Sunday, Jan 05, 2020 at 11:59
If you wanted to pick a fuel to replace petrol (or diesel) - the most dangerous, the mostly costly to produce, the most costly to store, the most costly to transport - and the most costly to convert into useable power - it would be hydrogen.
The oil companies have spent over 100 years installing their fossil fuels distribution system, at a fairly substantial cost.
There is no way stored hydrogen, or transported hydrogen, could be slipped into the service station network without additional massive cost.
The compression or liquifaction of hydrogen gas, absorbs large amounts of energy.
To build transport tankers for hydrogen gas would run into massive costs and involve major amounts of complex technology.
The alternative transportation method is pipelines. We do not have the
population to support a massive pipeline distribution system.
A hydrogen leak would be twice as danagerous as an LPG leak. Not for nothing was hydrogen abandoned after the Zeppelin disasters.
Fuel cell technology has been with us since the late 1950's, when Allis Chalmers produced a fuel-cell powered tractor. It has developed at a snails pace since.
Meantimes, battery technology and electric power technology, continues to advance rapidly.
The simple fact remains that 10,000 times the energy we need for powering Australia falls on us in the form of solar radiation daily - and it's simple enough to convert that solar radiation into electricity, which can then be stored and used directly in electric-powered equipment and vehicles.
To use that cheap solar-powered electricity to then produce hydrogen, is merely adding substantial energy losses, and costs, to energy collection and use.
Cheers, Ron.
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