this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
475 points (95.2% liked)
Technology
58303 readers
48 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Green Hydrogen from Electrolysis is extremely inefficient (<30%). Renewable energy isn't without cost or environmental impact, so we need to responsible with how we use it. Unless the grid you're pulling from is 100% renewable and has excess power that is just being wasted, that renewable energy could be used elsewhere in a more efficient manner.
Siemens quotes 80% for their electrolysers, fuel cells run at about 60%... in steel smelting if you squint right over 100% (reducing directly with electricity is possible, but less efficient in practice than going via hydrogen). Similar for chemical feedstock where "just use electricity bro" really isn't an option in the first place.
Precisely because of those uses hydrogen (and by extension ammonia) will be a massive energy carrier in the future anyway. And both, and definitely ammonia, doesn't self-discharge, or have cycle life limitations.
Regardless, it is a start. Unless we are to stumble upon the secret of cold fusion, we need to compromise in order to make any kind of move away from fossil energy.
The project I mentioned is to be a self contained system, reliant on renewables only, hence the green classification.
but it's not either /or is it? there places where overhead cables are not a good option for trains so a Hydrogen train makes sense there it's a niche but it's use case is there