Quote:
Originally Posted by TakuanSoho
Trouble with hydrogen is that it requires a lot of electricity to make the hydrogen, which of course requires oil.
The only solution is a ton of fast breeding nuclear power plants coupled with some space based solar collecting grid, oh and updating our antiquated electrical grid.
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You don't understand the electric energy business.
1) a lot of electric power is from methane.
2) methane can be efficiently transformed into hydrogen at higher efficiency that into electric power
3) hydrogen can be converted into electric power at about the same efficiency as gas cogeneration
4) electric drive trains are more efficient than gas or oil combustion power trains
Therefore, higher efficiency results for using methane to produce hydrogen for fuel cell cars than gasoline cars.
Methane cogeneration to charge electric battery cars is less or equal in efficiency to methane to hydrogen to fuel cell cars.
So, no need to build nuclear power plants to produce hydrogen from water, a really inefficient method.
And nuclear power plants just can't compete in the market because wind, solar thermal are cheaper if you capitalize the nuclear risks. The industry knows this, so they have been pushing for the risks to be taken on by government, for insurance on accident or terrorism, and for the financial market risk. If solar and wind end up being cheaper than nuclear in ten-twenty years, the bond payments will make the nuclear plants unprofitable, and when this happens, the bond holders and stockholders take a haircut. To pay for that risk, interest on nuclear power plant bonds needs to be high, which increases the cost of nuclear power, making wind and solar cheaper even sooner.