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Limitless ‘white’ hydrogen under our feet may soon shatter all energy assumptions
(www.telegraph.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
49 points (74.3% liked)
Technology
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Hydrogen is a pretty complicated gas to deal with. The flame is nearly invisible in daylight meaning you could be standing in a Hydrogen fire and only tell because your skin is burning off. The molecule is so small that its hard to contain it because seals leak. Storage of hydrogen is also a problem. The density is also very very low in both gaseous and cryogenic liquid form which means you have to have very large containers compared to most other fuels.
The article proposes to graduate hydrogen to a utility grade fuel, which isn't impossible, its just really really hard, and other alternatives are much easier to accomplish the same goal.
One approach may be to located hydrogen combustion or hydrogen fuel cells very close to the point of extraction turning it into electricity as soon as possible. That would bypass most of the storage challenges at least. However, this idea comes with its own challenges as hydrogen extraction points may not be near utility grade power lines for transport of the electricity produced.
You make some interesting points. Would you happen to know if it would be possible to add something to it to make it more visible? Kinda like they add that smelly thing to gas.
Everytime I read about hydrogen being the future I get the feeling of oil lobby selling the next "oil" because thats all they understand. Hydrogen has a future where its energy to weight ratio counts and that is aviation fuel. For now.