Public health? Of hydrogen? Other than explosive concerns, what’s the issue?
As per the article, there’s a bunch of subsidies for hydrogen plants that are going into effect, but they don’t require it to be “green” hydrogen that’s made from water or whatever like people normally assume and instead is made from fossil fuels. On the one hand it means we might have a reason to build out hydrogen infrastructure for when we get “green” hydrogen figured out, but on the other hand it’s not really much better than just burning fossil fuels (maybe? IDK article doesn’t really put any numbers to it) if it’s not “green” hydrogen so it’s kind of a putting the Kart in front of the Mario situation. Also since it’s all fossil fuels based production it’s fossil fuel companies doing it all, which are notoriously just honorable and good in all ways and would never do anything that could harm the public; so there’s definitely no reason to be concerned.
TLDR: it’s not the hydrogen it’s the everything else when you make hydrogen.
Also, it’s the hydrogen too because there’s no economical and reliable way to store hydrogen except in the form of hydrocarbons, so the whole concept is self-defeating.
Technically that’s not a public health issue. And you can reliably store hydrogen for a day or two without too much leaking out, which does make it economical and reliable in rocketry and maybe aviation.
So, not economical enough for domestic or industrial uses, and battery storage of energy can last longer?
Yes.
Looks like a lousy bet.
"Hydrogen can be produced by several means. Most hydrogen produced today is gray hydrogen, made from natural gas through steam methane reforming (SMR). This process accounted for 1.8% of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2021. Low-carbon hydrogen, which is made using SMR with carbon capture and storage (blue hydrogen), or through electrolysis of water using renewable power (green hydrogen), accounted for less than 1% of production. “Virtually all of the 100 million tonnes[5] of hydrogen produced each year is used in oil refining (43% in 2021) and industry (57%)”
… Wikiipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy
It’s just greenwashing for the fossil fuels industry.
Hydrogen R&D is a giveaway to the fossil-fuel industry and won’t do anything to mitigate climate change.
