you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 8 points 1 year ago (10 children)

The cost of hydrogen is not the fuel cells but that hydrogen is made from oil.

  • source
  • hideshow 10 child comments
  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    Huh? I thought Hydrogen was usually produced from splitting O2 and H1 from water?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 8 child comments
  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    There are two practical ways to make hydrogen:

    1. Split water molecules via electrolysis. This is thermally inefficient and not cost-effective at scale.

    2. Strip hydrogen atoms off of hydrocarbon molecules, usually natural gas. It's much cheaper. Unfortunately, the leftover carbon atoms leave the process as CO2. AFAIK all commercially available hydrogen is made this way.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    It takes a ton of energy to split water into it's components, that typically comes from fossil energy

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)
  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago

    There's still a place for producing hydrogen via electrolysis (chemical feedstock), but anyone who wants to burn hydrogen is either selling you a rocket (good) or an excuse to keep sucking up that crude. The answer to our energy problems is still just solar, wind, batteries, and other renewables.

  • source
  • parent