But while such initiatives might make sense for gas companies, they might end up costing the public far more in the long run. It’s more efficient and affordable, say experts, to heat homes directly with green electricity rather than using renewable energy to produce hydrogen for home heating. Those were the conclusions of a, which summarized the findings of 32 independent analyses on the topic. None of them concluded that widespread use of hydrogen for heating buildings was a good idea.
That’s not to say hydrogen isn’t useful for the energy transition. It’s highly energy dense, making it good for decarbonizing so-called “hard to abate” sectors of the economy where weight and volume are important considerations, like shipping or aviation. It just doesn’t make sense for heating homes when far more efficient solutions already exist, like installingor connecting buildings together with district heating systems, according to the study.
Much of the reason for the disparity comes down to thermodynamics. You waste some energy when you use electricity to separate water into oxygen and hydrogen, which can then be used as fuel. And when you burn that hydrogen in a specially designed boiler, as some proponents argue we should, you lose more energy. Electric heat pumps, in comparison, can be about five times as efficient, according to the study, partially because of the fewer energy conversions required.
Not only then is heating homes with hydrogen more expensive due to the extra electricity required to make it, but doing so means we have to build even more solar and wind farms to get the same decarbonization result, in effect moving the goalposts of the amount of renewable energy required to decarbonize the economy.
That’s a big deal for anyone eager to see the world zero out its carbon emissions as soon as possible, a point made by the study author Jan Rosenow, director of European programs at the Regulatory Assistance Project, in almost deliberately staid terms. “The required build rate for renewables,” he wrote in the paper, “would be extremely challenging.”
Hydrogen is but 1 of many solutions to reducing dependence on fossil fuel energy.
So burn clean water which is in short supply to make energy. Yea that is a dumb idea. It costs more energy to make clean water than to ya know what nvm...
DevaPartisiHeryerde
Yup Green electricity produced by COAL.
looks kind of dangerous
Do it anyway. it's the most abundant thing in the universe, BTU rating is three times more than gasoline AND the grid can make it at night when we all use less electricity.
Is their by product of burning hydrogen (H2) & Oxygen (0)?.
Neither do 'renewables'... 🤔 😴 You used to be a respected publication... 🤔