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I seem to remember that you can’t even pump hydrogen through existing natural gas infrastructure because the smaller hydrogen molecules are more prone to leaking. I would imagine the equipment at a plant has a similar problem and combine that with lower efficiency from burning a fuel that the plant wasn’t designed for, and the abysmal efficiency from converting electric energy to hydrogen and it seems like pure snake oil.

Edit: the problem I am remembering is that hydrogen actually degrades the metals used in pipelines (https://www.hollandsentinel.com/story/opinion/columns/2021/0...) so I don’t see how any of this infrastructure is useful at all for hydrogen.



Not to mention ignited hydrogen leaks being invisible in daylight!

You can walk right into one if you are not careful - which is why you might see people walking with brooms in front of them around hydrogen equipment. :)


Coal gas contained significant amounts of molecular hydrogen (~50% or so) and it had been used for decades. What magic did those people know back then?




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