The hydrogen zombie has risen again and is stalking the land. Will it ever die once and for all?

Yes my friends, I believe that water will one day be employed as fuel, that hydrogen and oxygen which constitute it, used singly or together, will furnish an inexhaustible source of heat and light, of an intensity of which coal is not capable. When the deposits of coal are exhausted we shall heat and warm ourselves with water. Water will be the coal of the future.

— Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island (1874-5)

...of thermodynamics in high school.

I went to what appeared to be a pretty good high school when I was a kid, but there was no discussion, as I recall - I confess it was a long time ago - the laws of thermodynamics.

I recall that in college it all seemed arcane, while many other subjects didn't seem so.

Any money spent on hydrogen as a consumer product is squandered money. It is, however, an important chemical intermediate (to be handled by highly trained chemical plant engineers) on which the world food supply depends, as a source of ammonia.

Why would someone post these examples without a date?

Couldn't be to make them seem like they are recent examples, could they.

Every form of energy is "dangerous" to some degree.

But - as you read this- hydrogen is a multibillion dollar industry. Whether or not the US wakes up and decides to utilize this element as a part of a decarbonized future, it's not going anywhere.

Should anyone want to read some unbiased articles about this billion dollar industry, Energy.gov has a page here

https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-and-fuel-cell-technologies-office

Many people, both here and elsewhere, run around with their hair on fire, jumping up and down and ranting about why more is not being done about the C02 levels in the atmosphere. Yet when some try to do something, and it involves Hydrogen, they rant about these efforts and attempt to mislead people. This is why companies like Toyota have decided to abandon the US when it comes to these efforts. And why people like me can't wait to renounce our "citizenship" and leave the ship of fools ASAP. The US of 2024 is a global laughing stock and an embarrassment to humanity.



It's pointless trying to reason with much of the United States of Corruption in 2024. A waste of time.

Granholm is promoting this? Disappointing.

The script for that video was written by some industry PR lack.

"What's in this glass right here? An incredibly powerful tool or us to decarbonize our economy and tackle the climate crisis and create a ton of good paying jobs..."

That is just embarrassing.

...scam is still a trivial outgrowth of fossil fuel marketing, has nothing to do with anything other than the rebranding of fossil fuels as "green," and, as the 2024 IEA World Energy Outlook reports in uncertain terms, a scheme to waste energy, at least if one can tell if 5 will still be less than 7 "by 2050." The big "hydrogen miracle" that's been the object of endless horseshit for half a century has finally, after being (correctly, I think) ignored by the IEA for 3 decades suddenly shows up, of course, "by 2050."




IEA World Energy Outlook 2024

Table A.1a: World energy supply Page 296.

At the risk of seeing yet another repeat of a video from China displayed dishonestly with pictures of solar cells, or another repeat of the "appeal to authority" logical fallacy involving Secretary Granholm, the last row in the column, which shows zero hydrogen "energy" in 2024, and predicts, 1 Exajoules out of 676 "by 2030" and 1 Exajoule out of 682 (at a cost of 2 Exajoules of primary energy, a 29% loss) "by 2035," and 2 Exajoules out of 691 Exajoules (at a cost of 3 Exajoules, a 33% loss) "by 2040" and 5 exajoules out of 722 (at a cost of 7 Exajoules, a 29% loss) "by 2050."

Note that in 2050, if the IEA soothsaying holds up, it appears that the IEA is referring to captive hydrogen, and only 2040 will anybody seriously be utilizing hydrogen as a fuel on any scale that matters, this at enormous risk, since the scam is dangerous.

The most recent major hydrogen plant explosion was at, unsurprisingly, a dangerous fossil fuel plant.

As for the contempt expressed for the 60 people whose homes were damaged, remarking that they weren't killed reflects a kind of moral indifference to my way of thinking. The plant is a small piece of shit plant, designed to produce 700 kg of hydrogen a day, by consuming thermodynamically degraded electricity on the North Carolina grid, and not a plant representing anything like a vast industrial scale plant.

Longview, NC H2One plant

I'm not saying people can't make money running this scam, clearly they can and so, hence all the greenwashing ads we see for hydrogen "energy." This slick ads surely cost money to make.

In my clearly and oft stated and unshakable opinion, anyone who believes or pushes this horseshit about "green hydrogen" is either gullible, badly educated, or overtly dishonest.

Hydrogen is a dirty (and dangerous) fuel.

A Giant Climate Lie: When they're selling hydrogen, what they're really selling is fossil fuels.

Fuel cell bus in California destroyed after explosion during refuelling.

The fuel cell bus, which didn't last particularly long involved the squandering of roughly 1 million dollars, not even counting the clean up that will surely be necessary of the chemotoxic fluorocarbons, once the fluoropolymers in the fuel cells are accounted for.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Why do you ignore the numerous explosions caused by gasoline and lithium ion batteries?

So does fertilizer, so do grain, charcoal, titanium, sugar, aluminum, iron…

(So do nuclear power plants.)

Stop engaging in FUD.

...really has a profound inability to think clearly.

When a hydrogen tank explodes the effects are localized, when a nuclear plant melts down, the effects can spread for 100’s of miles.