Chris Meier wrote:
There can be overall efficiency improvements, if a peaking power plant is replaced with a 'baseload', and excess used to make hydrogen. Keeps the utilities in the game a little longer. Buy solar. Wish I had a spark with fast charge.
Electrolysis still creates a lot of waste heat. The utility would still be burning more fuel to create that hydrogen.
Now, if you can find a *use* for that excess heat, then it isn't waste. For example, suppose you need hot water for something. Then the electrolyzer produces hydrogen *and* heat, both of which you want and can use. Then your overall efficiency is higher. This is called cogeneration.
But the next problem is: How do you *store* the hydrogen? Do you compress it, and store it in high-pressure tanks? It takes a lot of energy to compress, little or none of which you will get back when it is uncompressed.
Do you chill it to liquify it? That too takes a lot of energy, which you probably won't get back when you convert it back into gas.
This is why it's hard for me to see how hydrogen fueled vehicles is ever going to make sense.
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