WEBVTT - Heigh-Ho Hydrogen 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:14.040 stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:16.919 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer and 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:22.079 a love of all things tech. And on November I 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:26.479 ran across an article titled quote can we produce enough 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:31.120 green hydrogen to save the world? End? Quote? And I thought, 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:34.559 I haven't done an episode about hydrogen and the proposed 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:37.240 hydrogen economy for quite some time. It might be a 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:40.800 good sign to revisit this topic and remind everyone what 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:44.360 it's all about, because when it comes to conversations about 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:49.800 transitioning away from a dependence on fossil fuels, hydrogen is 0:00:49.840 --> 0:00:53.760 frequently part of that conversation. Today, we're gonna explore why 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:57.960 that is, and whether we can in fact produce enough 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:01.520 of it responsibly in a green way to create a 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:06.959 true hydrogen economy. Spoiler alert, that's just one component of 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:09.959 a hydrogen economy. I'll talk a lot about that in 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:15.920 this episode. First, we gotta just lay some groundwork, right. 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:20.760 Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. It's 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:25.199 what stars are made out of. According to the Los 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:28.840 Alamos National Laboratory, if you were to gather all the 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:31.560 atoms in the universe all the matters. So you've got 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:34.839 all the atoms in the universe all in one room, Well, 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:37.600 it would need to be a really big room, but 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:41.720 more than nine percent of all those atoms in that 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:44.839 room would be hydrogen. So at first you might think 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:48.120 that means we're lousy with the stuff here on Earth, 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:52.279 and we kind of are. But there's some other things 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:56.120 about hydrogen that makes that whole plentiful thing a little 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:59.480 more misleading when it comes to our day to day experience. 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:04.880 So first, pure hydrogen has a boiling point of minus 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:09.520 two hundred fifty two point nine degrees celsius. That's minus 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:14.520 four hundred twenty three point two degrees fahrenheit. That means 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:19.959 anything warmer than that extremely cold temperature will cause hydrogen 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:24.160 to boil off into a gas. To make hydrogen a liquid, 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:27.840 you would have to cool it down to thirty three kelvin. 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:33.280 Zero kelvin represents absolute zero. That's when you essentially have 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:39.359 no molecular movement at all. Absolute zero is colder than 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:43.079 empty space, which is somewhere around two point seven kelvin, 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:47.760 So thirty three kelvin is toasty in comparison, but it's 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:51.720 still colder than anything you're gonna find occurring naturally on 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:56.880 our planet. So on Earth, unpressurized pure hydrogen is going 0:02:56.919 --> 0:03:00.280 to be in gas form, and this is a problem 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:05.520 because hydrogen is also the lightest element. The heavier elements 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:09.440 in Earth's atmosphere will push down and hydrogen will move 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:14.360 up higher and higher until it actually escapes Earth's gravity, 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:20.400 so pure hydrogen will float off into space. Capturing hydrogen 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:24.560 from the atmosphere isn't really a practical solution because of this. 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:29.840 So hydrogen also has a strong tendency to bond with 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:33.640 other elements, and that's really another very important thing. So 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:36.680 we can get to hydrogen here on Earth, but it's 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:40.880 bonded to other stuff Like two Hydrogen's can bond with 0:03:41.080 --> 0:03:45.200 an oxygen atom and form water H two O. So 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:47.720 more on that in a bit as that's key to 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:52.120 the challenge of making a working hydrogen economy is figuring 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:55.320 out how to get hydrogen out of these compounds and 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:59.480 elements and things, not elements, but you know, mixtures. So 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:05.400 there are three common isotopes of hydrogen. The ordinary, boring 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:09.480 pure hydrogen that we tend to talk about is called protium, 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:13.400 and that consists of one proton that is orbited by 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:19.000 one electron. So the nucleus of pure hydrogen protium isotopes 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:23.479 is just a proton. Then you have deuterium that one 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:26.479 adds a neutron to the nucleus, so now you've got 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:31.040 one proton, one neutron in the nucleus orbited by one electron. 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:35.240 Then you have tritium that's a radioactive isotope and it 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:39.839 has a nucleus with one proton and two neutrons orbited 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:44.040 by a single electron. This stuff does occasionally form in 0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:48.039 Earth's atmosphere when cosmic rays interact with the air, but 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:50.880 it has a pretty darn short half life. It's just 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:54.560 half life of twelve point three years. So when you 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:57.120 pair that with the fact that it's super light, so 0:04:57.120 --> 0:05:02.919 little eventually flowed off into space. It's also very uncommon 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:07.240 for cosmic ray interactions. They aren't super commonplace. There's very 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:11.280 little chance for any significant amount of tritium to accumulate 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:16.400 in the atmosphere before it decays. Back in sixteen seventy one, 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:21.200 a philosopher and intellectual named Robert Boyle was doing some 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:25.000 exploratory research. He was using iron and dipping it into 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:28.000 different types of acid, and he saw that the reaction 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:32.200 in one of these combinations produced some bubbles some gas. 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:36.520 Many folks will call boil the the father of chemistry, 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:39.400 but at this point his observation mostly just consistent of 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:43.240 it's a gas man, you know anything more about it. 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:48.960 Almost a century later, Henry Cavendish, another philosopher and scientists, 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:54.160 identified hydrogen gas as a distinct element. The French chemist 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:58.960 Antoine la Vasier gave hydrogen its name. Now, the earliest 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:02.279 record I could find of a gas balloon that used 0:06:02.360 --> 0:06:07.280 hydrogen as the lifting agent dates to seventeen eighty three 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:11.280 in Paris, but hydrogen was used for balloons and airships 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:15.960 for decades until really the Hidden Hindenburg disaster in nineteen 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:20.159 thirty seven that scared people quite a bit and stopped 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:22.960 a lot of people from using hydrogen as a lifting agent. 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:27.080 Hydrogen gas, by the way, is extremely flammable in the 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:31.560 presence of oxygen. So the Hindenburg caught fire as it 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:34.000 was docking with a mooring mast, and it was a 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:37.839 massive fire. It killed thirty six people, including one person 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:40.040 on the ground. There were a lot of people who 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:43.799 were on the Hendenberg who survived with some with severe injuries. 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:47.240 But still that's a pretty awful disaster. And it was 0:06:47.279 --> 0:06:52.600 caught on film and there was a radio uh presenter 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:56.000 who was talking through the whole thing. If you've ever 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:58.400 heard the phrase, oh the humanity that comes from the 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:04.039 Hindenburg disaster, and it truly was a spectacular catastrophe that 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:09.120 tragically killed many people. Now, there are several hypotheses as 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:12.920 to what actually started this fire, but it was definitely 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:15.760 the hydrogen that provided the fuel for it to spread 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:19.440 so quickly and to cause such a disaster. So disasters 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:23.560 like the Hindenburg definitely raised huge warning flags with anything 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:27.600 associated with hydrogen and fuel in many people's minds, and 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:31.360 it persists to this day. There are people who say, well, 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:34.120 we don't want to invest in any sort of hydrogen 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:39.280 approach to energy storage because of the possibility of another 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:44.120 Hindenburg like disaster. Now, in the eighteen hundreds, a mixture 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:47.280 with hydrogen was used as gas for street lamps, so 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:50.920 it was actually being used as a form of fuel, 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:54.280 And in eighteen thirty nine Sir William Robert Grove would 0:07:54.280 --> 0:07:57.120 conduct some experiments that led to the development of hydrogen 0:07:57.200 --> 0:08:01.400 based fuel cells. So we'll talk more about fuel cells 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:05.080 in a little bit, But first, burning hydrogen gives off 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:08.920 water vapor and some other trace by products depending on 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:11.520 how you're burning. If you're burning it with pure oxygen, 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:16.680 you get water vapor. If you burn it in atmospheric conditions, 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:21.400 you'll get some small byproducts like various hydrogen oxides. It 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:24.320 all depends upon the composition of the air at that point, 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:29.280 but it does not produce carbon dioxide like burning fossil 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:32.880 fuels does. So it seems like hydrogen would be a 0:08:32.920 --> 0:08:36.120 super awesome fuel source for us to go with if 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:39.600 we could be reasonably certain that the method we're using 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:43.440 would contain this reaction and not result in a in 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:47.240 a Hindenburg like disaster. But that's something we can totally do. 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:50.240 We can do that. I mean, cars are driving around 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:54.600 using gasoline as fuel, and gasoline is flammable, So why 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:57.319 don't we just switch to hydrogen. I mean, it's it's 0:08:57.320 --> 0:09:01.480 the most plentiful stuff in the universe and it burns lean. Now, granted, 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:04.640 water vapor is a greenhouse gas, we have to accept this, 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:08.280 but water vapor also can incorporate into the water cycle 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:11.280 on Earth and out of all the greenhouse gases. We 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:16.040 actually understand water vapors roll in greenhouse gases the least, 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:19.880 But what's the hold up with hydrogen? While the big 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:23.040 one is that most of hydrogen on Earth is bound 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:26.960 together with other stuff like water that hydrogen and oxygen 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:32.200 or hydrocarbons like the hydrocarbon is an organic compound made 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:34.840 up of hydrogen and carbon. So if you have a 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:38.520 carbon atom and four hydrogen atoms, you would have methane. 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:42.080 To use pure hydrogen as fuel, you first have to 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:46.040 find a way to shake those hydrogen atoms loose from 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:50.200 those molecular bonds. So that means to produce hydrogen gas, 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:55.080 we first have to pour some energy into compounds that 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:57.679 have hydrogen in them to break those molecular bonds. You 0:09:57.720 --> 0:09:59.280 gotta come up with a good way to do that 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:01.880 so that in the end of the day, the energy 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:06.040 stored in the hydrogen gas that you have harvested is 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:09.480 more than the amount of energy you used to get 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:12.360 the gas in the first place. Otherwise you have a 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:16.000 net loss and energy. If you pour more energy into 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:19.520 making the hydrogen gas, then you would get out of 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:24.840 consuming the hydrogen gas. You're losing energy. We call this 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:28.360 a bad thing. This is true for all fuels, by 0:10:28.360 --> 0:10:30.520 the way. So if it cost us more energy to 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:34.360 get petroleum and to refine that petroleum into fuel, then 0:10:34.559 --> 0:10:37.840 the petroleum fuel itself could store we would not be 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:40.480 using fossil fuels to begin with, because we would be 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:43.679 losing energy. We would instead say, why don't we use 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:47.199 whatever it is we are relying upon to get the 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:50.120 petroleum in the first place as our energy source. But 0:10:50.200 --> 0:10:53.240 that's not the case. Now. We can measure the energy 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:56.400 content of various fuels by using an apparatus that allows 0:10:56.440 --> 0:11:00.240 the fuel to burn under what's called standard conditions. Sanery 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:04.920 conditions means zero degrees celsius and one bar of atmospheric pressure. 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:08.360 One bar is close to one atmosphere at sea level, 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:11.280 it's actually a little less. A container of water with 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:15.680 a known starting temperature and a known mass will absorb 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:18.320 the heat that's released from this reaction, so you burn 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:21.960 whatever the fuel is. The heat gets captured by a 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:25.760 known quantity of water that's at a known starting temperature. 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:29.040 You measure the change in temperature of the water, and 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:31.280 that can give you the amount of energy that was 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:36.199 released by this process. Dividing that by the mass of 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:39.320 the fuel that you burned will give you the energy 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:43.720 content of the fuel typically expressed in jewels program or 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:48.000 or more typically mega jewels per kilogram. This is called 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:52.760 the specific energy of the fuel. Natural gas, which is 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:57.199 mostly composed of methane, has a specific energy of fifty 0:11:57.280 --> 0:12:01.120 five mega jewels per kilogram. Get selene has a specific 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:05.440 energy of forty six mega jewels per kilogram, so it's 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:10.520 not as energy dense in this respect as natural gases. 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:14.880 Coal has a specific energy of twenty four mega jewels 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:18.400 per kilogram. Wood is all the way down to sixteen 0:12:18.559 --> 0:12:23.479 mega jewels per kilograms. So what about hydrogen. Well, hydrogen 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:27.800 packs a wallop at one hundred forty two mega jewels 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:33.840 per kilogram. But hydrogen is a gas, so a kilogram 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:36.720 of hydrogen, the lightest element, is going to be an 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:41.319 enormous volume of gas. The mass is the same, a 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:44.040 kilogram is a kilogram, but the volume the amount of 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:48.000 space it takes up, is different. So this is deceptive. 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:52.200 We can't just talk about hydrogen the least massive element, 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:55.000 in terms of mass. It makes more sense from a 0:12:55.080 --> 0:12:58.600 practical perspective to talk about in terms of volume, because 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:01.000 that's how we're going to handle it. How much energy 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:04.160 is stored in hydrogen for a given unit of volume, 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:07.200 I'll tell you in just a second, but first let's 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:18.280 take a quick break to thank our sponsor. Okay, So 0:13:18.520 --> 0:13:22.120 for practical purposes of using energy storage, we should really 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:25.480 look at how much energy hydrogen has per unit of volume, 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:28.920 not unit of mass. This is truly what we mean 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:33.360 by energy density. So gasoline has an energy density of 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:38.280 thirty four point to mega jewels per leader. Natural gas 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:41.800 has an energy density of twenty two point to mega 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:45.160 jewels per leader. So we see the gasoline comes out 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:49.120 ahead when we look at it by volume, not by mass. 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:52.480 But what of hydrogen. Well, if you compress it so 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:55.480 that you can put it in hydrogen tanks, you're looking 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:59.880 at an energy density of about nine mega jules per leader. 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:04.080 So you need more leaders of hydrogen than of gasoline 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:06.480 in order to do the same amount of work when 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:10.079 you're burning it as fuel. In other words, because gasoline 0:14:10.120 --> 0:14:12.760 has the energy density of thirty four point two mega 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:18.760 jewels per leader, hydrogen at nine, so that's an issue. Still, 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:23.040 hydrogen would burn clean compared to fossil fuels, so we 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:27.240 would just need to have enough hydrogen to compensate for this. 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:31.160 So how hard is it to get pure hydrogen from 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:36.040 various sources and how do we typically produce hydrogen gas? Well, 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:42.760 right now of hydrogen production comes from wood or fossil fuels, 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:47.680 and the most common process is called natural gas reforming 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:52.880 or steam methane reforming. This involves exposing methane gas, that 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:57.560 carbon with four hydrogen atoms connected to it, two very 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:00.680 high temperature steam this cause. This is a couple of 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:04.640 successive chemical reactions, and the end result is you get 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:10.200 hydrogen gas and carbon dioxide. This, as you might imagine, 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:14.080 is a problem because carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:19.600 and so is methane actually, and this process creates one 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:22.880 and makes use of the other. So while you could 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:27.000 burn the hydrogen gas and not create any carbon dioxide, 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:30.880 the actual process of producing the hydrogen gas using this 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:35.280 method releases CEO two. So this is a good reminder 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:38.640 that when we talk about alternatives to fossil fuels, we 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:41.040 actually have to look at a very big picture, not 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:44.360 just what happens when we burn the alternative, but how 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:48.400 do we produce the alternative does that in turn create 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:51.040 more greenhouse gases? We have to look at the whole 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:53.960 chain to make sure we're minimizing the emission of greenhouse 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:57.960 gases and the release of potentially hazardous materials. You can 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:01.840 produce hydrogen safely this way, and even in an environmentally 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:05.200 friendly way. If you can capture the carbon dioxide, if 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:08.080 you have a method of carbon capture and you're able 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:10.720 to capture the CEO two that's being given off by 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:14.600 this reaction, then that might be a good way to 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:19.800 produce hydrogen. However, adding those components, like the carbon capture components, 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:23.600 increases the expense of producing the hydrogen. It's it's more 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:26.680 expensive to do it that way, and as you add 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:29.280 in the cost of producing the hydrogen, it means that 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:31.640 you're going to have to sell the hydrogen for higher 0:16:31.720 --> 0:16:36.280 costs to recapture that and economics plays a very important 0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:39.360 part of this proposed hydrogen economy. If it is not 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:43.480 cost efficient, it is a very hard sell. Money is 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:45.640 another part of the puzzle that we have to manage. 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:49.080 We have to be careful about that. So if it 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:52.920 comes out that fossil fuels are significantly cheaper to produce 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:56.600 and use than hydrogen, it's really hard to get momentum 0:16:56.800 --> 0:17:00.680 to switch from fossil fuels to hydrogen. If fossil fuels 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:05.000 become scarce and therefore become more expensive, or the production 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:09.280 of hydrogen becomes cheaper, then that could provide the economic 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:13.400 incentive to make the switch. Or if the environmental impacts 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:16.600 of using fossil fuels, we're creating expenses that were out 0:17:16.640 --> 0:17:18.760 of control. If it were a point where we said 0:17:19.080 --> 0:17:22.040 we have to switch from fossil fuels because dealing with 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:26.840 the consequences of fossil fuel use is getting too expensive, 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:29.159 then we might see a switch as well, but it 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:31.520 would probably be a little late for that. There are 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:36.200 methods of producing hydrogen that don't rely on this approach. 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:38.639 So one of them is that you could take charcoal. 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:41.959 Charcoal is when you really break it down, mostly carbon 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:44.280 and water when you get down to it. So you 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:47.639 can put charcoal in a very high temperature reactor and 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:51.160 burn charcoal at a temperature between twelve hundred and fifteen 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:55.639 hundred degrees celsius. Doing so well, it will release gas 0:17:56.000 --> 0:17:59.040 and that gas will separate out and then reform into 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:05.080 hydrogen carbon monoxide. So yeah, hydrogen, but carbon monoxide is 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:09.119 toxic to many animals, including us, and it also plays 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:12.639 a part in the formation of smog. So that's not great. 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:14.520 I guess the one positive thing I could say is 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:18.120 carbon monoxide itself is not a greenhouse gas on its own. 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:21.199 But the way that the article I first mentioned at 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:24.280 the top of this episode is really focusing on is 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:27.320 a third method to produce hydrogen. It is one that 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:31.080 only produces oxygen and hydrogen. Those are the only two byproducts. 0:18:31.560 --> 0:18:35.879 It is the process of electrolysis of water, and electrolysis 0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:39.960 refers to the separation of bonded elements and compounds through 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:43.280 the use of an electric current. So the idea is, 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:46.640 if you pass an electric current of sufficient strength through 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:50.479 certain materials, you can break the molecular bonds holding the 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:54.480 atoms of that material together. Pure water, as it turns out, 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:58.080 isn't great for this. You would need a very very 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:02.399 strong current because pure water is a poor conductor of electricity. 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:05.720 What you need are electrolytes in the water. And I'm 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:09.359 not talking about the stuff that plants crave. I'm talking 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:11.520 about the substance that when you put it in water, 0:19:11.880 --> 0:19:16.840 creates an electrically conducting solution. It introduces ions. In other words, 0:19:17.119 --> 0:19:19.439 but you need to make sure that whatever electrolyte you 0:19:19.480 --> 0:19:24.960 include in the mixture doesn't electrolyze more easily than water does, 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:28.120 because otherwise, what will happen is you put the electric 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:32.520 current into the solution and the electrolytes will electrolyze, whereas 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:36.159 the water will not, and you won't release hydrogen until 0:19:36.240 --> 0:19:38.359 you just have pure water again, and you're back to 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:42.600 where you started. So one of the ions that is 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:47.440 frequently used for electrolysis would be sulfate ions, because sulfate 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:51.440 doesn't electrolyze more easily than water does. So you've got 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:54.679 your water and you've got your electrolytes in it, and 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:57.399 then you put two electrodes, and one of them is 0:19:57.400 --> 0:20:00.439 connected to the negative terminal of the battery. One of 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:02.879 them is connected to the positive terminal of a battery. 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:05.560 I'm just using a battery for this particular example. It 0:20:05.600 --> 0:20:08.119 doesn't have to be a battery. So you've got your 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:11.359 negatively charged electrode that's called the cathode, and you've got 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:15.000 your positively charged electrode that's called the anode, and you 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:18.200 insert them in the water. Now, what will happen, assuming 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:21.679 you've done this correctly, is that hydrogen gas will bubble 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:25.399 up around the cathode, and oxygen will bubble up around 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:30.040 the anode. One of the traditional challenges associated with electrolysis 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:33.080 of water on a large scale is that the electro 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:39.280 catalysts catalysts are things that facilitate the reactions and chemical reactions. 0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:43.359 They make chemical reactions happen more easily or with less 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:47.400 energy if you prefer. The electrode. Catalysts that we tend 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:50.600 to use for electrolysis also tend to be pretty rare 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:54.520 and expensive. Like one of the common ones is platinum, 0:20:54.680 --> 0:20:57.480 but platinum is not easy to get. It is rare, 0:20:57.960 --> 0:21:00.800 and so it's very costly, and that means the cost 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:03.680 of building out the system to produce hydrogen will get 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:06.800 driven up. And as I already mentioned, cost is one 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:09.520 of those factors we can't just ignore when it comes 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:14.840 to creating an alternative fossil fuels. So in some scientists 0:21:14.880 --> 0:21:17.639 at the University of Houston announced the development of a 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:22.280 new electro catalyst made from a conductive nickel foam material 0:21:22.440 --> 0:21:26.200 and a ferris metaphosphate. The relevant point here is that 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:30.320 this stuff costs less to make than if you were 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:32.679 to go out and get platinum. So this is a 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:36.720 push to make hydrogen production economically viable. And like I 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:39.720 said before, you have to take this big picture into account. 0:21:40.119 --> 0:21:43.159 So that doesn't just include the materials you need to 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:46.359 perform electrolysis on water. You also have to ask where 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:50.119 is the electricity coming from? What is providing the electricity 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:53.720 I'm using for electrolysis. If you trace back the source 0:21:53.760 --> 0:21:56.720 of your electricity and ultimately you're drawing electricity from a 0:21:56.800 --> 0:22:02.600 coal firing power plant, then you haven't really solved any problems. 0:22:03.320 --> 0:22:06.440 The pollution is still in the equation. It's just over 0:22:06.560 --> 0:22:10.399 in the electricity production side as opposed to the direct 0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:14.560 hydrogen production side. In fact, depending upon your approach, you 0:22:14.600 --> 0:22:17.679 may be consuming more fuel and using up more stored 0:22:17.800 --> 0:22:20.840 energy than you are producing by creating hydrogen if you 0:22:20.880 --> 0:22:23.439 have a very inefficient system, and you'd be using a 0:22:23.480 --> 0:22:26.400 process that releases greenhouse gases to boot, so that would 0:22:26.440 --> 0:22:31.360 be a really bad idea. The article talked about green hydrogen, 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:34.639 and by that they meant using some sort of renewable 0:22:34.760 --> 0:22:38.480 energy source to create the electricity, such as wind power 0:22:38.600 --> 0:22:41.119 or solar power. That can be a step in the 0:22:41.200 --> 0:22:44.639 right direction. If you're using wind power, solar power hydro 0:22:44.720 --> 0:22:48.080 power or whatever, and you're generating more electricity then you 0:22:48.160 --> 0:22:52.240 need to supply given area at a given time. Then 0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:54.480 if you were to pair those facilities with an electric 0:22:54.760 --> 0:22:59.440 electrolyzer facility, electrolysis facility, if you if you will, that 0:22:59.480 --> 0:23:02.800 would make a of sense because electricity is a use it, 0:23:03.200 --> 0:23:07.040 store it, or lose it commodity. At some point, you 0:23:07.119 --> 0:23:10.600 might be producing more electricity than you need at that time, 0:23:10.880 --> 0:23:13.119 and rather than lose it, you can put it to work. 0:23:13.240 --> 0:23:15.919 You can take that excess electricity and put it to 0:23:15.920 --> 0:23:19.280 work to produce hydrogen. So that article I mentioned at 0:23:19.320 --> 0:23:22.840 the beginning of this episode goes into this concept in particular, 0:23:23.160 --> 0:23:27.000 and it talks about a project in Len's Austria. That 0:23:27.040 --> 0:23:30.399 project is called H two future H two, referring to 0:23:30.480 --> 0:23:34.440 hydrogen gas. The goal is not just to create hydrogen 0:23:34.520 --> 0:23:38.800 gas using electricity from renewable energy sources, but to use 0:23:38.800 --> 0:23:41.600 the hydrogen as a fuel source for steel production. It 0:23:41.640 --> 0:23:45.479 would be co located with a steel production plant, so 0:23:45.520 --> 0:23:50.159 this would create green steel and steel production usually requires 0:23:50.200 --> 0:23:53.320 burning a lot of coal and uh. It turns out 0:23:53.359 --> 0:23:57.240 that steel and cement production together are responsible for about 0:23:57.320 --> 0:24:01.600 twenty percent of all carbon diet side emissions in the world, 0:24:01.680 --> 0:24:04.760 So if you could bring that down by creating a 0:24:04.840 --> 0:24:10.199 hydrogen based steel production plant, you could drastically reduce the 0:24:10.200 --> 0:24:14.359 amount of carbon dioxide that's being emitted into the atmosphere. 0:24:14.960 --> 0:24:17.800 I'll talk more about these plans in just a second, 0:24:17.840 --> 0:24:20.920 but first let's take another quick break to thank our sponsor. 0:24:28.520 --> 0:24:31.879 The H two future project is a small scale test. 0:24:32.040 --> 0:24:35.280 So this electrolyzer is paired with that steel plant, and 0:24:35.320 --> 0:24:38.199 it's going to run at a capacity of six megawatts, 0:24:38.280 --> 0:24:41.920 which is not particularly powerful in the grand scheme of things. 0:24:42.400 --> 0:24:44.640 According to the article I was reading, which is over 0:24:44.680 --> 0:24:47.880 on fizz dot org p h y s dot org, 0:24:48.320 --> 0:24:52.160 this will result in the production of twelve cubic meters 0:24:52.200 --> 0:24:55.639 of hydrogen per hour, and if the test proves promising, 0:24:56.080 --> 0:24:59.440 the plant could invest in building a much larger electrolyzer 0:24:59.480 --> 0:25:03.000 that could offer rate at a capacity of one hundred megawatts, 0:25:03.000 --> 0:25:07.720 significantly more powerful than six megawatts. The article also mentions 0:25:07.760 --> 0:25:11.720 a similar project in Cologne, Germany called Refine, but it's 0:25:11.960 --> 0:25:15.320 r E f h y n E. It is a 0:25:15.359 --> 0:25:19.920 ten megawatt electroalizer that's co located with an existing hydrogen 0:25:20.000 --> 0:25:23.639 refinery that's been using the steam reforming method to produce 0:25:23.760 --> 0:25:27.440 hydrogen up to that point. Like the H two Future project, 0:25:27.600 --> 0:25:29.879 this is a test, it's a pilot program. It's not 0:25:29.920 --> 0:25:33.320 going to produce nearly as much hydrogen as the steam 0:25:33.400 --> 0:25:37.040 reforming process at this level of power. It comes down 0:25:37.080 --> 0:25:40.119 to about a hundred eighty thousand tons from the steam 0:25:40.200 --> 0:25:46.439