Hydrogen Hype is Dying, And That's a Good Thing

[@davidusa47]

I wrote a paper in college about the non-feasibility of hydrogen over 20 years ago.

[@SabineHossenfelder]

Somehow this doesn't surprise me...

[@LuisAldamiz]

It's 20 years obsolete. Care to update your knowledge?

[@MrJaspett]

​@LuisAldamiz Has a new hydrogen update dropped?

[@PatrickTice]

​@@LuisAldamizhave you read it? It seems to me that the arguments are rooted in basic physics.

[@lukap3rcic]

@@SabineHossenfelder hydrogen looks terrible till you compare it to battery full cost( including cycles). Then it becomes cheaper.

[@rantingrodent416]

Personally I think the Hydrogen bubble is a direct product of how startups work. It's probably the ideal technology for a venture-backed startup, because it has so many problems. You can earnestly put forward a plan to make progress on one or two of those problems and get your valuation and government grants, then cash out before everyone realizes that you haven't actually solved enough problems to make it practical.

[@seanbeadles7421]

The current system values and rewards making money over any other result. Rinse and repeat every 20 years.

[@arkatub]

Fusion is a more ideal technology as you can keep the scam going for a lot longer.

[@Volkbrecht]

Thing is, even dullards like me without a degree who simply happen to work in the industry know the basics about hydrogen use. Embrittlement, leak issues, this is beginner stuff. Politicians that have all day to get informed on such things should know to spend taxpayer money on things with a better usability perspective.

[@jpdemer5]

Same scam as the startup "fusion reactor" companies: take other people's money, pay yourself really well, and crank out optimistic progress reports. At the end of the day you've made good money even though your project "just didn't work out."

[@anthonylosego]

@@jpdemer5 Fusion reactors can work, but there are so many scandalous start ups, it's hard to want to do it. But if someone actually makes it work, it's a gold mine. Speaking of gold mine, it's also a gold mine if you could convert lead into gold. No one has done it, but man, if you could, it would be a gold mine. haha.

[@ChristopherCurtis]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="320">5:20</a> regarding selling stocks short, the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. Be careful out there.

[@crawfish7286]

yep, everything you need to know about shorting can be learned in bankruptcy court.

[@thoreberlin]

Yepp. The big players will push trough until they have found a way out to leave others with the losses. Just like what happened to Michael Burry.

[@timogul]

Yeah, if shorting were as simple as "this will probably fail eventually," then too many people would be doing it. It's the fact that you're gambling that the failure will occur _soon_ that makes it risky.

[@Lucius_Chiaraviglio]

I think that was supposed to be a joke . . . then again, somebody who doesn't have the required insider information might take it seriously.

[@edwardhuff4727]

@@ChristopherCurtis I was about to comment that John Maynard Keynes said it, but I checked. The “longer than you can stay solvent” quote has been attributed to Keynes (d. 1946) since 1999, but it seems it was first said by A. Gary Shilling in 1986. Keynes apparently said “There is nothing so disastrous as a rational investment policy in an irrational world” in 1931.

[@s_cycle1921]

I was a consultant in the low carbon sector for 20 years, doing my best to be objective and evidence based with all clients. I sat in rooms with Oil and Gas companies, so I know what motivated them. There is nothing for them in an electric future. They understand and have investments in pipes, not wires. For them hydrogen is a strategic procrastination technology - they pretend they are taking climate change seriously while moving public funding away from the investments that would make a positive impact. I observed (one in particular, and its not BP btw) who argued for regulatory support that would be hard to remove, so that EU would be committed to this donkey for the forseeable. We are in this mess because they have massive lobbying power amongst regulators and lawmakers - that cannot be overestimated.

[@charleskramer6189]

One of the capitalist mysteries is why in the 1940s railroad giants did not invest in airlines -- by Pennsylvania railroad did not buy Douglas Aircraft or something. You'd think the biggest investors in atomic fusion would now be oil companies. I guess the rule is, you do what you know -- in the case of oil companies -- just dig holes in the ground, hoping $$$ pop to the surface.

[@thearpox7873]

Such schemes are way harder to swing without a single regulatory body. Why I don't think EU was good for Europe.

[@kreek22]

This is something I noticed 15 years ago. However, hydrogen remains a marginal clean tech to this day, unlike EVs, solar, grid battery storage, etc. So, they're losing, even in the West. China, of course, is rapidly burying the hydrogen industry in an avalanche of goods being sold at cost all over the world.

[@wewillworld522]

Time is money… When coal pétrole and Gas gone to miss electrity and Hydrogene gone to replace it… not wet unfortunately…

[@neilstern7108]

You really articulated this well in fact reading the comments on here are blowing my mine. Finally some truth thank you. You need to write a book. No one gets the money just third person that distribute. Veterans such things like this are looted. Union the same HMOs same all same.if the government dose it business followed people followed. No one pays bills no one cares that they are the cause of it all. So they reap the whirlwind. I testify that with honesty and truth there is life, otherwise death. Keep up the truth it shall set some free.

[@ventcurtisburkett532]

The hydrogen economy was a terrible idea, but you overstate the problems of hydrogen embrittlement of pipes and tanks. I worked in a chemical plant that used large amounts of hydrogen for decades, and hydrogen embrittlement was not a major problem. Oil refineries have also been using massive amounts of hydrogen in oil refineries without any big piping problems. Yes, hydrogen does leak more easily than any other gas, but we know how to handle the problem. All that said, hydrogen is much to expensive and valuable to use for heat. It makes as much sense as burning mahogany wood for green energy.

[@DougallWinship-w1w]

forgive me but i'm not entirely sure what your, clearly enformed, conclusion is there ... on balance, use it or not?

[@Netro1992]

​@@DougallWinship-w1w Don't use it, it's too valuable to waste in trying to make up for wind and solar's deficiencies.

[@tedmoss]

@@DougallWinship-w1w The trouble is there are much easier and more efficient and cheaper ways to run an energy economy.

[@Vscustomprinting]

Can you clarify how they are "dealt with"? My assumption is that itll end up being large amounts if maintenance which doesnt really change the fact that embrittlement is an issue, but im likely wrong..

[@hasaywha]

I assume that your company properly maintained and fixed any issues that arise, in a timely manner. I would be more concerned about an ignorant end-user not properly dealing with these issues than a company that is heavily regulated/monitored. We can barely get people to fix leaking valve-covers or oil pans on their vehicles.

[@velisvideos6208]

As an engineer who used large amounts of hydrogen for many years, I can attest that the practical difficulties are not very severe. As long as one knows what one is doing. The metal embrittlement stuff is bogus. One just has to use the right materials, just like in many other fields of engineering. We should bear in mind that hydrogen is being used in industry on a vast scale, close to 100 Mt per year. The financial arguments about using hydrogen for energy storage are OK. It is inefficient and should be avoided, if possible.

[@MrSunrise-]

What materials and how much more expensive?

[@MarksEscalona]

@@velisvideos6208 Agree. The main argument stays, if something isn’t financially viable it won’t succeed. It does not make any sense when you can directly convert sunlight into electricity and store it in batteries.

[@robroysyd]

@@MrSunrise- Sure :just use the right materials". Problem is some plans included simply replacing methane with hydrogen in existing pipes. It might be OK to add someH2 into methane into existing pipes

[@jsalsman]

There are currently 159 kilotonnes of green hydrogen being produced per year, with another 1416 kt/year under construction. The learning curve is profound: 2005 - CAPEX (USD/tonne H₂/year): $10,000-15,000 - Operating Cost (USD/tonne H₂ produced): $3,000-5,500 2010 - CAPEX (USD/tonne H₂/year): $7,500-12,000 - Operating Cost (USD/tonne H₂ produced): $2,500-4,500 2015 - CAPEX (USD/tonne H₂/year): $5,500-9,000 - Operating Cost (USD/tonne H₂ produced): $2,000-3,500 2020 - CAPEX (USD/tonne H₂/year): $3,500-6,000 - Operating Cost (USD/tonne H₂ produced): $1,500-2,800 2023 - CAPEX (USD/tonne H₂/year): $3,000-5,000 - Operating Cost (USD/tonne H₂ produced): $1,200-2,500

[@dwwolf4636]

@@MarksEscalona No, that also doesnt make sense.

[@MDMARaver]

The best indicator that something is a complete crackpot idea is when the German government pushes it. 😂 Greetings from Germany

[@wolfgang-franzkranek6146]

Sad but true. 😂

[@johnnyq4260]

Well, you have to do crazing things like this to appear innovative.

[@deker0954]

Probably, they tore down their nuke plants.

[@dtibor5903]

100% procent russian bribery

[@srikanthan1000]

Lol y do u say that ?! Here in India and in the world at large , Germans r known for being smart and super efficient ppl. Is the German govt an exception ??

[@fandyllic1975]

The hype around hydrogen was almost certainly pushed by the fossil fuel industry, since most current hydrogen production is based on fossil fuels. Fossil fuel companies know they’ll make tons of money before green hydrogen represents even as little as 5% of the overall production.

[@ikocheratcr]

And if you add that oil companies do not benefit from electric stuff, more reasons to "invest" in the H2 hype.

[@svr5423]

makes no sense. They would push the BEV hype instead, so people stick with fossil fuel gas guzzlers instead of switching to biofuels, synfuels or hydrogen from which they would not profit.

[@paulstubbs7678]

Also because it's a gas, and they know how to distribute and sell gas - just like LPG?, and you can run a regular car engine on gas (LPG) - Hydrogen is just another gas - right.....

[@Dethleffff]

I work in the glass industry and we currently use natural gas or oil to heat our float lines. We need the high temperatures to melt the ingredients and this so far only works with burning stuff. Once we have a melt it can be heated electrically but we need roughly 40MW of power to run the melting process. It has already been shown that this can be done using hydrogen so for this industry hydrogen is a very important resource. Although it is used as a fuel and not as energy storage.

[@graemebushell7531]

Re: reason for the bubble - I think most of it is people (including politicians) inclination to believe what they want to believe, until the evidence against the belief becomes strong enough to break it.

[@gromm93]

The problem, in the end, is that it's far easier to fool someone, than to convince them they've been fooled. All the grifter has to do, is get there first, most of the time.

[@MrStevos]

Isn't it a good thing, that they've only actually done such a low percentage of announced projects ? Means less wasted money & resources !

[@SabineHossenfelder]

Now that you say it! Glas half full!

[@LuisAldamiz]

Money is irrelevant, sustainability is!

[@nicodesmidt4034]

Pity those contracts are for 30 years at least 😢

[@nicodesmidt4034]

When will we learn 🤷

[@bartroberts1514]

Yet it remains a source of delay and a drag on meaningful action.

[@radicalbyte]

Hydrogen was pushed hard by the fossil fuel industry and pretty much all hydrogen we used comes from natural gas. It has been infamous for that.

[@jpdemer5]

Exactly right: touting "green hydrogen" was a ruse to get governments to buy in. (Let the taxpayers create the "hydrogen economy", then cash in on it.)

[@fredmercury1314]

And EVs are pushed hard by the mining industry and pretty much all precious metals used in batteries comes from child labour.

[@fredmercury1314]

@@jpdemer5 Which is what they've done with wind and solar too.

[@-danR]

I wonder how long before we see through "The Fusion Economy". 2100?

[@anthonylosego]

This was the green up of old fossil fuels. Yet it had way too many problems to actually work. Hence the long hold out on this tech, which will never happen realistically. The shut down of H2 fueling stations is the writing on the wall. It has too many hurdles. We might as well adopt hybrid cars. haha.

[@rustywater3219]

The best I've heard of is stripping a hydrogen off a natural gas molecule at the pump... but then why not just use natural gas?

[@jamesalexander958]

The best I've heard is Japan's plans for red hydrogen, where they produce it at a nuclear plant and counterintuitively make everything safer

[@MarksEscalona]

What did you miss from the video?

[@Feolips]

You could do the H2 extraction from ethanol, but EU isn't even trying.

[@rustywater3219]

@MarksEscalona well... the video didn't talk about changing carbuerated engines to run on natural gas. Runs a lot cleaner, still releases co2, but no methane. Uncle Tonys garage played with it a bit, had an old boss who modified his truck to run on nat gas. Could idle all day and still not gunk up the inside.

[@QwoaX]

@@Feolips Then you could just use the ethanol for fuel...

[@mitchellwilley7208]

I just came here to Thank you Sabine for your channel. There's a saying in life "Cherish what you have well you have it" and I can always count on your channel to provide accurate information from an Intelligible person.

[@JB-gr6om]

Darn,I wanted to buy the new H2 car, called the Hindenburg.

[@matneu27]

btw, Toyota is ending the production of its H2 car, but I assume you can get a used one for cheap ;-)

[@trungson6604]

Why not get the car named Tesla, as many times those Teslas have caught fires and burned to ashes.

[@Joa-y4y]

lithium is a very toxic element metal, unlike gold or silver, not many countries want to mine it, 98% of lithium is not recycled and goes in to land fills or dumps, causing even worst toxins in peoples water canals and ocean, it is way cheaper to mine lithium than recycle it, the huge amount of lithium used to make just one lithium car is not sustainable for all cars, lithium is a water guzzling toxic element metal, it takes 1000 gallons of clean water turned very toxic , just to mine or build one lithium car(just one)this is just lithium and not including cobalt which is another of many other real toxic element metals in the build of a lithium toxic car ( just horrible) on top of this, most lithium cars are still connected to the oil and coal grids! clean EV car, NOT, have you been paying attention to the disasters aroumd planet on recycling facilities that have caused catastrophic fires and aftermath toxins released onto atmosphere, the lithium on board airline fire disaster that killed hundreds of people sometime back , try visiting a lithium recycling plant to see the dangers, however i would truly advise you on the dangers of visitation and good luck! There are many green hydrogen projects slated or moment green hydrogen facilities being built around the globe, fact, by 2030 green hydrogen will be abundant! cost effective cheap, however due to the heavy toxins and pollution in mining lithium, when a lithium car is still in the company assembly line it has already polluted more than a hydrogen fuel cell car that has been on the road for more than 125000 miles, solar cells have become much more cost efficient in making green hydrogen and better storage plus for in long run than having battery storage or just plan electricity, fuel cells will always have 10 times more energy power for the buck than any other lithium battery or solide state battery, plus the amazing secret about hydrogen fuel cell cars is that each car actually cleans the air as it runs due to it`s clean watered electrolysis when released onto the atmosphere.

[@mariotomazzoni6523]

Didn't the Chinese build an electric car called the "Long march"? Maybe not the best name for a car, but...

[@cdorman11]

"overturning or sidestepping scientific advice" The start of half of all disaster movies

[@redred2772]

Gets Democrats voted into office.

[@lukap3rcic]

@SabineHossenfelder says these things, but she never checked the lifetime costs of batteries and compare. Low efficiency of synth fuels (you need hydrogen to make them), is still cheaper than "efficient" battery farms.

[@freeheeler09]

Luk, if hydrogen made financial or environmental sense then we’d be buying hydrogen cars instead of EVs and ICE. I actually saw a hydrogen car. Once. Years ago. In San Francisco. I took a picture. The market has spoken. Hydrogen ain’t it!

[@TheLoy71]

@@freeheeler09 Doesn´t necessarily count. What lobbies (not markets) decide to support or boycott is the main reason of what we use or don´t.

[@michaelrenper796]

There has been lots and lots of lobby work as Sabine hinted. I can only speak from a German perspective, but over the years I have met numerous people, usually from academia, who strongly advertised it. When challenged on the details none of them understood the challenges (engineers not knowing about physics, physicists not knowing about the material science challenges). I just can't tell it this was a self amplifying cycle of if there was support with outside money. I personally think it was a bit of both. There was a good reason for many people to believe in the concept. I don't wan to bash on the "evil fossil fuel industry" because many there acted (initially) in good intent. Why not support hydrogen as an automotive maker back in the days when batteries were not yet good enough (like 20-30 years back). Now batteries are not perfect and not magic but they pushed hydrogen into a smaller and smaller niche, making it economically unattractive.

[@yeroca]

I was interested in the "ammonia economy" not so long ago, but it seems it hasn't taken off either. It was supposed to solve most of the problems that hydrogren has, carrying a lot of energy per molecule, won't deteriorate pipes, doesn't need high compression, higher efficiency conversion, etc.

[@SabineHossenfelder]

Yes, ammonia has some advantages, I read it's being considered for tanker ships.

[@mhyotyni]

I guess methanol would be more feasible than ammonia. It could even be used as a fuel in current internal combustion engines without too much adjusting or special tanks or transportation infrastructure.

[@Ryan-ff2db]

It's extremely dangerous at concentrations needed for combustion or fuel cells.

[@lukap3rcic]

the issue with ammonia is why not go one step further and just create synth fuels, and run our economy on good old diesel/petrol. Its just safer.

[@pgress1867]

it is not „extremely dangerous“… efficiency and subsequent economics of these efuels are terrible, but there will be a few niches where they are needed

[@luggi5053]

Nice video! On another note, as a chemist, I am honestly flabbergasted how hilariously wrong the Steam Reforming reaction render at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="284">4:44</a> is. Planar methane :(, non-linear CO2 :(, the Carbon atom just says goodbye in the reaction process, hydrogen atoms become carbon atoms, and the products are just plain wrong. What the heck is happening at BP??

[@thomasperkins3023]

Only an AI generated video could depict methane being square planar

[@robynsnest8668]

Same as the story of ethanol from corn. Takes two to three gallons of diesel to make a gallon of ethanol which has fuel milage of 3/4 gallon of diesel. Yet BILLIONS have been spent in USA alone because of lobbyists and virtue signalling. AMD this doesn't even touch on cost of foodstuff raised and farming land taken out of food production.

[@kreek22]

Ethanol from corn requires well under 1 unit of energy to produce 1 unit of energy in the form of ethanol. There are good arguments against the ethanol industry. Lies are not good arguments.

[@nkchenjx]

that is to remove lead that kills people. adding ethanol is an expensive solution to adding lead but we have no better choice.

[@ronblack7870]

it's corruption of politicians by the farm lobby.

[@svr5423]

you don't need diesel to make corn

[@inmyleftmindinmyleftmind6337]

@@svr5423 There is diesel used in farming the corn feedstock, transportation and processing of the corn. The figures I have seen calculating the diesel required vary widely - two to three gallons per gallon of ethanol seems to be at the very high end of calculations and I highly doubt that it is this high but there is no doubt that ethanol production from corn is highly dubious economically and environmentally.

[@cienciabit]

Voluntarism is the word when "we want to believe". If you question something, then you are a party pooper.

[@brunoribeirodematos622]

I think the h2 is being put aside because of the battery cars. Car companies have pulled out their fuel cell projects to focus on battery vehicles. Nowadays the socalled PEM fuel cell has a substitute, the Anion Exchange Membrane fuel cell that has triple power density and a much higher energy efficiency, both for energy production and electrolysis.

[@Joa-y4y]

lithium is a very toxic element metal, unlike gold or silver, not many countries want to mine it, 98% of lithium is not recycled and goes in to land fills or dumps, causing even worst toxins in peoples water canals and ocean, it is way cheaper to mine lithium than recycle it, the huge amount of lithium used to make just one lithium car is not sustainable for all cars, lithium is a water guzzling toxic element metal, it takes 1000 gallons of clean water turned very toxic , just to mine or build one lithium car(just one)this is just lithium and not including cobalt which is another of many other real toxic element metals in the build of a lithium toxic car ( just horrible) on top of this, most lithium cars are still connected to the oil and coal grids! clean EV car, NOT, have you been paying attention to the disasters aroumd planet on recycling facilities that have caused catastrophic fires and aftermath toxins released onto atmosphere, the lithium on board airline fire disaster that killed hundreds of people sometime back , try visiting a lithium recycling plant to see the dangers, however i would truly advise you on the dangers of visitation and good luck! There are many green hydrogen projects slated or moment green hydrogen facilities being built around the globe, fact, by 2030 green hydrogen will be abundant! cost effective cheap, however due to the heavy toxins and pollution in mining lithium, when a lithium car is still in the company assembly line it has already polluted more than a hydrogen fuel cell car that has been on the road for more than 125000 miles, solar cells have become much more cost efficient in making green hydrogen and better storage plus for in long run than having battery storage or just plan electricity, fuel cells will always have 10 times more energy power for the buck than any other lithium battery or solide state battery, plus the amazing secret about hydrogen fuel cell cars is that each car actually cleans the air as it runs due to it`s clean watered electrolysis when released onto the atmosphere.

[@florianrassl2213]

I had an big argument about the Hydrogen strategy of Germany with a friend of mine. His argument was that one day we maybe find a way to overcome those problems. My counter argument to that was that we should build plains out of lead because one day we maybe find a way to revers gravity.

[@hassebir]

Ha ha good one!

[@Rounder-One]

Planes, not plains. Educate, educate.

[@boneyazmoon1488]

Unfortunately, that's the exact argument for every other non-efficient technology. I hate it so muchhhh

[@JeffyJeff01]

@@Rounder-One Tolerance, tolerance. 1.85 subscribers here, many of whom speak/write English as a second or third language.

[@10secondsrule]

But gravity is the only thing keeping us here so even as a joke it makes little sense… and just out of curiosity how this supposed to help with reversing gravity anyway?Yeah I know I must be fun at parties…. Moving on.

[@BB-cf9gx]

You can "force" a hydrogen economy if you throw enough cash at it and regulate competitive energy out of existence.

[@horst4439]

About the same strategy which was used to favour nuclear power plants above others in the past?

[@huckleberryfinn6578]

For a few years, probably. Then your economy will go bankrupt.

[@cbboegh]

@@horst4439 Not just wrong, but the opposite of reality. Regulation has been used to sabotage nuclear power in the West. China builds a nuclear power plant in less than 5 years, and the only things that can compete, are their hydro electric plants. In the West, a nuclear plant takes as much as 15 years from planning to operation. France being somewhat an exception to this.

[@jsmythib]

You can never operate at an energy deficit beyond the capital required to fuel it.

[@horst4439]

​@@cbboegh fair enough. According wikipedia, there were no direct subsidies. Overall nuclear power of course needs subsiedies, because the nuclear waste also creates costs, which only partially are covered by the amount of money payed by the companies to the state. It's difficult to calculate this accurately though. About regulation to sabotage this technology it needs somewhat clarifcation. In fact virtually all regulation is a nuisance for enterpreneurs, regardless if these are reasonable or not.

[@amv240]

Not sure how it is in industry, but my experience in academia (PhD in hydrogen/oxygen electrocatalysts) is that getting papers or grant money is more important than fixing real issues related to the technology. I saw projects that had fundamental flaws (e.g. an oxygen electrocatalyst that had to be stored under vacuum because it degraded in *air*) being pushed through because they made a nice paper (of course the paper did not mention that the material was severely unstable in low-oxygen environments, let alone in air or pure oxygen…). We are literally being punished by rewards.

[@chrisgraythereal]

There's a company called JCB, building 130,000 vehicles a year for farms and construction. They've been around a long time, not a startup looking for gullible investors, and have committed to transitioning completely to hydrogen. They've modified their existing diesel engines to run on hydrogen so they don't have to redesign their product range, and are now able to manufacture at scale on their existing production lines. They have a test project running in Birmingham, an actual real construction site running on hydrogen produced on-site from electrolysis of water. The plant also fuels city buses which burn hydrogen in their diesel engines. The economics of the operation are somewhat opaque, at least to me, but the company seems to be very up-front about this being a fairly niche application - if you can call multiple factories churning out big machines that run all day niche. Hydrogen may not be a silver bullet solution to the world's energy problems, but at least one large organisation seems to see a role for it within a wider and more diverse energy strategy.

[@samuelbrisseau2694]

If you stay with internal combustion engines, H2 doesn't makes sense. Natural gas uses the same engines but without the headaches of hydrogen.

[@whafrog]

Hydrogen has been boondoggle since the 90s with Ballard Power. There was a lot of promise, except for the one big problem: storage. You simply can't get the energy density down to a useable volume. Every time the hydrogen hype machine starts up, everybody assumes that storage is a technical challenge that will be solved by the time their next fancy idea will be ready. Every. Time. I'm thinking this is a problem that will never be solved, at least not in this century.

[@charleskramer6189]

Ballard and Plug, until the very early 2000s -- quite a bubble! Amazing those companies are still around. There was an idea you could add a "reformer" to allow you to to fuel up with methanol or ammonia even gasoline, which would be "reformed" as needed into H2. That would certainly solve the storage problem although possibly not the efficiency problem. To me, this is an illustration of the ancient principle "that last step is a doozy!" Lots of tech that is (or is claimed to be) 90% close to commercialization never becomes practical or real.

[@liamhervin2254]

Just like battery storage.

[@DerPipi666]

What do you mean? Toyota Mirai Hydrogen car has a range of 500km and refuels in 3 minutes. You can just buy it at the dealership. There are issues with hydrogen, but storage density is not one

[@Seige-dg]

Disagree that the hype is dying, at least in the US. Recent news of easier tax credits for clean hydrogen production has revitalized that..

[@tomspencer1364]

There are other uses for hydrogen than energy production or storage. Greening up the production of fertilizer and blasting compounds might be worthwhile.

[@clintonfong1958]

The magic word is tax “credit”.

[@Lau-s6p]

Tax tax tax it's only about mony

[@cgmp5764]

One wonders where Govts. get their information from to spend so much taxpayer money without much care for fiscal responsibility.

[@vikiai4241]

Lobbyists. With PowerPoint presentations.

[@aporiac1960]

Like Sabina said: wishful thinking! We have political, bureaucratic, academic and cultural classes with no practical experience of life, zero common sense, and very little interest in matters of truth. Among those who know better there is a reluctance to call it out because it is likely to have a bad effect on their career. In short: The problem is degeneracy, stupidity and cowardice.

[@georgiosyiannakou5537]

Clearly, there is a gap in the selection process. Governments should employ independent consultants to undertake techno-economical assessments before funding projects.

[@Ghost-pb4ts]

My country, India, is balls-deep in hydrogen things. Not only do they heavily bet on hydrogen cars, but also on hydrogen trains. They spend billions on the infrastructure; it inevitably fails. Inflation hits the country. Everyone has Pikachu face reactions.

[@TomTomicMic]

In the UK's current government an "Independent" eco report was generated by a group of "Experts" formed by a company majorly owned by the Minster of the Crown responsible for allocating the 20 billion pounds which the report favoured, there has been no enquiry, there is undoubtedly a major conflict of interest but the Government says it "all above board", as the scheme is carbon capture and burying the problem the majority of people in the UK would strongly disagree with that, it's a ludicrous plan, amongst a load of costly others that's making the green energy transition a farce with the notion that it's a scam project for vested individuals and it's losing the traction of the majority!?!

[@CountJeffula]

Thank goodness. Reason should prevail over hype and idiocy.

[@JunitafluxcyfatriciaJunita]

Then why is the Chinese government, through state-owned companies, planning to double hydrogen production this year?

[@CountJeffula]

@ perhaps for steel making or other industrial uses. Have you taken high school or college physics? The elephant in the room with hydrogen is that the round trip energetic efficiency of hydrogen is low compared to battery electric for energy storage and use. This is a physics conundrum, so it can’t really be ‘solved’ but has to be worked around. Energy storage density with hydrogen can be higher than battery electric, but only with higher pressures which causes its own problems and requires more energy initially. China, because it’s using state-owned companies, also doesn’t have to run its businesses like actual businesses that make money. They may be trying to destabilize the hydrogen market globally as they’ve done in many other markets by flooding it with artificially cheap hydrogen and then being the last company standing to dominate market share and in theory raise prices in the future with zero consequences.

[@TomTom-cm2oq]

Thank you for this!!! I’ve been waiting for this video for 5 years. Basically since I’ve been saying the same thing as you. This was all too evident soooo long ago.

[@charlesblithfield6182]

We still need ways to store generated renewable energy and extreme energy density batteries. My biggest worry is the continued expansion of passenger aviation, the lack of meaningful carbon controls on aviation and the very long term amortization of aviation infrastructure.

[@smallpeople172]

Just fund research into nuclear isomer batteries, which could have energy densities ~100,000,000x higher than Li-ion

[@erichtisnado1536]

You mean like gravity storage, battery storage, or centrifugal storage? Yeah, we already have that. We have like 6gwh of battery storage in California right now to absorb surplus green energy. Works great, and they’re expanding things at the rate of around doubling capacity every 2-3 years.

[@smallpeople172]

@@charlesblithfield6182 I think aviation had a phase but people will return to cruises. Just had a transatlantic passage, seven days in luxury, no jet lag, cheaper than flying, free gym, interesting classes, game rooms, no TSA, erc

[@HydraulicDesign]

@@smallpeople172 Hahahahaahahaha. Hahahaha. Uh no.

[@dilbert0815]

@@erichtisnado1536 the capacity is way to low. You need TWh to compensate more that dayly iregularities in renewables. You also need fuel for avaiation, it will not go away. And you need fuel for metallurgy that needs a chemical reduction material. Not everything is working on the electrical grid.

[@velisvideos6208]

Using green hydrogen for energy storage is one, and possibly not a very clever, thing. Using green hydrogen as an input for the production of chemicals (e.g. ammonia) is another thing. It is, at least, possible that this would be sensible. Another question is whether it might not be better to produce hydrogen from natural gas by a process that simultaneously collects the carbon, making the process climate neutral...

[@vylbird8014]

Carbon capture has plenty of problems though. For one, what do you do with the carbon? There are a few options that are so expensive it has no chance of happening. The only thing you can do with it is pump it back down into oil fields in order to force more precious oil out of them, and that can only dispose of a fraction of the carbon dioxide that would be produced.

[@jorgeeduardodussanvillanue46]

Carbon capture technology is also quite problematic, I'd say even more problematic than the hydrogen economy. The effectiveness of the technology is sub-par, the effects of sequestered carbon have not been studied long term (of course, the technology is pretty new) and it's awfully used as a justification for high-emission processes because "it will make them carbon neutral".

[@michaelrenper796]

There has been lots and lots of lobby work as Sabine hinted. I can only speak from a German perspective, but over the years I have met numerous people, usually from academia, who strongly advertised it. When challenged on the details none of them understood the challenges (engineers not knowing about physics, physicists not knowing about the material science challenges). I just can't tell it this was a self amplifying cycle of if there was support with outside money. I personally think it was a bit of both. There was a good reason for many people to believe in the concept. I don't wan to bash on the "evil fossil fuel industry" because many there acted (initially) in good intent. Why not support hydrogen as an automotive maker back in the days when batteries were not yet good enough (like 20-30 years back). Now batteries are not perfect and not magic but they pushed hydrogen into a smaller and smaller niche, making it economically unattractive.

[@lbochtler]

Neither is a good solution. Gasoline is the solution, chemically synthesized if you want to be green...

[@deker0954]

Compressing it puts the energy in. And there is no fossil fuel.

[@robertbloch1063]

Yes, Edison faced same challenge. "engineers not knowing about physics, physicists not knowing about the material science challenges". Few thousand trials later... voila, light bulb was born.

[@michaelharrison1093]

​@robertbloch1063 a great discovery from Edison - a competitor Swan had perfected the technology and was willing to license it to Edison

[@echelonrank3927]

@@robertbloch1063 thousands of trials reminds me of insects hitting the lightbulb 🪰

[@larryjacklin1683]

Its not feasible as an energy source but its a mandatory component on chemical industry which now uses fossil based hydrogen. Thus there is demand for green hydrogen.

[@jamesplotkin4674]

I like your new shirt. Happy New Year! Sabine

[@xDR1TeK]

Every few decades we revisit old tech. Wonder if we might revisit alchemy soon enough.

[@JohnWatts-gn2nr]

Don't knock it , plenty of unfinished business with that one.....😂

[@dexlab7539]

As a current Alchemist lobbyist I concur completely

[@ZombieMax]

Phlogiston is the future!

[@justinahole336]

I'm glad folks are figuring this out. Hydrogen is great if you can figure out a way to move and carry it around that doesn't make the net energy density unatractive. It's that whole pressure and embrittlement issue that Sabina mentioned that made me realize it was a non starter about 35 years ago as an undergrad.

[@avsystem3142]

It has been figured out. It is just very complicated and expensive.

[@glynnwright1699]

So, 80% of hydrogen storage schemes are going ahead. In the meantime The Port of Rotterdam and Gasunie are aiming to start the first phase of making the entire port powered by hydrogen, commencing 2025. Gasunie's share price has risen in the last 12 months.

[@hanswitvliet8188]

As long as you can use it at “normal” temperatures and pressures, you’re ok. All the facilities at Eurosport are using existing pipelines, only in that way you can avoid hydrogen problems.

[@bosyber]

Near rotterdam there are large chemical plants, that already produce and use hydrogen, and then using it in a harbour, in a relatively controlled environment, might make sense (In Eemshaven, north of the Netherlands, they also use and produce it, and thus having a H2 tanking for local taxi/busses) use makes some sort of sense, especially for the petrochemical industry. That doesn't mean that the same goes for large scale everywhere use - as transport and storage are (apart from the question of whether it really can be made cheap enough), when it has to also be made from green sources (where you effectively create a lot of electricity, then use that to create a less effectively stored energysource).

[@glynnwright1699]

@@bosyber There isplenty of research that green hydrogen stored in empty gas fields is more economical that attempting to transfer electricity from deep water locations.

[@FelipeM741]

I did my undergrad thesis on green hydrogen and I agree it was almost entirely hype. It always felt strange how the entire thing was being pushed by oil & gas companies and I recon it was because they want to have a use for their infrastructure once most forms of energy consumption are electrified, plus they have the know-how advantage of the fuels industry. It became even more obvious when they tried to change the focus from "green" hydrogen, i.e. from renewables, to "low carbon" hydrogen which allows them to continue to use natural gas if they use some sort of carbon capture.

[@cognozzle]

I don't understand why they invested so much. About 8 years ago, I was wondering why hydrogen wasn't being used as a way to store energy, as in use electrolysis to convert water into hydrogen then just burn the hydrogen later to recover the energy. A few Google searches told me that hydrogen storage and transport is a nightmare. When I heard there were projects in the work, I thought new technology had solved those problems. Guess they hadn't.

[@BB-cf9gx]

Steam Methane Reforming (SMR): This is the most common method for producing hydrogen from natural gas. In SMR, high-temperature steam (700°C to 1000°C) reacts with methane in the presence of a catalyst to produce hydrogen and carbon monoxide. The carbon monoxide is then reacted with water to produce more hydrogen and carbon dioxide. This process is efficient but produces greenhouse gases.

[@johnlodge8546]

Is it "Efficient" when it takes more input energy than the resultant energy of the hydrogen???

[@edwardhuff4727]

@@johnlodge8546 Yes. There are no processes that could give more output energy than input energy. The ratio of output to input is efficiency, where 0 < efficiency < 1. To say a process is efficient is to say its efficiency is greater than most competing processes. To decide which process is most profitable, you multiply efficiency times the ratio of selling price of output energy to cost of input energy, minus depreciation of the equipment and other expenses.

[@jpdemer5]

@@johnlodge8546 It takes the energy available in the natural gas and locks it up in the hydrogen instead. It is fairly efficient by that measure. The kicker is that it also produces CO2, which the oil companies rarely mention in their promotional efforts.

[@johnlodge8546]

@jpdemer5 Pure unadulterated Poppycock. Most commercially produced Hydrogen comes from Steam Methane Reformating (SMR). In this process immense amounts of Methane is burned to heat purified water into high pressure Steam. The steam is then combined with a catalyst bombarding MORE Methane to separate the Hydrogen molecules from the Methane (CH4). You certainly DON'T get more energy from the process just because you added the energy to break the bonds holding the elements together in Methane chemical structure. In the end, you need nearly double the input energy from the Methane used to create the steam and the Methane you intend to breakup to get the H2. The other thing you aren't counting is the sheer amount of carbon emissions in this process. It is far, FAR more efficient to use the high pressure steam to just generate electricity.

[@jeffryborror4883]

Someone please tell Toyota and other vehicle manufactures.

[@ismailchairi5212]

The problem is infrastructure bro

[@ismailchairi5212]

The Ch1nes invest in the sector and lead the market to BV

[@freeheeler09]

There is a great video out there about a guy who rents a hydrogen car and tried to drive from SF to LA in the US. He interviews the few other hydrogen car owners he meets on the way. The video winds up feeling a bit dystopian, and all of the owners are in on the fact that they’ve fallen for a con, and that hydrogen cars will never replace EVs or ICE, or even reliability get hydrogen car owners to work and back.

[@Onceayoungidiot]

Someone needs to tell the governments to get their fingers out with charging infrastructure…

[@EbonyPope]

The biggest problem is the electrolysis part. But Hysata an Australina company supposedly has discovered a new 95 % efficient way of producing hydrogen. If true that would be a game changer.

[@manoo422]

It was never meant to be anything other than a great excuse to waste £Billions of tax payer money...stuffing the pockets of corporations...Again.

[@vernonbrechin4207]

I fully agree. Not only has “motivated reasoning” played a role in the hydrogen economy hype but “confirmation bias” has served to gather cherry picked evidence to back up that reasoning. It seems, to me, related to the increase in our immersion in a culture drowning in misinformation.

[@hoagie911]

I have a friend who did a phd in hydrogen tech... as of last year they were still convinced that it was somehow energy efficient and could be run off waste heat or waste natural gas or something

[@c.augustin]

So, hydrogen is not feasible for energy storage (or for domestic heating) - I'm on the same boat here. But it is still something we'll need for processes like iron oxide reduction and in chemistry (if we want to replace coal and other fossil fuels). So it will be needed - or are there other non-fossil alternatives?

[@zweidritteleinfach2087]

In technological terms, from what I understand hydrogen would be needed to make these things carbon-free, the big problem here is economics. Steel and chemical industries in Europe are already uncompetitive with China and the US partly because of energy cost. If you force them into hydrogen, then some of these companies will close down and the rest will move production from Europe. This is different from say the electric grid, where you can enforce things without the fear that people will start buying Chinese electricity because it is cheaper.

[@traumflug]

There are no carbon neutral replacements in the industries you mentioned. And that's exactly the reason why this video isn't even close to an objective evaluation.

[@Prettyhorrible]

@@traumflug No it's objective - Sabine just doesn't mention H2's use in industry. There is continual confusion over H2's industrial use and its use in energy. It is not economic to substitute renewable energy for natural gas in industrial processes, but at least it's less crazy than using it for energy storage.

[@traumflug]

@@Prettyhorrible Please arrive in the 21st century. Fossil fuel of any kind is a no-go. It's not carbon neutral.

[@Prettyhorrible]

@@traumflug we weren't arguing about fossil fuels but about whether the presentation by Sabine was fair. Obviously it was and, as you made no counter-argument, I can only conclude that you agree. Anyway, leave it with you.

[@perryallan3524]

Over 20 years ago the USA had a proposal to build a hydrogen economy using nuclear power plants as then the hydrogen plant could be base loaded to a steady power (or steam) supply. It actually made sense although it would not have produced cheaper H2 than breaking apart natural gas - It would have been about the same cost as breaking apart natural gas. That assumed that the US could build nuclear power plants on time and on budget... which the US and Western Europe could not do because we had forgottenb how to build nuclear power plants (its a lot different than building a commercial building or plant).

[@audiodead7302]

But what would be the point? If you go nuclear, you don't need hydrogen storage in the first place.

[@geodkyt]

​@@audiodead7302​ Not true. Unlike EVs, hydrogen (particularly hydrogen fuel cells, which stores and handles hydrogen far easier than trying to handle molecular hydrogen) is suitable for remote use where you can't rely on pulling over and spending an hour to "refuel". This also allows hydrogen powered vehicles to function as 1:1 replacements in roles over current fossil fuel powered vehicles, and is especially useful for vehicles designed for long range, heavy use, or operation in austere conditions, and without the major range penalties when operating an EV in severe temperature extremes (IOW, everything outside the "urban commuter in a temperate climate" role that EVs are very well suited for). Nor would it require massive upgrades to the current electrical grids all the way from production to individual end users (as would be required for massive EV adoption).

[@thomasfsan]

Paradoxically, nuclear is the cheapest way to produce H2. You can use the waste heat to heat up the water so that less energy is needed to for the electrolysis.. But let's not kid ourselves, Germany is looking at H2 only because they refuse Nuclear. It's a forced idea.

[@perryallan3524]

@@audiodead7302 Hydrogen is used in many industrial processes; and may be far more useful as a fuel in places without a robust electrical infrastructure.

[@Alondro77]

Nobody forgot how to build nuclear plants. The environmental whackjobs screamed bloody murder and fearmongered to the naive public every time a nuclear plant was proposed.

[@raybod1775]

Lots of people shorted Tesla, lost billions.

[@theostapel]

Do we all have such funds ?

[@charleskramer6189]

I think Tesla shorts will be proven correct, in time. Buying a Teslas was a badge of liberal pride: see? I'm part of the future! Now it's a badge of supporting a would-be Martian, and that has already affected sales. And for EVs, the one with the best batteries wins. There are many batteries that are supposed to enter the market -- with many different form factors, and different chemistries. If (say) flat-pack lithium-sulfur wins (potentially 3x or more dense and half the price) Tesla will need to buy them, or be doomed. And it may be doomed anyway. Tesla's current batteries are structural and heavy and need cooling unique to them; using a new better battery may require a total design. The probablem with shorting is you only win if you can guess WHEN the crash will come, and Tesla illustrates just how difficult that is.

[@theostapel]

@@charleskramer6189 Thank you for this detailed note - all your facts are organised in their row. Not being as you - in this field - I must just say - I do not like this man and will not (as far as possible) have him and his like - play puppet master with me and my like. Have a good solution worked out

[@andrejohnson7237]

​@@charleskramer6189You'll be wrong, autonomy, manufacturing and energy will prove this. Elon seems incompetent on the surface but he usually always wins

[@chipkrug4191]

Setting aside the issues of storage and transport, there is one logical argument I can see for hydrogen production from renewable sources of electricity, in particular wind and solar: Use excess capacity for electrolysis. The process may be inefficient compared to storing that excess capacity in batteries, but it has the advantage of demanding less rare earth elements with all of their environmental and social costs. Can anyone tell me why this argument does not hold water?

[@ganvoth]

Most serious thinking physicists and engineers have known that large scale Hydrogen is a hype bubble for many years. When I learned about hydrogen embrittlement 20 years ago, I realized this probably couldn't be made to work at large scale. Then as solar PV and battery technology has advanced so quickly, the door has shut on grid scale hydrogen. But the idea is so attractive to non-experts that someone is always going be there to fund any smoke and mirrors campaign that claims to make it work. "Run a marathon in flip-flops"!! exactly the right analogy...can be done...but is still a very bad idea. Thanks Sabine. We need more people like you who unmask the self-serving technical experts who are willing to market obviously unworkable silver bullet technologies simply because they can make money in the short term by grant funded research or speculative business ventures without any viable path for the technology to actually to benefit society.

[@jamesmacdonald5556]

You first build the nuclear power plants only then switch to a hydrogen economy unless you're from Germany, then you can keep on burning natural gas and coal and begging neighboring countries for energy.

[@philIion]

Stop wagnering your finger at other people

[@DerPipi666]

Germany exports electric energy, over all.

[@jesan733]

@@DerPipi666 no, Germany imports overall. It exported until 2022, but has since then an increasing deficit in production. The import balance in 2024 was 25 TWh.

[@MusikCassette]

why would you wast money on nuclear power plants?

[@jesan733]

@@MusikCassette it's the only success story we have for deep decarbonization. It's also cheap if we want it to be.

[@jackgaines5615]

Every time I saw a surge of advertising on Hydrogen, I suspected that it was a petroleum red herring to undermine electric cars.

[@sismith5427]

Um... Hydrogen is used to produce EV power via a hydrogen fuel cell, removing the need for massive battery packs. How was that supposed to undermine EV's? I think you misunderstand how hydrogen powered cars work... they are EV's. It's just that the electricity is created in the car, not via plugging it into the mains.

[@katambrose5568]

Dr. Hossenfelder, if you start an investment group, I’ll join. I’m completely serious.

[@Thomas-gk42]

I´m on board too😉

[@SabineHossenfelder]

Interesting thought indeed.

[@EbonyPope]

@@SabineHossenfelder Do you even know about Hysata who developed a new 95 % efficient electrolysis method? At least that is what they are claiming. If true that would change everything since the electrolysis part is the one who wastes the most energy.

[@chaosdude1323]

Joining Isaac Newton's investment group might have also sounded tempting at the time.

[@Thomas-gk42]

@@EbonyPope Doesn´t sound very credible, but let´s see. Maybe Sabine makes a video about it.

[@chaos-ivy]

I disagree with a lot of the points here. I'm planning on doing a placement year next year before my Masters degree and then later to do a PhD both in green hydrogen production. As a chemical engineer I think a lot of the scale-up concerns are very tacklable. The research is still being done and progress is always being made. An interesting point is the company I want to work for (Surrey H2) operates at 92% efficiency for green hydrogen production. Conversion back to energy is typically around 80-90% so this 40% efficiency figure given <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="147">2:27</a> is incredibly pesimistic. The bubble you talk about is described by you as purely economic - investments and stock prices going down - but this is surely not all of what 'hype' is made from. I am still very hopeful for the Hydrogen Economy.

[@BaronLucid]

What I'm baffled buy is the rapidity at which government entities embraced this concept knowing everything you just said 8 years ago? Is this simply a way to pay off and get kicked backs from energy companies 😞

[@Revolutionarythought]

I am glad the hydrogen stocks I own, primarily Plug Power, seem to be performing very well over the last few months. Even better over the last week.

[@EbonyPope]

The biggest problem is the electrolysis part. But Hysata an Australina company supposedly has discovered a new 95 % efficient way of producing hydrogen. If true that would be a game changer.

[@bartroberts1514]

Makes note to short H2 stocks, especially Plug Power. Gambler's Fallacy is brutal.

[@Revolutionarythought]

@ gambles fallacy isn't always a fallacy. For example, the famous coin flip. True enough each individual flip had a 50% chance; and if you have a run of 10 "heads" the odds of the next flip being heads is 50%; however, if you step back and consider that the next bet is no longer on the individual flip, but rather the series as a whole, then you'd realize the odds of getting 11 heads in a row are .04%; or 1 in 2500. So a change in perspective on what the bet represents--the individual throw or a the results of a series of throws--changes everything. Of course that has nothing to do with what you're actually saying. 😂 So I apologize for the derail. The truth is that while Sabine is probably correct, and at least near term a complete hydrogen economy is not in the cards, I believe hydrogen will play a key role in some industries and as fuel in some pretty important cases. Therefore the well situated hydrogen production companies, particularly in the U.S. where rules on production were just relaxed, will remain possible. That said, I'd dispense with all my money and investments to live in a world without capitalism.

[@comesignotus9888]

Hydrogen: requires electricity to produce, permeates a lot of materials and changes their mechanical properties, doesn't liquefy under normal temperatures, is highly flammable. What could possibly go wrong with it's mass adoption as a "green" fuel? The world is really full of wonders and surprises for those, who preferred to party hard instead of studying at school, and then became politicians.

[@arthurbrands6935]

Gentleman's B = paid tuition.

[@DevilsAdvocate_HigherThanU]

Ever heard of lpg? Has all the same problems and is in wide spread use. They use polymers to seal it.

[@mariotomazzoni6523]

Don't worry, the plants to manufacture the hydrogen will only run a few hours per year then the price for electricity is low. The fuel cells/gas power plants to produce electricity from hydrogen will only run a few hours per year then the price for electricity is high. The cost of building & maintaining all that infrastructure and the cost of storing the hydrogen must be made during those few hours per year, so the price per kWh will be high. What could go wrong with that?

[@noprivacyverner]

Danish pension fund is loosing billions on a Hydrogen project in Sweden

[@aspenbackwoods1192]

You should have lost it in Finland, we have lots of projects of H but no funds.

[@tonyfernandes3557]

I have expressed my doubts for long time! It sounded great untl the low tide comes and you start to see the rocks!

[@stefans.8072]

Working with hydrogen myself, I'm confident the addressed technical challenges can be managed. But I wonder wich alternative we have for seasonal storage of renewable energy?

[@davidrommel8109]

I gave up 15 years of my life as a drastically underpaid engineer thinking I was investing in my life as well as the future. We actually came to this conclusion through detailed research and wrote a paper on how emerging battery technology would overshadow H2 tech and probably end the need except for renewable industrial hydrogen in ~2008. If I can give it up after putting my last good working life into it so can H2 fans. It's time to move on. Get behind new battery technology. This is the future and there is a lot to do.

[@AndrewBlucher]

Flow batteries

[@svr5423]

As soon as I've got batteries that can be charged in 5min and offer 500km range, I consider switching over. For the forseeable future, this is vaporware. We have biofuels available though, hydrogen and synfuels. But we are using fossil fuels because of political reasons and because people are afraid of change. For me, this is not an issue, I have factored in potential climate change issues into my choice of residence.

[@borincod]

could you provide a name of your paper or DOI ?

[@ppdan]

Where can I find batteries of 1-2MWh to store my solar overproduction from the summer for the winter? A combination of batteries and hydrogen for home energy storage would be useful. What cannot be put into the batteries could be converted to hydrogen for long term storage and even if it's only 40% it's still much more than doing nothing with it or injecting into the grid where I get next to nothing for it.

[@David-yo5ws]

@@ppdan I have a 5kW Solar and 5kW Lithium/Iron battery. It would be nice to be able to store the excess instead of just getting 12 cents and the power company sells it for 33.14 cents per kW hour. But I look on it as an investment. If I compare what interest I could get on a 6 monthly investment re-invested, I just come out ahead with the Solar. Because I don't pay tax on the Solar 'income', I just edge ahead of the investment. And that's taking off a weekly payment, I put aside, to pay off the system after 15 years. And I have piece of mind when the nest power outage comes along. I flick the mains board switch over to solar and my fridge and freezer keep running. I have lights, internet and phone. You can't get that from a savings account 😉

[@kylewalsh393]

Sabine, love your content and regular well thought out criticisms of present global topics in science and energy, etc. One question (admittedly maybe critique or rhetorical), in efforts to confront climate change by transitioning from status quo “big energy”, how do you weigh value or acceptable risk from Nuclear versus renewables such as hydrogen, solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, et al.? For my 2 cents, I tend to think nuclear is great except when we consider human element, ie errors, war, terrorism, etc; and the non-zero chance of Chernobyl events (multi-generational destruction of life and large geographical areas) as a risk that I personally do not feel comfortable with. Coming from a person with multiple family member who work at Hanford in Washington State where active clean up has been occurring my entire life. Thank you for your time!

[@shazzz_land]

P.S.: happy new year

[@ismailchairi5212]

Oh 🥺 yah 2025!!! Well i bet for the moon landing in the next few years

[@badandy880]

Excellent summary of risks associated with hydrogen use. Thanks!

[@danburnes722]

It was all a ruse and a diversionary tactic. Analysis I did on my own, including technical publication concluded a H2 economy could never work for all reasons and more that are noted in this video. I believe, as an insider, this was intentional by oil & gas companies buying more time to sell more product.

[@goodvibes4all]

The Queens “Under Pressure” joke got me chuckling! 😅

[@javiersolis2993]

I like that new shirt, nice colors.

[@5nowChain5]

Shorting can be very-very expensive if it goes wrong. Please do a video on it. It would be fun, with the animations and video clips.

[@gubx42]

Furthermore, the markets don't work on natural scientific principles. A company that can make money on false promises is just as valuable as one that actually delivers, and it is reflected in the stock price. If some hydrogen company is successful getting a lot of tax money for instance, the stock will go up, screwing every short seller, the value of the company is in getting tax money. Who cares if the tech doesn't work, they can always switch to the next hype cycle to keep making money, and if they are able to do that successfully, the value will increase even more, as they have shown they are really good at extracting money from governments.

[@Basement_stories]

Better not do that, even if you're right you can still lose money. Things which don't make sense can last longer than you stay solvent and at best your gain is 100% if something immediately goes to zero while losses are potentially infinite, or you can get margin call with elevated volatility. Just ignore bubbles, buy many cheap stocks and hold them for long time. It's best method to relatively safely compound capital.

[@stevenverrall4527]

One word: Ammonia. Amogy continues to do relatively well. The most logical solution is to immediately convert H2 into ammonia for storage and transport. Then convert back to H2 immediately before feeding into a H2 fuel cell. In addition, enormous quantities of natural H2 have been discovered in Earth's crust. That removes the need to use renewable energy to produce H2, which is highly inefficient.

[@dansanger5340]

I got ammonia once. I think I caught it at the liberry.

[@stevenverrall4527]

​@@dansanger5340Laugh all you want. It is impossible to power all of our modern infrastructure on wind, solar, and electric batteries. To start with, there are not enough minerals available in all the world's existing or planned mines! Superior (to Li ion) electric battery technologies are just as overhyped as quantum computing!

[@manuelsilva8528]

I used to be very pro-hydrogen cars up until some 10 years ago, when the first EVs were hitting the market. I saw a video explaining the problems/challenges of hydrogen cars, namely the worse efficiency than EVs and the energy density of hydrogen. Since then I stopped believing in hydrogen.

[@cejreid]

Sabina, I usually like your content, but this video is quite uninformed. There is already a pretty large H2 market that services mostly the refining, ammonia and chemical production sectors. This is currently dominated by grey H2 (high CO2 emissions) from steam methane reforming (SMR). To decarbonize this sector, any clean H2 technology that can't make a customer economic value proposition (either with or without the context of an established CO2 emissions cost) is doomed to fail. The only real H2 production that can currently produce decarbonized H2 at or better than the current price of grey H2 is turquoise H2, where methane (NG) is split into H2 and solid carbon, and the solid carbon is used in industrial applications such as tire or asphalt manufacture. Once the production costs and the co-product revenue is factored in, the net cost to the customer can be even less than what they pay for SMR grey H2 - a great incentive to adopt this technology. To decarbonize chemical fuels in the energy sector, clean H2 must compete with all other alternatives, including clean electrification. If it can't compete, it will not be commercialized. Currently, there is a start to the H2 fuel for vehicles economy where fuel cells and H2 replace lead acid batteries and electricity in lift trucks for 24/7 material handling applications in large distribution centres. In this case, there is a productivity gain as the fuel cell lift truck moves more pallets of goods per hour giving the customer a good IRR over their conventional battery power even while using the higher cost power (H2) and fuel cells. This H2 can be produced at a central site where it can be decarbonized by CO2 sequestration from SMR production (blue) and/or turquoise production again. Both production methods could still potentially preserve the customer IRR depending on the H2 transportation costs. The larger transportation sector requires H2 infrastructure that does not yet exist except in certain areas and will probably be used by applications where H2's higher energy/mass ratio or high energy content refuelling will give them a competitive advantage in the decarbonization game. The largest and arguable the most pressing decarbonization requirement is for chemical fuels used for producing industrial power and heat. There is no solution that can provide as low cost as just using natural gas, and hydrogen's role in these markets will depend on the settled cost of CO2 emissions. In the end, it will be the technology that offers the lowest cost of a tonne of "sequestered" CO2 that will win but turquoise H2 is one of the lowest cost alternatives. You will notice that no where in here do I even mention green H2. It is the most expensive way to produce H2 and it's economic role will be greatly limited to niche applications that make economic sense such as where there is an abundance of low cost clean electricity.

[@frederikv3366]

Luckily, there are still people in here with some sense. Batteries simply can’t - and will never - compete with the range of hydrogen. Companies are already switching from EV lift trucks to hydrogen-fuelled lift trucks because it’s much easier and faster to refuel, plus they have a longer range. Just look at what’s happening in Sweden with the Tesla queues. Things will move slowly, indeed. Nikola trucks have a much greater range than EVs and use less polluting batteries. Siemens is introducing hydrogen trains in Germany, and so on. EVs are good for short range in the city, but for long distance transport, hydrogen will be more efficient.

[@mariotomazzoni6523]

sorry, the Hydrogen will be needed to power fuel cells and gas power plants during periods with high electricity demand and low production from wind and photovoltaics. Like at a cold, cloudy, calm winters day with almost production from renewables and high demand from heatpumps. For that all the hydrogen must be storaged and there will not be enough left for industrial use. The industry can just move it's production to nations with cheaper electric power like Norway or China and produce there with carbon free hydrogen.

[@onlyonecannoli3952]

Well, look on the bright side. The helium industry is still going strong, thanks in great part to the birthday balloon industry. And because of this, we have plenty of balloons that can be repurposed to allow us all to temporarily enjoy having annoyingly high pitched squeaky voices.

[@dtibor5903]

🤣

[@charleskramer6189]

Aha! You must work for the Helium-industrial complex! Considering how useful helium is (for MRIs, for example) amazing any of it is allowed to be wasted on balloons. And squeaky voices.

[@JonSnow-YThandle]

If it sounds green, it sells... Till someone finds put how much it actually costs. Change my mind.

[@Hunpecked]

Would there be any advantage to taking the green hydrogen and immediately adding carbon dioxide (from air or exhaust gasses) to produce methane ("e-methane")? We've been using methane in large quantities for decades, so the infrastructure is already there.

[@dohan4789]

Are the latest developments in H2 tech incorporated in this analysis?

[@USA-CIA-NED_ProxyDeathSquadOps]

no, not at all. this analysis IGNORES/OMITS CHINA entirely

[@Marvin-tpa]

Oh reality and its nasty bite! We need to capture the suns energy and store it in a better way.

[@nicodesmidt4034]

If only we could have low -cost,-size, -weight and high energy density batteries 😮

[@santyclause8034]

Turn into a plant till it bears fruit.

[@rpgenious]

I'm all ears for the alternatives! - oh there were none in the video :O

[@nicodesmidt4034]

@@rpgenious the “solution” is to create waaaay better batteries and switch to electric

[@BooBaddyBig]

Michael Liebrich came up with the 'Hydrogen Ladder'. It turns out that some uses of green hydrogen are inevitable (like making ammonia for fertilizer), and some (like fuelling cars) are more or less economically impossible and some are in between (long distance trucking). His ladder puts things in a hierarchy. One of the more plausible ones is back-up power for the grid, it's pretty inefficient but rarely runs, so is likely to work as an emergency backup if there's no wind and no sun. But all of them need lots of renewables, and there aren't enough yet.

[@naamadossantossilva4736]

So one of the most plausible uses is propping a scam.Not a great idea.

[@BooBaddyBig]

@@naamadossantossilva4736 The real scam is fossil fuels. Millions dead from air pollution, and more expensive.

[@michaelrenper796]

Even the inevitable uses are not strong enough as drivers. E.g. ammonia production from methane could continue with very low CO2 output because the CO2 can be sequestered with relative ease in an industrial process. And at much much lower cost than switching to hydrogen. And the long distance trucking is a false flag. Once we remove CO2 from short distance transportation, the remaining fossil fuel usage in this domain is of little significance. In other words, their are other fossil fuel usages we can address more cheaply. What people often forget is: we don't need to get to zero fossil fuel usage. Going down to 20% of current usage is enough to slow down global warming. After that its diminishing returns.

[@BooBaddyBig]

@@michaelrenper796 Carbon capture is not nearly as easy as you think, and in practice a lot of it is never captured, and the cost and energy needed to do it is very high. There's basically no truly successful carbon capture projects in the entire world.

[@BooBaddyBig]

@@michaelrenper796 Methane is a terrible source of hydrogen due to the huge leakage in supply pipelines.

[@jonathan1613]

"It's like trying to run a marathon in flip flops." This lady hasn't heard about the Taraumara girls from Mexico who run further than any Olympic athlete in literal flip flops or barefoot...

[@msquar2ed]

😅

[@vijayakumarhiremath4288]

Very true madam, Science is more than profession, It is the way to understand the world & to provide solutions to the problems of the mankind, Thank you,

[@aeronsongerson2416]

25 years ago a close friend of my grandmother was a scientist working for a hydrogen fuel cell company, literally nothing that she said about the topic made any sense although I'm sure she believed it. I was 18 at the time and infuriated her by asking obvious basic questions which she could not answer, it was like talking to a cult member.

[@markofdistinction6094]

When I was in college, I was part of a green community research project. I was in charge of creating the hydrogen generator. That was 47 years ago. It was a bad idea then, its a worse idea now.

[@lbochtler]

Hydrocarbon decomposition based, or inefficient and toxic electrolysis?

[@markofdistinction6094]

@@lbochtler Since it was to create a green community, it was the inefficient electrolysis.

[@scottbishop7899]

They'd be far better off using alcohol (methanol as I don't want to anger alcoholics with price increases lol) as a "renewable fuel" (in my opinion) How much more polution does E.V.s lithium batteries create for their production and destruction (or recycle ability). That's one very strong reason not to use them, plus we don't have the electric infrastructure or energy density to cope with the switch fully electric vehicles! We seem to be forgetting about (or not mentioning them) some very key issues when it comes to the whole E.V. topic.

[@Davep068]

Methanol has potential, been seeing more buzz around it lately. We shall see

[@ikocheratcr]

How much more pollution do ICE cars create for their production and destruction (or recycle ability), and their operation?

[@scottbishop7899]

@@ikocheratcr they are far less toxic for the environment than E.V.s per unit!

[@majorgnu]

@scottbishop7899 "less toxic?" I find it hard to believe such a statement can be made, because that implies that it's less toxic in every way, or that there's an universally agreeable way to weigh different kinds of toxicity against each other.

[@scottbishop7899]

@@majorgnu the lithium and rare earth metals etc, putting out a lithium fire is also very difficult. So yes, far more toxic and potentially far more hazardous also!

[@SuperAntichicken]

There's an $11 billion investment in my neighborhood. I wonder if they'll ever see a return on that

[@STYX-a-Lot]

I want to know if you think this would work. A zirconium dioxide hollow shell… just a small quantity of hydrogen gas inside of the hollow shell. Microwaves that turned the gas to plasma. As the plasma expands, magnetic mirroring, reflects the plasma back toward the center of the shell. At the same time sound as introduced from all directions on the outside of the shell, that penetrate the shell, and enter the plasma that is converging in the center by a pressure wave Assisted by this sound wave. Sound travels 1/3 the speed of light and a plasma, so, the succeeding soundwave added to the first one, creates resonance. The amplitude of the sound waves increase exponentially within picoseconds, and the pressure waves which all converge in the center of the hollow sphere induce a fusion reaction. The reaction sends a pressure wave out from the center, and toward the shell with exponentially more power, and the process is repeated, possibly creating heavier, and heavier, elements on the periodic timetable from hydrogen. If you see any potential in this approach, please let me know that you would like to investigate my other designs for even more transcendent technologies. I would like to present to you what I call a gravity wave pulse generator that would create a warp bubble around a craft. I think your opinion matters to me more than even Einstein’s would. Thank you.

[@europaeuropa3673]

H2 energy storage sounds like an idea from the same people trying to collect CO2 from the atmosphere.

[@biankacosma]

In Japan, many households have a fuel cell. Tell THEM it's not feasible, Sabine 😂😂😂 but of course, you know better than them, having been working in energy economics for ... HOW LONG? 😂😂😂

[@dakotawilliams6725]

I was just about to do some research on Japan's progress regarding Hydrogen. They have invested heavily.

[@richardpark3054]

I can't believe anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of the absurd thermodynamics of using hydrogen as a motor vehicle fuel is still pursuing that dead end.

[@avsystem3142]

I believe you mean using hydrogen in an ICE vehicle. Hydrogen fuel cells could absolutely be a possible future EV "fuel".

[@lbochtler]

​@@avsystem3142no, not really

[@methylene5]

They don't, that's the problem. They just _think_ they have understanding.

[@richardpark3054]

@@avsystem3142 Nope. I meant exactly what I said. Fuel cells are still subject to the major problems of using hydrogen as a motor vehicle fuel: 1) Where does the hydrogen come from? 2) It's difficult to store. 3) It's a compressed flammable gas proposed to be driven around on the roads. 4) It embrittles many things, including many metals. If you wanna get a feel for the risks of hydrogen, just consider that there are many natural gas and propane appliances (I myself have 4 water heaters, 4 kitchen ranges, 1 outdoor barbecue, and 2 clothes dryers running on natural gas or propane) but NO hydrogen fueled household appliances.

[@afreire239]

This is hilarious. BEV's don't work for company vehicles that run around the clock, construction machinery, long distance trains,etc, which could use hydrogen. They only work for personal vehicles that run low daily mileages which could be replaced by electric trains and trams anyway.

[@DavidFiorillo-m3o]

Your sense of humor is as enjoyable as your videos are informative

[@null090909]

Don't worry. Shorting irrational bubbles is extremely expensive (margin calls) unless your timing is perfect.

[@tonyrome5584]

Sabine, You are 100% correct, hydrogen is both uneconomical and impractical, if not impossible to practically use as an energy technology. I did my first experiments with hydrogen when I was still in grade school. When I found out how inefficient it was to produce using simple electrolysis I proceeded to experiment with several ways to enhance that process, naturally they all failed. Years later I looked at what real(?) companies were proposing and learned all the engineering reasons that all of the technologies were, simply put, ridiculous! I still cant believe that investors put real money in any hydrogen scheme! Now I did have fun when I was a kid making loud booms with "bang gas"!!!

[@Joa-y4y]

lithium is a very toxic element metal, unlike gold or silver, not many countries want to mine it, 98% of lithium is not recycled and goes in to land fills or dumps, causing even worst toxins in peoples water canals and ocean, it is way cheaper to mine lithium than recycle it, the huge amount of lithium used to make just one lithium car is not sustainable for all cars, lithium is a water guzzling toxic element metal, it takes 1000 gallons of clean water turned very toxic , just to mine or build one lithium car(just one)this is just lithium and not including cobalt which is another of many other real toxic element metals in the build of a lithium toxic car ( just horrible) on top of this, most lithium cars are still connected to the oil and coal grids! clean EV car, NOT, have you been paying attention to the disasters aroumd planet on recycling facilities that have caused catastrophic fires and aftermath toxins released onto atmosphere, the lithium on board airline fire disaster that killed hundreds of people sometime back , try visiting a lithium recycling plant to see the dangers, however i would truly advise you on the dangers of visitation and good luck! There are many green hydrogen projects slated or moment green hydrogen facilities being built around the globe, fact, by 2030 green hydrogen will be abundant! cost effective cheap, however due to the heavy toxins and pollution in mining lithium, when a lithium car is still in the company assembly line it has already polluted more than a hydrogen fuel cell car that has been on the road for more than 125000 miles, solar cells have become much more cost efficient in making green hydrogen and better storage plus for in long run than having battery storage or just plan electricity, fuel cells will always have 10 times more energy power for the buck than any other lithium battery or solide state battery, plus the amazing secret about hydrogen fuel cell cars is that each car actually cleans the air as it runs due to it`s clean watered electrolysis when released onto the atmosphere.

[@cipaisone]

I am no expert, but even I can see that some of your claims are biased, or plain incorrect. First. The claim “hydrogen embrittlement is a problem”, without context , is as ridiculous as stating that “hydrogen economy is the solution”. Hydrogen embrittlement requires atomic hydrogen, it uses a big issue in chemical processes and corrosion, not quite so in low temperature exposure to molecular hydrogen…and even if some catalytic dissociation may occur at the surface of the metal, there is so much that can be done e to prevent, in terms of material selection and coating technology, that solutions most certainly already exist. Tara for the gaseous state. Yes it would be challenging , to transport it as liquid (like LNG, but it requires lower temperature ) and high pressure may be challenging ( once again, I do not believe that hydrogen embrittlement is really unsolvable.still, high pressure flammable gasses are risky )…but you are totally ignoring the possibility to use ammonia or other forms of hydrogen vectors (like LOHCs). I am not saying that there are no issues there ( perhaps first and foremost, the additional energy costs for chemical conversions) but you are definitely doing a biased job by only reporting claims about potential issues. Second. About the blue hydrogen. It is easy to say that oil companies are always around looking for a way to fool us all. But maybe :is it totally to be excluded, the possibility that carbon capture at the source may be way easier than attempting carbon capture at the end use? Again, not an expert here, but I think it is fair to assume that having a large carbon-capture treatment plant attached to the refinery, and distribute hydrogen (or a hydrogen vector) to the users may be logistically and energetically way easier than thinking of having a carbon capture facility attached to each and every transport and industry using oil. I should say, I am disappointed with your recent work as a science communicator ..and this has nothing to do with me being a supporter of hydrogen. in fact, I am neither a supporter or a denier, I simply try to understand and I look for unbiased scientific information. I am a fan of your books, and I still enjoy some of your videos, but I cannot help but notice that the level of your videos is getting lower and lower, the scientific content shallower and the bias (or ignorance of topic discussed, whichever is worse) more and more dominant. I would suggest you to stop going for short daily videos, and change your format to some more in-depth analysis, perhaps involving some expert to make an open discussion on the various topics you address. Of course I am one of some million people following you, so you may be right not giving a damn of my disappointment. Anyway, in my egoistic desire for avoiding losing interest for what I always considered a great science communicator, I still hope you go towards a better quality .

[@JakeStine]

Summary: Says “hydrogen embrittlement is a problem” is ridiculous, and then proceeds to make it sound a lot like a problem and postulates assumptions as solutions. Uses false equivalence to liken two unrelated statements -- eg, acknowledging "a" problem is not the same as declaring "the" solution, the former doesn't speak in absolutes, while the latter does). Second. Continues on with more postulates and assumptions, freely admitting "not an expert." Finally: Engages in ad hominin attacks and and character assassination, suing statements like "I an a fan" to feign credibility where none has been earned.

[@ta60015i]

The quality of the episode is much below what i expected. I hold a PHD in physical chem. Several really fundamental errors. Embrittlement, iridium, fuel cells just to name three.

[@ZetaFuzzMachine]

Sorry but now you'll have to explain yourself

[@ta60015i]

@ZetaFuzzMachine embrittlement ist an issue in high strength steel. Not mild steel. Iridium is only needed in pem electrolyzers but not fuel cells. Electrolyzers will mostly be alkaline for now. To convert h2 into electricity no fuel cell is needed which are anyway too delicate. A 4 stroke or gas and steam turbine will do this.

[@st-ex8506]

Sabine, I wholeheartedly agree with you on that one! Well done! I wish to say it because I have also bitterly criticized you on other topics!

[@marcuslang6153]

22 reduction in Projects, right now, that doesn't Seem like a landslide. every industry is adjusting capacity right now

[@HansCSchellenberg]

How exactly is aviation going carbon free without Hydrogen? Are you telling me I will be able to fly 17 1/2 hours from San Francisco to Singapore nonstop on batteries? I don't think so. It is actually possible to fuel large gas turbines with vaporized liquid hydrogen. Batteries are not the future of transportation especially aviation. You can make carbon free Hydrogen with nuclear power using electrolysis. Building many many new nuclear power plants will drive the cost of electricity and making hydrogen down. This video sounds like it is coming from the Golf Cart Cult, with the Asperger's obsession with efficiency. Build enough nuclear power plants, and efficiency does not matter.

[@dansanger5340]

Why is it so important to you that batteries fail? Obviously, batteries aren't the future of long distance aviation. But, there's no reason that every other mode of transportation has to use the same technology as long distance aviation.

[@MsNyara]

"Efficiency does not matter", well, let me illustrate you why it matters with a simple exercise and some context. First, there is not enough natural isolated hydrogen in the world, and the hydrogen obtained as by-product from gas industry that is obtained in a year is barely enough for the needs of 1 week for the aviation industry. So, forcefully, we need a turbine to split hydrogen from H2O. The cost to this split is of around $4/kg, ok, not that bad, let's say even that "magic science" shows up and somehow we can make those turbines 4 times more efficient, and reduce cost to $1/kg. Now, do you know how much fuel would an airplane need of hydrogen? About 1 ton per hour, or 1000kg. So a single travel of 4 hours would cost 4k + cost of electricity, batteries and electric motor shenanigans = 6k + operational margins and misc costs and maintenance = 6.5k. At this price tag, nobody can pay it except governments and businessman. And keep in mind, I am already assuming "magic science" + "economies of scale" + "no taxes" + other shenanigans, in reality the travel right now could cost $22.5k. It is simply not viable, and the reason is that it is inefficient. You cannot simply ignore efficiency when the difference is too wide, you can just ignore it when it is in the realms of maybe up to 100% more inefficient, not when it is 20000% more inefficient. As for air travel, this simply means we will be using gasoline for it for a very long time. Just 3% of emissions comes from air traveling, so we can decarbon the rest of the economy and keep using oil for air traveling for the foreseeable future. We can also land and sea travel like in the past, as it is needed, a lot of current airplane uses are just a luxury and not a necessity whatsoever.

[@HansCSchellenberg]

@@MsNyara So any mode of transportation that batteries can't support, get a pass from the green squad eh, because batteries are the future eh? Too damn funny. Also you think airliners run on Gasoline? Seriously? The Aspergers basket cases obsess on efficiency so hard that can't see the forest through the trees. So I will say it again, large scale nuclear power production would drive the cost of electrolytically produced hydrogen way down. Get it? Cheap carbon free electrolytically produced hydrogen, powering everything. Think of it as external nuclear power for vehicles. Put another way, using nuclear reactors to produce a high energy density carbon free renewable fuel for transportation, from water and electricity. But but but efficiency...Elon says BEV's are the most efficient...but but Elon says...uh huh.

[@enadegheeghaghe6369]

Efficiency does not matter? Did you really write that?

[@svr5423]

synfuels or biofuels. synfuels are mostly made from hydrogen though. So basically we use biofuels because they claim to be more efficient then.

[@DaraParsavand]

Please don’t learn about shorting. What we should be doing is banning it (along with high frequency trading and a bunch of other Wall Street bullshit that isn’t doing anything to help us move forward). The basic concept of taking a chance on a good idea and then making a profit if it succeeds - that kind of seems like it could be useful in a society - the rest, not so much.

[@raybod1775]

I used to make money shorting. A lot of trading doesn’t create anything positive.

[@jimmcneal5292]

Why should it be banned?

[@zweidritteleinfach2087]

@@DaraParsavand Shorting of stocks has a vital function since it provides an incentive for market participants to uncover inefficiency or outright fraud. Wirecard, Nikola and Theranos are all prominent examples of companies where regulators and investors all failed to uncover fraudulant practices that then came to light because of research done by short sellers.

[@daniel.lopresti]

White collar high roller gambling.

[@DUMBO35111]

Shorting is essential for functioning markets and helps keep them balanced. The hatred against shorting is only emotionally driven and misplaced, as it overlooks the role short sellers play in enhancing market efficiency

[@moritzrothacher2669]

Hydrogen is not meant to be finacially sensible, it is meant to be the solution for carbon emissions we cannot easily circumvent otherwise. Steel, cement, aviation, etc.

[@JoelBergmark]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="45">0:45</a> In north Sweden green steel via Hydrogen is still super hype, and another tiny player with 0 hydrogen skills today want to build a plant to make green aviation fuel.. Yet who want to buy it all later remains to be seen and it's public money pushed into it...

[@borincod]

using hydrogen to reduce iron in ore seems not so bad idea actually. you can avoid problems related to sulfur and over-carbonizing altogether

[@JoelBergmark]

@borincod Yes there is a good logic for it, the business case could work in relation to force change on legislative side. Yet somehow it still is the consumer will pay for it, and currently that seems to be quite a stretch. But it depends i hope it will work and there is a market for it.

[@daanschone1548]

Imagine the alternative, direct electricity to power a steel factory. The wires will melt immediately and no-one else can even charge their phones.

[@TheBeeFactory]

This happens with a lot of new technologies. There is over hype and people want to make magic cars and power their homes with it etc... it never works that way, and there is a huge backlash, and hacks like Hoff get to make their anti-science hate videos and feel smug about it. Then they actually find a very useful niche for the technology and it's refined and put to great use in that specific area. Don't listen to the hate. Give it time and hydrogen will find it's home somewhere. It might not be in YOUR home, but it will find a place where it makes sense.

[@bobmester3475]

I’ve followed this for about 50 years and always hoped the kinks could be worked out. It has always sounded wonderful as you said. It’s pretty sad to see this is not viable option.

[@noname117spore]

I'll be honest, as someone who has merely followed rocket launches for the last 10 years, and been interested in the physics, engineering, and economics of them, I could start smelling the bullshit about the hydrogen economy from far away. Rockets are probably the best use case for hydrogen and at this point thats debateable, really only good for expendable upper stages on expendable rockets that are starting to go out of fashion. Its tiny size, resulting leakiness/embrittlement, resulting difficulty to contain and handle, and lack of density just crushes it for use cases in most circumstances. I'm kind of shocked this all got taken seriously.

[@anthonylosego]

All rocket fuel is only 0.0001% of the emissions. Even in our current mass to orbit situation. It's not a low hanging fruit.

[@protorhinocerator142]

Too many people who nod their heads without critical thinking and "trust the science". Also the inherent lie that hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe.

[@noname117spore]

@@anthonylosego I was trying to also make the point that the issues with handleability and storage density for rockets would also translate down into other applications of hydrogen. That probably wasn't clear enough in my original comment.