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

Israeli Researchers Produce Green Hydrogen with 90% Efficiency

autoevolution.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 144 posts

Re: Israeli Researchers Produce Green Hydrogen with 90% Efficiency

#51

Post by pjc50 »

sbradford26 wrote: post #45
micv wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's been talk of replacing the natural gas used directly for heating in the UK with hydrogen. I have absolutely no idea how viable that will actually prove to be but it seems difficult.

So technically it might be possible to do that. But I don't think the economics would work out for that. Mostly because your cost of hydrogen will then be linked to the cost of electricity coming in. Given the choice between hydrogen which will cost the base electricity prices + overhead of electrolysis plants and transportation or to just use a resistive heater, you would most likely pick the resistive heater since…

> base electricity prices + overhead of electrolysis plants and transportation

IF the capital cost of electrolysis isn't too bad - and this paper suggests that it can be done more cheaply than the current use of platinum - then it's economical to run them with zero or negative cost electricity produced by renewables overbuild, then keep the hydrogen in tanks (another if) or convert it to actual natural gas via the sabatier reaction and keep that. That may be cheaper than building really huge battery farms for long-duration electric storage.

Re: Israeli Researchers Produce Green Hydrogen with 90% Efficiency

#52

Post by angiosperm »

MrVitaliy wrote: post #46
rcarr wrote: post #38

Obviously hydrogen has it's uses, but a large part of me feels the energy industry is stalling for time. Oil and gas is basically a subscription model, whereas electric cars and heat pumps are buy once, upgrade in x years or when broken model. With enough renewable energy and a few nuclear power plants, electricity should be ridiculously cheap and if they've got the space, the consumer can even generate their own. Th…

I'm hopeful for hydrogen use in aviation. Either that or some ridiculous breakthrough in battery tech, and the latter seems less likely than former.

Existing aircraft will be wholly unable to compete on any route where LH2 aircraft operate, but it will take a long time to bring up the infrastructure for it. Expect it to appear first on select freight routes.

Oddly, H2 aircraft seem to be promoted with inboard tanks. The natural place for the tanks is in nacelles slung under the wings, for safety. (Hydrogen would not fit in the wings.) Hydrogen tanks in an enclosed cabin is a formula for disaster.

Re: Israeli Researchers Produce Green Hydrogen with 90% Efficiency

#53

Post by slashdev »

pjc50 wrote: post #49
rcarr wrote: post #38

Obviously hydrogen has it's uses, but a large part of me feels the energy industry is stalling for time. Oil and gas is basically a subscription model, whereas electric cars and heat pumps are buy once, upgrade in x years or when broken model. With enough renewable energy and a few nuclear power plants, electricity should be ridiculously cheap and if they've got the space, the consumer can even generate their own. Th…

> few nuclear power plants, electricity should be ridiculously cheap Nuclear has never managed to be cheap. The really big nuclear buildouts always had a national security subsidy: either for energy security (France), or for nuclear weapons (US, UK, USSR, China, and also France). This is partly why non-weaponizable reactor designs never became popular either. > They obviously don't like that, which is why they keep p…

As much as I’ve been rooting for nuclear, I think the ship has sailed. If newer advances can’t make it cost competitive with renewables plus some storage (I’ll get to that in a minute) then why would you ever deploy it.

Renewables are really cheap and getting cheaper, so some combination of overbuild with storage is probably the winning formula.

Storage is a little too expensive as lithium ion batteries, but there’s literally a hundred alternative there. I’m fond of pumped hydro, which we can do anywhere with a height difference, we don’t need to restrict that to existing dams. But there’s lots of options there and many are very viable.

So nuclear (including hypothetical nuclear fusion) will probably not acquire significant market share. Unless you can somehow make it cost competitive.

If you look at planned energy projects, the market has very clearly spoken. That doesn’t mean it can’t change, but I don’t think it’s likely.

Re: Israeli Researchers Produce Green Hydrogen with 90% Efficiency

#54

Post by pjc50 »

angiosperm wrote: post #52
MrVitaliy wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm hopeful for hydrogen use in aviation. Either that or some ridiculous breakthrough in battery tech, and the latter seems less likely than former.

Existing aircraft will be wholly unable to compete on any route where LH2 aircraft operate, but it will take a long time to bring up the infrastructure for it. Expect it to appear first on select freight routes. Oddly, H2 aircraft seem to be promoted with inboard tanks. The natural place for the tanks is in nacelles slung under the wings, for safety. (Hydrogen would not fit in the wings.) Hydrogen tanks in an enclose…

> Existing aircraft will be wholly unable to compete on any route where LH2 aircraft operate

? Are you suggesting this will be a result of regulatory action? Since it would most likely be more expensive for the first decade, even if I gave you a tap on the airfield labelled "free H2"

Re: Israeli Researchers Produce Green Hydrogen with 90% Efficiency

#56

Post by mustafa_pasi »

mrpopo wrote: post #39
mustafa_pasi wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obsession with efficiency is disingenuous too. The two limiting factors are generation capacity and cost/economics. Efficiency by itself says nothing. In the early 1900s, gas was less efficient than electricity too, but for a whole century gasoline powered transportation was more feasible. Aviation is still only feasible with kerosene despite it being less efficient than electric propulsion.

Not really, increasing energy efficiency is at the heart of many climate solutions. Clean energy is still scarce, and in the places where it isn't, for instance Germany, there is backlash against it. Not to mention that they aren't even close to being 100% renewable-powered (wind+solar 30%), not even close to have 100% EV market penetration (about 2%), not even close to have the theoretical capacity for a grid to pow…

Manufacturing a whole new vehicle with a huge ass battery that is more cost intensive to manufacturing than a comparable ICE, a vehicle that due to contemporary trends has to be a 5-ton lifted SUV, a vehicle that is going to be used by ONE person to commute to work along a fixed predetermined route, a vehicle that is going to be replaced after 3 years because this person have to have the newest four wheels on the lot to project status to attract a status obsessed mate, all that is ALSO EXTREMELY energy inefficient.

If you truly cared about energy efficiency you'd proposition the ban or severe limitation of private car usage in sufficiency dense localities. Public trams and busses, cycling, walking, and maybe even very small private vehicles would be extremely more energy efficient.

There is nothing about a 5-ton EV SUV that says energy efficiency.

Re: Israeli Researchers Produce Green Hydrogen with 90% Efficiency

#57

Post by pjc50 »

londons_explore wrote: post #9
ben_w wrote: post #4

Interesting; I wonder if similar approaches will help make the fuel cells cheaper as well as hydrogen? Even if not, even if vehicles remain fully electric (which is my assumption): > The scientists said gray, black, and brown hydrogen release 9 to 12 tons of carbon dioxide for each ton of hydrogen produced. Yet, they correspond to 95% of all hydrogen currently produced worldwide for agricultural and industrial needs.…

> The scientists said gray, black, and brown hydrogen release 9 to 12 tons of carbon dioxide for each ton of hydrogen produced. Yet, they correspond to 95% of all hydrogen currently produced worldwide for agricultural and industrial needs. Even if this green hydrogen does not help move a vehicle, it is a welcome way to curb the production of the gray and black kinds. It will only do that if countries put laws in plac…

> In fact, in many places the price of gas is so low we just burn it off because it isn't even valuable enough to collect or transport.

Underrated comment. In fact, it's even worse than that: in places it must be burnt, because the CO2 is a less dangerous greenhouse gas than the methane itself.

This is a big problem in Turkmenistan where it's literally coming out of the ground on its own https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/02/us-deal-...

Re: Israeli Researchers Produce Green Hydrogen with 90% Efficiency

#58

Post by pjc50 »

slashdev wrote: post #53
pjc50 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> few nuclear power plants, electricity should be ridiculously cheap Nuclear has never managed to be cheap. The really big nuclear buildouts always had a national security subsidy: either for energy security (France), or for nuclear weapons (US, UK, USSR, China, and also France). This is partly why non-weaponizable reactor designs never became popular either. > They obviously don't like that, which is why they keep p…

As much as I’ve been rooting for nuclear, I think the ship has sailed. If newer advances can’t make it cost competitive with renewables plus some storage (I’ll get to that in a minute) then why would you ever deploy it. Renewables are really cheap and getting cheaper, so some combination of overbuild with storage is probably the winning formula. Storage is a little too expensive as lithium ion batteries, but there’s…

> I’m fond of pumped hydro, which we can do anywhere with a height difference

Not really economical unless you've got some suitably-shaped geology to build most of the storage vessels out of.

The lithium issues may be addressed by sodium-ion, which is now mature enough that you can buy it on aliexpress.

Re: Israeli Researchers Produce Green Hydrogen with 90% Efficiency

#59

Post by BSEdlMMldESB »

pjc50 wrote: post #49
rcarr wrote: post #38

Obviously hydrogen has it's uses, but a large part of me feels the energy industry is stalling for time. Oil and gas is basically a subscription model, whereas electric cars and heat pumps are buy once, upgrade in x years or when broken model. With enough renewable energy and a few nuclear power plants, electricity should be ridiculously cheap and if they've got the space, the consumer can even generate their own. Th…

> few nuclear power plants, electricity should be ridiculously cheap Nuclear has never managed to be cheap. The really big nuclear buildouts always had a national security subsidy: either for energy security (France), or for nuclear weapons (US, UK, USSR, China, and also France). This is partly why non-weaponizable reactor designs never became popular either. > They obviously don't like that, which is why they keep p…

do not underestimate the agendas for centralization of power and control

do not underestimate the sticky pull of collecting ̶r̶e̶n̶t̶^C ̶t̶a̶x̶e̶s̶subscriptions from people

Re: Israeli Researchers Produce Green Hydrogen with 90% Efficiency

#60

Post by TylerE »

slashdev wrote: post #53
pjc50 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> few nuclear power plants, electricity should be ridiculously cheap Nuclear has never managed to be cheap. The really big nuclear buildouts always had a national security subsidy: either for energy security (France), or for nuclear weapons (US, UK, USSR, China, and also France). This is partly why non-weaponizable reactor designs never became popular either. > They obviously don't like that, which is why they keep p…

As much as I’ve been rooting for nuclear, I think the ship has sailed. If newer advances can’t make it cost competitive with renewables plus some storage (I’ll get to that in a minute) then why would you ever deploy it. Renewables are really cheap and getting cheaper, so some combination of overbuild with storage is probably the winning formula. Storage is a little too expensive as lithium ion batteries, but there’s…

22% of US power is generated via nuclear. Is that not significant? More than renewables, almost as much as coal.
Post reply on HN