The Status of Hydrogen in Our Energy Picture

The video below covers the pros and cons of hydrogen as a carrier of energy in a fair and honest fashion, and that’s not something that can be said about every attempt to address the subject.

As a quick reminder:

Grey hydrogen = the steam reformation of methane, producing CO2 that is released into the atmosphere.

Blue hydrogen = the steam reformation of methane, producing CO2 that is supposedly captured and stored beneath the Earth’s surface or used to create building materials.  Experts from outside the fossil fuel industry say this is a complete myth, and that the footprint is actually worse than its grey counterpart.

Green hydrogen = the electrolysis of water using renewable energy = close to zero emissions.

The main challenge here is that, though the price of renewable energy, is falling, it’s still a fairly precious commodity.

Even neglecting this, what’s the advantage of hydrogen here over simply using the clean energy directly?  We can take advantage of the extremely high efficiency of charging and discharging batteries (~20% waste) and not suffer the huge losses associated with the processes of electrolysis, followed by storage and shipping the hydrogen, then converting it back into electricity via fuel cells (a total of ~60% waste).

Keep in mind that, like everything else, the calculus associated with the improvements in technology need to be carefully considered, and that this, at least currently, favors batteries over hydrogen. With each passing year, batteries are getting more energy-dense, and are enjoying faster charging times.  This is starting to make them a solid choice for applications that were totally impractical even a decade ago, e.g., Class 8 trucks, ocean cargo ships, and commercial aircraft.

Then you have what the authors of the video refer to as the “chicken and egg” phenomenon.  There is very low demand for hydrogen now, so there is very low supply.  Suppliers are waiting for demand, and users are waiting for supply.

I’ll bet there are at least 20 posts on the 2GreenEnergy blog that make the same prediction that I’ll make once more: hydrogen is a non-starter.  The only reason we’re even having this conversation is that the oil companies want us to believe that they’re actively improving their emission portfolio (with blue hydrogen), when in fact, that’s simply not the case.