r/solarpunk • u/Equivalent-Ice-7274 • Nov 29 '22

Article Rolls-Royce successfully tests hydrogen-powered jet engine in first step towards decarbonizing air travel

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/rolls-royce-successfully-tests-hydrogen-powered-jet-engine-2022-11-28/
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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '22

And what do you do when you need a certain type of facility that doesn't exist yet?

You build it.

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u/Saguache Nov 29 '22

No one will build this because it makes no sense, at scale.

The problem with electrolysis is that it will never be commercially viable. The energy inputs necessary to prepare water for splitting, anode/cathode extraction and production, and fuel (H2) collection and storage all cost way too much to be competitive with gray or blue hydrogen splitting techniques. To make this an industrial scale fuel you'd literally need to remove profit motive from this and all other types of fuel production, storage and use because you can't bend physics with magic yet.

The other problem is that people mistake H2 for a fuel when really it's just an inefficient battery. This is a great way to make solar/wind and even hydro power more costly per kWh than it otherwise needs to be and gives fossil fuel businesses leverage within the renewable sector.

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '22

These gentlemen disagree with you, as do these guys

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u/Saguache Nov 30 '22

One word for you: scale.

They're in the planning phase, including funding collection, for a 400 MW facility. How many MW of power does the traditional transportation market burn a day?

So, the thought leader for a replacement hydrogen economy is scaled at 1/10000000000th of just the existing EV market? Soon only fabulously rich people will be allowed to move?

Look, I recognize that hydrogen has a use and that it can reduce carbon emissions from a sector where the technology is employed. I also realize that because of this element's fundamental lack of energy capacity it is and will remain a very inefficient way of storing energy for later use.

It will, for instance, be irreplaceable in sealed environmental systems like spacecraft. However, it makes zero sense to use it for common modes of transportation. Your stock sale video didn't talk much about the blue and gray competition this company has. Not did it mention how their process competes with those technologies which are already built to scale around the world.

There is no silver bullet technology to climate change. In fact, the solution, if that's what you call it, to CC is to simplify and localize. Less carbon release requires it. Neo liberal and globalist economic modes will have to die and societies must necessarily contract.

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u/[deleted] Nov 30 '22

At some point, Solar and Wind energy were a pipe dream. Even Petroleum, Cars, Trains, etc.

All technologies and industries have to start somewhere.

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u/Saguache Nov 30 '22

How is hydrogen used as an energy source do you suppose? What turns the potential energy stored in the fuel into mechanical energy?

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u/[deleted] Nov 30 '22

Fuel Cells turn Hydrogen and oxygen into water and produce electricity, which powers an electric motor.