Comments by "Neolithic Transit Revolution" (@neolithictransitrevolution427) on "Is Hydrogen The Next German Wunderwaffe?" video.

What I think is under discussed is the absolute GLUT of oxygen this implies. If electrolysis becomes the norm, oxygen co-produced is going to dwarf modern ASU production, which may make a slew of technologies relevant. Oxycombstion comes to mind, burning NG or Biomass in pure oxygen removes Nitrogen from the flue gas, which makes the products just H20 and C02, and its very easy to seperate water from a gas. In some places, that water might even be a valuable product, like SAGD in the oil sands. Also, Casinos tend to pump in oxygen to make you stay awake feel good and gamble all night. Maybe morally dubious, but I would be interested in seeing if boosting O2 during the mid day in retirement homes had a similar effect.
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You can't ship energy across the ocean with batteries, whereas you can put ammonia on a ship in Egypt or Saudi Arabia or South Australia produced with cheap solar, and ship it to Japan. You also can't heat a furnace to 800 degrees with a battery, so hydrogen is the only real alternative to NG unless you want every plant to have a nuclear reactor. If we ever get cheap enough at producing hydrogen, it might displace batteries all together, because China can't control the supply chain and it has a higher energy density.
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@georgesmith4768 I agree in large part on the first point, and we do have Phosphate batteries already, and Canada has Cobalt as well. But hydrogen would mean an industry China doesn't have a large scale manufacturing and technology lead in, and would remove the need for rare earths and the associated mining the western countries are uncomfortable with. I think industrial heating is more relevant than you realize. The issue with electric furnace is the anodes degrade very quickly. I may be bias toward hydrogen because I've worked in that area, but at least 6 years ago there was no serious scalable electric furnace being proposed outside steel or aluminum recycling. As for the last part, it may simply be cheaper to produce ammonia in Saudi Arabia than solar energy in Germany. The higher resource availability in some regions is a significant discount, particularly if you plan on using some of that energy to create a long term/medium term storage anyway. Additionally, Japan is betting on co-firing Ammonia and coal, and eventually directly in Coal plants, to take advantage of existing infrastructure, and hoping to export that to South Asian countries which also are coal reliant.
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I agree 3¢ a KW hour is like the low South Korea was approaching. I can only assume it's because they are old plants which have paid down construction like you said.
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Another long term infrastructure plan Germany should be celebrated is the electric highway. They have thousands of Km of what are basically trolley/street car overhead wires planned aling highways so the Transport Trucks can operate electrically. That would allow not just long distance electric trucking, but allow it with a small battery that only has to cover 50km to the hoghway, where it van charge as you drive, and then power you 50km to a destination.
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@TimJBenham jesus
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Since we're talking about Energy in Germany, I want to remind/explain to everyone that LNG from Canada was never an option for Germany. LNG has seen enormous growth, both on supply and demand, with Germany (and Europe, but most Germany) obviously needing alternatives to Russian gas in 2022. Regularly you hear that Canada (or the Trudeau government) refused to provide any., maybe for environmental reasons But look where supply comes from. Qatar, where the Gas feild is among the worlds cheapest and colocated with the export terminals. The US, where PNG comes from gas co-produced in the Permean basis in Texas, attached to the Gulf coast by an existing pipeline network, and in many cases repurposing LNG import terminals built before the Fracking boom. Canada was never going to build a cross continent pipeline with a from scratch export terminal on the east coast. It simply can't be done in the market. LNG prices before 2020 were break even low, ans while 2022 saw a massive price spike, low prices are already back. Germany and Europe never desired any long term contracts. They signed a few, but the US ones all allow cancellation, and signing some weakened the desire for any others, because they are betting on Hydrogen. Short of Canada using tax payer money to subsidize European consumers, or calling it NATO military spemding based on Energy security, this was never a real option.
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 @blue-pi2kt I disagree, it is the best available technology for energy transportation and for high temperature industrial processes.
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The good news is South Australia has a large Green Hydrogen plant, Canada has several, built for Germany, being constructed on the East coast to export ammonia, and the US has 7 hydrogen Hubs being developed.
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@blue-pi2kt it isn't abandoned in space flight? The SLS is Hydrogen fueled, if stupid overall. Japan has hydrogen rockets, the H3. China's largest rocket, the Long March 5 is hydrogen powered. Vulcan uses a hydrogen upper stage. Arianna rockets in Europe use Hydrogen. Skylon is designed to be hydrogen powered. I think you're literally just looking at SpaceX lol. And I'm not saying they aren't going to win the space race. But that has more to do with building a simple engine. And when we get to the moon hydrogen will be right back on the menu. You ship it as ammonia btw.
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This is true.
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Are there cars in the background of the giy inventing the forst car?
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Speaking of Ammonia, there is a Danish company which has produced an electrolysis cell which uses less energy in KW than a state of the art NG to ammonia plant uses in KW (electrical amd thermal) to produce ammonia while producing oxygen. Very interesting
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@mathewferstl7042 I do, and Germany has great trains. Unfortunately, not everything is a train. Sometimes innovation is actually good.
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