eli5: Why is Hydrogen termed as an energy “carrier” but Petroleum as an energy “source” ?

Question

Don’t we have to burn both to produce energy/electricity?

In: 0

Answer 1

That’s because hydrogen alone can’t be found in nature, so you need energy to energy to extract the hydrogen from molecules to get pure hydrogen. It’s physically impossible to get more energy from hydrogen, than the energy needed to make hydrogen.

Petroleum can be found in the ground. Yes you need a bit of energy to extract it, but depending on the source you can still get more energy from it, than what was needed to extract it.