this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
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The oil industry is behind the the push for hydrogen.
They desperately need to replace fuel for fuel or they'll cease to exist.
Without a doubt. But they're also behind nat gas powered plants, solar and wind farms, charger networks, etc. The thing about the oil companies is they became multinational juggernauts by always winning. And they've lined themselves up to win on "green" energy as well as renewables, solar, wind, and tidal.
"Winning"
I believe you mean lobbying.
To a company, those are the same. For us? It's a pure loss.
I spoke to a partner of a friend whose working on hydrogen cells and "low temp" (600c, though earlier versions were 800-1000c) cerium or Cesium yttrium catalyst electrolysers. The point of the electrolysis pathway is that you're able to use excess energy from green sources (solar/hydro/nuclear) that we currently don't have the infrastructure to store, to produce hydrogen for use in hydrogen cells or to be used as an alternative to fossil fuel derived hydrogen in metallurgical processes (steel making etc)
That's quite the game of telephone you've established.
I am not claiming there is no real science behind it but it's still fuel generation and energy storage is possible without needing to create a fuel.
The inefficiency at each step accumulation. The laws of thermodynamics are not negotiable. Fewest conversions is always going to win.
There are plenty of other more useable products we could create from excessive energy, clean water from desalination is a common one.
The theory of excess energy is nonsense. Especially when it comes to solar, which you would optimize to use peak capacity at peak production times. Pumped hydro is vastly more efficient than electrolysis to produce hydrogen, and it doesn't require us mining. Any precious metals.
Since the point of this research is to reduce the impact of mining, you would think that mining for the catalyst material would have been considered. Those metals are not readily found and bodies of water, for example.