Hydrogen as a Fuel: Does the Energy Balance Stack Up?

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It made me chuckle when I read a comment on LinkedIn where someone referred to fending off the various “hydrogen hype” posts (with accompanying AI generated graphics) as being like playing a game of “Whack-a-mole”. That’s very apt!

The vast balance of “hydrogen projects” seemingly justify themselves only by the the high number of reported Hydrogen projects! On that, one particular entity (usually one with a vested interest) is behind and/or promoting it. I would be curious why people expect bodies with a vested interest to speak the truth about that which they have a vested interest in? It would seem a statement of the obvious that anyone promoting any particular view would present facts or data to support such a view rather than stating that there are people doing it. Is this not similar to making a statement that the direction sheep in the flock are traveling is a sensible direction for the sheep solely because many of them are moving in that direction?

Over recent, and not so recent times, we have seen Hydrogen as a fuel hyped as the next great leap forward; yet none of the posters (AI or actual people) furnish the reader with a Material and Energy balance (M&EB) that supports their views, nor do they detail what problem it supposedly solves (and/or why). The debate isn’t that we can use Hydrogen as a fuel, given NASA has much experience in successfully launching rockets into space. The question is “how sensible a use of energy is it?” and why do no posts on LinkedIn include an M&EB to underpin their views? Surely, a view without presented facts is nothing more than an opinion? Given all the efforts being made to promote Hydrogen as a fuel, have not any of the “promotionalists” thought to provide data/justification as to how/why this addresses climate change? Provision of an M&EB would be that reveal – so where is the M&EB from those whom believe Hydrogen to be the fuel of the future? Simply saying so, doesn’t make it so… And saying often so, doesn’t necessarily make it more so. What makes it “very much not so” is hydrogen’s chemical and physical properties. “Technology” as much as you like, and hydrogen will remain a low energy density gas that is energy intensive to product, difficult to handle, and which takes a great deal of compression and/or liquification in order to make it useful as a fuel. Not a single case presented on LinkedIn shows hydrogen as a fuel to be close to, or above 50% of the energy (often useful, usable electricity) expended in getting it to point of use in a usable form.

That people have gone to the extent of producing small planes, trains, trucks, buses and cars that use Hydrogen as a fuel (via ICE or fuel-cell) without first making a claim as to how sensible it is, and triumphantly presenting their M&EB for us all to be amazed. Would not the first step of any sensible project be to robustly challenge how sensible the project is in the first place? If Hydrogen is the answer to climate change, then what question/problem is it solving or answering? That many publicly funded bodies such as the European Hydrogen Bank (Reference: https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/eus-energy-system/hydrogen/european-hydrogen-bank_en) are being funded to “unlock private investment” makes me question who is doing the due diligence from both sides.

I would have thought it fairly evident to anyone with basic physical chemistry that when taking a stable and abundant compound and forcing it into a less stable compound that the First Law of Thermodynamics (and the second) comes into play, as does the law of entropy. That the belief in Alchemy and Perpetual Motion was (mostly) abandoned by the early 1900s (Refer to the work of Polish Physicist Marian Smoluchowski on kinetic theory (among others)) makes it hard to understand why so many people are touting Hydrogen as a fuel? Might the many grants and subsidies on offer have something to do with this, or is much of this AI generated? An interesting question to have an answer for is “AI generated to what purpose?”

There is no dispute that one can use useful electricity to generate Hydrogen from electrolysis of water at the cost of circa 50kWh of useful and usable electricity. The obvious question here is to why not make use of this electricity in its already usable form, rather to go the Hydrogen route and end up with less than 50% of the electricity one stated with? What problem does Hydrogen solve that electrification can’t? For those promoting Hydrogen as a fuel, would it not be sensible to provide a comparison as to what electrification brings to the table? The obvious use for Hydrogen is as a chemical feedstock. Here I have no argument, other than (as we do now) it is far more efficient to generate that Hydrogen as close to use as is reasonably practicable. Transporting hydrogen is another energy intensive process with a significant tranche of technical and safety issues to engineer.

Other than the laws of physics, with enough money and time, we can engineer ourselves around most things. Whether it is worth trying in the first place comes back to the question of how sensible a thing it is to do in the first place. Whilst “sensible” is one very important determination, the other is safety. If others wish to throw their money into things that aren’t sensible, then that’s really for them and their money. When the money being thrown is public money, and this results in the introduction of hazards that we don’t need to have; then that’s for all of us to be concerned.