Hydrogen Story Falling Apart

Windy_Skies · June 13, 2024, 5:31pm

The Manhattan Institute is a bad source. Just by skimming this text yourself that becomes obvious. This bit for example:

The need for storing vast quantities of hydrogen or electricity in batteries is a consequence of policies to promote and subsidize intermittent wind and solar power, along with policies to promote and subsidize electrification of the U.S. economy. Today, the U.S. still relies primarily on fossil fuels and nuclear power, which obviates the need for battery storage systems and stored hydrogen to provide energy and electricity.

A broader policy question is whether creating an underlying need for storing energy needed to
compensate for increased reliance on intermittent wind and solar power is economically rational.26
A complete discussion of that topic is beyond the scope of this Issue Brief. To address the issue,
one would need to perform a benefit-cost analysis that compared the costs of storage (batteries,
hydrogen, etc.) needed to compensate for wind and solar power’s inherent intermittency against
the cost of low- or zero-carbon electricity from generating resources—such as natural gas and
nuclear power—that can be dispatched when needed.

Or for a third party write-up of their position on climate change: Manhattan Institute for Policy Research - DeSmog

The quote you gave also can be said to about any storage technology, so is meaningless.

Skimming the text, I see a graph on EROI, not including that of renewables for some reason. Here is something on EROI: Slow Chat - #828 by Windy_Skies

I’d pick better sources. With this one you have to question everything.

If you are interested in hydrogen, I’d look into how effective electrolysis is getting and if there are alternatives to electrolysis. This might be a good start: