Solarpunk technology

2325 readers

71 users here now

Technology for a Solar-Punk future.

Airships and hydroponic farms...

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Lhyfe and Deutsche Bahn cooperate on development of trains powered by green hydrogen (www.renewableenergymagazine.com)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

9 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've never jumped on the hydrogen bandwagon. I know it's technically renewable, but I feel hydrogen is a stop-gap resource.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Cethin 12 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Hydrogen will be very useful as an energy storage solution that can be transported. I don't buy it for this. It makes a lot more sense to electrify rail. It already requires infrastructure, and the destination of rail needs electricity, so it should be part of the electrical infrastructure and trains can utilize that.

Where it makes sense I think is shipping. It's already on the coast, where you have access to water to produce hydrogen, and you can easily load it onto ships to sell to places with an electrical deficit. It also only makes sense when you have an energy surplus.

The issue with hydrogen is it has very poor energy density. Even when liquid, which requires extra energy to cool and maintain and it's still not energy dense. Ship size almost doesn't matter, making it a great option for transporting it. Rail cares about this less than a car, but more than a ship. I don't know if it overcomes that issue.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago

Very good points.

Particularly that it only makes sense to generate hydrogen when electricity is in surplus - because otherwise we might as well use the electricity directly to offset use of other fuels.

I don't mind hydrogen as such a storage even if it's inefficient, but I do have 3 more reasons to dislike hydrogen:

It's going to be used to whitewash fossil fuels. Look at all the colours for hydrogen. These will be mixed up because it's impossible to tell from the end product. Hell, we can't even transport polluted dirt without someone suddenly classifying it as "clean". It will be completely impossible to keep track of dirty hydrogen through the supply chain.
It will keep users dependent on expensive physical fuel distribution that serves no purpose but to transport the fuel while keeping the supplier in charge of the price.
Refueling of any kind is a massive waste of time. Sure, it takes longer to charge batteries, but at least the users don't have to watch it happening. It makes no sense for grid connected trains of all things.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

Thanks for the insightful response. I learned something from you.