Re:Europe's ludicrous hydrogen bet [video]
by rawgabbit on Friday May 24, 2024 @04:21PM
(#40470169)
The video quoted Ursula von der Leyen as saying the EU targets 10 million tons of hydrogen to be produced locally and then import another 10 million tons of hydrogen. This is after Russia cut the amount of natural gas to Europe.
The naked reality that the video and DW finds distasteful is that the EU has no choice. If it can't power its economy via hydrogen which many find more realistic than pure electrical economy with renewables and batteries -- then the EU needs to start sucking up to Putin.
It's irritating that many of the people who resist EV adoption because "it won't work, there's not enough chargers" seem to be more amenable to the idea of hydrogen, despite all the extra infrastructure/energy needed for production, cooling and transport, when electrical infrastructure is already ubiquitous. I don't know if it's that people are more conditioned to the idea of putting liquid in a tank to power a vehicle than plugging it in.
Nothing against hydrogen per se, I'm sure it'll have its uses, but electricity has a much shorter lead time to take up the current energy deficit from cutting fossil fuels.
Coal vs. nuclear is the other major head-scratcher, but I guess that's down to the green movement's own lack of awareness of the severity of global warming back when they were campaigning against nuclear.
> Japan currently imports a lot of LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) on big ships. They can’t use dirty natural gas forever - but they will still need to import some energy. Thus, they are placing bets that they will be able to import hydrogen and ammonia in the future. They've made some strong policy decisions to this effect. Korea and other smaller Asian countries aren't far behind.
The naked reality that the video and DW finds distasteful is that the EU has no choice. If it can't power its economy via hydrogen which many find more realistic than pure electrical economy with renewables and batteries -- then the EU needs to start sucking up to Putin.
It's irritating that many of the people who resist EV adoption because "it won't work, there's not enough chargers" seem to be more amenable to the idea of hydrogen, despite all the extra infrastructure/energy needed for production, cooling and transport, when electrical infrastructure is already ubiquitous. I don't know if it's that people are more conditioned to the idea of putting liquid in a tank to power a vehicle than plugging it in.
Nothing against hydrogen per se, I'm sure it'll have its uses, but electricity has a much shorter lead time to take up the current energy deficit from cutting fossil fuels.
Coal vs. nuclear is the other major head-scratcher, but I guess that's down to the green movement's own lack of awareness of the severity of global warming back when they were campaigning against nuclear.
> Japan currently imports a lot of LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) on big ships. They can’t use dirty natural gas forever - but they will still need to import some energy. Thus, they are placing bets that they will be able to import hydrogen and ammonia in the future. They've made some strong policy decisions to this effect. Korea and other smaller Asian countries aren't far behind.