Hacker News Reader

90% efficient electrolysis doesn't matter when "getting hydrogen from the pump to your car's fuel tank" has 20+ percent energy losses. And from the tanker trailer to the pump. And...

This comes from the inherent thermodynamic inefficiencies of compressing something, letting it expand, and then compressing it again.

View on HN

Those losses can be made much less than that. Theoretical minimal losses are on the order of 1-2kWh per kg, and in practice not much more than that[1]. Further efficiency improvements can get reality even closer to theoretical.

Most of these arguments are increasingly outdated, as I mentioned before. We're at the point where hundreds of billions of dollars are being spent on hydrogen right now[2]. So naysayers are more accurately described as being out of touch with latest events and not people with any special knowledge.

[1] https://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/9013_energy_requirement...

[2] https://www.jwnenergy.com/article/2020/7/8/europe-unveils-pl...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com