Hacker News Reader

Comment by rplnt | Hacker News Reader

The Blue Origin "tourist rocket"[1] uses hydrogen as a fuel and oxygen as an oxidizer, so there are no direct emissions or pollutants.

In general you are of course right. The top 1% will slightly increase their already large carbon footprint by a small amount.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Shepard

View on HN

How many emissions and pollutants came from refining the hydrogen and oxygen though?

Is it done with electricity? In that case it would be whatever the grip offers and probably the 'd pay the premium for renewables to keep their image.

According to wikipedia, 95% is hydrogen is made from fossil fuels.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production

No, hydrogen at an industrial scale is produced chemically from petroleum. The two steps are "shift reaction" and "steam reforming."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water-gas_shift_reaction

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_reforming

The days of hydrogen being an efficient storage medium for solar or nuclear energy through electrolysis are far in the future.

Blue Origin doesn't need hydrogen at industrial scale. They could easily supply themselves with "green" hydrogen created via electrolysis.

Elon Musk has promised to eventually fuel Starship with synthetic "green" methane. Green hydrogen is a much simpler problem, so if Blue Origin hasn't yet made that promise, it's quite likely they will soon.

>Elon Musk has promised to eventually fuel Starship with synthetic "green" methane.

Just so I can pencil this on my calendar, where does this fit on the timeline relative to full self-driving and the hyperloop?

not quite. any high-temperature combustion in atmosphere is going to create some NOx.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com