• Grimy@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Fuck hydrogen. Its a fake green product so oil companies can transition as slow as they want while still keeping their strangle hold on our society.

    • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      It depends a lot on where the hydrogen is sourced from. Hydrogen that is generated from electrolyzers using renewable power is completely green (and funny enough, called Green Hydrogen), and is a good way to store excess energy from solar and wind.

      Oil companies however want to market hydrogen from drilling and refining, which is dirty as hell.

      It’s an important differentiation to make though. Hydrogen is not inherently bad and will have plenty of green applications. We just have to make sure it’s coming from the right places.

      • GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml
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        5 months ago

        and is a good way to store excess energy from solar and wind.

        Is it really that good of a storage method, though? The round-trip efficiency is quite bad when compared to other methods of storage.

        • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          We’ll need it anyway to produce existing chemical materials sustainably. It may not be the best energy carrier nor most efficient, but it shines in specific applications. Vehicles are a promising example.

          • GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml
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            5 months ago

            There are some use-cases where hydrogen will be useful, but I don’t think storage is one of them. Nor do I think vehicles are a particularly good use-case either, as compared to just iterating on battery technology.

          • GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml
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            5 months ago

            It’s hard to assess the validity of those claims as the article doesn’t bring any numbers and the paper itself is paywalled. As the fossil fuel industry is pushing hard towards wedging in hydrogen as a means of keeping themselves alive for a while longer, it’s vital to be able to assess the actual claims, lest they are just planted there by the fossil fuel industry.

        • CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.workOP
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          5 months ago

          “That good of a storage method” in terms of what, arbitrage? We should be producing hydrogen for the practical and environmental benefits of having emissions-free vehicle fuel (that avoids the problems of battery production and disposal), steel, and fertilizer.

          • GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml
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            5 months ago

            I don’t see any good reason why the merits of hydrogen for vehicle fuel would be any better than production and disposal of batteries. The other cases I agree that hydrogen will have a useful niche.

      • Grimy@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Sadly almost all hydrogen currently making its way to market is dirty. I have high hopes for it in the future but it seems like thinly veiled poison at the moment.

        And this article is definitely about the dirty kind or at least feels like it is.

        • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          There’s companies working on it! We’re just broke

          And yes, this is definitely the dirty kind. It may still be an improvement on using natural gas directly, but there would need to be a fairly comprehensive analysis to tell for sure. One possible advantage though is we could start building up a hydrogen infrastructure that we can then feed green hydrogen into and completely replace the dirty hydrogen.

          Anyway though, you’re right to be skeptical. It’s important though to look into the details to determine if it’s legitimately green energy or if it’s just oil companies greenwashing. We need to shun the latter while we promote the former.

          (There is a grey area, and it’s the same as electric cars – if we’re using electricity from the grid to power cars, and electrolyzers which make hydrogen, is it truly green? I would say this is acceptable for the same reason EVs are acceptable. It’ll become completely emission free once the grid is run on renewables.)

    • CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.workOP
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      5 months ago

      I disagree. We need hydrogen for GHG-free fertilizer and steel production and it’s the superior choice for powering vehicles. Regardless, this research is interesting because it could help solve the natural gas problem.

  • fubarx@lemmy.ml
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    5 months ago

    Wait. Am I getting this right? They want to inject high-pressure steam and chemicals into a massive underground natural gas reservoir. Then set off a big fire + explosion.

    Surely, nothing can go wrong.

      • CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.workOP
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        5 months ago

        The alternatives are the status quo or severely restricting natural gas extraction. I won’t say the latter isn’t doable, especially if we can ramp up nuclear power capacity, but there’s a lot of baggage there. We should welcome a solution that effectively makes natural gas an emissions-free resource.

        • ianovic69@feddit.uk
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          5 months ago

          I wouldn’t call carbon monoxide a good side product. If the amount created is negligible then great, but are there realistic figures?

          • Delta_V@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Also, its probably safe to assume the producers will lie about how much they’re allowing to leak into the air.

          • CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.workOP
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            5 months ago

            I don’t understand what you mean. As described in the article, the process leaves the CO trapped in the ground.

            • ianovic69@feddit.uk
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              5 months ago

              Yes, the article says that but I’m not sure how much I believe it. If there’s a decent body of work that draws consensus I would be less sceptical.

                • ianovic69@feddit.uk
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                  5 months ago

                  Keeping in mind I have zero knowledge of what you’re telling me about, but these examples don’t include anything about carbon monoxide.

                  If the similarities to the other gases are close enough to mean that it can be safely stored using the same techniques, then I’m inclined to feel a lot less worried about the whole thing.

                  But I don’t really trust these sectors to act on our behalf, only to make profit line go up. Lying and bribing appears to be part of that, as can be seen all around us these days.

        • tal@lemmy.today
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          5 months ago

          I won’t say the latter isn’t doable, especially if we can ramp up nuclear power capacity

          We could do both and hedge our bets.

          • CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.workOP
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            5 months ago

            Yes. I mean, I don’t think we’re getting anywhere without a war economy build-out of nuclear power capacity regardless.

    • xodoh74984@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      First of all, they spelled Heelys wrong. Second, Heelys are a great idea, even better as an adult in an office with polished concrete floors.

  • Crashumbc@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Yes because igniting fires underground is a GREAT idea!

    Centralia,PA would like a word…

    • CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.workOP
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      5 months ago

      This worst case scenario is probably the same as with any reservoir of natural gas (a massive leak and explosion), which is all the more reason to convert it to hydrogen and sequester the weaker, non-flammable GHG byproduct in situ.

    • Wispy2891@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I imagine that suddenly all the co2 stored as gas underground could suddenly come out and being odorless, kills the whole neighboring town

      • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Natural gas is also odorless and able to displace oxygen so I don’t see how it being CO2 underground instead of natural gas changes anything from a risk perspective. Maybe because the molecules are smaller and thus more prone to leaks? I’m admittedly way out of my depth here.

        • Wispy2891@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Methane is lighter than air and goes up while co2 is heavier than oxygen and stays down. I don’t know maybe in case of some disaster where water leaks in the well and then pushes out the co2

          I wouldn’t want to live nearby in both cases anyway

      • tal@lemmy.today
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        5 months ago

        I mean, all that methane coming out would probably be at least as bad, and the cavity had previously been filled with methane.

        It’ll be a cavern deep under a lot of rock. If it can contain methane for zillions of years, I imagine that it can contain carbon dioxide.

    • Sewer_King@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I’d be worried about the now excess co2 levels disrupting the normal saturation levels in the groundwater.

  • lath@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    This how you realize that there are people around that just want to blow shit up.

  • Devdogg@lemmy.ml
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    5 months ago

    Yeah, something about this screams at me it’s not right.

    Why wouldn’t this work? What would go wrong?

    • Mongostein@lemmy.ca
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      5 months ago

      Producing hydrogen from natural gas still releases carbon in to the air.

      • CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.workOP
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        5 months ago

        …which is the whole reason for doing the SMR within the natural reservoir and leaving the CO2 in there.

          • CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.workOP
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            5 months ago

            That used to be my thinking, but there’s a lot of natural gas ready to be exploited and we need hydrogen. Therefore, methods like the one described in the article as well as ex situ methane pyrolysis are worth investigating.

            • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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              5 months ago

              but there’s a lot of natural gas ready to be exploited

              Sooooo money. That’s the exception to doing the right thing?

              • CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.workOP
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                5 months ago

                You forgot to quote the rest of that sentence. We need hydrogen, which is easy to get from natural gas, of which there is a lot. The right thing to do is figure out how to use it without emitting greenhouse gases. The problem is the same whether we’re under the current mode of production or some hypothetical moneyless condition.