Is anyone considering bottled hydrogen sold at gas stations? Was surfing and saw a link about nearly indestructible plastic containers for powering -I think it was- heavy construction equipment. Think one gallon propane tanks. Available in many/most gas stations. So neatly identical that you just swap an empty for a full, without regard for either the brand of the tank or the brand of your auto. Quite expensive compared to a propane tank because safety, but the market is rapidly expandable. No pipelines, no underground tanks, transport is by ordinary truck -not even tankers. I imagine that four or six bottles might be needed for a fillup. These same bottles would serve many of the other petrochemical markets, replacing acetylene and propane for instance.
On Mon, Apr 4, 2022 at 3:40 PM Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> wrote: > Jones Beene <[email protected]> wrote: > > >> Prior to this there had been and remains a nascent movement around the >> idea that hydrogen made from wind or solar was going to be our savior on >> the energy front - despite the intractable poor economics involved in the >> manufacture and storage. >> > > The economics are poor. I expect this technology will never catch up with > things like solar combined with battery storage. But I do not know if the > problems are "intractable." If we had no alternatives, the problems might > be tractable. But there is now no economic incentive to solve these > problems. In that sense, hydrogen from solar or wind resembles concentrated > solar power systems, such as Ivanpah or SEGS in the U.S., and various > installations in Morocco and Spain. If the cost of PV solar had not fallen > so drastically, concentrated solar power might have been competitive long > enough to develop it and lower the cost. It often happens that whatever > technology shows up first wins the competition just because it was first. > This is known as "incumbency." See p. 63: > > https://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJcoldfusiona.pdf > > Hydrogen might have been used as a method of storing solar or wind power. > Or as a method of transporting energy via pipeline from low population > windy places such as North Dakota to population centers. That might still > happen, but I doubt it. I do not think there is any chance that hydrogen > will be used for transportation with fuel cells. The Toyota Mirai car is an > example of that (https://www.toyota.com/mirai/). It will never work > because you would have to have hydrogen fuel stations everywhere. An > electric car can be charged at home. Or you can install a charger anywhere, > because electric power is available everywhere. But a hydrogen powered > vehicle must be refueled at a hydrogen gas station. It would cost huge > amounts to build enough hydrogen stations. I think the era of chemically > fueled ground transportation is rapidly coming to an end. It will all be > battery powered electric soon. > >
