• weeeeum@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Or use it to generate hydrogen for simpler, cheaper, more reliable, sustainable hydrogen powered cars.

    We don’t even have enough lithium to replace the average country’s existing cars, let alone all of them, or literally anything else that requires lithium.

    • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Not sure where our good buddy @Hypx@fedia.io went, but let me assure you. As of right now, 100% of available hydrogen stocks are fossil fuels derived.

      Hydrogen vehicles being green is a fantasy pedaled by fossil fuel companies to not have to move away from natural gas. While it is possible to generate hydrogen through electrolysis, functionally, none actually is. It’s far far cheaper to do so from natural gas, and probably always will be.

      Promoting hydrogen as a “solution” is basically promoting fossil fuels green washing.

      And I’m not sure where you are getting you information on lithium, but it’s probably the best short and medium term option. Beyond that, gravity storage (pump water up hills, and maybe some kind of hydrogen system that doesn’t require transporting the stuff where it can be made and stored in place when solar or wind energy is abundant.

      • Zink@programming.dev
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        3 days ago

        What that article describes sounds like an awesome development. Too bulky for vehicles at the moment, but possibly excellent for grid storage.

    • cynar@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Hydrogen is a pain to deal with. It requires excessively thick walled containers to store etc.

      A better solution is to do what plants do. Pin it to a carbon atom. Synthetic hydrocarbons would also be a lot easier to integrate into existing supply chains.

      • booly@sh.itjust.works
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        3 days ago

        Pin it to a carbon atom.

        Where’s the carbon going to come from? If it’s anywhere but the CO2 in the atmosphere (or at least sequestered on its way to the atmosphere), your energy solution isn’t carbon neutral anymore. And if it is from the atmosphere, then there are efficiency challenges there at concentrating CO2 to be useful for synthetic processes.

        Most syngas today comes from biological and fossil feedstocks, so it’s not really a solution to atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

    • orangeboats@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      There are a lot more ways to store energy other than lithium and hydrogen.

      Pumped storage, vanadium redox battery, sodium battery, … I’d even say they are most suited for grid-level energy storage.

    • booly@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      I have doubts that hydrogen will ever work in any industry, but it definitely won’t work for cars. The storage and distribution challenges are never going to make it cost competitive with just regular lithium batteries on a marginal per-joule basis. Even if the energy itself is free, the other stuff will still be more expensive than just charging car batteries off the existing grid.