The Myth of the Hydrogen Economy

Humans, even investors and governments, are prone to irrational exuberance from before Tulip Mania to Truth Social today. Add hydrogen, which is unusual in entering its third boom and bust. It makes people lightheaded and talk strangely.

Two busts

There was the burning German Hindenberg and British R101 airships promoting hydrogen aircraft 100 years ago then the hopelessly-inefficient fuel cell vehicles over the last ten years. They needed prohibitively-costly hydrogen charging infrastructure that no one could or should finance. Both lost billions before the obvious registered. Indeed, even today, many are denying the existence and proven viability of over 500,000 battery buses, millions of battery cars, giant battery mining vehicles, battery river ships and battery light aircraft and - sorry Mr ex-President – tens of thousands of electric boats, some over 100 years old. Textron light aircraft activities saw the writing on the wall and bought Pipistrel selling battery equivalents.

Larger passenger aircraft

Elon Musk said battery regional aircraft could be viable at 400Wh/kg. Zhar Research pitched something higher until affordable 40% efficient solar airframes arrive. No matter. CATL is rolling out its 500Wh/kg battery and has set up a division to make such aircraft. It even has competition from Bye Aerospace and others. Mostly they plan nine seaters in three years, current demonstrations being around four seats. Massive hydrogen pods under the wings? No need. They are more aerodynamic, not less.     

Hydrogen Economy

We are still promised the hydrogen economy which would pump explosive to our homes for heating and cooking, something the British Government calculated as increasing serious accidents manyfold. Your five-year-old would tell you not to abandon your clean microwave, electric cooker and solar aircon for that. 

Frothy concept

However, the idea of a hydrogen economy is a frothy one presenting moving bubbles beyond the undeniably valuable use of hydrogen as an industrial feedstock. Consider the proposal that massive amounts of hydrogen will be stored in underground caverns to cover up to seasonal wind and solar intermittency. The extreme inefficiencies of making electricity into hydrogen and back again means you lose almost all the electricity, aided by the fact that it leaks through anything.

The real need for LDES

The real need for Long Duration Energy Storage LDES is to perform both short- and long-term storage with one unit. It must be efficient and responsive enough on discharge to perform short term storage, mostly load balancing. It must also have little or no self-leakage so it can viably perform long-term storage. Yes, it must meet capex, Levelised Cost of Storage and other parameters for both. Nonetheless, whether on- or off-grid, you will not have two forms of delayed electricity at a site when one will suffice. Solutions for only one of those needs, particularly toxic, flammable ones with short life, are but a passing phase.

Step forward redox flow batteries, liquid air, compressed air, lifting weights with no self-leakage at all, pumped hydro reinvented and other storage options covered in reports at Zhar Research. Some are best for space-constrained off-grid sites, others for 10GWh heroic grid facilities. But do not forget combining them with many ways to sharply reduce the need for LDES in the first place.  One is the European grid widening beyond Ukraine connected to the Arctic Circle and Ireland to embrace the impressive project of connecting Britain to steady wind and solar power in Southern Morocco. Those seasonal, time zone and wind intermittencies are sharply different for the over 600 million people clipping in. Europeans also have base load from hydro and - for those who are absolutely certain they will not be bombed – expensive nuclear in the mix. In addition, as RethinkX pointed out, the marginal cost of solar is trending to zero so it will be over-installed to reduce intermittency.

Electrification wins

In short, electrification is killing the idea of the hydrogen economy.  The recent Financial Times Hydrogen Summit reported the cost of hydrogen rising and its take-up dropping. No wonder some of the “Hydrogen Economy” people are quietly back pedalling their promises and concentrating more on the niche applications that no one denies. Nonetheless , the hydrogen over-investment still floods in.  “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”