I remember doing research on Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carriers (Formic Acid in particular) and realising *just* how inefficient & expensive they are. Liquefaction is much easier. But it's still very, very hard. As usual, Michael Liebreich says it best. #GreenSky 🧪🔌💡 - ThreadSky

drthomasmoore.bsky.social • 66 days ago

I remember doing research on Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carriers (Formic Acid in particular) and realising *just* how inefficient & expensive they are. Liquefaction is much easier. But it's still very, very hard. As usual, Michael Liebreich says it best. #GreenSky 🧪🔌💡

Reposted from Michael Liebreich

A thread for those who think we're going to be importing lots of hydrogen over vast distances.

1. Shipping liquid hydrogen is not going to be a thing. To understand why, you need to understand that hydrogen is basically liquid, -253C escapey, explodey expanded polystyrene.

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ember42.bsky.social•66 days ago

I expect we will use substantial amounts of H2, that will never go more than a few shuddered km, and where they are going even that much, it's from GW scale producers to GW scale users, with nary an end consumer involved.
It will stay in the kinds of places the staff wear Nomex...

ember42.bsky.social•66 days ago

A few 'hundred' km...

xilehu-epfl.bsky.social•66 days ago

Have you see this: https://www.respectmyplanet.org/publications/fuel-cells/michael-liebreichs-hydrogen-ladder-debunked

drthomasmoore.bsky.social•66 days ago

With all due respect, this article doesn't debunk the H2 ladder, as it doesn't discuss any science/engineering at all. The reason the H2 ladder resonates is not because Michael's a deceptive salesman, it's because it's a clear way of talking about concepts every engineer in the area already knows.

xilehu-epfl.bsky.social•66 days ago

I feel « every engineer in the field » is a bit over-reaching. Anyway, we are all entitled to own opinions. I just find always celebrating the failures of people who seriously work on a potential cleantech technology a malicious practice- I am of course not referring to you.

drthomasmoore.bsky.social•66 days ago

That's fair. There's always a balance in critiquing a technology without hardworking demeaning researchers. It's also hard, as low TRL work is important, but can also be used as a distraction/ greenwashing by 3rd parties. Unfortunately, I think H2 is an example of this...

drthomasmoore.bsky.social•66 days ago

*demeaning hardworking :)

drthomasmoore.bsky.social•66 days ago

We need green H2 tech developed & scaled asap. Otherwise, how do we make fertilizers going forward? But there's a reason the Hydrogen Council was founded by Shell, TotalEnergies, Anglo American, etc. They know, in the medium term, you can't beat black/grey H2 on price.

drthomasmoore.bsky.social•66 days ago

They'd love to see H2 implemented as a 'transition fuel' in domestic heating, transportation, power storage, etc., with the promise that green H2 or biomass gasification is only a few years away. It always will be. They did this with LNG in the Obama era. Too many people keep taking the bait.

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