https://www.engadget.com/2017/12/12/honda-toyota-hydrogen-fu...

There's this pilot program going on on a small Scottish Island where they use wind power on overproducing days to produce hydrogen.

That hydrogen is then use for their ferry.

I'm not a hydrogen proponent, far from it in fact, but it does have it's own place for local usages in case of overproduction.

Cursory googling claims you can generate hydrogen for $28/million-BTU with electricity @ 5c/kwh. 1 million BTU is about 8 gallons worth of jet fuel, so I would guess that jet fuel is much cheaper than $4/gallon?

https://www.airnav.com/fuel/report.html

Also hydrogen is much harder and costlier to transport and store (refueling is also not a walk in the park either) than jet fuel.

Cryogenic hydrogen is even more costly on all fronts.

I personally see them pretty much every day, mostly Mirais. But then again, I live fairly close to one of the fueling stations.

https://cafcp.org/stationmap

It's a losing technology, but at least they were given a chance.

The problem with Hydrogen is that you want to store it in big, strong metal containers, but it destroys the container and leaks out. So instead you store it in composite fiber containers, but then you have an explosive gas under pressure in a vessel that can be cracked.

This is part of the reason that research tends to focus on processes within fuel cells which produce hydrogen JIT, so you obviate the need to produce and store large volumes. The problem with that is the need for more power input than you get out, or the need for expensive catalysts like Platinum.

tl;dr

With current tech you need nuclear power to efficiently produce large volumes of Hydrogen, but that’s a political minefield.

Storing Hydrogen is a nightmare.

Hydrogen explodes, and peolle are rightfully wary of carrying and transporting it in large volumes.

The kinds of containers which are affordable and practical are made of materials Hydrogen readily attacks.

Oh, the humanity.

Another problem is the cheapest way to make it is from natural gas. If you are going to use fossil fuels why not just use them directly?