this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2024
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Futurology
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Every post about hydrogen gets a negative reaction, like someone has proposed using coal to power cars.
There are different suitable applications for different types of energy, it's not a situation where you have to pick one solution and that's it. I notice the same happens to some degree with posts about nuclear power.
Hydrogen has potential in things like shipping, aviation, trains and industry. Even if the exact concept in the article doesn't work, the lessons learned might advance technology in other projects.
The negative reaction comes from the fact that most hydrogen is produced by an energy intensive process that uses steam to crack petroleum products, and oil companies like BP have invested millions in greenwashing it to sound good.
I understand there is green hydrogen and blue hydrogen and considered adding a paragraph on that in my comment, but didn't.
I know most hydrogen isn't green, but there isn't a reason it couldn't be some day.
It makes some sense to me to use the currently more economically viable blue hydrogen in developing technology, but I do agree it is far from perfect.
Considering all this, I still think the negativity to hydrogen progress isn't proportional.
This is why the negativity is not proportional enough… why are the oil companies pushing for this? It’s not so the wind and solar farms can split water in the future and cut them out of the equation, it’s to delay BEV adoption and try to create a future where they are needed to supplement the horrible efficiencies of hydrogen production, and the need to transport it all over the world.
None of these companies are trying to be altruistic, they are actively destroying the environment and buying influence, to continue making money by doing it.
Batteries are more efficient, more energy dense, cheaper, last for decades and can be 97+% recycled after those decades of service to produce batteries that are even more efficient.
Hydrogen has lost the battle for transport power.
I will cheer any Hydrogen progress that is not attempting to be applied to something that already has a greener alternative.