Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumAmory B. Lovins, CEO Rocky Mountain Institute: Twenty Hydrogen Myths
Note: Originally published in 2003 and updated in 2005.
Hydrogen Tech is even cheaper and better today in 2014 than when this was written
Twenty Hydrogen Myths
AUTHOR: Lovins, Amory
YEAR: 2003
DOCUMENT TYPE: Report or White Paper
PUBLISHER: Rocky Mountain Institute
This peer-reviewed white paper offers both lay and technical readers a documented primer on basic hydrogen facts, weighs competing opinions, and corrects twenty widespread misconceptions. Some of these include the following: a hydrogen industry would need to be developed from scratch; hydrogen is too dangerous for common use; making hydrogen uses more energy than it yields; we lack a mechanism to store hydrogen in cars; and hydrogen is too expensive to compete with gasoline. This paper explains why the rapidly growing engagement of business, civil society, and government in devising and achieving a transition to a hydrogen economy is warranted and, if properly done, could yield important national and global benefits.
Abstract
Recent public interest in hydrogen has elicited a great deal of conflicting, confusing, and often ill-informed commentary. This peer-reviewed white paper offers both lay and technical readers, particularly in the United States, a documented primer on basic hydrogen facts, weighs competing opinions, and corrects twenty widespread misconceptions. It explains why the rapidly growing engagement of business, civil society, and government in devising and achieving a transition to a hydrogen economy is warranted and, if properly done, could yield important national and global benefits.
About the author
Physicist Amory Lovins is cofounder and CEO of Rocky Mountain Institute (www.rmi.org) and Chairman of Hypercar, Inc. (www.hypercar.com), RMIs fourth for-profit spinoff (in which, to declare an interest, he holds minor equity options). Published in 28 books and hundreds of papers, his work has been recognized by the Alternative Nobel, Onassis, Nissan, Shingo, and Mitchell Prizes, a MacArthur Fellowship, the Happold Medal, eight honorary doctorates, and the Heinz, Lindbergh, World Technology, and Hero for the Planet Awards. He has advised industry and government worldwide on energy, resources, environment, development, and security for the past three decades.
About the publisher
Rocky Mountain Institute is an independent, entrepreneurial, nonprofit applied research center founded in 1982. Its ~50 staff foster the efficient and restorative use of resources to make the world secure, just, prosperous, and life-sustaining. The majority of its ~$7-million annual revenue is earned by consultancy, chiefly for the private sector; the rest comes from foundation grants and private gifts. Much of the context of its work is summarized in Natural Capitalism (www.natcap.org). Donations are welcome and tax-deductible (#74-2244146). RMI is at 1739 Snowmass Creek Road, Snowmass, CO 81654, phone + 1 970 927-3851
Twenty myths
Myth #1. A whole hydrogen industry would need to be developed from scratch.
Myth #2. Hydrogen is too dangerous, explosive, or volatile for common use as a fuel.
Myth #3. Making hydrogen uses more energy than it yields, so its prohibitively inefficient
Myth #4. Delivering hydrogen to users would consume most of the energy it contains...
...Myth #17. A viable hydrogen transition would take 3050 years or more to complete, and hardly anything worthwhile could be done sooner than 20 years
http://www.rmi.org/Knowledge-Center/Library/E03-05_TwentyHydrogenMyths
Full document (PDF)
http://www.rmi.org/cms/Download.aspx?id=6667&file=E03-05_20HydrogenMyths.pdf&title=Twenty+Hydrogen+Myths
longship
(40,416 posts)Unless Lovins can figure out how to violate the laws of thermodynamics -- note: he cannot -- creating hydrogen will always take more energy than is generated by using it. Myth #3 is a fact, not a myth. So Lovins is just plain wrong about this item. I would agree with him, however, that that does not make it prohibitively expensive to generate since one can use renewable green sources to generate it.
But a hydrogen energy economy is still a damned good idea when combined with renewable sources. It could provide a helluva good storage medium for solar, wind, or other intermittent power generation schemes.
bananas
(27,509 posts)where p = "Making hydrogen uses more energy than it yields"
and q = "its prohibitively inefficient".
From the pdf:
Any conversion from one form of energy to another consumes more useful energy than it yields.
If it could do the opposite, creating energy out of nothing, you could create a perpetual-motion
machine violating the laws of physics. Conversion losses are unavoidable; the issue is whether
theyre worth incurring. If they were intolerable as a matter of principle, as Myth #3 implies,
then wed have to stop making gasoline from crude oil (~7391% efficient from wellhead to retail
pump) and electricity from fossil fuel (~2935% efficient from coal at the power plant to
retail meter). Such conversion losses are thus not specific to producing hydrogen. Hydrogen production
is typically about 72 to 85 percent efficient in natural-gas reformers or ~7075% efficient
in electrolyzers; the rest is heat that may also be reusable. (These efficiency figures are all
<snip>
edit: remove footnote numbers from the excerpt.
FogerRox
(13,211 posts)Certainly with current technology we wont see tank farms of hydrogen like we see tank farms of oil and gas, or Nat Gas & Propane.
Most current hydrogen stations for fuel cell cars are using onsite osmosis to avoid hydrogen leaking thru the walls of storage tanks. IIRC there are only about 1000 miles of hydrogen pipelines in the US, nearly all along the Gulf of Mexico serving the oil industry.
That's another problem with H2. It is a very small molecule which leaks through just about anything. Add pressure and it leaks even more.
nationalize the fed
(2,169 posts)Inside the Solar-Hydrogen House: No More Power Bills--Ever
A New Jersey resident generates and stores all the power he needs with solar panels and hydrogen http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hydrogen-house/
2013 Youtube update and tour
Hydrogen pipeline transport
1938 - Rhine-Ruhr The first 240 km (150 mi) hydrogen pipes that are constructed of regular pipe steel, compressed hydrogen pressure 21020 bars (21,0002,000 kPa), diameter 250300 millimetres (9.811.8 in). Still in operation.
1973 30 km (19 mi) pipeline in Isbergues, France.
1985 - Extension of the pipeline from Isbergues to Zeebrugge
1997 - Connection of the pipeline to Rotterdam
1997 - 2000: Development of two hydrogen networks, one near Corpus Christi, Texas, and one between Freeport and Texas City.
2009 - 150 mi (240 km) extension of the pipeline from Plaquemine to Chalmette
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_pipeline_transport
Globally, Air Products pipeline operational expertise is evidenced by its network of systems. Pipelines offer a safe, robust and reliable supply of hydrogen to the refinery and petrochemical industry around the world. Besides this newly announced pipeline in the Alberta Industrial Heartland, Air Products also has a hydrogen pipeline in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada, and operates the largest hydrogen pipeline network in the United States Gulf Coast, as well as pipeline systems in California in the U.S. and in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
http://www.airproducts.com/company/news-center/2010/03/0330-air-products-hydrogen-pipeline-in-canada-inks-three-supply-agreements.aspx
First there were no hydrogen pipelines, then no tank farms...
"700 bar is just a start"
FogerRox
(13,211 posts)nationalize the fed
(2,169 posts)Here's another one
http://www.indiamart.com/bharattanksandvessels/hydrogen-storage-tanks.html
oldhippie
(3,249 posts)... of those tanks?
Pictures are pretty, but data is better.
nationalize the fed
(2,169 posts)It's not surprising that people don't have the time to watch it but have plenty of time to comment on something they really don't know anything about
Remember- all sorts of progress is expected when it comes to lithium batteries and "swap stations" (never going to be any) but Hydrogen tech is supposedly stuck in the year 2005. Fascinating.
oldhippie
(3,249 posts)Does he say what the leakage rates is, or not? Does he even know?