back to article Scientists pull hydrogen from thin air in promising clean energy move

Scientists have produced hydrogen from thin air, a development they say could help industry harvest the promising eco-fuel in the most arid environments. Hydrogen is being put forward as a replacement for fossil fuels in situations where electricity may be unsuitable, namely shipping, air transport, and industries such as …

  1. JimmyPage Silver badge
    Stop

    Storage ? Transport ?

    No problem with the idea of hydrogen as an energy carrier (since that's what it is).

    However have they solved the issues with storing it ?

    The best way to store hydrogen is to bolt 4 atoms around a carbon atom. (You get the idea).

    1. Victor Ludorum
      Joke

      Re: Storage ? Transport ?

      You, sir, are a genius!

      That will use up all those pesky carbon atoms so they don't combine with two (or occasionally just one) oxygen atoms and venting into the atmosphere.

      Just one teeny tiny problem. What do we then do with this CH4 to release the stored energy?

      (spoilt for choice on the icon with this one -->)

    2. Tom 7

      Re: Storage ? Transport ?

      It never ceases to amaze me how far backwards we have gone! We used to store coal gas and even pipe it to heart out homes and yet now we can do that because apparently H2 is leaky. Coal gas was 50% h2!!!!

      1. gandalfcn Silver badge

        Re: Storage ? Transport ?

        "The launch of the first LH2 tanker heralds a new era for the bulk carrying of non-hydrocarbon gases. SIGTTO’s Andrew Clifton assesses the challenges and the vital role of classification societies for the pioneering vessels to come"

        "We therefore noted with great interest the launch of the world’s first ever liquid hydrogen tanker just before Christmas 2019 in Kobe, Japan.

        The Suiso Frontier"

      2. Charlie Clark Silver badge

        Re: Storage ? Transport ?

        Syngas can indeed be produced at scale from atmospheric or industrial CO2 and water. It's generally considered to be not competitive with natural gas but that was before prices went stupid. If we spent anything like the money that's been thrown at hydrogen at syngas then I'm pretty sure we could get prices down quite a bit with a better catalysts.

        Hydrogen from electrolysis can make sense in certain industrial environments such as steel. But we really need to get out of the business of artificial fertilisers which is one of the many consumers of industrial hydrogen before all the nitrates bugger then water tables forever.

        1. Col_Panek

          Re: Storage ? Transport ?

          The way to reduce artificial fertilizers is to burn trees. When they're hot enough, cut off the oxygen so they pyrolize into biochar. Throw that into the ground and it keeps nutrients from leaching out, and it holds water too. It sequesters carbon for hundreds of years. Scrap wood that's just burned to ash turns into carbon dioxide. Compost lasts for a decade then it escapes as CO2.

    3. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: Storage ? Transport ?

      have they solved the issues with storing it ?

      First thing I thought of. Recent criticisms of NASA around using H2+O2 fuel for Artemis point out that SpaceX uses a hydrocarbon fuel which makes for smaller (and safer?) rockets.

      I would LOVE to use fuel cells to power an electric car. Self-contained (does not need "the grid" to charge) and could theoretically be refueled as fast as a gasoline car.

      However, no safe+effective storage available for the H2.

      1. captain veg Silver badge

        Re: Storage ? Transport ?

        I dare say that you've already noticed that Toyota seems to have managed it.

        https://www.toyota.com/mirai/

        Distribution is the problem (for the moment), not storage.

        -A.

        1. Denarius
          Mushroom

          Re: Storage ? Transport ?

          10,000 psi fuel tanks is "solving" it ? In a vehicle controlled by humans ? Ah, in California. Says it all. Icon is most appropriate.

          1. PRR Bronze badge
            Flame

            Re: Storage ? Transport ?

            > 10,000 psi fuel tanks is "solving" it ? In a vehicle controlled by humans ?

            I grant your point, a little bit.

            Think of the tank to hold 10,000psi (666 atmospheres). Huh?

            Well think of propane tanks, nail-gun air tanks, etc, which idle at 100psi and are rated several times higher. A 1 pound propane torch tank is unlikely to crush in most car wrecks. I could barely dent it with my biggest hammer. (I did unknowingly try my backhoe on a 25 pound tank-- only broke the valve before I heard the hissssss and ran.) (Transport-rated propane tanks are built different.)

            A 10,000 psi tank is liable to be nearly 100X stronger (they could opt for tighter inspection to shave the safety factor). While tension and compression are not the same, I'd suspect that if it didn't blow-out at 10,000psi, it would not blow-in between two large truck engine blocks colliding at highway speed.

            Yes, I do wonder about a fire. However between two H power vehicles, we do not have pools of liquid fuel on the road under the tanks; H-fire rises fast. Of course there will be a transition where Diesel fuel may be cooking Hydrogen tanks.

            1. Denarius

              Re: Storage ? Transport ?

              maybe, but the nervousness I saw around putting 4000 psi O2 tanks for high altitude flying in wave makes me think 2.5 times that for a gas as slippery as H2 is unnerving. Add idiot humans into mix seems a step too far. If a solid state storage eventually worked adequately ( recall a couple of announcements, then crickets) then fuel cell cars may be a good way to go for vehicles IFF cheap hydrogen can be made. That, as posters above have enumerated, isn't happening. If large modern nuclear reactors, uranium or thorium, go online that may change. That is still being blocked by superstition.

              As for your point on fire, on highway, OK. In an enclosed space the kaboom will dwarf an LPG leak explosion. Garages, large maintenance depots would be at higher risk. BTW, the H2 is stored as high pressure gas, not liquid so it would disperse very quickly, probably to nearest cigarette or toker

            2. Andy The Hat Silver badge

              Re: Storage ? Transport ?

              The pressurised tank itself is not the problem, you can park a truck on it. The outlet of the tank, primary valve head and regulator is the weak point for a catastrophic accident. However the real issue is a slow leak in the fuel line with H2.

            3. Cliffwilliams44 Silver badge

              Re: Storage ? Transport ?

              For me, it is not so much the tank will break in a crash as it "may" leak. If it leaks on the road maybe that's no problem but if it leaks in the garage over night, one spark can cause a catastrophic detonation. Yes, gasoline can do the same and blow the garage out and burn the house down, natural gas can completely destroy the house and damage the neighbors but Hydrogen could do far more damage.

              I am reminded of an abandoned warehouse in Buffalo NY when I was a young man involving a propane tank.

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Buffalo_propane_explosion

              I was 40 miles away when this happened. We all thought it was an earthquake.

              (Earthquakes do happen in the buffalo/Niagara region but they are quite rare)

            4. Charlie Clark Silver badge

              Re: Storage ? Transport ?

              Fire risks with hydrogen are generally, ahem, overblown and date back to the films airship disasters. But while hydrogen is flammable it's nothing like as explosive as a load of other things we like to burn and with the Zeppelin et al. it was the canvas, the frame and, oh, the fuel for the engine which caused the problems.

              High pressure tanks are big and heavy and the comparison with compressed air is poor: with compressed air you don't need to worry about dispersion as you just compress more; it's also a lot harder to compress hydrogen than nitrogen and oxygen. Then you have to deal with the containment problems with hydrogen which is known to break down containers through adsorption.

        2. Potemkine! Silver badge

          Re: Storage ? Transport ?

          And Hyundai, for cars and trucks

          == Bring us Dabbsy back! ==

        3. Tom 7

          Re: Storage ? Transport ?

          Distribution is the problem (for the moment), not storage? It always amazes me how petrol cars got going - all exactly the same problems existed when they first came out and yet here we are.

          1. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

            Re: Storage ? Transport ?

            Petrol can be stored unpressurised at a wide range of temperatures that we encounter day to day. The problems aren't quite exactly the same.

        4. Binraider Silver badge

          Re: Storage ? Transport ?

          Storage tanks can be made to "tolerable" loss levels; flanges and joints not so much. See recent problems with SLS for examples.

          Any proposal to put H2 into pipework done to domestic standards is a somewhat dubious proposition. At higher pressures, transmission/distribution systems (think 1 to 100 bar) are being tested in anger. Repurposing old lines would be great but is by no means a done deal in terms of difficulty with flanges and joints.

          H2 was a feature of synthetic coal gasses of course, and so were leaks and failures (explosions) relating to them. Even Methane there's usually a news story or two a year of a house exploding because bad boilers or pipework. That'll be worse with Hydrogen in the network.

          Of course stuff can be done but I am inclined to suggest raw H2 would be better managed on a limited number of locations with higher levels of control than many locations with weak controls.

          1. Toni the terrible Bronze badge

            Re: Storage ? Transport ?

            As with propane/butane (and fuel oil) H2 could be supplied to a domestic tank, outside of the house/garage by tanker truck - no need for H2 to be delivered by piping

            1. Binraider Silver badge

              Re: Storage ? Transport ?

              Could, but expense of transport is why fuel oil / propane / butane is usually reserved for situations where you don't have an alternative.

              Adding H2 tanks to large numbers of properties is probably not so bad in suburban US; but would be a patent nonstarter for European property where there isn't the land to go round. And maintaining a safety case on a Hydrogen tank is non-trivial!

        5. John Smith 19 Gold badge
          Unhappy

          https://www.toyota.com/mirai/

          With up to 5Kh of GH2 stored at "H70"

          That's 70MPa

          or 10 000 psi.

          USAF space launch safety rules classify pressure vessels in "Lbs of TNT equivalent" regardless of what gas is inside them.

          The tank itself will make a quite substantial bang on its own.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Storage ? Transport ?

        It's horses for courses with rocket fuels. The higher density of kerosene is offset by the lower specific impulse; whilst hydrogen is much more efficient but has a ridiculously low density. In an idea world NASA would have designed a kerolox first stage and hydrogen upper stage - but they were never given that option by Congress who ordered them to reuse the Shuttle's technology.

        As for safe storage of hydrogen - when I was a kid it was always going to be in metal hydrides, did that not work out?

      3. Tom 7

        Re: Storage ? Transport ?

        You crash your car the petrol pools underneath it and burns you to death. You crash your H2 fuel cell machine and the H2 magically rises up (try it with a helium balloon) and out of the way.

        1. ThatOne Silver badge

          Re: Storage ? Transport ?

          Still, as somebody said further up, the real danger are enclosed spaces, like garages, subterranean parking lots and such, and a majority of people live in densely built areas. Doesn't even need to be a crash, one slowly leaking tank parked there overnight and you can blow up the building.

          While I do like the idea of fuel cell cars, I definitely wouldn't like knowing there are dozens of pressurized hydrogen tanks parked under my feet. Remember Murphy's law.

          Insurances will make sure there is no way you can park your small Hindenburg in a underground parking lot, or a closed garage, not to mention refueling stations will probably be in the boonies, since nobody would want that anywhere near his home: Hydrogen diffuses much easier and further than liquid fuels, and could travel quite a distance through sewers and such. Yes, most of it will head straight for the skies, but if there is enough to go around, some is bound to come your way and ruin your day.

          TL;DR: Hydrogen needs a safe storage system before it goes mainstream and is put in the hands of all the idiots out there.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Storage ? Transport ?

          IIRC it is not petrol that explodes - but a critical air/vapour mixture. An almost empty petrol tank is far more dangerous than a full one. The same with any inflammable gas when the mixture gives maximum contact area between the molecules so the combustion travel is almost instantaneous.

          It isn't hard to imagine that hydrogen will mix with air very quickly.

          1. atropine blackout

            Re: Storage ? Transport ?

            Yes, in my experience, Hydrogen gas can be a fairly awkward fire / gas hazard to deal with.

            It burns /may explode over a very wide range of concentrations in air - about 4 - 74%, but that can be affected by the energy of the ignition source.

            For comparison, CH4 is flammable over about 5 - 15% gas in air, and needs to be around 10% for a good bang.

            If the H2 does ignite , the flame is very hard to see - a *very* pale red, pretty much invisible to a human eye in sunlight (it shows up well fairly on camera but that's just the liveliness of Si sensors at 656nm).

            Having seen a few mishaps over the years, the consequences of an H2 ignition event, together with the relentless enthusiasm with which H2 tries to escape its containment, would make me fairly wary of being around significant high pressure volumes.

            On a related note, quite how H2 will be used as a (safe) replacement / dilutant for domestic natural gas may be interesting.

          2. Man inna barrel

            Re: Storage ? Transport ?

            One problem with hydrogen in enclosed spaces is that it forms and explosive mixture with air over an unusually wide range of concentrations. It is far worse than petrol vapour in this respect. I did some work on equipment for use in a potentially explosive gas atmosphere. There is standard for this. It is applicable to petrol station forecourts and stuff near LPG tanks. Precautions against ignition are a good deal tighter for hydrogen than for other gases.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Coat

      Re: Storage ? Transport ?

      I will readily offer my CH4 production as long as I can get a tax credit for beans.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Storage ? Transport ?

        Buy these magic beans and they will magically convert your car to run on methane

        1. Toni the terrible Bronze badge

          Re: Storage ? Transport ?

          During WWII on the domestic front some vehicles were run on coal gas and could be run on CH4 easily enough (no magic required but sone engineering), not so long ago cars did have the option for conversion to run on propane as well. A H2 storage unit for a auto or fueling station really isnt out of current engineering practice - although regs may need to be tightened. There will always be risks, as there is for petrol/diesel, just are you willing to accept them?

    5. TVU Silver badge

      Re: Storage ? Transport ?

      ...or, even better, join three hydrogens up with one nitrogen to give ammonia which can be very easily transported across the planet since that infrastructure already exists. Also, it's very easy to tell when you have a leak.

    6. gandalfcn Silver badge

      Re: Storage ? Transport ?

      So you aren't referring to H2 then. OK. differernt subject innit.

    7. Tom 7

      Re: Storage ? Transport ?

      CH4? No C2H5OH - far more uses and means you can have a tipple when you drive it into a ditch while you wait for the cops!

      1. Toni the terrible Bronze badge

        Re: Storage ? Transport ?

        I luv diluted ethanol

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Storage ? Transport ?

        In the 1960s computer rooms had large flagons of ethanol for cleaning tape deck heads. On at least one occasion an engineer found himself short of fuel to drive home - so emptied a bottle of ethanol into his tank.

        IIRC using it too often would damage valves.

    8. jim.warwick
      Thumb Up

      Re: Storage ? Transport ?

      In terms of storage, you can go for liquid hydrogen, but also converting to Ammonia is a good option for several reasons:

      - it's got a higher energy density per litre than liquid hydrogen

      - there are already well established supply chains (because of the fertiliser industry)

      - it burns (or "fuel cells") to give water and Nitrogen; no problems there

      - it's easier to handle

      ...there are problems - you "lose" energy in the conversion (but at that point, who cares) and it's smelly and poisonous, so maybe not for home use (!), but for heavier industrial uses (e.g. shipping) it's a better choice than battery or liquid H2.

      Jim

      1. Toni the terrible Bronze badge

        Re: Storage ? Transport ?

        Ammonia cooled rerefrigeration?

    9. gzuckier

      Re: Storage ? Transport ?

      Ironically, just last week NASA, no less, had to postpone the Artemis launch because of hydrogen leaks.

      Twice.

      https://www.wsj.com/articles/nasa-struggles-with-familiar-problem-on-artemis-i-a-hydrogen-leak-11662381000

    10. gzuckier

      Re: Storage ? Transport ?

      Nobody has so far mentioned the specific difficulties metals have when exposed to hydrogen.

      https://www.azom.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=104

    11. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Storage ? Transport ?

      A better way is to bolt them around a carbon and and an oxygen molecule to get methanol; fuel cells that turn CH3OH into electricity electrolytically are already relatively common (in terms of fuel cells, anyway).

      Methanol is also easier to store and handle than methane as it's a liquid at STP. Just make sure you don't try to drink it.

    12. Ken Hagan Gold badge

      Re: Storage ? Transport ?

      And if you use CO2 for your carbon source you have waste oxygen to dispose of somehow.

  2. Francis King

    Or, alternatively

    Or, just capture the water as it is produced in oxidation ...

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The cruel realities of conservation of energy.

    We have made fuels from atmospheric gasses (both water and hydrocarbon) for years and at much larger scales. Literally flown airplanes on them. That's not really the problem. It's that you need large amounts of power to convert the stuff in bulk. In addition, you pay for your inefficiencies at both ends. While a static generator could try to recapture it's own exhaust, a moving vehicle probably shouldn't try, as it will fall to the same cruel laws that prevent every perpetual motion machine from working.

    So I can add this papers optimistic blather to the pile of excess verbiage and distill it down to a sentence:

    Someone invented an acid based cell that can absorb trace moisture from the air that can be cracked to hydrogen by conventional electrolysis, once some else provides sufficient surplus power to justify it.

    So the good news is they have plenty of time to solve the corrosion problems while someone else solve the global electricity problem for them. Which is harsh, as this might actually be a usable step in a larger process, but no less true. And as posters have pointed out, if you have massive amounts of cheap clean power, why stop at cracking H2? Run it up to a mid chain alcohol, or some other longer chain hydrocarbon. At that point the output fuel is neutral relative to the last stage of re-combustion, so aside from peripheral emissions venting the exhaust from them back to atmosphere isn't problematic, and conventional high duty cycle engines like turbines and turbofans can happily use them. So for the narrow cases of things like planes and rockets, this would make sense. Hopefully there will still be enough left for a few vintage motoring enthusiasts to take the old fire breathers out for a spin on Sunday.

    1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

      Re: The cruel realities of conservation of energy.

      From a quick read through of the advertorial..

      However, the melamine sponge gradually degrades in the H2SO4 solution after a week

      So there'll be a bit of a consumables cost. Although they did also try with a platinum sponge, because platinum is so affordable. I guess this will permit catalytic convertor thieves to diversify, once those have solved the H2SO4 handling challenge.

      But hey, it doesn't require water! Well, it kinda does given how sulphuric acid is produced. And that also kinda needs fossil fuels, which ecofreaks are trying to ban. And sulphuric acid is a popular drying agent that just loves water, but obviously that dilutes it, so it'll need a process to re-process the water, and then be electrolysed to produce a few mols of H2.

      So seems like a bunch of expensive hoops to jump through to get to a point where you could electrolyse H2O. Which we're not exactly short of. But like most of these 'green' scams, it's all fine, until you look at costs, efficiency, practicality etc.

      1. gzuckier

        Re: The cruel realities of conservation of energy.

        Basically, then, they haven't developed a new way of making hydrogen, they've invented a new way of pulling water out of dryish desert air.

      2. Phil Lord

        Re: The cruel realities of conservation of energy.

        "So there'll be a bit of a consumables cost."

        With the current technology that would be but, who knows, if the sponge is either expensive or replacing it is expensive, they might find an alternative.

        "Well, it kinda does given how sulphuric acid is produced. And that also kinda needs fossil fuels,"

        Fossil fuels are deeply embedded in our industry, so pretty much everything needs fossil fuels. Solar panels and wind turbines use fossil fuels in their production. In this case, the sulphuric acid is a component of the system, not an input, even if it needs replacing occasionally. The system will use less fossil fuels as our society does.

        "sulphuric acid is a popular drying agent that just loves water, but obviously that dilutes it, so it'll need a process to re-process the water,"

        Or you could just electrolyse the water in the acid. You need an acid for the electrolysis anyway, and the electrolysis will drive of the water either way. It's quite clever actually. You use a natural property of the electrolyte to attract the water. So it should come with little extra cost.

    2. Toni the terrible Bronze badge

      Re: The cruel realities of conservation of energy.

      In deserts, any excess solar power generated; the H2 is then a energy storage medium

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The cruel realities of conservation of energy.

        In the absence of actual water - some desert life depends on the moisture in the air. Significantly lowering that content could do environmental damage.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    There is a strong possibility that the battery supply chain will hit bottlenecks as it is expanded to power cars, powerwalls, and provide backup storage for power stations - i.e., do everything. Increased R&D into hydrogen from electricity is a great way to hedge bets.

    1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

      Increased R&D into hydrogen from electricity is a great way to hedge bets.

      Err.. have you looked at your electricity bill lately? We're not exactly flush with cheap electricity any more, thanks to our 'renewables' scumbags. Plus thanks to our political scumbags, we're heading for 'Net Zero', which means banning domestic gas, and converting everyone from ICEs to EVs.

      Soo.. where's the market for very expensive H2? Forcing our kleptocrats and green idiots to switch from flying private jets to flying in Zeppelins again?

      1. JimC

        The point would be to generate the H2 from solar power in desert regions where solar power is effective and cheap but electricity storage/transport is troublesome. However the infrastructure to support this tech would also be a problem.

        1. Jim Mitchell

          If you find electricity storage and transportation beyond your means, won't H2 storage and transportation also be in that category.

          1. Gotno iShit Wantno iShit

            Not really, no.

            As electricity transportation scales it gets more difficult (increased voltage and/or current). Storing it in movable batteries obviously scales badly too. Transporting electricity intercontinental distances is rare, the longest interconnector in the world is 450 miles (UK<->Norway). Connecting countries such as Algeria to Europe gets mooted every now & then but I've not seen a project gain any traction (happy to be corrected natch).

            OTOH, pipelines transport gasses easily. Yes there will be losses due to the famous ability of hydrogen to leak through just about anything but that leakage is not going to be at a rate to create a fire or explosion risk. Bigger leaks at joints etc yes but we manage to live with those risks from other gasses in pipelines. And if you replace a small pipeline with a bigger one your efficiency goes up. Transporting gasses intercontinental distances is common, there's 4 pipelines over 2500 miles.

            1. Death Boffin
              Headmaster

              Great distances

              "Transporting electricity intercontinental distances is rare, the longest interconnector in the world is 450 miles (UK<->Norway)."

              The Pacific Intertie begs to differ. It is a DC line that travels 846 miles from the Columbia River to Los Angeles. The only reason it isn't longer is that there isn't a cheaper source of electricity further away.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Great distances

                Transportation and storage are different criteria.

              2. John Smith 19 Gold badge
                Unhappy

                The Pacific Intertie begs to differ.

                And now check these.

                The longest is in Brazil at 2543Km.

                But that still the issue of how you store all that power.

                Personally I think high speed flywheels running in vacuum have much better long life due to the limited failure modes and fairly ready ability to scale. Plus they can implemented in many different materials, ranging from the low tech (how about the wheels from a TGV? most mass is at the rim and they are used to speed) to the tightly-wound-ribbon-of-carbon-fibre that if it cracks shatters into millions of low mass shards.

                The problem with solar (aside from on earth it's only available during the day) is the huge surface area you need, but that's an issue with all the renewables (not necessarily all sustainable energy options however).

            2. Norman Nescio Silver badge

              Morocco - UK?

              Transporting electricity intercontinental distances is rare, the longest interconnector in the world is 450 miles (UK<->Norway). Connecting countries such as Algeria to Europe gets mooted every now & then but I've not seen a project gain any traction (happy to be corrected natch).

              Don't know if it has sufficient traction, but the Morocco - UK interconnector project is proposing 3,800 km long cables.

              Xlinks: Morocco-UK Power Project

              Power Technology: Morocco-UK Power Project, Morocco

              Massive UK-Morocco interconnector takes step forward - The ‘UK’s first’ HVDC cable factory in North Ayrshire, Scotland has secured planning approval

              electrek: The world’s longest subsea cable will send clean energy from Morocco to the UK [update]

            3. CrackedNoggin Bronze badge

              Convert hydrogen to methane and the infrastructure is already there, along with with several months worth of energy storage (e.g., in Germany, 6 months worth of gas storage).

        2. Jellied Eel Silver badge

          However the infrastructure to support this tech would also be a problem.

          That's.. something of an understatement. The paper talks about how they managed to produce a few ml of H2. So it needs just a bit of scaling up. So pick a desert, cover it in solar panels. That'll need infrastructure to get panels, parts and materials in place. It'll need <something> to keep panels clean. It'll need consumables, like the sponges, acid and water. It'll need infrastructure to store, compress and maybe liquify the H2. It'll need a method to transport that H2 to market. It'll need facilities for staff.

          So good'ol CH4 is generally sold by the million or billion cubic feet. How much would it cost to produce say, 100mbcf, and get that to say, Germany? How would that compare to say, CH4 produced by the UK, if our idiots in charge actually do something to allow more gas production? Which if we absolutely had to, could be cracked to turn CH4 into twice as much H2.. And don't forget the energy density of H2 is lower than CH4, so on a like-for-like energy replacement, we'd need a lot more H2.

          And the Greens of course ignore all the other uses for CH4, like producing ammonia, which is an important chemical needed in huge quantities for fertiliser. Especially as those ecofreaks also want to force veganism, which reduces supply of organic fertiliser. And by banning 'chemical' fertilisers, they reduce crop yields and quality.. Which is kind of a problem given to replace meat with veg, you need a lot more quality farmland, and a way to replace all the nutrients you're removing.

          On the plus side, Green's ideas of 'organic' vegan farming will end up creating more deserts.

          1. Denarius

            another problem

            An Oz idea following current fashions. OK, got to get funding somehow from gullible governments. Covering deserts with solar panels? How much CO2 is produced making these short life things with no recycling plan known of to deal with the toxic metals ? Right....

            Also a far bit of Oz is now magic dirt whenever something needs to be built in a large area, as well as the (oh the irony) environmental reports. One ACT "solar farm" if not all, actually had to document the risks of scattered sheep manure on the ground during construction. Sheep manure from previous use of land.

            And dont get me started on why solar thermal fails due to dust and why this is a big risk in dry times in most of Oz. Deserts elsewhere will have same obstacles plus the usual political instability south of Europe.

            1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

              Re: another problem

              Deserts elsewhere will have same obstacles plus the usual political instability south of Europe.

              Aha! Up, not across! So convice Musk that this would be a great way to produce H2 on Mars. Well, great-ish. Note to self: See what NASA et al say about sulphur deposits on Mars..

            2. Toni the terrible Bronze badge

              Re: another problem

              Invest in dust busters!

      2. captain veg Silver badge

        'renewables' scumbags

        That's a very strange way to spell "Vladimir Putin".

        -A.

        1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

          Re: 'renewables' scumbags

          That's a very strange way to spell "Vladimir Putin".

          I'm.. oretty sure he wasn't the person who decided to ban Nord Stream 2. Or ban Russian oil & gas. Or even ban Keystone Xl. As for renewables scumbags, see-

          https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2022/09/07/windfall-profits-for-generators-running-at-43-billion-a-year/

          At a price of £382/MWh, compared to a historic price level of around £50/MWh, these generators are raking in an incredible £43 billion. It is true that some generators may have Power Purchase Agreements in place at less than current prices – but this simply means that the purchaser is making the windfall instead. Either way electricity consumers are paying the cost of this on their bills.

          That's.. quite the windfall. S'funny the Bbc doesn't mention this issue. Also-

          Based on my earlier calculations, the current Carbon Price of £92.65/tonne is adding £35/MWh to the cost of gas generation, and hence onto the wholesale electricity price. This translates to nearly £5 billion of windfall profit for non-gas generators.

          ISTR even though nuclear power is zero carbon, they may still have to pay a carbon tax. But it explains why the 'renewables' scumbags can afford to do so much lobbying.

          1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

            Re: 'renewables' scumbags

            "I'm.. oretty sure he wasn't the person who decided to ban Nord Stream 2. Or ban Russian oil & gas."

            True, but he was the direct cause of those bans being put in place. Or are you going to defend Putins expansionism and war-mongering now?

            1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

              Re: 'renewables' scumbags

              Or are you going to defend Putins expansionism and war-mongering now?

              Nope, no more than I assume you're defending Western/EU/NATO expansionism. I'm simply pointing out that the EU's industrial, economic and political contraction is a direct result of a long series of insane policies. The push for H2 is just another example of this. Take a cheap, abundant resource and try to replace it with something more expensive and inferior.

              1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

                Re: 'renewables' scumbags

                "Nope, no more than I assume you're defending Western/EU/NATO expansionism."

                Errr, what? Western/EU/NATO "expansion" is not only voluntary, but countries *apply* to join, they aren't forced at gunpoint. The recent "expansion" has been a direct result of Putins neighbours being concerned about his *violent* and fear-mongering expansionism. Finland, for example, has been happy for many years to be a neutral between NATO and Russia. Not any longer. They are desperate to join NATO now. NATO "expansion" directly attributable to Putin.

                1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

                  Re: 'renewables' scumbags

                  Errr, what? Western/EU/NATO "expansion" is not only voluntary, but countries *apply* to join, they aren't forced at gunpoint.

                  Hey, let's ask Yugoslavia about that! No, wait..

                  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-05/scholz-macron-seek-to-reassert-eu-role-in-serbia-kosovo-dispute

                  The German and French leaders deputized their respective chief foreign-policy advisers, Jens Ploetner and Emmanuel Bonne, to join the EU’s envoy on the matter, Miroslav Lajcak, in the mediation efforts.

                  The Balkan adversaries must show “maximum decisiveness” and a readiness to make difficult decisions, the letter said.

                  Serbia must recognise Kosovo, or else. Meanwhile, don't forget how the West/NATO/EU brought peace, prosperity and democracy to Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan etc etc. And of course it brought cookies to 2014 Ukraine. Somewhat ironic that the Bbc gets much of it's 'news' about Ukraine from Nuland's Institute for the Promotion of War.

                  But such is politics. It was the EU/UK's choice to tilt at windmills. It was that choice that lead to the dependency on gas. It was the EU/UK's choice to conduct economic warfare against Russia, and ignore the UN's principles and rights to self-determination. It's the EU/UK's choice to sacrifice Ukrainians to win their war against Russia, instead of seeking a peace deal.

                  On the plus side, at least it looks like we're going to ignore the ecofreaks and lift the ban on fraccing, and encourage more UK oil & gas production, which long-term will have more effect on reducing Russia's energy dominance.. But that's a long overdue decision. And it'll mean if we absolutely have to, we'lll have more CH4 to convert into H2, without preserving the UK environment under glass & steel.

      3. captain veg Silver badge

        Re: have you looked at your electricity bill lately

        Yes, I have.

        About 26 euros for the past two months. But I write this from a part of Europe where almost all electricity is from a renewable source.

        -A.

        1. Lars Silver badge
          Happy

          Re: have you looked at your electricity bill lately

          @captai veg

          Ertu kannski að tala um Ísland eða lítur þú á kjarnorku sem endurnýjanlega orku?

      4. Uncle Slacky Silver badge
        Boffin

        > We're not exactly flush with cheap electricity any more, thanks to our 'renewables' scumbags

        The price of UK electricity from all sources is tied to the price from gas, precisely in order to make renewables appear expensive.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Well, not originally. It was tied to the price of the most expensive source, which used to be renewables, to encourage their use. Now that renewables are cheap & gas is insane we can see how crazy that system was. It needs to be fixed so that people pay the actual cost of the generated electricity, not one inflated by false competition.

      5. JDX Gold badge

        The real worry is that Jellied Eel et al presumably work in the IT industry... it's one thing to see tremendous ignorance on Facebook but this is a community of (supposedly) educated, tech-savvy people.

        1. James 51

          You do occasionally get trolls or people farming downvotes or perhaps they're simply a victim of Poe's law (there's no act of satire so extreme it will not be mistaken for a genuine statement) but I doubt it’s the last one.

        2. Jellied Eel Silver badge

          ...it's one thing to see tremendous ignorance on Facebook but this is a community of (supposedly) educated, tech-savvy people.

          Indeed. But hey, I got an ad hom! But it's often also a case of classic projection. You are an educated, tech-savvy person, therefore your opinion must be correct. Even if you can't state what might be incorrect about my opinions, so resort to the good'ol ad hom attacks.

          You may rightly object to my characterisation of scum sucking subsidy seekers in the 'renewables' industry, but that doesn't change the facts. They're generating collossal profits for no reason other than a fundamentally broken energy market, which is translating directly to rising inflation and economic collapse. Not to mention increasing energy poverty, and in a few weeks, will start adding to excess mortality as people freeze.

      6. Toni the terrible Bronze badge
        Mushroom

        Learn to love the Nukes

      7. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Not sure why you're frothing about net zero. It'll cause some issues for sure, but not doing it is almost certainly a worse outcome.

        The renewables "scumbags" as you so delicately put it are actually helping to offset the real problem, which is that we're still hopelessly dependent on burning natural gas for much of our electricity production. More renewables (backed by new nuclear for when the wind isn't blowing/sun isn't shining) is probably the most sensible long term fix, though there's an awfully long lead time on that. Using H2 as an energy storage/distribution medium should probably only be considered as a transition technology to help us along the way to that goal.

        Too much dependency on gas isn't even a new problem; the blowback from economic sanctions on Russia has just brought it into much sharper focus now. The UK Gov has been dithering over this issue for years (actually decades) because of the PR problems associated with new nuclear.

        Of course, in 30 years time we'll have unlimited energy supply from fusion generators and electricity will be "too cheap to meter"... /s

        1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

          Not sure why you're frothing about net zero. It'll cause some issues for sure, but not doing it is almost certainly a worse outcome.

          What is ECS? And assuming the UK does waste trillions on occasional generators instead of building nuclear plants, what would success look like? So assuming the UK hits it's decarbonisation target, what would be the effect on global temperatures?

      8. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        switch from flying private jets to flying in Zeppelins

        Any future with Zeppelins in it is my kind of future.

  5. Charlie van Becelaere

    Just wondering

    If they're going to pull water from the (relatively) dry atmosphere rather than take what little groundwater there is there to support the locals, won't that affect how much water ends up in the ground for those locals?

    I'm not a hydrologist, but it seems reasonable that taking the water from either land or air affects the total amount of water available there.

    Now, if they're planning to do this in totally uninhabited locales, that's a different story, but will it all be operated by solar-powered robots that need very little maintenance?

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Just wondering

      Yep, I read "the most arid environments...a system which extracts water from airborne vapour"

      If the place is so arid there's little ground water because it almost never rains, how much effect will taking even more water out of the local atmosphere have? The concept is interesting, but I suspect the practice and stated aims will not be achievable. On the other hand, they may develop some stuff chasing this rainbow that can be used in other areas. It all feels a bit "blue sky" at this stage, so not necessarily a bad use of time, but odds aren't great for success.

      On the other hand, look at some of the great "accidental" discoveries such as Penicillate or Teflon :-)

    2. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: Just wondering

      Yes and No, remember water vapour is a greenhouse gas, so removing water vapour from the atmosphere is actually a good thing!

      As we've discovered these last few days, the 'dry' hot atmosphere was actually holding a lot of water.

      Looking at the global extent of the drought/lack of rain, ie. instead of water falling back to earth as regular rain, the carbon heated atmosphere was retaining the evaporated water and then dumping vast amounts of water in very short spaces of time, when cooled.

      1. NeilPost Silver badge

        Re: Just wondering

        Removing water vapour from the atmosphere is hardly going to help with a lack of rain/water.

        Go see the Sahara desert as an example.

        1. Cliffwilliams44 Silver badge

          Re: Just wondering

          Go spend the night in the desert and you will quickly realize just how big the climate hoax is.

          The desert is very hot in the day time and very, very cold at night. Because there is nothing to hold the heat in, No water vapor, no clouds, and this proves something anyone of any decent intelligence knows, SPACE IS COLD!

          Yet these idiots want to take our blanket away and expose our world to the bone freezing temperatures of space! (The Earth will never be Venus no matter how much CO2 is in the atmosphere).

          Fun fact: The poles of Mercury have ice!

          1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

            Re: Just wondering

            Hey, look on the bright side. Given the yields from this experiment, by the time we've covered all the deserts with solar panels, we probably could alter the Earth's albedo. It's one of those classic science vs engineering things. We're rather short on energy at the moment, so let's find new and exciting ways to waste it! I still think that if we want to save the planet, we should be capturing carbon, turning that into diamonds and burning those as fuel. Science is sound, economics.. much less so.

          2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
            Facepalm

            Re: Just wondering

            <speechless at the ignorance and the conflating of vastly different environments!>

    3. mark l 2 Silver badge

      Re: Just wondering

      It an interesting idea but if you are out in the middle of a dessert then maybe the technology would be put to better use to capture the moisture from the air and convert it into fresh water that could be used to irrigate plants or for drinking?

      1. ThatOne Silver badge

        Re: Just wondering

        That actually exists in S. America, using the morning fog rising from the ocean.

        I guess in Sahara the yield would be ridiculous, like half a glass of water for each football-size capture surface. Evaporation due to the dry air would remove half of the water captured as soon as it is captured anyway.

        1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

          Re: Just wondering

          ThunderF00t's YT channel has several fun videos fisking products like 'Water Seer' that promise to deliver fresh, clean drinking water using only the power of the Sun.

          Physics says 'nope'.

      2. jmch Silver badge
        Trollface

        Re: Just wondering

        "...if you are out in the middle of a dessert... "

        ...get hold of a spoon and start eating your way out!

      3. Dagg Silver badge

        Re: Just wondering

        capture the moisture from the air and convert it into fresh water

        The process uses sulphuric acid and electrolyses the resulting acid mix. At no stage is the water ever "fresh".

    4. Cliffwilliams44 Silver badge

      Re: Just wondering

      The real problem in these locations is:

      1. Humans have to build the facility. Are you going to transport them in every day or house them there.

      2. Human have to maintain the facility. Same problem as #1.

      Living and working in these uninhabited desert locations is extremely dangerous.

      My employer builds light rail transit systems. We were looking to bid a job to build a light rail system between LA and Las Vegas that would run through the Mohave Desert. The project required "man camps" to be build in the desert for the crews to live in during construction. We decided the job was too risky. The chances of heat related injury was just too high! If someone were to wonder away from camp and get lost they have about 3 days or less to be found before they die! As far as I now, none of the major players in our industry has offered a bid on this project yet.

      I find it hard to believe that any reputable and safe construction company would bid on a project like this.

      1. Andy The Hat Silver badge

        Re: Just wondering

        If all the workmen had to take a gallon of water with them each day, by the time the project was finished it's likely there'd be enough water collected to exceed the designed collection of the plant so they wouldn't need the H2 extraction facility ... So just build a big solar harm, a big water tank and a road to be used by the "workers" - the plant is cheaper, the workers are cheaper, the unit achieves it's "collection targets" and everyone's a winner.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Just wondering

        >We decided the job was too risky. The chances of heat related injury was just too high! If someone were to wonder away from camp and get lost they have about 3 days or less to be found before they die!

        That's if you overlook the circa 1M people, who live in the desert and that any sensible rail route would largely parallel the pre-existing highways such as Route 15 and 40. Plus that desert isn't anything like the Oz outback (camped in both)..

        If construction projects can run in the Oz outback and much larger deserts outside of the US, perhaps the problem is unique to the American psych...

      3. Platinum blond(e)

        Re: Just wondering

        And yet, there's i15 galloping across that desert expanse already. How did our forebears manage it?

    5. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: Just wondering

      In semi-arid areas water is more important as a resource than as an energy source. I think there's an Israeli team which is looking at stripping water out of the air for this purpose. The desert can otherwise be better used for solar panels to produce power for use elsewhere.

      1. Toni the terrible Bronze badge

        Re: Just wondering

        Ask the Fremen from Dune how they did it?

    6. Snowy Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Just wondering

      Many of the animals will rely on the morning dew to live I wonder how much this will reduce that dew.

      Plus there are better ways to remove water from the air than using some hazardous substance. Sulfuric acid (H2S04) is a corrosive substance, destructive to the skin, eyes, teeth, and lungs. Severe exposure can result in death.

      Hydrogen is just is a poor fuel in terms of energy needed to produce compared to what you get from using it.

      Could be considered a form of energy storage but storing it is not easy.

      The other problem while burning it your going to produce some NOx which is quite toxic.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Just wondering

        "Many of the animals will rely on the morning dew to live I wonder how much this will reduce that dew."

        Yes. Most "deserts" have an ecosystem. Few are the "rolling sand dune" we imagine when hearing the word "desert". They are not all like the sandy dunes of parts of the Sahara.

        1. Snowy Silver badge
          Thumb Up

          Re: Just wondering

          Even the Sahara has life.

    7. Dagg Silver badge

      Re: Just wondering

      If they're going to pull water from the (relatively) dry atmosphere rather than take what little groundwater there is there to support the locals, won't that affect how much water ends up in the ground for those locals?

      The problem is that it is a desert, there is no ground water! The locals rely on bore water which is high in mineral content and comes from rain that fell years ago and in a different place.

  6. teknopaul

    Clean but not green

    H2 is only "eco" because its clean at the point you burn it (in a poluted city) not because its cheap in energy terms to make it.

    So the notion that because its h2 it green and clean makes no sense. Especially in the middle of a desert, where shipping out solar cells and leaving them lying around is in itself pollution.

    1. NeilPost Silver badge

      Re: Clean but not green

      Vast solar farms lying around the desert is as much ‘pollution’ as sand is.

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. Tom 7

      Re: Clean but not green

      "and leaving them lying around is in itself pollution." I really dont want to work for you if your business acumen leads your to not maintaining or replacing your main source of income.

      I've heard some really pathetic stuff against PV but the worst has to be 'the steel supports only last the lifetime of the cells and somehow you cant just unscrew a weary old panel and stick anew one on'.

  7. FordPrefect

    If only we had a simple way of transporting electricity quickly and easily over large distances to where seawater is, so it can be cracked into hydrogen and oxygen. I mean we can't possibly have some form of wizardry to move electricity around the place?

    1. Anomalous Cowturd
      Boffin

      Title not included...

      Pipes?

      1. Tom 7

        Re: Title not included...

        The pipes are calling...

    2. SBU
      Boffin

      HVDC

      High voltage DC can ship power over thousands of kilometres with very low loss, due to the very high voltages.

      1. Gotno iShit Wantno iShit

        Re: HVDC

        s/can/should be able to/

        Longest interconnector in the world is 450 miles currently. I expect we'll get to thousands of kilometers at practical & acceptable losses but we're not there yet.

        1. Tom 7

          Re: HVDC

          It seems your not there yet: a 1,100 kV link in China was completed in 2019 over a distance of 3,300 km (2,100 mi) with a power capacity of 12 GW

          1. Gotno iShit Wantno iShit

            Re: HVDC

            I sit corrected, thanks for the education.

  8. Lars Silver badge
    Pint

    Not for me then

    No thin air in my house, thick air or just air at best.

  9. Norman123

    Scientists learned to duplicate politicians

    Politicians can convert thin air into $tillions. Scientists finally found a way to duplicate their method in the vital energy field. Alas, it has even worse problem than money. from thin air.

  10. gandalfcn Silver badge

    Just think if the $5+ trillion annual subsidies the fossil fuel industries receive were instead diverted to R & D intp such things as H2 and nuclear. But the Exxon/Peabody/Koch axis hold too much power for that to happen. And that is why we have a problem and have had for decades.

    1. Tom 7

      You dont even need to put it into R&D. Just put it into renewables and there will be so much peak oversupply the R&D will pay for itself.

      1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

        You dont even need to put it into R&D. Just put it into renewables and there will be so much peak oversupply the R&D will pay for itself.

        Peak isn't really the problem. There's been a neat example of this in California recently with their 'heat dome'. So no wind, so their windmills contribute zero. Lots of sun, so solar kinda works. But peak demand doesn't correlate with the weather, so warnings of impending blackouts. But there was some noticeable demand reduction during evening peak demand hours, probably due to people switching from grid feed to battery. Problem of course is the cost of installing any decent sized solar PV+battery system, and availability, ie if you're an apartment dweller, you don't have a roof to put panels on.

  11. Sampler

    Moisture farmers?

    Hope their nephew doesn't run off to join a rebellion..

  12. MajorClanger

    How much?

    "3.7m3 of hydrogen"

    At what temperature and pressure? No doubt the paper had this detail but we need to know!

    At STP, 3.7m3 isn't much.

    1. Justicesays

      Re: How much?

      I make it about ~333 grams of hydrogen (at STP) , or 3 liters of water's worth

      Obviously that isnt extracted from some mystical zero point source of moisture in the single m3 of the extractor. These things would have to be widely separated to ensure they could not interfere with each other. They would almost certainly affect the environment , making it even dryer, which means the effectiveness might deteriorate over time as well

    2. IanRS

      Re: How much?

      Assuming atmospheric pressure, 25C, one mole of a gas has a volume of about 24 litres. 3.7m^3 = 3700L = 154M. Energy from burning 1 mole of hydrogen = 286KJ, so 154M = 44.1MJ, which is equivalent to about 1kg of petrol - call it 1.25 litres. I wonder how well the process scales, and scales, and scales...

  13. Sirius Lee

    3.7m3?

    Seriously, that's pathetic. Scale it up and its still pathetic. If the hydrogen could be converted efficiently to energy (no storage losses, perfect burning with oxygen) then that represents about 11Kw. But there are going to be inefficiencies. So lets be conservative and say 60%. That means the device, 1m3, can produce 6-7kw/day. On a sunny day. To get 1Gw it will be necessary to have and maintain the equivalent of 200,000 of these things.

    And it will not scale. The example box will be processing a LOT of air. When there are a lot side-by-side they will be feeding on each other's processed air. And just saying use a bigger one isn't any better because the surface area (where the air can enter and leave) is proportionately less compared with the volume.

    The cost per kw/h will be ridiculously high.

  14. hayzoos

    5% rule

    I remember something I learned some time ago about the last 5% can consume 95% of effort whilst the first 95% only consumed 5% of effort.

    As mentioned previously, in practical application, this will not work, let alone scale. A proposal to extract water from desert air at as low as 4% humidity, which results in air at less than 4% humidity. Oh, that was fun while it lasted. Now what?

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like