Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

knewusr t1_j2dz7ia wrote

Have you done the math to see how much electricity it would take? How many windmills and solar panels? Also what happens when the sun sets or the wind calms down.

1

Taxoro t1_j2eabu6 wrote

Yea I work in the field.

​

Look we need hydrogen in the use of steel manufacturing and for fertilizers. These aer very very important industries.

There's 2 ways to get hydrogen. One you take fossile fuels, typically natural gas, and you get rid of the carbon to leave hydrogen. This uses a limited fossil fuel and is very polluting as the carbon turned into co2. Additionally anything that uses natural gas runs the risk of spills, and natural gas is a even worse greenhouse gas than co2.

​

The second way is to use electricity to split water. That takes energy of course, the energy that would otherwise come from fossil fuels.

We don't need hydrogen 24-7 and it can be stored. When we produce hydrogen it's transported in tubes under pressure, the tubes themselves act as a storage site and there's many other ways to store hydrogen. So you produce as much hydrogen as you can while the sun is shining and the wind is blowing and save it for when it's needed.

Another problem we have is that we need low carbon electricity to live our current lives without causing further global warming. A problem with low carbon electricity is that it typically isn't adjustable or reliable. Say you have a ton of solar panels to provide energy for most of the day. Well during midday our energy needs aren't that great, but the solar power is peaking. During that time we could use some of the energy from solar cells to produce green hydrogen.

​

If we gonna go low carbon we will have leftover energy to use for hydrogen production, and there's a big need for green hydrogen to further the low carbon efforts.

1