Cute pic will fend off the inevitable naysayers, maybe.Want to set some gas on fire without releasing carbon dioxide into the air?
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) November 22, 2022
Friends, let me tell you about the H2 molecules.
Don’t know what to do with your surplus production of intermittent solar power?
Try running current through some water and see what happens. pic.twitter.com/6Litj5Xxpu
November 22, 2022
Matt Yglesias is thinking of becoming a Hydrogen Guy.
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65 comments:
Now find the energy to purify the water, well after you find the fresh water. Still, hydrogen is cleaner and safer than lithium batteries for stored energy for cars. It would just be much easier to implement along side current refineries if not for the demand it be “green”..
Matt is maybe 40 years late for the Hydrogen Party. None of this is new, but wishing and hoping won't make it happen at any useful scale. Infrastructure costs will kill this baby in the crib.
As long as Matt Yglesias doesn’t deadname them, naysayers will be… let me circle back… I don’t have the authority to speak for naysayers.
Hydrogen has a lot of promise. Hydrogen fuel cells can approach the energy density of petroleum products. But we have not yet figured out the safety aspects. And nuclear is still a better prime source than solar or wind.
He's halfway there, if we went nuclear we could maybe do this. Naah! We prefer to get H2 from unicorn farts!
On the other hand, we could smelt aluminum where there is clean power, and ship it to where the H2 is needed, and generate hydrogen from it, I obs haven't done the math, but this is intriguing.
https://news.mit.edu/2021/using-aluminum-and-water-to-make-clean-hydrogen-fuel-0812
Totally ignoring the sad reality that hydrogen is REALLY difficult to contain because it so easily “slips” through seals. That and flame speed of a hydrogen fire is much faster in spreading than natural gas. Hydrogen fires are the reason safety protocols are so strict in refineries that deal with it in reformers. Now imagine Joe’s service tightening the connections on your clean car and the boom that follows.
It’s not that easy. Much like they don’t like to discuss what happens when battery powered vehicles get soaked in water, hydrogen has its very serious downsides too.
At least he's being accurate. He refers to carbon dioxide not carbon and H2 the correct form in nature.
Jay Leno has been in the news lately for his accidental third-degree burns from lighting gasoline on fire. His story is incredibly inspirational. This tweet seems tone deaf.
It's early days in the H2 from aluminum field, but they have been able to make H2 from aluminum "sand," I would call it, fine granules of aluminum doped like semiconductors, by adding water. The problem has been that as soon as it generated the hydrogen, it also sealed off the surface of the aluminum with a patina of the aluminum version of rust, and the reaction stoped, and they are working on getting around that.
It doesn't seem impossible. MIT keeps talking about using waste aluminum, but it seems like if it worked, it would be worth smelting aluminum just for this purpose, if you had clean power. Aluminum is the most plentiful element in the Earth's crust; its cost is the energy that goes into it. This could be an "end around" of the battery problem, IF it works out.
I got a perfect score on my hydrolyze lab in Chem II lab, beating the handful of 150 IQ classmates I had. They weren't happy...
This sudden discovery of hydrogen from these dooshes? They must not have had sophomore chemistry...
Every 20 years or so this pops up.
He just caught up to George W. Bush. Good boy, Matt.
Problem is hydrogen has the same problems it had 50 years ago:
1. Storage and handling is a bitch. Hydrogen is about the least dense fuel, so the only practical way to get fuel tanks to a reasonable size is to compress it to ridiculous pressures. This requires heavy tanks and is more than little dangerous, and requires a lot of energy besides. Because the molecule is so tiny, most materials are rather permeable to hydrogen, so it also tends to leak out of whatever otherwise airtight container you put it in.
2. There still isn't a great alternative to platinum catalysts in hydrogen fuel cells, which means they will continue to be very expensive no matter how efficient your manufacturing process.
3. Because of the built in inefficiency of electrolysis and the need to compress it, round trip energy loss is something like 40% minimum, with real world figures often much worse after figuring in transport losses and fuel cell efficiency. This is compared to lithium batteries which have a round trip efficiency of about 90%.
While it's possible that some of these things could be fixed with new technology, like improved catalysts, nuclear fusion has made more progress since the 1960s than hydrogen technology has, so I'm not optimistic.
Hydrogen is a fancy battery. It doesn’t produce power.
The Hindenburg had a very small carbon footprint.
Twenty years from now Matt will discover nuclear.
Matt Yglesias is doing amazing science. I guess in his next demonstration he will show us the solutions to H2’s ability to migrate through the solid walls of tubes and containers, its tendency to “embrittle” metals used to contain it, its ability to blow the heck out of things with one stray spark, the need to use huge amounts of energy to catalyze it from water, to compress the gas to useful densities, to cool it during compression, and lots more practical issues. Matt has these issues all worked out at cheap to no cost, and he can deliver nationwide infrastructure with a snap of his ecologically correct fingers.
/s
Instead of funding a clean energy Manhattan project, we're spending trillions of dollars with Lockheed Martin Northrop Grumman Raytheon Boeing general Dynamics so that beta cuck Republicans who identify as male can feel secure in their beds at night.
Is there a point where someone sane points out to him that the output from setting hydrogen on fire — water vapor! — is a much, much worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Math is hard, and no doubt physical chemistry is harder yet.
There's a few hydrogen stations in California. If you watch Kyle on YouTube he goes to one with a borrowed hydrogen car. Watch and come to your own conclusions...
Today ...
1. Generate some electricity.
2. Transmit the electrical power to our homes and businesses using the existing safe and reliable distribution systems.
3. Run our homes and businesses using the electricity.
Or ...
1. Generate Hydrogen.
2. Build Hydrogen storage and distribution systems.
3. Build machines and tools that work using Hydrogen.
4. Build transportation systems that run on Hydrogen.
5. Build homes and schools and churches and businesses that run on Hydrogen.
Easy Peasy!
Led Zeppelin
The left used to poo poo the idea.
Let us see. One needs external power in the form of electricity to extract hydrogen from water, the electricity must be consistent in both power and time. Now what are the only ways to do this? Why coal and nuc.
hmmmm
Matt is the guy who said the Veteran's Administration hospitals and healthcare system were a model for the entire US healthcare system.
The man doesn't know sh!t when he steps in it.
Leland said...
"Now find the energy to purify the water, well after you find the fresh water. Still, hydrogen is cleaner and safer than lithium batteries for stored energy for cars. It would just be much easier to implement along side current refineries if not for the demand it be “green”.."
All petroleum refineries make hydrogen.
hydrogen is a very inefficient way to make power.
It is difficult to store.
Why are we going over this? For the umpteenth time.
"2. There still isn't a great alternative to platinum catalysts in hydrogen fuel cells, which means they will continue to be very expensive no matter how efficient your manufacturing process."
There is another catalyst. it's propriatory. It converts methane. The problem is the amount of waste heat it produces. Something like 800C. Ballard Power Systems is the company.
It’s all pretty much pink. This -Ism or that. Another (C)ause will be along shortly. It’s (S)cience
Yglesias’ ideas eventually shut down opposing speech, deflate the economy, and leave a ruthless oligarchical/bureaucratic raft of one-Party 2nd and 3rd raters (like Yglesias) in charge.
I don’t know what the value-add here is for me in linking to such people all the time.
Hydrogen Storage
On a mass basis, hydrogen has nearly three times the energy content of gasoline—120 MJ/kg for hydrogen versus 44 MJ/kg for gasoline. On a volume basis, however, the situation is reversed; liquid hydrogen has a density of 8 MJ/L whereas gasoline has a density of 32 MJ/L,
Safe Use of Hydrogen
Some of hydrogen's properties require additional engineering controls to enable its safe use. Specifically, hydrogen has a wide range of flammable concentrations in air and lower ignition energy than gasoline or natural gas, which means it can ignite more easily.
Low-density energy capacity and you. Volatile, too.
That said, the Greenhouse effect (e.g. hexavalent chromium, carbonic acid, nuclear radiation, etc.) has a net positive effect in isolation (e.g. laboratory, theory). Carbon dioxide in the wild is for a green and greening world. Do your minority of a minority effect, breathe, reproduce, live.
Nuclear is the greenest of power sources.
"Aluminum is the most plentiful element in the Earth's crust;"
Not by a long shot. Oxygen is 47% of the crust (by weight), silicon in 28%. Aluminum is third at 8%.
I remember when Ballard was the darling of the future of hydrogen fuel cells. Back in the '80's. Otherwise - what Owen said. Hydrogen is a very small molecule, hard to keep sealed up.
Smilin' Jack said...
The Hindenburg had a very small carbon footprint.
Almost 0 given the amount of carbon involved in the nature of the combustion.
rrsafety said...
Hydrogen is a fancy battery. It doesn’t produce power.
Hydrogen is a battery the same way gasoline or other petroleum distillates are a battery.
Rusty:
All petroleum refineries make hydrogen.
That's my point, all your other statements are you reading more into what I wrote, so why do you keep going over it for the umpteenth time in your own head? Take a chill pill, relax.
Like Big Mike said, water vapor is a far more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. The most serious predictions for climate change assume that rising temperatures finally add enough water vapor to the atmosphere to trigger run-away warming.
Sure, there's already lots of water vapor in the atmosphere, it's only natural. Just like carbon dioxide. And no one knows the effects of human activity shifting the release of large quantities of it where it hasn't been before, like massive urban areas or high in atmosphere from hydrogen powered airliners.
Remember, the law of unintended consequences will play havoc. Be nice to think about that before we commit to radical change for once. (Though in this case, economic arguments make the change unlikely.)
Some great come have been posted on this. One aspect that hasn’t been covered is the issue of duplicating our current fuel distribution system. Since the ‘30s America, through the effort of private companies such as Shell, Exxon, etc have developed a massive network of pipelines, storage facilities and distribution facilities all for the petroleum based fuel market. Think Loves, Flying J, Marathon, etc that all make it possible to drive across America without experiencing range anxiety. Those who want to replace gasoline and diesel as preferred motor fuels ignore the costs it would take to build a comparable network of hydrogen stations or electric charging stations along the interstate system. Trillions would be required. It seems to me that’s simply not realistic.
Those who want to replace gasoline and diesel as preferred motor fuels ignore the costs it would take to build a comparable network of hydrogen stations or electric charging stations along the interstate system. Trillions would be required. It seems to me that’s simply not realistic.
None of the "green alternatives" is realistic. The current small gesture in keeping a nuclear power plant going in CA is the first realistic gesture I have seen in years.
Too bad it takes more energy to produce the hydrogen than it delivers upon usage. In a way, it's a good thing that people are now starting to look at where their energy comes from, but in a bad way, they're dragging around so much eco-baggage from years of mal-education and social pressure, that they don't come into the conversation from a grounded place.
What we really need is a way for people to estimate their actual energy footprint in a reasonably accurate way. And not in terms of carbon, which is just used as a eco-boogey man. It needs to be in terms of energy delivery, here's you annual energy consumption equivalent: Barrels of crude oil per year, or ounces of uranium, or millions of standard cubic feet of natural gas, or gallons of gasoline. Something that is an energy reference that people can understand and relate to.
Almost nobody understands how much petroleum goes into their day to day existence. Its derived energy touches every single thing in your life.
@Big Mike
Is there a point where someone sane points out to him that the output from setting hydrogen on fire — water vapor! — is a much, much worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Math is hard, and no doubt physical chemistry is harder yet.
While that is true in the aggregate, the volumes involved compared to the volume of water vapor already in the atmosphere are miniscule.
Others have already pointed out the real issues with hydrogen as a store of energy.
Several decades ago, 60 Minutes did a puff piece on hydrogen power. My sister-in-law asked me, the high school physics teacher, whether it was true. After a fair amount of searching, it became pretty clear that Soda King is right. There are a lot of problems that aren't obvious when you just think about the immediate reaction. Yes, hydrogen burning in oxygen creates nothing but water and energy--but you have to create, confine, and transport the hydrogen before that happens.
@ 37 replies, I had to scroll curious to see how soon the Hindenberg was mentioned.
Smilin' Jack for the win! -- starting fifteenth from the post
Knowledge an inch deep and a yard wide.
Sure, let's make a bet on hydrogen... creating the gas. Concentrating the gas (both gaseous and liquid hydrogen can be a pretty mean bastard if it goes walkabout). Pipelines? Sure, lots of them. Replacement of ICE vehicles with H2. Gas (literally) stations galore. Safety protocols that work.
Nuttin' to it. Just a few more trillions and a few more decades (that we are told we don't have.) /sarc
So we start with NOT doing most of the above for EV's to make way for the newest (even when it's not) shiny object.
Ironclad, SofaKing and others have early on identified the major problem. Which is the same problem as most "renewables" in general. It's not enough to have a SOURCE of energy, one must store and transport and dispense and meter and collect fees for the sale of energy.
As STUPID as ethanol-additives to gasoline have been, we HAVE an ethanol distribution system. We have competing process to make electrical fuel cells that react (not quite "burn" -- and use the stored energy more directly) for both ethanol AND hydrogen.
If we had to choose between emphasis on hydrogen or methanol -- methanol. Fuel Cells.
Ask Elon Musk to look at the issue.
MEANWHILE, Frack the Marcellus Shale in New York. Why should Pennsylvania have all the fun? If BOTH PA and NY frack more, the economics of Northeastern corridor pipelines are easily explained. Frack the heck out of the domestic resources. Frack them all. Frack it.
"Hydrogen is a battery the same way gasoline or other petroleum distillates are a battery."
If you could make them with from water with electricity.
I have zero faith on anything Matthew Yglesias has to say. He seems to be an expert simply because he declared himself one and then demands payment for his services.
I do find it odd that he is talking about surplus solar power. The problem with solar and wind power is not that it sometimes creates a surplus. The problem is they are unreliable which makes it difficult to integrate them into an electrical grid that needs to produce a set amount of power at any given time. This requires remaking the electric grid to handle the erratic behavior of wind and solar. If wind and solar were not "green" power, no one would want to use them for that very reason.
I do wonder if anyone with a hydrogen production facility would want to use solar and/or wind power for that exact reason. It is generally not a great idea to run a factory that can only function when surplus power is available and you cannot accurately predict when that will be. How do you schedule your business in that situation? I suppose it is possible to design a factory that turns itself on and off, but I struggle to think how to make this possible and profitable.
He does have a point that you can use hydrogen production as a sort of battery storage for electricity. However, I want to see an analysis by actual experts who can explain all the pros and cons of this plan, not some know-it-all-know-nothing Twitter post.
Sorry, I meant metal, not element.
we're spending trillions of dollars with Lockheed Martin Northrop Grumman Raytheon Boeing general Dynamics so that beta cuck Republicans who identify as male can feel secure in their beds at night.
The Trumper position, and even that of most red-blooded Republicans is to use ethical oil from USA, Canada, and Mexico, last I checked, and it's you people, the Democrats, who insist on getting our oil from overseas hellholes where control of it is established by military force.
Try running some current through water and see what happens when government man finds out you are producing and storing significant amounts of hydrogen in your residential neighborhood.
The current small gesture in keeping a nuclear power plant going in CA is the first realistic gesture I have seen in years.
That gesture reminds me of the DoD games, such as when the USAF says it will have to retire the A-10 to pay for the new toy Congress wants them to have. Articles are written in the trade magazines about how vital the A-10 is for the troops. In the end, Congress approved budget for the new toy and the A-10.
In this case, California closed coal plants, other fossil fuel plants, and was closing their last nuclear power plant, but then comes federal dollars to keep the nuclear power plant funded, so the lights can stay on in some areas of California (Why is this a federal issue? Let's also ignore just how many nuclear power plants sit in San Diego while we discuss how dangerous and polluting, they reportedly are).
Hydrogen makes better bombs as well.
Toyota is one of the few car manufacturers who isn't all-in on electric vehicles.
Sure, they have some (very few) and are big on hybrids, but they have long been a proponent of hydrogen-powered autos.
Oh, wonderful. Matt Zglesias has discovered Science. It's been there all along, Matt. That's what they were trying to tell you about back in High School.
Hydrogen isn't the future. There are just too many fundamental and unalterable problems with using it on a mass scale. We are more likely to find an efficient enough/cost neutral way to convert electricity, water, and carbon dioxide into liquid hydrocarbons (and this is unlikely, too, given the change in entropy issues involved).
We will either go large scale nuclear fission, or we will decline back into subsistance farming within the next 500 years. We could have done that by this point in time if the trajectory from 1970 had just been followed for the last 50 years, but no, we instead listened to idiots like little Matty Yglesias.
"Sorry, I meant metal, not element."
Yeah, I figured that out after I posted.
Maybe, just maybe, excess solar could make hydrogen on-site to burn and make electricity on-site when the sun's not shining. But I can't imagine this hasn't been thought of before and the fact that it isn't being done indicates the viability (or lack thereof) of this scheme. Matt Yglesias's brain is not going to lead us out of this morass.
Get those happy hydrogen atoms slam dancing into each other and before you know it you have fusion power.
Go Green with hydrogen. Go green with CO2.
I never see anybody ask what the solar and wind that are being diverted into electricity generation were doing before that. Clearly, they were having some effect on the planet and now, they're not. Is that a good thing? Who knows?
In theory this is great. Use solar to make hydrogen. BUT H2 is almost impossible to store. The molecule is so small it leaks out of everything and it corrodes metal in no time. It is also VERY explosive. You cannot ship it in a pipeline. So this is just a pipedream and will never happen. Articles like this convince the unwary that green energy is simple.
By the way, some recent engineering studies I have seen on batteries to store solar/wind find the cost to be astronomical, even assuming you could find enough raw materials with the increased demand.
Virtue signaling at its best. Where's the hydrogen going to come from? Electrolysis of water via electricity generated from burning coal or natural gas. Reformation of methane, CH4, into H2 and CO2. Then he needs special steel that won't become brittle due to his magic fuel. Plus either high pressure or cryogenic tanks.
Hydrogen is not a practical fuel today. Just a pipe dream from people who believe CO2 is some volume control on the planet's temperature. It's not. The Sun's activity controls how much heat is transferred from the equator to the poles. When the Sun is active, that transfer is throttled down and the planet warms. When it's inactive, like it is now, heat transfer is enhanced and the planet cools. Just ask the good people of Buffalo what they think of global warming.
A new pipeline system for hydrogen isn't needed. Make it at the "gas" station. But, that's going to require a massive increase in the electric grid to get all the power to the "gas" station. Plus, just think of all the possible leaks from the H2 generators. Can you spell "Boom"?
Leland said...
"Rusty:
All petroleum refineries make hydrogen.
That's my point, all your other statements are you reading more into what I wrote, so why do you keep going over it for the umpteenth time in your own head? Take a chill pill, relax."
My point is that all oil refinerys make hydrogen. They have specific processes that strip hydrogen from unwanted carbon molecules and recombine them to make more profitable products. If hydrogen was a viable fuel we'd already be using it.
Oh no man, you just compress the hydrogen and, like, put tubes around all the electric transmission lines, and then pump the liquid hydrogen thru the tubes, and like man the wires will be super conductive, and all the electricity will be saved.
Then at the end of the transmission lines there will be, towns man, that can put the liquid hydrogen in busses that only make water man and everyone can drink it. It’s cool.
Yeah, hydrogen-powered electrical plants. Hydrogen-powered cars and trucks.
Now consider adding huge amounts of water vapor to the air in cities like Wash DC, NOLA and most of the American South.
They would reach pre-monsoon humidity levels like seen in New Delhi. For months at a time. How does 90 degrees and 85% humidity sound to you? Think your home or car A/C will be able to handle that?
With lithium powered vehicles bursting into unquenchable flame, and H2-powered cars erupting into huge explosions when experiencing accidents, imagine yourself stuck in your car unable to go anywhere, when outside its literally deadly to move about..
I'm sure the zealots will claim, "we'll solve all those problems". AS IF there were no fundamental issues to address, that discovery will happen by "magic"!!
Meantime, the EVS are freezing up in cold climes, and bursting into flame in floods, and are performing pitifully during road tests. Even those with home charging stations are realizing that if 50% of their neighbors on the same grid do the same, there will not be enough power!
Go ahead readering, howard, Cook, gadfly et al: defend your stupid ideas one more time.
(Inga, being dumb as a shithouse rat, never addresses "grown up" technical issues. She gives them a "good leaving alone". But the others, who don't know what they don't know, persist. Howard's non-sequitur is a case in point)
Mike of Snoqualmie said...
A new pipeline system for hydrogen isn't needed. Make it at the "gas" station. But, that's going to require a massive increase in the electric grid to get all the power to the "gas" station. Plus, just think of all the possible leaks from the H2 generators. Can you spell "Boom"?
***************
IC engine "gas stations" are not connected to pipelines!!!! Big-ass trucks show up to fill their underground tanks!!
The transfer and storage of LIQUID HYDROGEN H2-powered vehicles would require a completely different system.
So a new underground pipeline costing hundreds of billions would be needed-- unless you want highly-pressurized tanks of H2 traveling all over our roads.
("thing is", gasoline is far less volatile than H2. You can smoke a cig over a gasoline leak, and it won't catch fire. H2?....kaboom!))
--
"By the way, some recent engineering studies I have seen on batteries to store solar/wind find the cost to be astronomical, even assuming you could find enough raw materials with the increased demand."
Yes, windmills/solar and batteries is one of those things that you know will never happen, quite simply because it can't.
Reminds me of when Howard Hughes had some engineers design a steam car.
From http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/2907/1/howard.pdf
I asked them how they solved the water problem and Burns said to me, "Well, we just made the whole body one big radiator, full of tubes."
I looked at them-these bright, eager Caltech kids-and I said, "You mean the whole body is a radiator-including the doors?"
Burns said to me, "That's right, sir. You can go 400 miles on a tank of water."
I looked at him again and I said, "So tell me what happens if a car runs into me? Into my door, for example. Won't I get cooked? Boiled? Burned to a crisp?"
Well, little by little they turned red . ."
Well the same applies here when the car is in a accident.
Every car on the a potential Hindenburg!
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