smw3: I really suggest you read HarveyO's post number 2371 Message 4092292
The main facts are 1) 90% of all hydrogen used today is produced from natural gas, and 2) A breakthrough in the lab, if confirmed in reality, will bring down the cost of producing hydrogen using solar power to a mere 3-4 times that of the natural gas method.
Few on this thread care to contemplate the implications of the fact that hydrogen cost per Btu is FOUR TIMES that of conventional hydrocarbons, such as natural gas, gasoline, and propane. Methanol costs TWICE the price of gasoline, not counting taxes.
I know you think that, in the future, the price of hydrogen ought to come down. Maybe it will, but so far it just stays high and shows no evidence of coming down.
If you want to argue that society should pay more to avoid the negative environmental and political costs of our using the conventional fuels, then do so. I may well agree with you. But that is a lot different than saying that consumers will want to use hydrogen based fuel cells, or even methanol based fuel cells, because of their higher efficiency.
They won't, because they are not stupid. Somewhat higher efficiency times vastly more expensive fuel equals higher total costs.
Perhaps the public doesn't know what is good for them, and must be forced to use a more expensive generator of energy, for stationary or transportation uses, whether they like it or not. Jam it down their throats is probably the only approach possible, because there will be no economic incentive for people to want to buy these things.
I am not against fuel cells at all. I believe that they have a great future--but not ones that run on hydrogen or need an energy wasting reformer to extract the hydrogen from overpriced methanol. Molten carbonate fuel cells and solid oxide fuel cells run hot enough that they don't need a reformer. They are capable of great efficiencies using low cost hydrocarbons. Even phosphoric acid fuel cells can be designed to do that in theory, I understand, although I am not sure whether that has actually been accomplished. But PEM? Forget it.
People have been conditioned by the digital age to expect the price of everything to plummet with volume. But fuel cells are not semiconductors. Have you ever seen one? There are a lot of pipes, heat exchangers, high priced metal alloys to withstand high temperatures (in the fuel cell itself, or in the reformer to create the hydrogen), wires, and all kinds of other components that are already produced in vast quantities; producing lots of fuel cells won't reduce their cost at all.
There is a lovely, romantic model out there of a hydrogen based economy. It is a beautiful dream, but looking at the market prices of all the elements, it is just a happy fantasy. |
