this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2025
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Huh? I thought Hydrogen was usually produced from splitting O2 and H1 from water?
There are two practical ways to make hydrogen:
Split water molecules via electrolysis. This is thermally inefficient and not cost-effective at scale.
Strip hydrogen atoms off of hydrocarbon molecules, usually natural gas. It's much cheaper. Unfortunately, the leftover carbon atoms leave the process as CO2. AFAIK all commercially available hydrogen is made this way.
Damn, thanks for the info, I always assumed it was just splitting water
There is a multitude of ways to make hydrogen and only 1% of production is low emission.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production
Well shit Today I learned, thanks!
It takes a ton of energy to split water into it's components, that typically comes from fossil energy
TIL, thanks!
There's still a place for producing hydrogen via electrolysis (chemical feedstock), but anyone who wants to burn hydrogen is either selling you a rocket (good) or an excuse to keep sucking up that crude. The answer to our energy problems is still just solar, wind, batteries, and other renewables.
Most of it, currently, yes.
But there is no requirement to do it that way.
(Also, the people who run fuel cells typically don't buy fossil hydrogen.)