Industrial combustion turbines have been available for decades that burn hydrogen (in waste gases from various industrial processes, and also in jet engines adapted to burn hydrogen). It's just a matter of designing a combustor that works with the gas. This is known to be a solvable problem. If a particular high end gas turbine that's available today doesn't yet have a hydrogen combustor, that just means this solvable problem has to again be solved in this case.

How is your comment different from:

"Combustion turbines for 100% hydrogen are not commercially available today."

It rejects the insinuation that this is somehow an obstacle to using hydrogen burning turbines in the future.

And that insinuation is there, or else why did you bring that up?

> It rejects the insinuation that this is somehow an obstacle to using hydrogen burning turbines in the future.

There is no insinuation, it's just a statement of fact. Combustion turbines for 100% hydrogen are not commercially available today. We literally cannot burn 100% hydrogen at scale to provide utility power today.

We may be able to do so in the future, which would be great. Even better if we can do so without emissions and cheaper than other alternatives. But we cannot do so today.

Siemens thinks we can do 100% combustion turbines in about a decade or so. Time will tell. There may be obstacles or maybe everything goes swimmingly.

> And that insinuation is there, or else why did you bring that up?

I brought it up because it is a pertinent detail.

Hydrogen is touted as being the solution to storage for renewables. We are still far from that.

According to https://model.energy/ it might not be such an affordable solution. And even with 100% hydrogen combustion turbines there is the question of storage. Salt caves are cheap, steel storage tanks aren't.

Theyre not commercially available because theres no market for it not because theres anything infeasible about it - cost-wise or otherwise.

The amount of deployed solar and wind around the world isnt even enough to turn off the gas turbines during the sunniest windiest days yet. Theres little point to electrolyzing gas into existence until it routinely overproduces and beyond existing storage capacity and by a lot. Needing to close that 3% gap? That'd be a good problem to have.

And then, there is little reason to burn that gas in turbines until existing consumers of hydrogen (like ammonia plants) have had their fill of it. Even before it's used in turbines, it would operate as dispatchable demand. And when it's used in turbines, it will be mixed with natural gas at first. Below about 20% H2 existing combustors work fine.

To solve the emission problem we need to be able to turn 100% hydrogen in to electricity.

Yes, and this is possible, and has been done before. The point I was making is that it's not necessary to do it immediately. There are intermediate steps where it isn't necessary.

So, it's a solved problem? There are prototype/experimental 100% hydrogen combustion turbines?

Yes

https://www.ge.com/gas-power/future-of-energy/hydrogen-fuele...

I would humbly suggest that in future you try to avoid using rhetorical questions to make a point when the rhetorical question can be answered by google.

The fact that these rhetorical questions carry what appears to be a distinctly anti environmental agenda doesnt exactly make this incuriosity better.

> I would humbly suggest that in future you try to avoid using rhetorical questions to make a point when the rhetorical question can be answered by google.

It was not a rhetorical question.

Furthermore the first hit on Google is:

"GE, DOE Accelerating the Path towards 100% Hydrogen"

The rest of the results are various reports of testing, research and trials.

None of these refute the original quote from the 2023 Lazard report:

"Combustion turbines for 100% hydrogen are not commercially available today."

Neither does the link you provided, which is full of weasel words.

As such 100% hydrogen combustion turbines very much do not seem to be a solved problem. I will concede that there appear to be some prototype/experimental 100% hydrogen combustion turbines, which is great. Still no commercial availability, tho.

Siemens (from the first page of Google results) probably has a more realistic take on the matter:

" H₂ capabilities of our medium-sized gas turbines

As of today, the gas turbines we're testing in our new Zero Emission Hydrogen Turbine Center are ready to burn up to 75% of hydrogen in the fuel mix. And step by step we aim to reach 100% by 2030."

So, perhaps we can agree that 100% hydrogen combustion turbines are an aspirational technology. Something that might come about in the next decade or so.

> The fact that these rhetorical questions carry what appears to be a distinctly anti environmental agenda doesnt exactly make this incuriosity better.

LOL.

I will begin by reminding you of the Hacker News guidelines:

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

I will continue with noting the we, in Finland, produce about 90% (IIRC) of our electricity without fossile fuel emissions. How are you guys doing?

So you can take your "anti environmental agenda" and do something interesting with it in dark, enclosed spaces.

Sidestepping the incorrect use of "rhetorical", I do wonder what it is about facts and relevant questions that get under the skin of some people?

Is it just the embarrassment of realizing that one's arguments are without merit or the facing one's inability to coherently explain metters?

>The rest of the results are various reports of testing, research and trials.

Right, coz the technology, which exists and is deployed, is being refined before being commercialized at scale ready for the future mass market opportunities that are, as I mentioned, yet to materialize.

>Sidestepping the incorrect use of "rhetorical", I do wonder what it is about facts and relevant questions that get under the skin of some people?

I found it kind of funny actually. The number and nature of questions suggested a high level of ignorance (e.g. this easily googled one) that was coupled with a overtly arrogant attitude. Hoisted on your own petard so to speak ;)

I can't be bothered to answer questions from somebody who uses a deluge of rhetorical questions to argue a covert or overt anti-environmental position in bad faith though. One google to prove you 100% wrong about is sufficient.

Pro tip: try to avoid histrionics about "what to do when the sun doesnt shine and the wind doesnt blow" in future if you want to sound less like a coal lobby pamphlet from 2012 ;)

I strongly recommend you acquaint yourself with a dictionary. Look up "rhetorical". I can suggest other words also.

> I can't be bothered to answer questions

Well, I can't blame you if you don't know or can't articulate answers.

> One google to prove you 100% wrong is sufficient.

Sure, I'll take the bait. What is your one true google then?

> Pro tip: try to avoid histrionics about "what to do when the sun doesnt shine and the wind doesnt blow". its so 2012 ;)

Here's another pro tip: go outside. Observer. You will see and feel that the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow. You can even find occasions when both meteorological phenomenons occur.

Then look at electrical generation charts. Note that both sun and wind production varies. Note that low or zero generation of both occurs.

I mean, this is basic kindergarten stuff. I can't believe I have to spell out the obvious to somebody that can both read and right. Don't know about the comprehension part, tho.

A hilarious thing about his argument is that it also would rule out nuclear.

Existing thermal burner reactors cannot power the world -- the cheap uranium they depend on would run out too quickly. So, one either needs breeder reactors or cheap seawater uranium extraction. And neither of those are available commercially.