Green hydrogen? Red for danger is more appropriate.

Green hydrogen flies in the face of the so-called Net Energy Cliff which says that a modern economy needs very high yielding energy sources. True that oil products have a low well to wheels efficiency but they had accumulated over hundreds of millions of years, not made a few days before in an electrolyser.

The Feds seem to have hydrogen intoxication. They have bought electrolysers for both of Australia's steel mills and asked them to come with something special. I suspect a decade from now not much will have happened but hope lives on.

>Some advocates seem to think that producing hydrogen by electrolysis will make it cheaper
>than the present product "grey hydrogen" made from natural gas. That looks improbable.

It only looks improbable because of the assumptions you're making. With more reasonable assumptions (only using cheap electricity) it's almost a certainty, particularly if natural gas prices stay as high as they currently are.

>Over time there has naturally been progress in raising these efficiencies. For example
>PEM electrolysers are said to run at efficiencies up to around 70%

Elsewhere I've previously queried figures which implied a 79% rating, which I thought was unrealistically high. But I was informed not only that it wasn't, but that "The industry target for 2030 is to achieve 86% conversion efficiency based on Nickel electrodes, which is likely. Lab systems have achieved 94% conversion efficiency but Platinum, Iridium, Palladium etc. are all no go due to cost and scarcity."

I could build a simple gravity operated system that made hydrogen via electrolysis for vertualy no cost! All I'd need would be permanent water source And as a homemade solution that could power almost anything. Albeit, one would have to stuff some steel wool into the air intake to make it work for most engines.

Other than that, biogas(i.e. methane) is just as easily made using a two tank system and locally produced organic waste, Manure, sewerage etc. Where simple bacteria do all the work and produce an endless supply of methane for almost nothing after the system was built.

It's time Mr Putin was put back in his box and the world freed from this madman's control, via our energy purchases! Moreover, these simple solutions would require some manufacturing, plus increased local steel production and jobs, jobs, jobs!

There is no infernal combustion engine that will not run on compressed methane!

Only gormless pollies and their personal energy investments stand in the way of change to homemade solutions that replace all imported energy products?

Were this not so? The above solutions would already exist and in spades and at every refilling station.

Electrification of the economy as the obvious alternative, requires the adoption of nuclear power ASAP. To believe otherwise is self delusional!
Alan B.

Hydrogen production via electrolysis averages around 40% A catalyis improves that to around 80%. I understand that a catalyis changes the reaction without becoming part of it.

Nuclear power will enable the production of alternative fuel and fertilizer from inexhaustable seawater!

So, let's do what we always do, sit on our hands waiting for someone else to do it for us! Perhaps Mr Putin or his energy baron cronies will oblige? While a quivering Mr Morrison bellows his volumous protests?

After all, that sums up the government's input to date into the current energy crisis? If hot air could run the economy, then Canberra could run the nation?
Alan B.

Alan B.,
The problem is that nuclear power is expensive. It's been promising to become cheap for decades, but it never has. Meanwhile the cost of soar power has dropped enormously.

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Taswegian,
Whether it takes a few days or millions of years, you know the Net Energy Cliff hypothesis is discredited. Not that it's relevant here anyway, as the energy is produced by solar cells and wind turbines anyway.

The West has for far too long indulged in fairy-tale policies built on fantasy ‘woke’ concerns including climate and renewable energy. It is time for us all to grow up.

China ignores any environmental concerns to build up massive and unstoppable military and industrial strength, while our leaders and business elites are destroying the very energy strength this nation may desperately need in the years ahead, not only to defend ourselves militarily, but to prosper as a free and sovereign democratic nation.

Hydrogen was first touted as a spin off from high temperature nuclear reactors. Renewable energy spruikers pinched the idea because of all the excess power they would produce. The difference between nuclear hydrogen and renewable energy hydrogen is that nuclear hydrogen can be produced 24/7, whereas renewable energy hydrogen would not be constant, making it more expensive.

I think that you only get an energy return of about 20% from hydrogen. Hopefully the technology will improve, but it is a poor option presently.

Hydrogen would be a joke, if it weren't for the fact it is going to cost the taxpayer a large fortune before it fades from the agenda.

Regarding the possibility of Australia developing a hydrogen export industry of the size of our fossil fuel industry, it is important to consider whether we could compete on a cost basis with other countries. There are several promising production methods using nuclear power and it is looking like the northern hemisphere is moving that way. That will give them the option of local production and gas phase delivery. Hence even if there does develop a significant hydrogen market, it is doubtful we could compete with renewables based production, the necessity of liquification and long supply lines.

People are still trying to make hydrogen safe. Presently a car could act like a bomb in an accident