How a Hydrogen Breakthrough is Closer Than Ever

[@UndecidedMF]

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[@mudfossiluniversity]

We used light into a FINELY tuned venturi and created electron showers and sterile Muons...I have the videos on my channel. I would like to engage Matt? "The Material Evidence of the Theory that Changed Everything" as you will see we should be able to get free energy right now.

[@jeffmcdonald101]

No.

[@bartroberts1514]

I remain suspicious of Hydrogen proposals, on the simple rationale that there is a list of direct competitors for H2 that are more technically appropriate, more economical, and more green. Biofuels from waste biomass lead the list of things easier to turn into fuels that work with current equipment. Urea is far better than H2, for storage and transportation and energy density, and costs less per unit of energy in theory. The Rube Goldberg schemes to make H2 a usable good? Sure, throw enough resources at it, and you can obscure H2's faults. And there are appropriate niche uses for H2. But to power the world the way some sell it? No. That's not the future.

[@CHE-Undercover]

we will still be using fossil fuels in 50 years. Even in the first world will be mostly switched over, the third world will not. Plus, we need stuff from oil, not just gas. We just have to figure out how to process oil and gas cleanly to get the helium and hexane/butane/etc. we need. Thats the best we can hope for. But maybe by 50 years the oil and gas we burn will be burnt cleanly

[@michaelmayhem350]

Hydrogen will never work because there's not a green way to get it.

[@iseolake]

I live in Japan and have just purchased my second hydrogen fuel cell to heat hot water and generate some of the electricity for my home. The fuel cell is the Enefarm from Tokyo Gas. As the company name suggests, the primary fuel is natural gas that is reformed in the Enefarm to created hydrogen. It’s far from a really green solution, but the system efficiency is significantly better than a traditional gas boiler, when you consider the electric power offset. Right now the system is filling its tank with hot water as it knows that bath time is coming in a couple of hours. At the same time it’s generating 550 - 600 watts that is taking care of all of my current electricity needs. A big breakthrough is great, but let’s take small steps in energy savings and efficiency that use current technology.

[@maxzmillion1979]

@@iseolake I love reading this account

[@greendale634]

The production side is eventually solvable. An entire video should be done on hydrogen storage, because it interacts with everything. IMHO, this is the real blocker.

[@anestacom]

@@greendale634 you can't win when you're against physics

[@kerriadereth]

The problem is more that it's so small it infiltrates through basically every barrier in gaseous form. For example, steel containers absorb hydrogen and become brittle.

[@georgelionon9050]

Nah, H2 storage is solved. The production side is the issue, the video didn't say how much energy is still net loss on electrolysis (and transformed into heat) the efficiency rating he is giving in the video is bogus and not net total - and how this net efficiency compares to lithium batteries.

[@drunkenhobo8020]

Compressing it isn't much fun either. A lot of energy you never get back.

[@terjeoseberg990]

@@georgelionon9050, Didn’t he say that the efficiency of electrolysis has been increased to 95%?

[@gianluigicassin868]

As a chemist I believe we should keep h2 for the industry, where it’s used as a reactant. The demand there is huge, incredibly huge. Think about steel, pharmaceutical and all chemical processes where a reduction reaction is needed. That would really be a change. Turning h2 back into energy is a big waste imho

[@wobblysauce]

And not good for the general population being so spread out.

[@davefoc]

At least, it seems like what you suggest is low hanging fruit compared to hydrogen powered cars. If a genuine green hydrogen business does develop, it might be reasonable to reconsider hydrogen powered cars, but lets see green hydrogen as a process chemical proven viable first.

[@hugonilsson6067]

I agree the industry would be by far the biggest impact, but why stop there, once the infrastructure and production is getting established there is no reason why it shouldnt be used yo solve other problems

[@Deathbyfartz]

you're forgetting that H2 is essentially a battery, for renewables, if you produce green hydrogen with renewable energy, you'll have a H2 battery that can be converted back into energy for the grid, when those renewables aren't producing.

[@jzimmer11]

H2 for energy storage doesn't make any sense. Through conversion, storage etc you lose 60% of the energy you put in. Green hydrogen for the chemical industry is a must.

[@mateusbmedeiros]

I have to admit I found it a bit ironic that you quoted "I'm not dead" from The Holy Grail to make a point about not counting out hydrogen just yet, but in that scene the old man shouting dies immediately after. 😂

[@timehaley]

He didn't die, he was killed. lol Any similarities? Was Matt giving us a clue?

[@TGC1775]

@@timehaleyhumm 👁️ see

[@Etheoma]

@@timehaley If anything hydrogen is getting WAY over amplified because of the support of the fossil fuel industry, I believe and many experts in the field without their paychecks tried to blowing smoke will tell you hydrogen is kinda BS and even assuming hydrogen created from electrolysis gets unrealistically "cheap" to produce say $3 per KG that's still expensive especially considering that doesn't include the cost to transport it which is much higher than LNG for example and replace / retrofit the equipment, better to just use electricity you were going to use to create the hydrogen to do whatever you were going to do with the hydrogen. And yes that includes batteries because we are getting to the point where you can do 2000 charges at a minimum on a battery (yes we need to get away from lithium and cobalt, but the latter is well on it's way and sodium batteries becoming commercially available) given the number of charges you can do batteries are a better energy storage method for the cost, and that end of life for batteries is the point where they have lost 20% of their capacity there is nothing really stopping you to continue to use them especially in the case of lithium ion phosphate batteries which are more like 5000 cycles to that 80% point. if we use lithium ion phosphate and assuming a $5 per battery and use an average 10Wh battery(that btw is significantly over the production price and is more like what you pay for an individual cell) hydrogen has 33,330Wh per KG assume the best case and say we are using 70% efficient fuel cell and we are saying it's costing us $3, that lithium cell over it's life time (assuming for it's whole lifetime assuming 80% capacity right from the start because it makes the math easier,) can discharge 40,000W for $5 if we get $5 of hydrogen that has 38883Wh in it. And just so you don't go complaining that I am not accounting for the electricity costs of hydrogen, na that cost was not including the production cost for the electricity 38.89kWh costs around $9.52, even assuming your only using energy at non-peak times like it's still going to be around $5 and that's not realistic to only use energy when it close to if not free, because you still have to pay for the plant, maintenance and staffing so only using it for 4 hours out of a day on average is not cost effective and would drive the cost up. even giving hydrogen an unrealistically low production price, not accounting for transportation or storage and on the other side jacking up the price of batteries it can only get close to as cost effective as batteries and batteries are one of the worst energy storage methods for the cost, the reason why we are deploying them now is because they are cheap and fast to deploy and are great for energy regulation on the grid because you can ramp up and down the output on a extremely short time scale which saves you from having to over produce electricity to keep stability and then having to spend money to sink that energy somewhere. in the long run we will need to build more pumped hydro. Build compressed air energy storage, thermal energy storage and Flow batteries, for their different lengths of time they can reasonably store energy. but at least as far as I see it hydrogen ain't one. I am particularly fond of thermal energy storage, not so much for turning it back into electricity, but for district heating and for process heat in industry which is almost a quarter of our energy consumption and heating being another big one. Reason why district heating is because the bigger the thermal battery is over the same time period the slower it will lose it's charge, so putting a thermal battery in your loft to store energy in the summer and use it in the winter, bone head idea, but if your storing all the heat for the homes in a town of 30k people in a single thermal battery, that will last 6 months easy. Reason being is that volume in a container increase at a much higher rate than the surface area increase and you lose heat from the surface area not the volume, so comparing how long it takes a container to get down to ambient between a tank meant to hold heat for 1 home vs 30,000 homes yeh... BIG difference, your talking like maybe 3 days for the home tank to get down to ambient, your probably talking years for a tank that is 30,000 times the size.

[@thekaxmax]

Which is why the cut location.

[@mateusbmedeiros]

@@timehaley I'm pretty sure people die when they are killed.

[@johno3048]

I’m in Australia, lately all I have heard is how large companies are stepping back from their hydrogen plans, origin energy was just the latest. The Australian government has held many press conferences spruiking how green hydrogen is the future only to have most projects scaled back or cancelled altogether. It’s just doesn’t stack up.

[@trojanthedog]

We need a Gigafactory.

[@nzoomed]

Hydrogen is a waste of time, and whats all this talk about drilling for hydrogen deposits all of a sudden? Where does all this Hydrogen magically come from out of the ground?

[@oldmanstumpie1061]

What! The government thinks something is a good idea and commerce doesn't 🤡 Hydrogen may be good for onsite industry genreation and use but it seems most of the other methods may be better.

[@ZurOhki1]

Green hydrogen is very important for decarbonising a lot of industries, like steelmaking. Turning it back into electricity is so horribly inefficient it's probably never going to make sense, even if it's free energy from midday solar.

[@perryallan3524]

Hmmmm. First, there is a fairly large industrial use of H2... which is expanding. So a number of large companies are very interested in expanding H2 production - totally outside of "green energy" application. Currently most of the H2 is made from natural gas... which is not green. An electrolizer with a 95% efficiency rate would be more efficient that the process used to make H2 from natural gas. So I see real potential. 2nd: Making H2 by splitting water has a series of technical challenges. It's natural to cut back R&D when you run into issue that don't have obvious solutions. The biggest issue after the low efficency of previous generation electrolizers is that making H2 from water needs a lot more clean water than what is electrolized. A vague memory says they need 10 times the clean water as what is converted to H2. If you look at where in the world you would find such a supply of fresh water... you quickly run into problems and realize that a lot of the world is not a suitable place to electrolize water at anything but a trival So, yes; now that its more difficult than imagined, and you realize that it would be impractical to use the local water resources in this way. So you cut back.

[@OpticalMan]

It's not the production or storage of hydrogen that is the biggest problem although these are significant, it is the distribution of hydrogen that will limit it's use. You can't put it in our existing gas pipes because they are plastic and more than 10% hydrogen leads to the plastic being attacked and becoming brittle. To distribute it via pipes we would need to build an all metal network with very expensive metal valves and even then because Hydrogen is such a small molecule these lose a significant amount of gas. Such a network would be extremely expensive to build particularly when compared to costs of distributing energy in the form of electricity. If you try to distribute it on a tanker lorry then to carry any significant amount of the stuff it needs to be highly pressurized and that means it has to be stored in very heavy tanks. The result is that a 40 ton tanker lorry can only carry 600kg of hydrogen which has an equivalent energy storage that is just 16% of a petrol tanker lorry. If the tanker lorry is itself powered by the hydrogen it is carrying, on any long journey when it reaches its destination there will be almost no hydrogen left in its tanks. If you try to liquify hydrogen this takes the equivalent of 30% of the energy stored in the hydrogen and transporting cryogenic liquids is very expensive making this also economically unviable. As a result the only solution is to make it close to where it is used which might be OK at an airport, however it doesn't work for cars. To make green hydrogen you are going to need a lot of electricity and if you have to put in special high current electric supplies to your local hydrogen filling station then you would be better off put a rapid electric charging station there, because it is a lot simpler, reliable and efficient to charge a vehicles battery than to build and run a unit that creates hydrogen from water by electrolysis.

[@chrism.1131]

Turquoise hydrogen looks promising, direct conversion of natural gas into hydrogen + solid carbon. No CO2.

[@colingenge9999]

@@chrism.1131 wouldn’t pulling the oxygen away from the carbon in the carbon dioxide use more energy than you get out of the hydrogen?

[@GroovyVideo2]

Big oil

[@jonb5493]

@@colingenge9999 No, you're pulling 4 Hs away from their C in CH4. Yes, you must spend energy to break those 4 C-H bonds. So you put energy in - as mostly electricity - into severing the CH4 into C and 4x Hs - and that energy was mostly stored in a "Battery of Hs" - except you lost part of your energy, tough luck. The result is viable, but you need super-cheap CH4, which seems to be no problem, seeing how often it is illegally flared. And of course, you don't get to break the laws of thermodynamics or create a perpetual-motion machine.

[@colingenge9999]

@@jonb5493 I was responding to @chrism above with his comment on turquoise hydrogen where they convert natural gas into hydrogen plus solid carbon. I assumed that the carbon dioxide had its oxygen removed to form what he said was “solid carbon“. My question was about pulling the carbon off that carbon dioxide but now that I look at his comment more closely he may be talking about pulling the hydrogen off the methane and somehow causing all the carbon atoms to form what he refers to as “solid carbon”. I’ve never heard of this process before. Overall most degree that however we get hydrogen it will be more expensive than taking a different route which could be using methane as the fuel in the case of hydroforming methane or using electricity directly instead of the intermediate stage of hydrogen.

[@andrewc662]

Not holding my breath. These companies are always going to make it sound like they are close to a breakthrough to get more funding.

[@finddeniro]

Public Broadcasting System..show NOVA.. 1974...metal Hydrite.. Ah..50 years..

[@Nemoticon]

That's because the masses want everything NOW and if the companies don't say the technology is just around the corner, funding just gets cut.

[@Paul-yh8km]

The problem with hydrogen isn't the efficiency of a single point in the hydrogen network/system, it's the accumulative losses that add up from the start to the vehicle wheels or burner in the home heating system. The 95% electrolyser efficiency is one point and the losses are carried through to the end use along with all the other losses, one of them you mentioned and that is the compressor losses to compress the gas for storage.

[@reyjur1493]

Isn’t it also correct with conventional fuel? The only main difference is that we need to pack renewable or nuclear energy ourselves in the fuel instead of relying on geologically processed ancient germs or ferns

[@B0obJunior]

That's why hydrogen is best used in industrial application where it is produced and used at the same place. Hydrogen is a feedstock for thousands of chemical process. One of them is amonia for fertilizers, very important if we want to get out of methane.

[@Paul-yh8km]

@@B0obJunior Even industrial use is looking increasingly dubious. Two projects are already building low temperature electrolysis DRI plants working at temperatures as low as 60 Deg C.

[@Paul-yh8km]

@@reyjur1493 Conventional fuels and hydrogen are low efficiency energy systems. A lot of fossil fuel energy is wasted during processing and final use, in fact the majority is wasted. With hydrogen it's the issue of the losses feeding back to a need for more generation capacity compared to pure electric technology. No matter what generation source is used, we need to build it up quickly and that is best done by minimising the target generation capacity. If you need more for hydrogen that costs more and it takes longer to build it up.

[@B0obJunior]

@@Paul-yh8km But they use hydrogen there, it's in the name electrolysis.

[@timmmurray8110]

Hydrogen seems to be struggling with the same issues it did 20 years ago. End-to-end efficiency is poor, and storage is difficult. There are advancements, sure, but not the way solar/wind/batteries have. We're already past the point where we'll see hydrogen in cars. Batteries have won that. Will we see it in larger applications where batteries aren't good enough, like large trucks or construction equipment? The trouble is that batteries keep getting better, too. Take the 5-8%/year improvement we've been seeing in battery tech and run it forward another 10-15 years, and you have something good enough to cover most of the uses above. Will hydrogen be able to solve its problems and become established in those niches before then? Maybe, but given that it's still struggling with problems we've known about for a while, I have my doubts.

[@JSM-bb80u]

For example CATL the biggest battery manufacturer has launched 500 Wh/kg condensed battery. Aluminum ion batteries are developing in a fast pace too. Which has a theoretical energy density of 900 Wh/kg. And already showed 370 Wh/kg. So I don't think on shore freight transportation would ever need hydrogen.We can use electric freight trains for long transportation and electric trucks for the last mile delivery. Even if we use hydrogen for shipping it's better to use it in the form of liquid ammonia.

[@KidHorn7001]

I agree. The only hope hydrogen has is if someone invents a way for it to be used in a loop over and over. Like how animals convert carbon and oxygen into CO2 and then plants basically undo the process via photosynthesis. It would have to be self sustaining.

[@GruffSillyGoat]

​@@JSM-bb80u- Indeed, Metal-Air batteries have even higher maximum energy density with Lithium-Air near that of petroleum at 11 kWh/kg.

[@jamesbizs]

Unless we come up with some new miraculous ground breaking battery improvement, you can’t just claim that we will see a steady yearly improvement for the next 10-15 years…. That’s not this works. Thats not how any of this works. There’s only so much you can do to a battery.

[@dianapennepacker6854]

Yeah hydrogens ship has sailed. Batteries for EVs are good enough with adjustment for most drivers since most don't drive more than 40 miles. Charging stations is a problem. With electricity. Which is already there. Hydrogens infrastructure is null. To me hydrogen sucks simply due to volumetric density. It is crap. It is dangerous to store. It likes to corrode and leak. It needs less in the air to blow up too I recently learned while learning about rockets lol. (Unless I am wrong on that part. Something about air fuel ratio). It is expensive. Hydrogen is great for space. Under water submarines. An option for industries or niche uses. I heard fossil fuel companies are funding the reseach for hydrogen, and trying to extend the need for them by switching everyone to hydrogen.

[@KevinLyda]

Green hydrogen will be great for certain chemical processes. Not for energy storage.

[@dh510]

Awesome timing. In Europe, most plans to make and distribute hydrogen as a fuel source have been completely scrapped just now, because it simply wouldn't work.

[@Fira_435]

I hope that Powerpaste hydrogen storage will somehow make it.

[@robina.jensen6114]

Not in Denmark. There are big plans to develop Power-to-X. Even build a pipeline to Germany. H2 is a main stone in EU's energy plan for the future. Denmark already has the first PtX plant that will make green metanol for container ships.

[@ghoulbuster1]

Who cares what europe does? It's a muslim continent anyways.

[@searchingfortruth619]

@@dh510 in England they are redoing a whole bunch of piping, and in the new ones they are including an extra pipe for hydrogen. A huge upfront cost for very theoretical usage. Just plain stupid and wasteful.

[@drfisheye]

Germany just announced investing 19 billion euro's into a hydrogen network. Supposedly for steel production, even though the steel manufacturer seems to be backing out of hydrogen. Crazy.

[@hobblyjig]

I don’t know what it is about this channel, but I feel like the comment section here attacks the creator more than most other channels I watch. I just wanna say I appreciate your content Matt. I wouldn’t hear about most of this stuff if it wasn’t for you.

[@id1568]

and I can't listen to this anymore, a promise here, a promise there within reach, 105% efficiency will be ok too, fusion power tomorrow!

[@hobblyjig]

@@id1568 lol you talk about Matt like he’s making this stuff. He reports what he finds.

[@lagrangewei]

it far more difficult to talk about a technical subject vs opinion about what colour the dress is... =]

[@MayankJairaj]

It's usually on the hydrogen videos. I don't comment on Matt but I really feel bad about the millions my country, India, invests in hydrogen research and ships money to japan when countries like ours should focus on tried and tested stuff like solar/nuclear etc It has become the most populous country in the world so energy demands would be up as well

[@Gamepiececommander]

Agree with the comment. Reason is likely bots for anti green activities and people who literally don’t believe in hydrogen and spending time watching the video and spending time to post. I hate frogs and don’t understand them so imma gonna go watch a frog video and complain to the creator for their false hope frog videos 😅

[@handsofdoubt31]

It's pretty widely accepted now that hydrogen use cases will be pretty much limited to industrial process where we need the gas. Making ammonia for example. Pretty much all other use cases have already been ruled out. There could be some usage in storage....but even there it's likely to fall by the way side compared to other options. It's good to explore cleaner ways to generate hydrogen.....but it does "fuel" those who still believe or have a vested interest in hydrogen for transportation.

[@ryanjohnson4565]

Have you heard of Nikola? Doing some crazy hydrogen transportation stuff

[@handsofdoubt31]

@@ryanjohnson4565 Yes I am and they are thoroughly flogging that dead horse. They are making some sales due to misinformation and careful sales pitches to those who are still behind the curve with BEV. As with everyone else, once the operator realises the horrific fuel costs and ongoing maintenance issues and costs they back out. Hydrogen very clearly does not work at the fleet level where cost is king.

[@paperburn]

Having worked with Hydrogen gas; material science are not up to snuff and people are generally not safe enough to be around the gas. IMHO

[@philippe94416]

People think it is just like methane or propane, both are being used in cars. When you speak of hydrogen enbrittlement, that is is with helium very prone to leaks, and has a very large band of explosive concentration, people are surprised. Some don't believe it at first.

[@StephenPrice-ze8xh]

Compression for pipeline transport of H2 is also very challenging. For thermodynamic reasons (among others) it's not possible to simply re-purpose the technology used today for hydrocarbons, CO2, and industrial gasses. Lots of research is ongoing to find the optimal machinery types and configurations. Integrally geared compressors are a good candidate because of the ability to intercool each stage of compression, but these are highly complex with efficiency issues. Very large reciprocating compressors are another option because of their efficiency and the intercooling issue. Seals are very problematic. the list goes on. To your other point, I once worked around a large recip (60" stage 1 cylinder, 10 stages in all). When a leak developed (when, not if), the H2 would immediately combust with an invisible flame except in the darkest night where it was very pale blue. One could easily walk by an invisible leak and get severely burned. Tricky stuff.

[@mm-qd1ho]

I think a lot of fossil fuel companies are using hydrogen to preserve their infrastructure and remain in business. In other words, they are pursuing it to try to remain profitable, not because it is a good solution.

[@MultidimensionalSentinel]

This so much, the nuclear fission industry is doing the same, even though it will never be economically viable, or responsible, to produce hydrogen using nuclear fission.

[@Joegreen-r1i]

You cannot preserve infrastructure with hydrogen. Hydrogen makes steel brittle.

[@Enonymouse_]

Of course they are, they have a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders to invest in whatever generates profit.

[@Ony3Felonies]

Seems to me fossil fuel companies retrofitting infrastructure to adapt to hydrogen is cheaper than an entirely new infrastructure being built. Natural gas lines can be modified to carry hydrogen LNG mixes that can later be separated downstream.

[@MultidimensionalSentinel]

@@Ony3Felonies I think it's more like they are going to try to pretend to do that as they steal as much subsidies as they can, in attempt to delay the hydrogen infrastructure from getting built, for as long as possible, so they can continue to profit off of ruining the planet.

[@henrikstenlund5385]

I recall designing a Hydrogen generator for a company I worked for in 1974. It was based on a windmill+generator+elecrolysis sending out Oxygen and Hydrogen. It never became a product. That was the oil crisis time.

[@finddeniro]

Thanks...availability ?

[@henrikstenlund5385]

@@finddeniro It was never finished as a product for marketing and series production. Modern solutions must be much better since technology has evolved a lot.

[@philippe94416]

Already tried in 1892, soon after producing electricity with wind. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poul_la_Cour Abandoned soon after.

[@henrikstenlund5385]

@@philippe94416 This technology is now in use

[@moletrap2640]

In the last 30 days there have been multiple major green hydrogen products canceled (Repsol, Hy Stor Energy, Energint, Nel, etc.) and multiple new studies indicating green hydrogen is a pipe dream (Harvard, Joule, etc.). I usually count on you for a more balanced report. Why did you not include that in your update?

[@1ycan-eu9ji]

Whenever people push Hydrogen I have to think they are being paid/have ulterior motives, same reason why Toyota (deals with gulf countries) pushes so much for "hydrogen" they know it delays adoption of EVs

[@trident1409]

because he's mfr and maniac

[@schsch2390]

The basic problem with electrolytic H2 is the unbreakable 50 kw/hrs of electricity needed per kg of H2 output from the electrolyzer. So the cost of H2 is based on the kw-hr cost which at the low end these days would be $0.02-0.04/ kw-hr. Some producers rely on the fact that at certain times PV or wind is so productive that the farms have to be curtailed, or shut down and essentially in these instances the power is 'free' (not really, but sort of). The unrecognized part of this is you have to massively overbuild PV/wind capacity to meet the demand, so the curtailment episodes of low cost energy would be more common, OTOH the opposite scenario when the sun don't shine and the wind don't blow you end up with the Cuban scenario. Also the water needed to feed the electrolyzers must be run through the equivalent of a desalination plant first, a not inexpensive pretreatment. Electrolyzing sea water is a good way to get chlorine or HCl.

[@SmilingNinja]

Yes, and a kg of hydrogen fuel only has about 40 kWh of equivalent electrical energy. Economically, it's pretty dumb to spend 50 kWh on something that will only give you 40 kWh. It makes much more sense to use the 50 kWh to charge a battery instead.

[@brushlessmotoring]

@@SmilingNinja it's much worse than that, it's 33 kWh of chemical energy, per kg but after a fuel cell you get maybe 16 kWh of work energy out that you might drive the wheels of car with, so 50+kWh in, 16kWh out, after a bunch of expensive processes handling the stuff. Hydrogen combustion is even worse, with maybe 8kWh out (JCB's Boris funded boondoggle) plus NOx.

[@GeneBrown-c9q]

So what's wrong with building renewable "overcapacity" compared with the alternatives? Its not like the ensuing global warming catastrophe isn't ultra expensive and possibly terminal, not to mention the environmental and political/military costs of mining and protecting fossil and nuclear fuel resources and wastes. The overwhelming resistance toward hydrogen appears to be fossil industry hegemony. Of course it would take large scale commitment and some restructuring to create a hydrogen economy--that has been true of any previous economy. Barring the possibility of a nuclear fusion economy, a hydrogen economy may be the answer. By the way, cars are stupid (especially heavy battery models) vs mass transit solutions, and they are an incredible waste of energy and resources to manufacture and dispose of en masse. Also, they are increasingly irrelevant for many occupations. The scope of thinking about these issues needs to expand to the earth and our generational futures. Let's get out of the trees.

[@petewright4640]

Another really interesting Australian company is Hazer Group. They have a method for splitting methane, either fossil or from biogenic sources, into solid carbon and H2. It's energy efficient and uses iron ore as a catalyst which is cheap. What's more the carbon is in the form of Graphite - a critical material that currently is in short supply and has a large carbon footprint to produce. It's definitely a disruptor technology.

[@HammerOn-bu7gx]

Hydrogen embrittlement! Hydrogen embrittlement! Hydrogen embrittlement! Hydrogen embrittlement! Hydrogen embrittlement! Until you and all other KZbinrs, and industry, address this critical SAFETY issue, you are are blowing smoke.

[@tristanjones7735]

Yeup. We can sort of solve it now, but god damn is it expensive.

[@plvsovltre]

No. Logistically nightmare. And thank you for your work. I watch every single episode.

[@hardyvonwinterstein5445]

It might work. But is it cost effective against free sun, cheap panels and batteries?

[@GruffSillyGoat]

One way to consider hydrogen is at every stage it requires energy to be spent, whether in generating, storing, processing, handling and transporting. This energy spend is always higher than that of using electrons more directly, such as in battery storage systems. Even with the innovations mentioned in the video, such as the hysata electrolyser, there are additional system costs for filtering/purifying water and storing the hydrogen. Investment companies have to consider maturity curves of a technology, which is why battery storage attracts more investment than hydrogen currently. Even in areas where hydrogen should have an advantage there are competing technologies that have a lead on it. Such as witth hybrid-flow batteries, such as StorTera's SLIQ battery, that offer similar site expandability and long term storage to hydrogen but are already deployed in multiple real-world assessment sites. Hydrogen is simply a challanging technology that faces multiple challanges to address in parallel, whilst facing the challangers in faster maturing battery technologies of all forms.

[@PaulG.x]

Of course , oil doesn't. The drilling , pumping , refining , storing , transporting etc all happen because of magical unicorn farts

[@GruffSillyGoat]

Have you replied to the correct post. I'm highlighting the challanges hydrogen faces. Contrasting it battery storage, including similar long duration battery systems such as flow batteries; since this is the use case mentioned in the video. Where did I mention oil or indeed any fossil-fuel as an alternative?

[@dh510]

@@PaulG.x 1. Oil doesn't need to be created, it already exists in its energy dense form. 2. Pumping the oil is already pretty energy efficient, some oil springs are/were so readily available, the oil just comes/came spurting out. 3. Refining the oil takes some energy, but all the products resulting from that process have a use, be it heavy oil, diesel, gasoline, light petroleum etc. 4. Oil products are easy to store and transport, just put them in a reasonably leak proof container and be done with it, no supercooling, no pressurization, no liquification, no losses due to it just evaporating through the material.

[@chrisheath2637]

@@dh510 It just endlessly pollutes - end of story...

[@GruffSillyGoat]

@@dh510 - oil was created and sequested over millions of years. We're just extracting and releasing the captured energy, with accompanying emissions, over a significantly shorter time period. Putting energy back into the planets systems that it had burried ages ago - the planet doesn't really care but many forms life including our own should.

[@apostolakisl]

To say that H2 has 8mj/liter of energy density in the same sentence as gasoline 32 MJ/l is very misleading. That 8mj is for liquid H2. Compare them at room temp/1 atm and the 4x difference will become something like 4 order of magnitude difference. And that 8mj/l for the liquid doesn't also account for the volume of the container, which consumes far more volume than a simple polyethylene plastic jug you store gas in.

[@goingoutotheparty1]

Electrons Rock ⚡

[@ghoulbuster1]

Man I love crude oil.

[@guidojones6107]

Yup, complete BS. Hydrogen cars, etc. use _compressed_ hydrogen, *never* liquid. This guy is a clown who really doesn't understand what he's pitching most of the time...

[@sammy5576]

Obviously everyone knows he's talking about liquid hydration, from 32 to 8 is a factor of four, per litre petrol has 4x the energy density but petrol engines are only about 30% efficient where as hydrogen can be 50-60% I'm by no means advocating for hydrogen as a fuel for cars. I think plug in hybrid is the way to go

[@marchuvfulz]

When it comes to fossil fuel alternatives, I'm a "anything that works" guy. But it looks to me like hydrogen is one of the least promising energy sources, especially when you compare the progress described here with what's going on with wind, solar, geothermal, batteries.... Hydrogen looks like a lagging technology, expensive, complex, hard to commercialize, and being overtaken by other technologies already being deployed at scale.

[@Psrj-ad]

95% efficiency for water-electrolysis is a VERY big claim. almost, too good to be true. Id like to see an actual breakdown of their methods to achieve that result.

[@mb-3faze]

Efficiency of what? The input is electricity but what's the output? Are they assuming that anything that is NOT heat is on the plus side of the efficiency equation? If so, this is entirely bogus.

[@danilooliveira6580]

​@@mb-3faze I assume it is based on the energy to break water molecules, it's what makes sense. so if it takes a bit more than 200KJ to break one mole of water, 95% efficiency would means they spend 210KJ instead.

[@john_in_phoenix]

I thought the same thing when I read that LFP batteries are 98% efficient. So I bought some and tested them myself. Imagine my surprise when I was able to get closer to 99% efficient with calibrated test equipment.

[@paulcantrell01451]

Trouble is, what good are little bubbles of hydrogen? The next step is to compress the gas and that alone is very energy intensive. If you have to then liquefy it to cryogenic hydrogen, well, even worse. I'm not saying the 95% isn't impressive and useful if it can be achieved... I'm just saying for that hydrogen to be useful you still have to expend a bunch more energy before you have anything useful.

[@leroyessel2010]

Self sustaining by @ EirexTech in Canada.

[@saurabhrao1981]

The density of diesel is 875g/L, and that of H2 at 1atm is 0.08g/L, i.e. a ratio of over 1000. Yet, your numbers on gravimetric energy density vs. volumetric energy density suggest a ratio of ca. 12. Perhaps you were talking about liquid H2?

[@hmbro3236]

Yeah no. The only future I see for green hydrogen is to replace what hydrogen is already being used for. So essentially just chemical production. It will be needed for ammonia and fertilizer production and a few other things but that's it. Pure hydrogen as a fuel source or to store energy is stupid. It would be better to store it in something like ammonia and then use an ammonia fuel cell to produce electricity or power very heavy vehicles like cargo ships, planes, and ultralarge pieces if mining and construction equipment.

[@FostersLagerMorphs]

Hey Matt, what would be the end-to-end efficiency and economic viability of using the glut of electricity that comes from solar panels in the middle of the day to generate hydrogen as an energy storage medium that is then reacted on-site to feed that energy back into the grid overnight?

[@emorphous2]

"Always on the horizon, never quite taking off." That covers every topic on this channel. I'm way past caring about vaporware in this market. Talking about it is not much better.

[@davidmccarthy6061]

So? Most ideas never leave the lab for one reason or another, but without constantly reaching for new things we would still be nomads on the plains banging rocks together to make fire.

[@TerryHickey-xt4mf]

All I can say is hydrogen has always been a pipe dream, and you know what that pipe had in it - man! Battery tech is improving so fast and in so many ways, I have trouble keeping up with it all, and it is pretty obvious that this tech will provide everything we need in the near future to balance the grid etc.. Even solar panels are as cheap as chips nowadays, actually cheaper, as spuds are quite expensive at the moment. One thing not talked about is tidal generation, north Australia and other countries like Scotland has heaps of massive tidal flows, regular as clockwork, this could give us the base load we need ( if required ) .

[@emceh]

Hydrogen is 10 years away since 70's - looks like nothing has changed - I've seen so many promising projects but none came to commercial scale production. We need 95%+ electrolysers and 95%+ storage for hydrogen to compete will year over year better, safer and more dense chemical batteries.

[@lino222]

What you point at it's production, with fossil fuel ( it has nothing to do with fossils! ) applies to the electric cars as well...and "everybody" with an E.V. is running around saying how "green" they travel, not to mention the pollution caused in it's construction, involving some of the worst mining methods ..i keep hearing about new revolutionary batteries that never come to fruition, maybe someone gets a breakthrough in the near future. To think that Nikola Tesla might have solved our energy problem a century ago and greed made it go away.

[@Sellyei]

Although getting the productions efficiency high is good news......I think the biggest hurdle for Hydrogen is transporting, and the biggest problem, is on site (fueling stations) storage, as it still needs to be kept cool and you need a lot of technology around it to store it properly.

[@troelsgudiksen9900]

For back-up Power in grid connected sites - then 300 bar cylinders 50 liter each holds 16,8kWh electricity delivered. Meaning 50 cylinders (4 pcs 12 cyl. bundles - that takes up 4m2 footprint… ..can be bought for approx €200-€250 per cylinder, and then you can refill during and after an outage. Engineers tend to overcomplicate things. Simple is good in telco - Italy properly have 19.999 other cell towers to maintain as well! Thank for super content!

[@DKofDAH]

Hydrogen has a bright future. Just not as energy storage, propellant or similar. It’s needed in so many industries like steel production, to get them CO2 neutral. Having an effective way to get it by hydrolysis is awesome, to get away from fossil fuels for hydrogen production

[@msvaughan]

My concern about hydro apart from trying to store the stuff is if you have an independent wind turbine producing hydrogen, will the energy produced from the hydrogen more than the turbine produces? If not then its not a viable enough technology. Also, if we get hydrogen from water, eventually we would run out of water! I think its better to get our energy from the sun and wind, with SMR's to fill in the shortfall.

[@flemlion13]

Hydrogen isn't dead, it's just an unproven technology like fusion. Certain applications are dead though, for example the use for private transportation is dead. There are more closed hydrogen stations than open ones it seems. Recently saw a closed one in Norway with what looked like a stranded Mirai next to it.

[@Milosz_Ostrow]

What you're describing isn't unique to hydrogen. Some years ago Honda started limited production of a compressed natural gas (CNG) Civic sedan that could be refueled at home overnight with a compressor made by a Canadian company. Honda bought that company and liquidated it, leaving owners of their CNG cars stranded with no way of getting parts and service for their gas compressors. When I learned of that I decided I would never own a Honda vehicle, regardless of its power source.

[@RyanStaniforth-vx8wh]

I have read about a company in the uk called powerhouse energy. They want to produce hydrogen from unrecyclable plastics and other things. It would be interesting to see if that is actually a good alternative as the uk has started to increase burn the amount of waste it burns recently

[@EyeZaque-w9j]

Two words: Hydrogen embrittlement.

[@brandonboulton2776]

Only welders and material scientists understand this. And you are right. We should be focused on N-Butanol.

[@mikespangler98]

More words, still a problem, High temperature hydrogen attack (HTHA), also called hot hydrogen attack or methane reaction, is a problem which concerns steels operating at elevated temperatures (typically above 400 °C (752 °F)) in hydrogen-rich atmospheres, such as refineries, petrochemical and other chemical facilities and, possibly, high pressure steam boilers. It is not to be confused with hydrogen embrittlement.[1] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_temperature_hydrogen_attack Also, "The minimum ignition energy (MIE) of a hydrogen-air mixture is only 0.019 mJ, whereas that of other flammable gases such as methane, ethane, propane, butane, and benzene is usually on the order of 0.1 mJ according to Lewis and von Elbe"

[@dylanjayatilaka8533]

@@EyeZaque-w9j Good point.

[@leroyessel2010]

Problems solved for hydrogen storage and production by Ayrton Energy & Eirex Technology in Canada.

[@EyeZaque-w9j]

@@leroyessel2010 Granted I'm no organic chemist however what scant information is available on Ayrton's website, it looks like they are playing with Benzene as the chemical they intend to turn into cyclohexane (which is an oil). However both chemicals are not something I'd like driving down the highway to refill my local gas station. If they have found something else, something that isn't toxic and known to be a carcinogen, my hats off to them. Otherwise, I'd take good old gasoline driving next to me on the highway vs a tank of benzene or cyclohexane.

[@aussieideasman8498]

I live in Aus and didn't know most of what you reported. You do a great job.

[@aussieideasman8498]

@@UndecidedMF16 I'm just a novice Aptera troll and you are way above my league. Not sure what you mean by WA (it's Western Australia to me). I have no secrets so if it's not confidential you can discuss here. If you want less (way less) to see it I have some old videos with well under 50 views and getting no more. Happy to help you, if I can.

[@Vyrlokar]

I feel Hydrogen might end up in aviation, where batteries are simply not an option.

[@pauljcampbell2997]

Finally a sponsor! All good mate. Really enjoy your content. Thanks very much!

[@Joes_Morgue]

It takes a lot of energy to compress the fuel. Unless they can figure out how to use the energy without compressing it, it will never be as efficient as simply putting the electricity into a battery, at a very minor loss, then taking that battery power and putting it to a motor, thus to the tires. There's also the problem of making the fuel! Everyone's focus on making the fuel, but the simple act of storing it in a distributable way makes it terrible! There's also the problem with the connector occasionally freezing to the vehicle! Now you have to wait for it to thaw, which could take close to a half hour, on top of the wonderful 5-minute filling process. The best part is, if you're a little bit short on electricity to drive an EV, you can easily stop and add enough energy to get to your destination, but since you don't know if the connector will freeze to the car, you can't quickly stop for fuel in the middle of an important run. Oh, I tried to overlook the fact that you're putting a bomb in your car! If you get an accident where you ignite that hydrogen, there is a crater where you used to be, plus the other car, plus the people that used to be inside that vehicle The cars have been converted into mobile bombs! So the first time you get somebody cutting you off in a hydrogen vehicle, you can turn around and accuse them for attempted murder, and have enough evidence behind you to convict them! If they cut you off, in a near miss scenario, you can easily claim that they try to cause an explosion which would kill you! Intended or unintended, it would still be attempted murder!

[@tomkelly8827]

Check out the ohio state University's Green box program. They make hydrogen from sewage. It cleans the water more cheaply than we do conventionally and also produces hydrogen with very minimal electricity input. I love the idea of hydrogen for seasonal storage and her presentation was the most practical and inspiring that I have ever seen on the H2 subect. It is electrolysis from sewadge rather than water. Far more energy is produced from this process than is consumed from the grid. Not perpetual motion just a better use of all that poop and pee energy we are flushing into our waterways

[@DoctorX17]

Hydrogen is definitely in the “always “right around the corner”” club… we’ll see what happens eventually but I’m not holding my breath

[@LawrenceCarroll1234]

Just a few days ago I watched a video from another good channel, "Just Have a Think" about hydrogen. In the comments I asked if any progress had ever been made regarding metal hydrides as a feasible storage for hydrogen since Billing Energy in Utah had proposed just such a method in the late nineteen seventies. Anyway, I haven't received any answers there, but I was glad to see an answer in this video! 🙂 In regard to whether hydrogen will ever be a major player in the green energy world, I have no idea. There are obviously a lot of hurdles it still must surmount -- but this video certainly shows that indeed, it isn't dead yet! (Great reference to Monty Python from perhaps their greatest classic comedy(??). 😆

[@ncdave4life]

1:06 _"because hydrogen is a lightweight gas, its volumetric energy density is low at 8 MJ/liter, compared to gasoline’s 32 MJ/liter."_ That's wrong. That's the volumetric energy density of *_liquid_* hydrogen. Gaseous hydrogen's volumetric energy density is much, much lower, and it varies with pressure.

[@ncdave4life]

Matt @UndecidedMF, I assume that @UndecidedMF08 is a scammer / spammer / fake account, right? I didn't get a reply the first time I asked that question, so I assume you didn't see that comment. So I went ahead and reported @UndecidedMF08 for impersonation, with the note, "Bot auto-replying to comments, with an obfuscated phone number." Unfortunately, this is just one of the problems with the comments on your videos. YT's cnsrshp of comments has gotten absolutely ridiculous, making it nearly impossible to have meaningful discussions. Is there any way that you can dial back YT's comment filtering?

[@ncdave4life]

I found and reported two more fake Matt Ferrell accounts: @UndecidedMF07 and @UndecidedMF09. (There are probably others, too, which I didn't find.)

[@Froggability]

So it's quarter the energy even both as liquid?

[@bachinblack174]

It's funny, I recently looked up a lot of stuff regarding hydrogen and discovered that while the gravimetric energy density of hydrogen is very high, current storage tanks need to be very strong and are usually 20-30 times HEAVIER than the hydrogen they contain (compared to 95-98% LIGHTER for gasoline). It's one of several big challenges still preventing hydrogen from being widely used in vehicles. Other challenges are storage temperature (not all hydrogen is stored at very low temp), conversion efficiency (for storage AND usage) and good ol' price. I guess the tech from this video could help but I'm always pretty skeptic about new stuff that never reaches production :( Also, I believe (kindly correct me if I'm wrong) the 8Mj/L given for volumetric energy density is for liquid hydrogen, not gaseous. Storing more of it in the same volume is probably not easy.

[@Scottagram]

Australian mining companies do some truly heinous stuff to the traditional inhabitants of our country. Rio Tinto blowing up a 46000 year old archaeological cave system was absolutely reprehensible.

[@michaguy]

Fortesque Metals is a large exporter of iron ore from Australia. Its founder Andrew Forrest has committed to making it real zero by the end of the decade. This week they signed a contract to replace 800 diesel generators with their own renewables' powered micro grid. There's some ideas about making green steel rather than just selling the ore. He's been very critical of climate denier politicians and policies that do not rapidly transform the economy away from fossil fuels. Fortesque Future Industries is very hydrogen focused. Forrest was one of the supporters of the massive solar farm planning to export electricity to Singapore. I understand, Fortesque left that project because he didn't like the risk of a long undersea cable and thought making and exporting hydrogen made more sense.

[@rhinothumping]

Storing hydrogen is like storing electricity. We can do it, but the true step forward is in efficient high density storage. Until then, we keep hoping for breakthroughs.

[@markwilliamson9199]

In 1977 I was doing a computer science degree, but also did a general studies elective called "Future Studies". I wrote an essay on the future Hydrogen economy. There were books in the library on this topic from the 1950's!!!! Still waiting, but I am still optimistic

[@djmccullers]

".... spark a hydrogen boom?".... Loved it!

[@GLJosh]

If he could find a way to harness the power of puns, Matt could easily power his house.

[@carholic-sz3qv]

and the battery boom too right! lol...

[@jimmckinley8110]

Hydrogen has long been a red herring used by Big Oil. It seems we should use the KISS principle. Electric motors are simple. Batteries are simple and getting so much cheaper and with higher density . Let's not get distracted.

[@beyondfossil]

Hydrogen is a non-starter for personal vehicles. But I think hydrogen has big potential for very long-term seasonal grid-scale energy storage. I'm talking storing energy from the spring/summer when solar output is huge for use in the fall/winter when solar output is low. This would of course help solve the renewables intermittency in the annual (seasonal) time frames. Hydrogen storage is a problem. But with just a few very large-scale concentrated hydrogen depots for energy output, the project could be financially feasible. I'm talking hydrogen power plants the size of a large nuclear power plant with several farm sized silos of stored hydrogen in some kind of advanced storage medium or just brute force pressure. Once practical seasonal energy storge is available, there becomes _zero excuses_ for fossil fuels or nuclear energy as we've reached "firm renewables" territory. With firm renewables, we're basically "mining" the sky for clean energy instead of the ground for dirty fossil fuel energy. The sky and wind have about a million times more energy than ever in the ground and will last for a billion years too.

[@dennislaur2515]

Back in January, CBC Radio's program Quirks and Quarks, had a segment about the natural deposits of hydrogen gas that had been found in Canada 100 years ago while exploring for oil and gas. The hydrogen is naturally produced, so it's a renewable energy source .

[@MrNickp2300]

Creating giant windmill farms that can gather sea water, filter it, and convert it into solid hydrogen would be amazing. It would basically require an engineer who would live onsite like an old timey lighthouse attendant

[@bossandy88]

I work at a public transit agency that is considering hydrogen as fuel due to the limited range of current battery electric bus technology, but I have major concerns about that idea because the lack of zero emissions hydrogen. I think it would be really interesting to locate an electrolysis facility directly at or next to a transit agency's bus garage so the fuel could be produced and stored on site.

[@ClayBellBrews]

All you need to know about the possibility of hydrogen fuel being practical or efficient is to look at the mole weight on the periodic table. then look at the mole weight of the materials needed to store it. The physics say… hydrogen promoters are con artists.

[@AaronHighlands-uv4hp]

Another great Australian green hydrogen company you should check out is Hazer! They do it in a slightly different way but imo a bit more commercially viable.

[@boyerworks]

"Spark a hydrogen boom" Phrasing! :)

[@gregraburn51]

awesome as always thank you

[@SinisterMD]

Toyota has joined up with Kenworth to make the T680 hydrogen fuel cell electric truck. So far the drivers have really liked it as it's comfortable and quiet.

[@very_tall_dude]

This is hydrogen’s future for transportation

[@paulcantrell01451]

Keep in mind that a fuel cell truck is still an electric truck meaning yeah, the torque available from electric motors, the wide rpm range, etc., all make for a much improved driving experience. But that's comparing electric trucks to diesel trucks. The interesting competition on the horizon is electric+hydrogen vs electric+battery... I know which one I'm rooting for, but I think honestly we don't know which one will prevail. ( Or whether it will be a combination of both ).

[@GruffSillyGoat]

@@paulcantrell01451 - fuel-cell vehicles often need a companion battery to delivery initial and peak energy demands as the fuel-cells have to operate within a defined generating window to maintain efficiency.

[@davidmccarthy6061]

Toyoda family wealth is from fossil fuels, which is needed to make the hydrogen fuel at great inefficiency. Meanwhile, we already have electricity in the most remote corners of the world.

[@paulcantrell01451]

@@davidmccarthy6061 and in the few places we don't have electricity, it's as easy as shlepping in a few solar panels and voila!

[@jeanguion3223]

I think rather than try to beat purification and storage of large quantities of, hydrogen that we are to just go straight to raw form hydroxy on demand and have small units that we can hook up anywhere and use locally.

[@Kees247]

In The Netherlands we had a test with central heating on hydrogen. It is a Total failure. The idea was to switch from natural gas to hydrogen. They can not make it work. A real shame, it would have changed a lot.

[@sambeauJonez]

Hydrogen burns dirty in a nitrogen-rich atmosphere (ie air). It should have obvious that it wasn't suitable for homes.

[@petewright4640]

What I don't understand is why they have to do trials that cost millions when a few back of the envelope calculations would clearly show it would be uneconomic.

[@jazzmickge1]

Why not just use Hydrogen Nuclear solid mass batteries in an industrial setting. A lot safer in a power plant emergency and requires less infrastructure to physically build.

[@itsROMPERS...]

Everything is always "closer than ever".

[@thomasfriedmann8522]

The case for hydrogen besides industrial uses is in remote locations or those that don’t have the option of solar /wind. The arctic regions as well as communications/infrastructure locations in remote locations come to mind. Even with all the advances in mobile communications, mountain top repeaters are still in need.

[@bknesheim]

Hydrogen as energy source is dead, long live hydrogen as chemical reactant.

[@user-dj1hy6zc6q]

It's not an energy source, but it could be energy storage replacing battery storage. It is too reactive to be an energy source.

[@tonypeden8092]

Other challenges aside, it's always the safety of storing hydrogen that makes me skeptical. We have, after all, seen some pretty spectacular failures that stored hydrogen played a big role in. I would love to see some in-depth treatment of that aspect.

[@anguscampbell1533]

With electrolysis is there any realistic mass market for the Oxygen gas produced or is it just vented as a by product? Could this could help in making H2 more viable?

[@juzzybro2671]

Isn't the fact that wind power is inconsistant the Perfect reason to use it to make it into a long term fuel that can be used for stabilizing gaps in power supply or for fueling ships? Inconsistancy isn't a weakness for hydrogen power demand, its an icentive. Especially if we have dense solid-state storage that doesn't leak hydrogen into the atmosphere. It makes the headache of ballancing the power grid easier without needing to use massive amounts of land to make pumped water energy storage systems.

[@leifhietala8074]

@0:30 I hear "solid hydrogen storage systems" and the word that crashes through my mind, straight out of the 1980s, is "zeolite." Will I be right? Let's watch. [edit] Well, the word was never said.

[@colinslamon4492]

On a visit to Iceland I passed a huge factory just south of Reykjavík. This turns out to be an American owned aluminum smelting plant. They use geothermal energy to make this process cost effective. Can you get my point? Energy is almost free to separate and squash the hydrogen. You then employ Scottish deep water pipeline engineers as they have the skills required, they can pump this liquid to the north of Scotland and boom (not a good descriptive word) you have revenue coming into Scotland they desperately need. Jobs created and suddenly the uk is the new Saudi……. Oh, and once you’ve set this up. That’s clean energy fixed for mankind, for ever!!!!

[@PW060284]

So hydrogen isn't really an energy source, it's an energy storage solution. In theory, if it fails, you can still use some other P2X synthetic fuel

[@gaius_enceladus]

I don't think hydrogen will ever get off the ground in the real world. It's like fusion power - always "on the horizon" but it never arrives. I think that a LOT more effort should instead be put into energy and products from sewage. I'd love to see an episode on that, Matt. Think of it - the "feedstock" is effectively infinite and basically free, and it's already piped to where energy from it would be used - cities. It is often not difficult to add a sewage biogas plant to an existing wastewater plant. The solid waste could be used as feedstock for a bio-refinery, producing fuels and other much-needed chemicals. It's a win-win all round - you make use of a waste product, generate electricity and create fuels and chemicals.

[@d3rsch0rsch]

Thank you for using proper physical units!

[@olagarto1917]

The best way to storage hidrogen today os in methane , that is what we should be talking about, efficient storage and cost benefits that can compete with gasoline

[@PrototypePrjs]

Seems like a complex refueling infrastructure is needed for hydrogen cars to be viable...

[@davidmccarthy6061]

Yes, still waiting for Toyota to invest $500B in a world wide refueling network.

[@sznikers]

@@PrototypePrjs 1/4th volumetric density of gasoline, 1/5th of diesel for hydrogen in LIQUID form. So your car with 100l gasoline tank would need 400-500l tank of liquid hydrogen. That's already a joke and we didn't even started talking about how to build 400-500 litre, average consumer safe, lightweight and road safe liquid hydrogen tank. 😂 And thats physical limit, all those compressed hydrogen tank have lower energy densities than liquid hydrogen. Chemical/absorption methods exist that theoretically can be more dense per volume but nobody pulled it off yet and ... they're still below both volumetric and gravimetric density of gasoline and diesel. So most likely nobody will pull it off as why on earth would you sink billion dollars to get results worse than gasoline...

[@leftcoaster67]

Which is why petrochemical companies love the concept of hydrogen.

[@Pethers]

Hydrogen on the surface seems like an ideal green energy solution. But there are major problems with it compared to just generating and storing electricity. The incumbent fossil fuels industry is hot on developing Hydrogen because it nicely fits into their existing business model. The issue with Hydrogen is not so much generation, but storage and transportation of it. This is where the business falls apart because it can't be competitive with electricity in this regard. The only true Hydrogen solution is when you create it and use it as required where it is needed. No costs around storage and transportation. Think about solar panels on the roof of your house - the energy is created and used as required. It can be stored on site in batteries, no transportation required. Very simple and low cost. While there may be some use cases for Hydrogen, the companies developing it are still thinking like the old school oil and gas industry.

[@tbix1963]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, ideas and videos. The solid state storage sounds promising, I’ve always considered the cooling and compressing of hydrogen for storage a show stopper since additional energy is needed that would be very difficult to recover. I’ve always been very impressed with the hydromaxx process but unfortunately it’s seems to have died and is difficult to lookup since the name has been repurposed and that is all you can find when looking it up. The process basically takes any hydrocarbons and splits the hydrogen from the carbon resulting in synthetic natural gas and hydrogen as a gas byproduct and a slag that can be used as an alternative to Portland cement in concrete. That last byproduct alone almost makes it viable on an ecological basis. This process has been studied as a construction waste solution and there was a DARPA project to reprocess waste from deployed soldiers and make diesel fuel. If you look at the content that every community is struggling to safely and responsibly dispose of there is literally a gold mine going to waste at every sewage treatment plant. I would like to see a comparison of the efficiency between taking hydrogen and storing it as an individual component to use as a prime mover in a vehicle vs converting it with the Fisher Troops process to synthetic diesel. There were so many processes out there in startup that died when we momentarily had cheap fuel.

[@MissyBeeeee]

I have been to Haßfurt, Germany. They already have a Power-to-Gas plant that runs on renewables when the grid is at capacity. They feed the H2 into a natural gas line to circumvent storing problems but still impressive. You mix H2 with natural gas up a point till it reaches peak energy density. It was really cool.

[@SteveMichaels]

One day in the future we will have a Shrubbery that produces hydrogen ... jokes aside I still feel strong about hydrogens future ty for the update Matt ..Enjoyed watching

[@dividebyzero1000]

It is hard to separate the greenwashing from reality. As a skeptic, I pretty much assume anything the fossil fuel industry is doing is done with the intent to protect their existing revenue streams. I cannot get excited about anything hydrogen until it is mostly generated by carbon free processes, not from fossil fuel processing. In my mind green hydrogen is as real as advanced recycling.

[@steverichmond7142]

I was involved in a hydrogen project in Scotland, where it was used to power trains. It got really scary when the model involved storing hydrogen in tanks in populated areas.

[@alanglover590]

Hi Matt, it seems to me that because of the problem of molecular leakage in pipes that hydrogen probably needs to be carried in a different form and generated at the point of use before it becomes viable.

[@BraeburnTV]

If you ever see an article or video whose title is a question, then the answer is No. Because if it was Yes, it would be worded as a statement.

[@paulvandenberg5341]

What are the environmental risks of leaking H2 into our atmosphere? What happens to that molecule? The use of surplus power to make it seems sensible if the only downside is loss. A big percentage of electricity is lost in transmission.

[@jopo7996]

As a viable fuel source, in 20 years hydrogen will be 20 years away, from being only 20 years away from never happening.

[@saltydogg]

Pulled into a shell station yesterday, had 1 kg of hydrogen (62 miles) in my tank.Pumped 7 kg in about 4 minutes and drove away. Got enough hydrogen in my tank now to go about 492 miles

[@saltydogg]

@@UndecidedMF16 so what,s WA

[@saltydogg]

@@UndecidedMF16 Sorry , I don't use What$app

[@N5ZY]

Again? Why use lots of electricity to create and compress hydrogen when we can just use the electricity? I don't understand why hydrogen as a automotive fuel keeps getting research money.. why? Stop the madness..

[@alexmerchant2967]

It makes sense in Australia. We have a lot of renewables sources which are located inland or far from population centres. We could become a net exporter of energy if we can find a way of “bottling” energy rather than using transmission wires. I think we want to be an energy exporter but we need a way of moving the energy around. One option is hydrogen. Another I’ve heard of is ammonia.

[@rjbiker66]

​@@alexmerchant2967we dont have excess electricity to produce and compress h2.

[@alexmerchant2967]

With the current mix of sources within metro areas (rooftop solar and wind) we produce more than we use during the day (see recent news re: South Australia). If we invest and deploy more renewable generation this can produce an excess? cf. Victoria is planning 95% renewables by 2035. If you continue that trend i think you argue we can become a net exporter. Also could be useful domestically in remote regions if we could use these energy sources rather than diesel? It would depend on the economics: if that is superior to solar + battery and whether it works for transport & farm machinery etc.

[@vaughnhalsey9049]

Problem with that is there is no great demand for bulk hydrogen. You would be better off loading a container ship with batteries, charging with your excess energy and then discharging at a port that will pay the most for your kWh. Or build AI data centers where you have excuses energy and sell the computation time via internet transmission via cables you have or satellite links.

[@davidcelliott]

@N5ZY A wind or solar farm far from cities may provide plenty of electricity that isn't easy to transfer for use. A hydrogen plant near these generators could produce enough hydrogen to provide fuel for consumers and for the transport vehicles.

[@dalehartley2821]

Hydrogen has a broad range of industrial applications beyond power generation. So divorcing it from fossil fuels as much as possible is always going to be a worthwhile investment, and, it will also make a solid addition to a constellation of generation options that will diversify power generation, providing greater strategic robustness and stability. Just for national security reasons we should never rely heavily on a single generation technology, nor on a single generation site; and multiple smaller interconnected sites that can network power around and to affected locals from nearby sites not as affected by any event, are both harder to wipe out in a single event, and provide better disaster resilience than one or two large sites that could be more easily compromised or isolated from areas power is needed. So use everything, rely on nothing. Build a solution that has redundancy and resilience.

[@kittimcconnell2633]

Helicopters. Are. Flying. Cars.

[@Milosz_Ostrow]

Storing hydrogen in metal hydrides is old technology, promoted in the 1960s by American inventor and entrepreneur Roger Billings. He was working on a concept called the "hydrogen homestead", which would have made individuals independent of the power grid and petroleum-based fuels for heating, cooking and transportation. He dropped the idea when threats were made on his life.

[@oidpolar6302]

Simplest hydrogen storage is the diesel fuel actually

[@rebym]

One of the many problems that hydrogen faces is that battery technology is so far ahead of it and is progressing much faster. I don't see Hydrogen ever catching up. There is far more money being bet on batteries than hydrogen. There are hundreds of thousands of scientists working in that field funded by selling actual products today and the progress is rapid. If one looks at EVs, we're seeing vehicles that can add 250 km of range in 6 minutes or another providing 600 km in 10 minutes. By the time hydrogen is ready, there won't be a problem for it to solve.

[@joeendel3614]

Making Hydrogen takes too much energy. The loss in that process makes it too expensive

[@alexandrarabinovici3826]

No energy source comes without losses

[@duncanny5848]

Love the 'solid hydrogen' mentioned in this show. I remember clearly seeing Solid Hydrogen posed as a fuel for a CAR in the '70s in a show on British TV called Tomorrows World. It then vanished until today!! I have tried to find it many times over the years, and it is nice to see the idea making a come-back. Hopefully we can learn more about its viability this time?

[@ebx100]

60 years ago, my uncle (an engineer) said hydrogen, in metallic form, would someday be used for fuel. Between him, Toyota and others things are SLOWLY falling into place.

[@dogbreath6974]

Just another 60 years then🤣

[@sznikers]

@@ebx100 yeah it moves forward. Solid hydrogen based transportation is now expected to arrive just few decades after fusion 😅