this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2024
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I'm very confused. About a year ago I saw a YouTube video describing the use of hydrogen as a replacement for fossil fuels.
It went into great detail about the effectiveness and impracticable restrictions on distribution of pure hydrogen, mainly because its extremely small molecules leak through pretty much everything and compression is required to carry any useful quantities around, not to mention storage temperature and refuelling issues.
This was contrasted with using ammonia as a hydrogen delivery mechanism instead. We distribute and transport ammonia around the planet in great quantities already. The chemical process is green, uses significantly less energy, and we already know how to do this.
What I don't understand is why we're still talking about pure hydrogen, doing studies about cooking and still trying to promote this as a great fuel, when better, more effective ways exist.
Anyone?
More information here: https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2020/11/ammonia-to-green-hydrogen/
This article is specifically talking about the use of hydrogen blended into natural gas pipelines as a way to reduce dependence on fossil fuels for heating and cooking. Ammonia as a transport mechanism has no place here.
The current consensus in the industry is that you can replace up to 20% of the natural gas with hydrogen in a pipeline with no adverse affects. This article is indicating that there may in fact be some adverse affects.
Edited to fix some stupid autocorrects. At least it was mainly verb tense this time.
Ammonia is nasty stuff. From a safety perspective I'm sure we'd be better off building new nuclear plants than increasing the usage and transportation of fry your lungs sauce.
Ammonia is an environmental hazard, in addition, the chemical processes, however green they may be, need extra energy compared to production of hydrogen. And that is already a very lossy process, energy-wise. You also need infrastructure for it. Afaik, only Japan is really interested in building such infrastructure.
One possible reason is that ammonia is a fairly dangerous substance with both acute and chronic exposure risks.
The study hasn't been peer reviewed, so shame on the authors for talking about it like it's already decided, but the skeptical part of me can't rule out that this whole thing was destined to fail on purpose.
Big Oil: "See? Hydrogen doesn't work ~~in unmodified systems~~! Shucks, guess we'll have to keep using natural gas..."
And maybe it's less nefarious, like additional proof that we can't just retrofit existing systems by changing the gas mixture, but it's at least suspicious that it benefits fossil fuel producers so neatly.
Big oil has been the primary force pushing hydrogen, because they make most of it, from cracking fossil fuels products. It's complete green washing.
In terms of chemically bonding hydrogen to something else for easier storage and transport, I think the best plan is to add carbon so it becomes convenient synthetic methane or gasoline that we can use in our existing distribution infrastructure and machinery.
...of course, that just goes to show how absurd the entire concept of hydrogen is, considering that it's almost exclusively made from those things in the first place!
If we really want a sustainable portable energy storage medium that isn't electricity, my vote would be for cracking water into hydrogen with electrolysis and then immediately (in the same facility) converting that + CO2 to synthetic hydrocarbon fuel using the Fischer-Tropsch process.