We’re going to hear a lot more about hydrogen soon – people are calling it the technology of the coming decade, and it’s clear to see why – we can make zero-emissions fuels from it.
#hydrogen #renewableenergy #scienceandtechnology
#hydrogen #renewableenergy #scienceandtechnology
Hydrogen can be useful in so many areas of energy use. Amazing stuff.
The only problem is finding enough of it. There aren’t huge deposits of pure hydrogen to mine; you have to extract it from things it is a part of. There’s an obvious candidate:
But pulling it out requires burning fossil fuels, and it’s clearly stupid to burn fossil fuels in order to stop burning fossil fuels. Only oil companies think that’s a good idea...
If we can do this without burning fossil fuels or using other hard-to-find minerals, we’re golden. Hydrogen-powered electric vehicles would be even better than battery-powered ones, because we wouldn’t need to pull cobalt out of the Congo, or lithium from Afghanistan.
The process we’re trying to here nail is called reverse electrolysis.
Now, before any stale-dated corporatist starts shouting about how all this innovation is going to come from private entrepreneurs, let’s remember one thing: they won’t be doing it without government support...
The Department of Energy is funding many of the companies working on this.
energy.gov/articles/energ…
energy.gov/articles/energ…
That goes back to the thread we had a few weeks featuring the brilliant @mazzucatom. She proved that for every entrepreneur taking all the credit for their innovation, there’s probably, quietly and in the background, a government funding program that made it possible...
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