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
Yes but hydrogen has limited uses. As other have pointed out producing hydrogen does not release energy; the energy released when we burn hydrogen is less than the energy required to produce hydrogen. Therefore hydrogen isn’t an energy source.
Despite that, hydrogen can be useful as a way to store and transport energy. If we have one area with an abundance of energy production, for example a desert with thousands of solar panels, and we need energy far from that source, we could produce hydrogen in the desert and transport it wherever the energy is needed. The simplest most direct way to do this is with power lines and batteries, but there are situations in which hydrogen could be better. For example, some people think that hydrogen powered airplanes could be better than battery-powered planes. Assuming we move to a net zero carbon economy we will need to retire all oil powered planes, which could create a market for hydrogen powered planes. However hydrogen has lots of disadvantages compared to electric power: higher cost, lower energy density, and the risk of leaks, which could cause significant injury or death. People are working to fix these problems so we can produce safe hydrogen powered planes. People are also working to make better battery powered planes. I don’t know who will win, but if I had to bet, I would choose batteries. Someone could have a breakthrough with hydrogen and prove me wrong though.
Because of the limitations I mentioned above, there aren’t many safe, cost-effective uses of hydrogen right now. If that changes and our economy suddenly requires much more hydrogen, we might see much more interest in learning how to make it from seawater. For now, it’s a niche market and projects to produce it are on the smaller side.
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