I just discovered this clean energy podcast by Tom Raftery of Spain. At about 11 minutes, in Tom makes some comments on my hydrogen article. He mostly supports my debunking of the hydrogen economy, although he does give a good example of how hydrogen creation can be useful in certain situations, such as storing excess power generation from wind production.

Thanks, Tom!

As I responded in my update to the article, my comment refers to the feasibility of using hydrogen to power automobiles. It is feasible for other uses.

There are many other options, and the best I think are bio-diesel and battery powered EVs and PHEVs. The nice thing about electric vehicles is that it doesn’t matter where you get your electricity from, so you can get it from coal now, you can get if from wind/solar when it becomes available to you, and you can get it from fusion, etc. in the future (whatever comes about).

Originally posted as a comment
by spuma
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I am not a “battery only guy”. I would love nothing better than for hydrogen to be a viable resource that we can use to power vehicles. Even if it were feasible, I suspect that collecting the water that would come out of the tailpipe would not be feasible, because it would have to be stored on-board, or else it would become contaminated. Storing it on-board is not going to be feasible, because it will increase the weight of the car dramatically and would require very large amounts of storage volume.

Originally posted as a comment
by spuma
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This all sounds good, but where does the hydrogen come from? If it comes from water, where will you be getting that water from?

Originally posted as a comment
by spuma
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Perhaps you didn’t bother to read the numerous other sources cited in the article, not to mention the numerous facts from the Wikipedia article, nor the numerous citations on which the Wikipedia article is based, nor the resources at the bottom of the article.

Originally posted as a comment
by spuma
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I’m sorry, Don, but your statements are patently false. While we may not be running out of salt water any time soon, fresh water is in short supply, even in the U.S. California has been in a drought for many years now, Georgia and the Southeast are facing some very serious water shortages, and aquifers across the nation are depleted and are filling up with salt water (in some cases), rendering them useless.

While desalination may be one way to get fresh water, and perhaps even an unevitaable necessity, good luck getting a desalination plant approved in the U.S. any time soon. You’ll have an even harder time getting your salt water to use for making hydrogen, because I can guarantee voters will approve a plant that produces drinking water before they approve one that produces hydrogen, and they ain’t approvin’ either one in the near future.

The type of geo-engineering you propose may ultimately be necessary to save the coastal cities, but it will come at extremely high cost and plenty of unintended consequences, as all extreme-scale projects inevitable do.

Originally posted as a comment
by spuma
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Thanks for your comment. I agree with you 100%.

Originally posted as a comment
by spuma
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Patrick, please note the clarification that I made on the article. I do not dispute that hydrogen is not useful, for certain applications, it is simply not practical on any large scale, and especially not for automobiles.

The forklift is a perfect example of an appropriate use: forklifts do not have to go very far, can be refueled on-site, and, therefore, do not need to store a large supply of hydrogen.

Another appropriate use is a fuel cell for a large building. In this case, the building would have the storage capacity to make hydrogen feasible.

However, when most people think of hydrogen as a fuel, they think of its use to power cars, since so many high-profile people have latched on to that. However, though it may capture the imagination, it is simply not a good idea.

Originally posted as a comment
by spuma
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Rob,

Thank you for your comments. If you have read some of my other articles, then you know that there are other ways to extend range of EVs, such as battery-swap. Also, I do agree that the solution to oil is a basket of solutions.

Perhaps the article should have been titled “Hydrogen is not the Miracle Fuel of the Future for Cars”, because I did not mean to imply that Hydrogen had no uses for other applications.

I’m not sure why my comment “The only way that hydrogen can become truly worthwhile is if someone comes up with a way to create it from renewable energy sources, i.e. wind/solar, and store it is a form compact enough that it is comparable to current battery technology” is “dunsel.” (Matter of fact, I’m not even sure what “dunsel” means. I couldn’t find a definition in any online dictionary.)

As a matter of fact, your statements, if true, merely confirm my statement. In order for Hydrogen to work, it needs to be made from renewable sources of energy (which we have), and be compact enough to be practical (which you stated already exists). So it seems like I hit it right no the head, no?

One issue that still has not been addressed is where all this Hydrogen comes from. If it comes from Natural Gas, you are better off burning the natural gas, which burns clean. Converting it to Hydrogen simply results in a net energy loss. I don’t see the point in that.

So you are left converting water into Hydrogen, which doesn’t sound like a great solution either, unless you can recapture the water in some sort of uncontaminated form. Even though it doesn’t get as much press, clean water will probably be a much more immediate problem for human survival than peak oil or climate change. I would prefer not to use our clean water for powering cars when we have plenty of other, more efficient solutions.

For the record, let me reiterate: I’m not suggesting that there will ever be ONE replacement for oil. Hydrogen has it’s place in a basket of solutions, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense for transportation.

Originally posted as a comment
by spuma
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