Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Japan's hydrogen strategy does nothing for decarbonisation: study

hydrogeninsight.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 454 posts

Re: Japan's hydrogen strategy does nothing for decarbonisation: study

#341

Post by burkaman »

thereddaikon wrote: post #333
amluto wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn’t make sense to me. Hydrogen is not an energy source — it’s a way to store energy and make it portable. So Japan could import hydrogen (which is not obviously any better than importing LNG or oil), or Japan could make it from domestic or imported energy sources (nuclear, solar, wind, imported oil, imported LNG, etc). Turning electricity into hydrogen and then into motive power for a car is dramatically les…

>This doesn’t make sense to me. Hydrogen is not an energy source Hydrogen is often compared against batteries. Those aren't an energy source either. I haven't seen anyone seriously propose hydrogen based powerplants. I have seen plenty talk about hydrogen fuel cells as a potential alternative to BEVs and a potential way to get around the multiple short comings of lithium batteries. Fuel cells of course have their own…

> I haven't seen anyone seriously propose hydrogen based powerplants.

Well, Japan has. You may have read about it recently in the article linked at the top of this comment page. Here's another source from Japan itself: https://www.meti.go.jp/english/policy/energy_environment/glo...

> Accelerating the commercialization of hydrogen power generation turbines in Japan by supporting the early demonstration with actual equipment, with a view to capturing the global market in the future

> Assuming that the price of the 100% hydrogen-derived electricity retail menu and the price of the 100% natural gas-derived electricity retail menu are the same, and assuming that only the latter retail menu has a price hike of about 1.8 yen/kWh (based on the time when the cost of LNG-fired power generation was at its highest), a standard household would be able to save about 8,600 yen/year.

Re: Japan's hydrogen strategy does nothing for decarbonisation: study

#342

Post by gwbas1c »

POPOSYS wrote: post #235
rich_sasha wrote: post #210

I find it weird how hostile to hydrogen the "renewable energy gang" is. The story of how renewables take over the world and displace fossil fuels and nuclear totally relies on storage, in some cases seasonal storage, IE overproducing in summer and holding on to the energy til the end of winter. Does hydrogen work for it? Well, maybe, it could, there are unresolved issues but hey we are trying to do science here. It's…

We can not discuss these important issues in a football fan like culture of mutual hostility. We need to collect facts and count numbers and compare which solutions are really helpful in reducing CO2. Hate speech against "the others" does not help at all.

> collect facts

The physical properties and limitations of hydrogen are well-known. Many people repeat them in other posts in this thread.

Here's a very factual explanation of why hydrogen internal combustion engines won't work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJjKwSF9gT8

(In summary, you can't compress hydrogen enough to fit in a reasonably-sized tank. The energy that it takes to compress hydrogen will be expensive.)

Re: Japan's hydrogen strategy does nothing for decarbonisation: study

#344

Post by schiffern »

raxxorraxor wrote: post #336
schiffern wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> more expensive than an ICE The (relevant) comparison was H2 versus BEVs — ie comparing decarbonized solutions apples-to-apples. I have edited to make that more clear. > why not pursue hydrogen investment as a possible alternative? Because hydrogen, for all its marketing, doesn't solve the problems people have with BEVs. Better BEVs do. I see a variety of BEV motorcycles and light trucks available. The same can't be…

Neither solution is really decarbonized. It is also wrong to say only carbon leaves an ecological imprint. Recycling of batteries will be a huge logistical challenge or leave a high ecological impact itself. Still, either a vehicle is more or less drives continuously or batteries will be the better alternative. But that is only for that sector.

Fossil fuel transport is fundamentally carbonized. BEVs are currently about 50% better, but at least it's feasible to achieve full decarbonization.

Recycling of batteries is very efficient at >95%[1], and will only get better with time.

As for addressing only one sector, welcome to the world of high-complexity problems. Climate change is a "1000 cuts" type, not a "magic bullet" type.

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/14/jb-straubels-redwood-mater...

Re: Japan's hydrogen strategy does nothing for decarbonisation: study

#345

Post by glenstein »

rich_sasha wrote: post #210

I find it weird how hostile to hydrogen the "renewable energy gang" is. The story of how renewables take over the world and displace fossil fuels and nuclear totally relies on storage, in some cases seasonal storage, IE overproducing in summer and holding on to the energy til the end of winter. Does hydrogen work for it? Well, maybe, it could, there are unresolved issues but hey we are trying to do science here. It's…

>It feels like the "save the planet" movement, or at least some shards of it, come with a very specific notion of how exactly it is ok to save the planet, and what fails on style points.

That might be how things appear from a view from 10,000 ft perspective, but once you zoom in, there's serious logistical problems that are unique to hydrogen, and they are problems that can't be brushed away by saying "gee why can't we all get along." I'm far from an expert here, but off the top of my head, hydrogen is uniquely difficult to store, and while it scores relatively well as an energy source per unit weight, it is not nearly so effective per unit volume.

Meanwhile the practical highly scalable applications for the more mainstream renewable sources have already arrived at our doorstep.

If we were in a situation where people loved wind, loved solar, loved geothermal but were randomly against, say, tidal power I could see your point. But this isn't that.

Re: Japan's hydrogen strategy does nothing for decarbonisation: study

#346

Post by rich_sasha »

burkaman wrote: post #337
rich_sasha wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find there is a selective black and white perception of the world. For example, renewables right now rely heavily on quick-to-dispatch gas plants - and that's fine as a stepping stone to a carbon-free future. Though the plan fo eliminating it is still vapourware - maybe better batteries, maybe larger grids, maybe something else. But creating a hydrogen economy that somewhat relies on fossil fuels, with a clear path…

Did you read past the headline? It's not anathema because of aesthetics, it's anathema because it doesn't work. There's nothing wrong with shooting down an idea that you have studied and found to be counterproductive.

It doesn't say anything like it, and your comment doesn't address mine either.

1. That particular approaches don't work is irrelevant. TFA focuses on a particular Japanese policy, which may or may not be misguided. The article is light on discussion, but let's take it at face value. Should we say wind+solar is stupid because Germany is currently in an energy mess? I don't think so.

2. I don't think it's dumb at all to experiment with various synthetic fuels via fossil fuels initially. With both hydrogen and battery storage, the real devil is in the details, in particular in seasonal storage. If we can make battery, or hydrogen, or ammonia economies work, then we know how to produce things, and thanks to cheap intermittent renewables we can do it. Frankly, efficiency hardly matters at this point. If, as predicted by renewables evangelists, energy will be almost free soon, storage efficiency matters not. All that will matter is long term storage cost, an open question for any approach.

3. Regardless, my comment is aimed mostly at other comments. "Duh everyone knows batteries are better", "hydrogen is a dead end".

The part of my comment you tacitly ignored is that burning fossil fuels is somehow ok en route to renewables+batteries without a viable concrete plans on how to decarbonize fully, but not for other synthetic fuels such as hydrogen.

Re: Japan's hydrogen strategy does nothing for decarbonisation: study

#347

Post by RetpolineDrama »

pfdietz wrote: post #23
cbkeller wrote: post #12

I'll go one further: Hydrogen does nothing. It's a bad battery. After following this for more than a decade (starting with a bit of undergrad research on possible alternative fuel cell electrode materials -- albeit not a field that I'm in any way involved with any more), it just feels like there's been very little progress on fuel cells, or on storage and transport. Meanwhile, progress on Li-based batteries has been…

Hydrogen is a battery with very particular uses cases. In particular: hydrogen is bad for use cases with large numbers of charge/discharge cycles, because the "cost of inefficiency" is proportional to the number of such cycles. However, for use cases with small numbers of charge cycles, like seasonal storage or backup against rare grid outages, hydrogen's big advantage -- the low cost of storing it, vs. typical short…

>hydrogen's big advantage -- the low cost of storing it

Hydrogen by its very nature, due to it being the smallest atom, embeds itself into the walls of its container. It will rot the metal walls you use to hold it long term.

Look up "hydrogen embrittlement"

Re: Japan's hydrogen strategy does nothing for decarbonisation: study

#348

Post by RetpolineDrama »

credit_guy wrote: post #52
cbkeller wrote: post #12

I'll go one further: Hydrogen does nothing. It's a bad battery. After following this for more than a decade (starting with a bit of undergrad research on possible alternative fuel cell electrode materials -- albeit not a field that I'm in any way involved with any more), it just feels like there's been very little progress on fuel cells, or on storage and transport. Meanwhile, progress on Li-based batteries has been…

Hydrogen is the way to send energy from sunny places, like Australia to not-so-sunny places, like Japan. You can't send batteries, and you can't lay a cable that long. You can try to pack that energy in a different form of chemical energy like ammonia, or methylcyclohexane, or methanol, or synthetic methane or gasoline. The jury is still out. Europe is investing big time in hydrogen too, so chances are that hydrogen…

>and you can't lay a cable that long

Sure you can, and at megavolt DC levels it is _extremely_ efficient to move GW of power that way.

Re: Japan's hydrogen strategy does nothing for decarbonisation: study

#349

Post by BurningPenguin »

rich_sasha wrote: post #210

I find it weird how hostile to hydrogen the "renewable energy gang" is. The story of how renewables take over the world and displace fossil fuels and nuclear totally relies on storage, in some cases seasonal storage, IE overproducing in summer and holding on to the energy til the end of winter. Does hydrogen work for it? Well, maybe, it could, there are unresolved issues but hey we are trying to do science here. It's…

> I find it weird how hostile to hydrogen the "renewable energy gang" is.

Really? I usually just see the "vroom vroom gang" hyping up hydrogen as the ultimate power source for their overpowered cars, while completely ignoring the huge amount of energy needed to produce that stuff. They're glorifying Toyota for their decision to invest heavily into hydrogen cars.

I'm fine with using it as some form of storage, combined with renewable energy. Maybe even in certain applications for mobility, like trucks (which i think could be replaced by trains anyway, at least here in Europe) or other things that need plenty of power and flexibility. But not in the car of the average Joe, who just uses it to drive to our equivalent of a burger place 500 meter away.

Re: Japan's hydrogen strategy does nothing for decarbonisation: study

#350

Post by Gravityloss »

rich_sasha wrote: post #210

I find it weird how hostile to hydrogen the "renewable energy gang" is. The story of how renewables take over the world and displace fossil fuels and nuclear totally relies on storage, in some cases seasonal storage, IE overproducing in summer and holding on to the energy til the end of winter. Does hydrogen work for it? Well, maybe, it could, there are unresolved issues but hey we are trying to do science here. It's…

Hydrogen has a lot of issues. It is hard to store. As gaseous it has terrible energy density. As liquid it needs to be stored at extreme cold, 20 Kelvin (-250C or -420F). Compare to balmy 110K for methane. It leaks out of tiny holes. Electrolyzers and fuel cells (currently) need expensive platinum group metals. Round trip efficiency is bad.

There absolutely should be research and prototypes, there I agree. But companies are already looking for massive amounts of government money for large projects.

Post reply on HN