Scientists just unlocked a cheaper way to make clean hydrogen fuel

Why invent something that needs a supply of energy to 'make' hydrogen? Every politician knows it comes from unicorn farts.

Unicorns eat rainbows, and rainbows are free.

John Larkin Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center Lunatic Fringe Electronics

I thought you just put some electrodes in a potato and then anode and cathode in some salt water and it bubbles.

Also the oxygen and hydrogen resulting is in the perfect ratio to combust.

because it is easier to store hydrogen until you need energy, that to store angry electrons

Hydrogen sometimes exhibits "angry" properties too, and it is a known escape artist. No free lunch!

Our local Shell station had a hydrogen filling facility. Nobody used it so they ripped it out.

John Larkin Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center Lunatic Fringe Electronics

Hydrogen seems an interesting idea, since that given a windmill or watermill or solarmill, of a sort, a few dollars of metal, and a balloon, one can readily capture hydrogen from water, and for example power cookstoves.

The, "no free lunch", or "thermo second law" I suppose, is a usual idea, then that while many could stand to miss a few meals, "Hindenberg disaster".

The idea though that combined with carbon monoxide from a similar process of electrolysis, from air, and some hydrogen, from water, from electricity, and a bit of Fischer-Tropsch (sp.), make liquid fuel, seems a great idea and more palatable than changing all the filling station signs to add a new digit.

This whole thread exhibits a depressing ignorance of thermodynamics.

Using electrical energy to make hydrogen from water lets you recover about 25% of the energy you put in. You can store the hydrogen in vast quantities in a relatively small volume, but batteries let you recover

Designing your system so that you can get away with batteries or pumped hydro or any of the other tolerably efficient energy storage systems does make a lot more sense, unless you are part of the fossil carbon extraction industry and want to make the alternatives look impractical.

Thanks for writing.

Perhaps there's something like this "Smith-Samuelson economic law of inverted scale", involved, or more classically opportunity cost and very elastic demand together, in the limit.

Perhaps it would be better to avoid combustion altogether and just get electricity directly from hydrogen and oxygen getting together.

Preferably something that doesn't require the monopolistic largesse of concentration of capital, since some considerations require not that.

It reminds me of Star Wars, the original one, when there was just one, guy lives out in the desert setting up huge machines just to get a drop of water. I suppose Dune was also that way, guy and his qanats.

Here the idea that electricity and air and water can result the liquid fuel alike gasoline and diesel, with a rather simple sort of process involved, invokes "home brew".

A usual idea might be to make the system that takes the inputs of air and water and electricity and result un-refined fuel, then a simple sort of fractional distillation to separate out the refined fuel, then just put the un-refined fuel back in as feedstock, splitting un-refined fuel back into what results carbon monoxide and hydrogen, fulfilling the cycle.

Free ambient materials in (with a fixed initial cost): motive power out.

There's a thermodynamic advantage in going that way

Making lots of solar cells on a very large scale does involve a lot of concentration of capital. The Chinese concentrated enough capital to bankrupt the smaller scale manufactureres by selling a slightly better product at half the unit price. The Chinese have not got 90% of the global market.

Once you can buy your solar cells in volume you can organise your own power generation and distribution, including as much battery/pumped hydro/whatever storage as you need.

You are a talking about badly thought out plot mechanisms. Frank Herbert's "Dune" was better though out than "Star Was" but it's arguing precedence between a flea and louse

It isn't any kind of "idea". It's just sloppy thinking.

That's what people post who don't know what they are talking about.

Garbage in, garbage out.