Lpg (197psi at 43C) has 2.5 times the energy density of hydrogen gas compressed to 10000 psi. LNG, with an energy density of about twice that of hydrogen at 10000 psi, exerts a pressure of over 5000 psi at room temperature. That is why there are lpg powered cars and not lng powered cars. Unless there is some breakthrough that allows a low pressure/high energy density storage, it is hard to see the technology commercialised. For LNG, the research to this end has focused on storage as clathrates. All pie in the sky atm.

More ideologically driven idiocy from the left. If you want low carbon 24/7 energy, the only answer at present is nuclear. If the elusive low cost long life battery is developed, and it is not from want of trying, there will be a huge power demand to run electric vehicles. With the current insane state energy policies, Australia is unlikely to satisfy domestic power demand alone. The scary thing is that loony left and greens don't even see a problem, and think we should view the the deprivations as we would the cost of fighting a war. I despair at at seeing the damage inflicted by tilting at windmills.

Fester, I guess from your comment that you have seen de Natali's
response to the blackouts in Victoria.

What alarms me is that no one seems to realise that we will have this
situation for the next five years if we are lucky.
They can't say they were not told.
It may well get worse as the coal fired plants are being starved of
their income by the renewable's priority on the market.
Their maintenance levels must decrease, and mtbf will decrease.
The policy of politicians is to decrease Mean Time Between Faults.
They are going about it the right way so as the Greens say,
"Suck it Up and Live With It !"

Yes, it is terrible, Bazz. Without cheap and reliable power the economy suffers. The only way to reverse the madness is to have an electricity supply market with enough 24/7 supply contracts to cover base load power needs. That way there will be the economic incentive to build desperately needed coal fired power stations. As for putting a thousand million dollars toward a hydrogen economy, you may as well just rake it in a pile and set fire to it for all the good it will do.

I have just watched a panel discussion at Davos by speakers from
Int Energy Authority, Russia, the US and The Middle East. 1 hour.

Towards the end the Russian representative Dimitriev warned that there
is a real risk of supply difficulties for oil somewhere in the coming decade.
All in all it was a very interesting discussion for any one with an
interest in energy in all sources.

http://tinyurl.com/y7u44zfj

Thanks for the link, Bazz. From what I saw they downplayed the role of efficient coal generation but did concede it an essential source of energy. I didn't hear electric vehicles mentioned, yet they spoke of carbon capture and storage which I put on a par with hydrogen as a vehicle fuel. I have been around long enough to regard anything at or beyond a five year prediction as totally unreliable. Yes it was a good point about the $200 billion investment shortfall, but I have heard things like that said in the past. The challenge is to place the projection in the context of future circumstances.

BILL SHORTEN IS CORRECT!

From an energy consumer's viewpoint, all energy carriers are sources of energy.
And (though less relevant to his point) from a physicist's viewpoint, all sources of energy are (depending what you mean by sources) either energy carriers or means of energy conversion.

In future we're going to have a lot more electricity generated from solar PV, and it will frequently exceed electricity consumption. Production of hydrogen (and related chemicals such as NH3, aka ammonia) will be a sensible way of using the excess. But it's likely to be a long time before NH3 is used either for hydrogen storage or as a fuel in its own right (aside from small amounts added in internal combustion engines for emissions control purposes). Instead it will replace the inefficient synthesis of NH3 from fossil fuels.
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Hasbeen,
I suggest you update your research, because the days when ethanol required more energy inputted than it returned are long gone.
[Note to Toni Lavis: obviously this excludes solar energy captured by plants.]
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Fester,
Is that an attempt at irony?

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Shadow,
Absorbers (which absorb hydrogen at high pressure and release it at lower pressure) are sometimes used to address that problem. Historically these have been metalic, but now AIUI there's a lot of research into carbon based absorbers.