Are there any large investments being made to desalinate ocean water and turn the purified water into hydrogen fuel like NASA’s plan to do with lunar ice water? eli5

Question

Are there any large investments being made to desalinate ocean water and turn the purified water into hydrogen fuel like NASA’s plan to do with lunar ice water? eli5

In: 69

Answer 1

Hydrogen is really difficult to store and transport for a few different reasons, of which the risk of explosion doesn’t even top the list. The most convincing way to use it, that I’ve read about, is as a reactant.

For example, creating steel from iron ore, in a traditional blast furnace, creates ~2 tons of CO2 per ton of steel. By using hydrogen as the reactant instead of coke (which is densified coal), the process instead creates steam. There’s been at least some discussion of building a local hydrogen generator at a steel mill to do this and avoid the issues of storage and transportation.