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Most hydrogen released as gas, unbound to oxygen, floats off into space, ripped away from earth by the solar winds. It is lost to Earth because our gravity isn't strong enough to hold it. Imagine if it were used on a large scale for fuel. Worse it destroys ozone as it wafts up toward the upper atmosphere.
All around not pretty when you think about it as a resource for fuel.
It is abundant in the deep earth, cheaper to drill wells and produce that way than to split away from water using electricity generated by any means. Plenty left in the crust from earths formation that could be accessed like natural gas or oil, really the same resource that produces oil and gas from carbon rich material in the crust. And there is alot locked in the waters of the oceans. But it isn't a renewable resource. Use it once as a gas, what ever leaks away and doesn't combust with oxygen to produce water is gone forever.
Hydrogen is non-sense. If we had a huge surplus of energy maybe, then maybe, it would make sense as an energy vector to replace oil. But then then it would create an other load of problems as Ryan says.
Hydrogen produced in this way is an energy storage medium. It has disadvantages when compared to liquid and solid based mediums. It does have a few applications, such as fuel cells and rocket engines.
Most hydrogen released as gas, unbound to oxygen, floats off into space, ripped away from earth by the solar winds. It is lost to Earth because our gravity isn't strong enough to hold it. Imagine if it were used on a large scale for fuel. Worse it destroys ozone as it wafts up toward the upper atmosphere.
ReplyDeleteAll around not pretty when you think about it as a resource for fuel.
It is abundant in the deep earth, cheaper to drill wells and produce that way than to split away from water using electricity generated by any means. Plenty left in the crust from earths formation that could be accessed like natural gas or oil, really the same resource that produces oil and gas from carbon rich material in the crust. And there is alot locked in the waters of the oceans. But it isn't a renewable resource. Use it once as a gas, what ever leaks away and doesn't combust with oxygen to produce water is gone forever.
Hydrogen is non-sense. If we had a huge surplus of energy maybe, then maybe, it would make sense as an energy vector to replace oil. But then then it would create an other load of problems as Ryan says.
ReplyDeleteIt's not scalable.
Hydrogen produced in this way is an energy storage medium. It has disadvantages when compared to liquid and solid based mediums. It does have a few applications, such as fuel cells and rocket engines.
ReplyDeleteGiven that it would take trillions of years to run out of hydrogen we can call it an unlimited/renewable resource.
ReplyDelete