No, just no, full stop. They way forward is electrification of everything, using only carbon-neutral energy, renewables &nuclear. No hydrogen, no methane, no electric to fuel, let's not do these physical stupidities to keep dying industries alive.
No, just no, full stop. They way forward is electrification of everything, using only carbon-neutral energy, renewables &nuclear. No hydrogen, no methane, no electric to fuel, let's not do these physical stupidities to keep dying industries alive.
Ammonia seems to strike the right balance: https://www.ammoniaenergy.org/articles/zero-emission-aircraf...
But ammonia is probably a better choice for fueling trains and ships than for aircraft.
We may reasonably expect production of the needed aerogel-insulated LH2 tankage to be mature by then.
Gaseous H2 at the extreme pressure people try to use is a much greater nuisance.
The conditions for storage of LH2 and demands on materials in contact with LH2 are much harder than for e.g. methane.
These things are not contradictory. We can build out more renewable electricity supply, replace with electric cars, and generate carbon neutral fuel all at the same time. You are underestimating how long and difficult the ICE replacement is going to take. It's not like a single organization can just wave a wand and all gas cars would be replaced over night.
And it will be driven solely by better economics.
You get two cars. A shiny new electric one running in (Central) Europe, and that same old stinky ICE one running in Eastern Europe, Asia or Africa.
The poorer countries will enjoy an influx and thus price decrease of valuable cars and happily drive them for decades to come.
The problem of course is that the planet doesn't care. Europe got cleaner but the planet got worse. Whereas Europe can outsource its dirty issues (waste, emissions, ...), the planet cannot. It stops there and we all lose.
I think the vast introduction of and blind focus on e-mobility is a mistake. Other areas are much more significant sources for GHG (industry, heating, A/C).
But, unless gasoline and diesel drastically drop in price, you are running towards an economic wall, since it's exactly people from Africa and former soviet territories that are the most sensitive to fuel economy and high maintenance costs. Meanwhile, electrics drastically drop in price, since they simpler and cheaper to produce.
The extra few years European cars will see in Africa is just the long tail of the ICE car in Europe, not some fundamental shift. If those would not be available, Africans would purchase cheap new Chinese ICE or other low cost brands. A visit to Eastern Europe will convince you that some 50% of cars are newly purchased cheap brands like Dacia-Renault, Mitsubishi Colt, Chevrolet Spark, often stripped down versions made specifically for these markets and priced at something like 10.000€.
These will have an even lower life expectancy than the typical 20-40.000€ western car, and will be in need for replacing.
It won't work in all of those situations since hydrogen is so hard to manage, but there are a number of applications where batteries are not the right answer yet. Battery weight is going to scale close to linearly with capacity, hydrogen tank weight should not.
Trains and ships, and maybe trucks, will do better with ammonia. The tanks are bigger, but those have room, and existing engines can burn ammonia with just changes to plumbing.
I know it is a long shot: it is not yet competitive, there are still very few electrolyzers but some part of the world such as Europe seems pretty committed to try to make it work.
Now, if the carbon remains captured and the energy for capturing is renewable, we are in business. I'm not aware that is done on a meaningful scale yet though.
Indeed, that's their goal, the issue is that currently we emit a lot so even making the fuel close to neutral (minus production inefficiencies) is already a huge progress. Going negative isn't for tomorrow unfortunately.
This is about space exploration. Literally it is about how to make fuel on Mars so that we can make the round trip without having to deliver fuel so we can make it back.
And, sorry, but there is no way with current technology to launch significant payloads into space using electric.