming from industry experts and sources will be from government agencies (dept. energy), alternative energy and technology companies, and other relevant sources. This overhaul also will address the fact that the term hydrogen economy is no longer a relevant term. Hydrogen and fuel cells are part of clean energy portfolios and future power generation, but are not intended to represent a replacement for the entire energy or transportation industries.
a. 1670-1800: Early Developments b. 1800-1920: Fuel Cell Discoveries c. 1920-1960: Hydrogen Production Refined d. 1960-1980: Space Race e. 1980-Today: Commercialization
a. Thermal b. Electrolysis
a. Distributed vs. centralized b. Storage
So leave some of this article as history, which otherwise will disappear. Personally I doubt that hydrogen fuel cells will ever play ANY significant part of future "energy portfolios." I think that's just as much a monument to stupidity, given the general difficult nature of hydrogen gas, as the larger propositions were. But see (for example) mercury-arc valve for an article on obsolete tech. We don't replace or delete articles on obsolete bits of technology on Wikipedia, to keep up with the times. At most, we keep the material and label it as a bad or obsoleted idea of previous generations. Biofuels deserve the same treatment. S B H arris 16:23, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
The main article begins,
In an (as-yet-hypothetical) hydrogen economy, the energy needed for motive power (for automobiles and other vehicle types) or electricity (for stationary applications) is derived from reacting hydrogen (H2) with oxygen. By eliminating the use of carbon-based fossil fuels, a hydrogen economy would sharply reduce the emission of carbon dioxide, which plays a central role in global warming.
This is a very poor introduction. Hydrogen used for storing motive power is a battery for electric power generated by some other means which is used to crack hydrogen from water H2O. This stored energy is recovered when the hydrogen is recombined with atmoshperic oxygen in a fuel cell. Hydrogen is not used to generate electricity for stationary applications, since to my knowledge there are no pools of free hydrogen sitting around planet Earth waiting to be tapped.
A hydrogen economy isn't a replacement for hydrocarbons it is a replacement for mercury, lithium, lead, nickel and other materials that would be otherwise used in automtive batteries in either 100% plug-in electric, small conventional gasoline engines supplimented with stored plug-in electric, or Prius-style hybrid automobles.
Only to the extent that the substantial marginal electric power needed to replace the energy derived from the combustion of gasoline and diesel is generated from something other than coal, natural gas or oil is there any reduction in the consumption of hydrocarbons.
The majority of new electric power on the scales needed to replace gasoline would come from burning coal. This means that hydrogen fuel cell cars are simply an alternative method for turning coal into motive power and is a substitute method to just burning gasoline derived via existing coal-to-liquids tech. 38.112.20.26 ( talk) 23:34, 24 June 2008 (UTC)glennscott9
Not true that it takes more energy to electrolyze water into H2 than is released during use as a fuel.
I just had a hack at removing stuff that you reasonably could claim NPOV for from the intro. I still don't like the "some futurists" bit. Is this now sufficiently devoid of content to removed the tag? 150.203.35.113 ( talk) 09:10, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
OK, the changes I made were reverted without comment. These are the sentences that I claim are---whilst not necessarily incorrect---pushing a particular perspective:
Unless someone comes onto this talk page and convinces me that these don't violate WP:NPOV, I'm deleting them again. All of these issues should be addressed in the article, but not in the introduction. Here's your chance people. 150.203.35.113 ( talk) 05:31, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm not convinced. Nuked the most loaded sentences again. 150.203.35.113 ( talk) 07:14, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Can we get rid of the neutrality warning on the intro now? Any objections? 150.203.35.113 ( talk) 10:04, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
Elon Musk called hydrogen as "an incredibly dumb car fuel". Reference: Article by Joe Romm at Think Progress 192.100.120.41 ( talk) 05:40, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
Why does this section put the electrolysis effeciency at 70% when Thermochemical Production provides for the potential of producing hydrogen off of merely the excess heat from nuclear power plants with little to no electrical input? The article even briefly alludes to this process at one point. This is not only an efficient method of producing hydrogen, but is nearly a "free" energy source, utilizing otherwise unusable heat from the nuclear core that currently escapes untapped. (The economic efficiency therefore is extremely high, all energy transfer efficiencies aside.) How does one measure the "efficiency" of free hydrogen? If nuclear plants can produce hydrogen through Thermochemical Production as a mere byproduct of the nuclear reactor, or close to it, then efficiency becomes a nonsensical comparison altogether (when compared to batteries) because any energy left over after all the "well to wheel" inefficiencies have been taken into account is essentially free energy - because it will be there to be used whether it is or not. Does anyone catch my drift or am I blowin' at a brick wall here.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.177.211.28 ( talk) 05:30, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
The picture depicting the energy efficiency is almost crude. Though the claims that a hydrogen based fuel cells are inefficient compared to direct use of electricity in cars, a more accurate description of related energy efficiencies is quoted by a Mr.Bossel at the following link. http://www.physorg.com/news85074285.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.240.4.137 ( talk) 06:01, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
This section is poorly conceived. I wouldn't endorse Bossel's article (he was working for a company that promotes hydrolysis and surprise suprise that turned out to be the best method of production in his analysis), but I do agree wity the above anonymous poster that there this section needs to be rationalized. First it discusses "efficiency as an automotive fuel" but fuels don't have efficiencies, only systems (e.g., vehicles) that convert fuels into other types of energy (e.g., motive power). That's semantics, I suppose. The section picks and chooses which aspects of hydrogen production transport and storage to discuss in order to make it look like a bad idea. There is one right way to do this, going back to Wang's article from 2002 that is cited elsewhere in the article and that is to consider well-to-wheels efficiency. The Wikipedia article sets this up in a nice conceptual paragraph but doesn't quite follow through. The bottom line is that given the efficiency of the FUEL CELL on board the vehicle, hydrogen (fuel cell) vehicles are more efficient well-to-wheels than anything in wide-spread use today or in demo phase like EVs. Let's pick one example of the poor reasoning in the artilce: the special pleading on behalf of Tesla: "Electric vehicles are typically 3 to 4 times more efficient than hydrogen powered vehicles" which is so ignorant because fuel cell hydrogen vehicles are in fact electric vehicles with electric motors. EVs are relatively efficient if you only consider efficiency but when you consider where the electricity came from (33 percent efficient for U.S. grid) and the 10 percent loss from the grid there are better alternatives. That's just from an efficiency standpoint--the focuse of the section. Elsewhere the article deals with other questions of feasibility (e.g., EVs have short ranges so their applicability is limited), cost and environmental impact. But that shouldn't cloud our thinking in this section.-- PotomacFever ( talk) 15:59, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
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Not ready for inclusion yet, since only a proposal at this stage, but has received state government funding, so likely to go ahead: "A plan for a small hydrogen-fuelled power plant at Port Lincoln is getting funding from South Australia's renewable technology fund." "Key points:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-12/hydrogen-power-plant-port-lincoln/9422022 http://reneweconomy.com.au/s-a-to-host-australias-first-green-hydrogen-power-plant-89447/ David Woodward ☮ ♡♢☞☽ 02:41, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
People have (politely) told the idea is stupid, and why. Even in previous version of the article, if I remember well. Somehow there is no trace here (anymore). Strange, isn't it? 15:32, 26 November 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.168.175.234 ( talk)
There is no lock on this article so feel free to add or re-add criticisms (you can see previous versions in the "history") if you have recent sources. Perhaps previous valid obstacles have been overcome. Chidgk1 ( talk) 17:40, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
The word "current" (the current technology) or "currently" shows up many time in the article. However, when nobody knows, when this section was written, one does not know how it looks today. Maybe the data was from 2008? Therefore we should change all the "current" into "current (2010)" or do you simply prefer "2010"? The different versions are listed here:
e.g. now: "Current best processes have an efficiency of 50% to 80%."
Version1: "Current (2010) best processes have an efficiency of 50% to 80%."
Version2: "Best processes of 2010 have an efficiency of 50% to 80%."
-- Saippuakauppias ⇄ 10:11, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
Some numbers are given for 2004-2005 which just don’t make sense: the article claims hydrogen is a 57 million tons market and is growing at 10%. Recent (2018 or so) estimates are in the range of 65M - so this seems unlikely
11M tons for US production and $135B market in 2005 make even less sense - although these seem reasonable estimates for 2018 or so — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.154.237.68 ( talk) 20:22, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
Could metric units such as joules or kWh be used in the "cost" section, instead of GGE which is a very strange unit for those of us who don't own cars or measure liquids in gallons. Chidgk1 ( talk) 07:52, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
This article is pretty useless. More than 3000 people a day are looking at this article, yet it is very confused and largely full of propaganda presumably by people with a vested interest in opposing a Hydrogen economy. The bulk of this article should be about what a hydrogen economy would look like and the basic science behind it, where the technology is at and then smaller sections on criticism and alternatives. At the moment its just a hodge podge of personal essays.-- Hontogaichiban ( talk) 12:19, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Another to add to the "very poor" list: where, under the "synthetic methanol" header is a single mention of methanol? Also, use of statements such as "It is always possible that some kind of breakthrough in hydrogen storage or generation could occur" is incredibly empty and useless. This can be said of any field of science or engineering that the authors intend to promote or show as promising. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.168.91.156 ( talk) 19:13, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
This sentence does not seem to make sense: "To enable the commercialization of hydrogen in consumer products, new model building codes and equipment and other technical standards are developed..." Should it be "...must be developed...", "...are being developed..."? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikipediacontributor38452 ( talk • contribs) 15:42, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
I'm extremely sceptical of everything in the article and utterly unconvinced (without saying what I'm unconvinced of!) Perhaps the nature of wikipedia places limits on this kind of article that authors will always struggle with. Perhaps less 'detail' might lead to a more useful article with less claims about technology and efficiency. KISS. 78.17.209.167 ( talk) 18:59, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
Currently, the defines the hydrogen economy as The hydrogen economy is an envisioned future in which hydrogen is used as a fuel for heat [1] and hydrogen vehicles, [2] [3] [4] for energy storage, and for long distance transport of energy. [5] However, if you check the sources provided, non of them provide a definition, in fact, some not even mention the hydrogen economy. They all focus on using hydrogen for certain purposes, but that's not what an hydrogen economy is and clearly doesn't define it. Please correct that and use an actual definition, as currently the definition seems to be unsourced POV. Andol ( talk) 16:55, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
References
this article says fuel cell vehicles are 2-3 times more efficient than internal combustion cars the fuel cell Wikipedia says fuel cells are 40-60% efficient the diesel engine wikipedia says diesels are 45% efficient so which of them are wrong ? 37.1.170.203 ( talk) 18:29, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
could someone improve the below. As a single sentence it does not have a clear meaning, and as an English native speaker but not a Hydrogen expert it seems to have two different meanings depending on context
"(In fact 55% of the reaction CH4 + 2 H2O = 4 H2 + CO2)."
Given that the article states that 2 different processes and therefore different chemical reactions currently make up the industrial product of H2, the stated included sentence is at best unclear. Jsmr1971 ( talk) 22:13, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
@ A455bcd9 Why they're colored gives an answer to why it's relevant at all, which gives an answer to why it's pertinent for this article to have this section at all. Fephisto ( talk) 03:17, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
Hydrogen_economy#Pipeline_storage as of 03/08/23 states:
A natural gas network may be used for the storage of hydrogen. Before switching to natural gas, the UK and German gas networks were operated using towngas, which for the most part consisted of hydrogen.
There is no reference to back up this claim. On the contrary, the linked towngas article claims 50% H2 content as common in coal gas.
Later in the section states:
The use of the existing natural gas pipelines for hydrogen was studied by NaturalHy.
However the study looked into the use of natural gas pipelines for H2 transport, not for storage purposes. Thus the usage of natrual gas pipelines for storage is not backed up by the references and looks like original research. Anttix ( talk) 09:53, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
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Clayoquot ( talk | contribs) 20:15, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
References
Hi everyone. I just did a major rewrite of the lead section, so I am pasting the previous version below for reference. If I missed anything important, please let me know or just put it back in. Cheers, Clayoquot ( talk | contribs) 21:24, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
The hydrogen economy uses hydrogen to decarbonize economic sectors which are hard to electrify, [1] essentially, the "hard-to-abate" sectors such as cement, steel, long-haul transport, etc. [2] In order to phase out fossil fuels and limit climate change, hydrogen can be created from water using renewable sources such as wind and solar, and its combustion only releases water vapor into the atmosphere. [3] [4]
Although with a very low volumetric energy density hydrogen is an energetic fuel, frequently used as rocket fuel, but numerous technical challenges prevent the creation of a large-scale hydrogen economy. These include the difficulty of developing long-term storage, pipelines, and engine equipment; a relative lack of off-the-shelf engine technology that can currently run safely on hydrogen; safety concerns regarding the high reactivity of hydrogen fuel with oxygen in ambient air; the expense of producing it by electrolysis; and a lack of efficient photochemical water splitting technology. Hydrogen can also react in a fuel cell, which efficiently produces electricity in a process that is the reverse of the electrolysis of water. The hydrogen economy is nevertheless slowly developing as a small part of the low-carbon economy. [5] As of 2019 [update], almost all (95%) of the world's 70 million tons of hydrogen consumed yearly in industrial processing, [6] significantly in fertilizer for 45% of the world's food, [7] are produced by steam methane reforming (SMR) that also releases the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. [8]
A possible less-polluting alternative is the newer technology of methane pyrolysis, [9] [10] [11] though SMR with carbon capture and storage (CCS) may also greatly reduce carbon emissions. Small amounts of hydrogen (5%) are produced by the dedicated production of hydrogen from water, usually as a byproduct of the process of generating chlorine from seawater. As of 2018 [update] there is not enough cheap clean electricity (renewable and nuclear) for this hydrogen to become a significant part of the low-carbon economy, and carbon dioxide is a by-product of the SMR process, [12] but it can be captured and stored.
The idea of hydrogen economy has been heavily criticized from the moment it was proposed. The main issues with the H2E scenario are as follows: [13]
Clayoquot ( talk | contribs) 21:24, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
References
I removed the following as it is unsourced, poorly-sourced (Honda), or excessively detailed:
Hydrogen gas must be distinguished as "technical-grade" (five nines pure, 99.999%) produced by methane pyrolysis or electrolysis, which is suitable for applications such as fuel cells, and "commercial-grade", which has carbon- and sulfur-containing impurities, but which can be produced by the slightly cheaper steam-reformation process that releases carbon dioxide greenhouse gas. Fuel cells require high-purity hydrogen because the impurities would quickly degrade the life of the fuel cell stack.
The combination of the fuel cell and electric motor is 2-3 times more efficient than an internal-combustion engine. [1] Capital costs of fuel cells have reduced significantly over recent years, with a modeled cost of $50/kW cited by the Department of Energy. [2]
Other fuel cell technologies based on the exchange of metal ions (e.g. zinc–air fuel cells) are typically more efficient at energy conversion than hydrogen fuel cells, but the widespread use of any electrical energy → chemical energy → electrical energy systems would necessitate the production of electricity. Clayoquot ( talk | contribs) 21:21, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
References
I propose merging Hydrogen fuel into Hydrogen economy, for the following reasons:
Thank you to Clayoquot plus the other editors for making this article so much better through your revision work from September onwards! Much appreciated. How would you characterise the quality of the article now, are there still problem areas that need addressing or would you say it's pretty much "done" for now? Any remaining weaknesses? What's the reading ease like in your opinion, is some work needed in that regard to improve readability? And some more images maybe? EMsmile ( talk) 10:39, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
This entire section has no sources. A chunk of it was added in 2007 in this edit. I wonder if this text is any good (in which case sources should be found) or if it should be taken out?
"A key tradeoff: centralized vs. distributed production
In a future full hydrogen economy, primary energy sources and feedstock would be used to produce hydrogen gas as stored energy for use in various sectors of the economy. Producing hydrogen from primary energy sources other than coal and oil would result in lower production of the greenhouse gases characteristic of the combustion of coal and oil fossil energy resources. The importance of non-polluting methane pyrolysis of natural gas is becoming a recognized method for using current natural gas infrastructure investment to produce hydrogen and no greenhouse gas. citation needed
One key feature of a hydrogen economy would be that in mobile applications (primarily vehicular transport) energy generation and use could be decoupled. The primary energy source would need no longer travel with the vehicle, as it currently does with hydrocarbon fuels. Instead of tailpipes creating dispersed emissions, the energy (and pollution) could be generated from point sources such as large-scale, centralized facilities with improved efficiency. This would allow the possibility of technologies such as carbon sequestration, which are otherwise impossible for mobile applications. Alternatively, distributed energy generation schemes (such as small scale renewable energy sources) could be used, possibly associated with hydrogen stations.
Aside from the energy generation, hydrogen production could be centralized, distributed or a mixture of both. While generating hydrogen at centralized primary energy plants promises higher hydrogen production efficiency, difficulties in high-volume, long range hydrogen transportation (due to factors such as hydrogen damage and the ease of hydrogen diffusion through solid materials) makes electrical energy distribution attractive within a hydrogen economy.
In such a scenario, small regional plants or even local filling stations could generate hydrogen using energy provided through the electrical distribution grid or methane pyrolysis of natural gas. While hydrogen generation efficiency is likely to be lower than for centralized hydrogen generation, losses in hydrogen transport could make such a scheme more efficient in terms of the primary energy used per kilogram of hydrogen delivered to the end user.
The proper balance between hydrogen distribution, long-distance electrical distribution and destination converted pyrolysis of natural gas is one of the primary questions that arises about the hydrogen economy.
Again the dilemmas of production sources and transportation of hydrogen can now be overcome using on site (home, business, or fuel station) generation of hydrogen from off grid renewable sources."
EMsmile (
talk)
10:42, 20 December 2023 (UTC)