If producing hydrogen is so energy intensive, why can’t they make more use of wind and solar to offset the costs?

Question

Australia and UAE would be quite ideal for the solar part.

Edit: So changing our energy needs to be reliant on hydrogen is, as Elon says “dumb”?

In: 0

Answer 1

One of the under discussed problems with hydrogen is that creating clean hydrogen requires water and many parts of the world already have issues with having enough potable water. Take California as an example. It’s sensitive to pollution and with a wealthy economy it is an ideal place to convert. But it also has perpetual water problems. Clean hydrogen plants and desalination plants have the same basic requirements: shoreline location with cheap electricity, the ability to intake water, and dump brine. So which do you build?