Hydrogen Embrittlement Barriers: A Picture of What the "Hydrogen Economy" Nonsense Would Entail.

[NNadir]

2. The energy content of hydrogen is actually irrelevant, since it is made from fossil fuels...

...with the destruction of exergy.

Under the actual conditions it's a case of a perpetual motion machine.

Were it made by increasing exergy of high temperature nuclear thermochemical cycles, there might be circumstances where it could be burned, if in excess over the production of fluid fuels such as DME or methanol - or less desirable, Fischer Tropsch fuels - it might prove useful for load leveling, but in an intelligently run world this would be a rare circumstance.

It's a valuable captive intermediate, but its physical properties make it useless, and in fact, dangerous, as a consumer product.

My son's masters degree was in welding special alloys, and we discussed hydrogen embrittlement in this context a number of times. His Ph.D. program is in nuclear engineering, specifically nuclear materials.

I'm trying, with some light success, to push him in the general direction of high temperature refractories, but I'm not his advisor.