- cross-posted to:
- science_memes@mander.xyz
- cross-posted to:
- science_memes@mander.xyz
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To my knowledge, with plenty of carbon emisssions
Is it less than using fossil fuels for power exclusively? If so then it’s a step in the right direction. Yes I know it sounds like I’m shilling for BP now but we get lost in the doom spiral so fast we forget we are indeed making progress. We just have to keep their feet to the fire or…erm… solar panel?
They’re not using electrolysis and water to make hydrogen, they’re using power and steam to crack petroleum products into hydrogen.
And this is still a large step in the right direction, because cheap hydrogen creates an incentive to develop hydrogen infrastructure, which increases the demand for hydrogen, and can help lay the groundwork for a future in which hydrogen is produced from renewable sources.
Also, steam reforming lends itself well to CCS, and as such it can be performed without carbon emissions.
In the spirit of the comic - how is the solar panel made?
short answer: once
Wow, solar panels that last forever? That’s quite the technological achievement…
“Oh, your solution doesn’t break the laws of physics? Trash it, we’re gonna keep burning shit to make more shit we can burn forever until you have a magic solution or until we kill the planet”
- You
The hundred year solution is nuclear. The thousand year solution is colonizing other planets.
Ultra dense energy has its place, namely where weight and volume are critical like in aerospace. Everything else can deal with not putting more carbon and worse things in the air.
This is the dumbest fucking argument. I’m sorry but what point do you think you’re making?
Is it imperfect? Yes. Just like ALL OTHER THINGS. Is it a major improvement compared to burning coal? OBVIOUSLY YES.
Solar panels lasting for decades here and now, that’s close enough for all practical purposes. Solar has a proven track record, hydrogen technologies never made it past gospel.
how could hydrogen power possibly produce carbon dioxide
Using hydrogen doesn’t emit carbon. But the principal way hydrogen is produced is called steam reformation. It’s a process that turns methane (CH4) and water (2* H2O) into hydrogen (4* H2) and CO2 (i think, I’m not an expert). So all the carbon get emitted as co2. So it’s not better, and there are a bunch of inefficiencies too. (The reformation process itself, and transportation challenges, and leakage). But theoretically, it does centralize the emissions which would make them easier to sequester so there’s that.
In the USA for example about 99% of commercial Hydrogen is a byproduct of Steam Cracking Petroleum refinement. We have the technology to create hydrogen via other methods, but so far we’re not really utilizing them. Still, as a byproduct it’s better to use it than to not.
Isn’t it just blasting water with loads of electricity to split it up? That’s how I learned it in school at least. So yeah, just use the electricity directly for now.
It was sad when the Physics Girl took Shell’s money to shill hydrogen fuel cells.
I get you need to eat but still…a very shitty move.
I can’t even come close to imagining her medical bills, can you?
Is she “ok” now? The last I knew she was completely incapacitated and couldn’t get out of bed. One hell of “long covid” case… :(
That video is a really hard watch. If you’ve ever been in either of their positions taking care of a family member full time or relying on someone, you know the tremendous amount of love involved in it. Usually you see it as an afterthought, but what was amazing about Destin’s video is seeing it happen in real time.
Well, supposedly almost all hydrogen was made not long after the Big Bang went bang, with a tiny bit getting once in a while produced by the spontaneous formation of particle and anti-particle pairs, if I’m not mistaken.
Yeah, but then it combines with stuff and is no longer hydrogen. For example, a lot of it on earth is bound with oxygen in a from known as dihydrogen monoxide. You can input energy to separate the two hydrogen from the oxygen, but it’s not freely available. This is a useful way to spend excess energy to store the energy for later or to move, but not if you don’t have excess clean energy.
You can also get some from things like Methane (CH4, aka natural gas). This is how most of the gas companies are producing it, and it obviously isn’t clean. They like to pretend it’s clean by saying using the hydrogen just produces water, but obviously the hydrogen didn’t just appear.
So, why is making hydrogen from other energy source worse than filling up lithium batteries from other energy sources?
Hydrogen is less efficient, so you waste energy and you have to transport hydrogen from producer to consumer, usually with gas powered vehicles anyway.
