The Satanic Climate Cult promotes the myth of hydrogen gas as the salvation of the planet from catastrophic global boiling. The billionaire climate rent-seekers tell us that hydrogen power is the answer because the only emissions are water vapour. Hydrogen fuel cells are cited as an example.
In the following, I present a physicist’s examination of hydrogen gas in the context of the cult’s claims.
Before I started my investigation I was well aware of the futility of their false religious beliefs because the fundamental laws of physics are a barrier that cannot be overcome by feelings, rhetoric and legislation.
Hydrogen Fuel Cells
Fuel cells have been used by NASA since the mid-1960s to generate power for satellites and space capsules because they are a compact power source. They are also used to provide power in remote or inaccessible areas and in fuel cell-powered vehicles, especially submarines.
A fuel cell involves an electrochemical reaction with the transfer of electrons between an electrode (cathode and anode) and a chemical species adjacent to the electrode. The fuel cell consumes hydrogen and oxygen, combining them in a controlled manner to produce electricity and water vapour. No carbon dioxide is emitted.
However, the practical realization of a fuel cell is not so straightforward. The reaction between hydrogen and oxygen in the cell will not take place spontaneously at ambient temperatures. It is not a thermodynamically favoured reaction. The physics of the universe requires that the reaction must be catalysed in low-temperature fuel cells.
While the oxygen required by a fuel cell can be obtained from air, there is no natural source of hydrogen today. This means that the hydrogen for a fuel cell must be manufactured and for most fuel cells this is achieved by carrying out some process using natural gas, which is extracted from the crust of the planet.
There are really only two practical methods to produce hydrogen gas — Steam Reforming and Methane Pyrolysis. The other mythical fairy-tale Climate Cult methods I’ll deal with last.
Steam Reforming Hydrogen
Steam reforming natural gas produces hydrogen gas but also it generates carbon dioxide and requires a lot of energy. Therefore, the principle benefit of the fuel cell, that it produces only water, is no longer applicable.
And besides, if no carbon dioxide comes out of the tailpipe of the vehicle but is produced elsewhere and the net energy is a debt, how is that green or energy efficient?
It is easy to see that if this process is somehow used to obtain the hydrogen gas, a fuel cell using natural gas cannot be as efficient as one that is fuelled with pure hydrogen.
So where do you get pure hydrogen without also generating carbon dioxide?
You can’t because it does not exist on Earth. And this is because our planet was providentially endowed with carbon already combined with hydrogen. That is the methane and the other alkanes, comprising natural gas. Read Abiogenic Deep Origin of Hydrocarbons: Not Fossils But Primordial.
The steam-reforming technology produces hydrogen gas from methane gas extracted from natural gas wells. It is widely used in industry but with an energy penalty.
Natural gas, which includes methane (CH4), is converted to hydrogen by thermal processes including steam-methane reformation and partial oxidation. Below is a schematic of that process for those who have to know.
Natural gas is the most cost-effective feedstock compared to other so-called ‘fossil fuels’, partly because it is readily available, simple to handle and has a high hydrogen-to-carbon ratio that minimizes the formation of carbon dioxide (CO2) as a by-product.
Hydrogen gas (H2) is produced by this method in which high-temperature steam (H2O) is used to extract hydrogen from a methane (CH4) source. Steam reforming is endothermic, which means that the process must be heated in order for the reaction to proceed. Temperatures between 700 °C and 1000 °C are required. The reaction equation is as follows.
1. CH4 + H2O + heat → CO + 3H2 (endothermic i.e. consumes a lot of heat)
Following that, carbon monoxide (CO) and steam (H2O) are then reacted with a catalyst to create carbon dioxide (CO2) and more hydrogen (H2) in a process known as the water-gas shift reaction.
2. CO + H2O → CO2 + H2 + heat (slightly exothermic i.e. produces a little heat)
Carbon dioxide and other impurities are separated from the gas stream in a final process stage called pressure-swing adsorption, leaving pure hydrogen.
Other hydrocarbons, such as ethanol, propane, or even diesel, are converted into hydrogen through steam reforming.
Hydrogen produced by steam reforming is termed ‘grey hydrogen’ when the carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere and ‘blue hydrogen’ when the carbon dioxide is captured and stored in deep wells underground i.e. carbon capture sequestration.
Methane Pyrolysis Hydrogen
Methane pyrolysis is an industrial process for hydrogen production from methane by removing solid carbon from natural gas.
The one-step process produces hydrogen in large volumes at a lower cost than steam reforming with carbon sequestration. No greenhouse gases are released to the atmosphere and no deep well injection of carbon dioxide is needed. The process however requires high temperatures, around 1065 °C, and that means an enormous energy input.
That is fine if you need to produce hydrogen on a large scale to manufacture nitrogen fertilizers. However, the process is very much defeated by the energy costs if you were trying to use the hydrogen to produce cheap energy without carbon dioxide as a by-product.
It is the same process that the large chemical manufacturers were using in Europe before the Western powers blew up the Nord Stream pipeline severing the supply of natural gas to German fertilizer producers.
Mythical ‘Green’ Hydrogen
The Climate Cult wants to find a source of zero carbon dioxide emission energy so that they can produce hydrogen and oxygen by thermochemical water splitting or by electrolysis of water, in order that they can in turn produce energy from reacting those gases together resulting in water vapour as the only by-product. Zero carbon dioxide emissions.
Mythical zero-carbon ‘green’ hydrogen is allegedly produced by high-temperature thermochemical water splitting using solar thermal generation, zero-carbon electricity or waste heat. Thermochemical water splitting requires a very high energy input, which is what you are trying to get out of the hydrogen gas you generate.
Water splitting using electrolysis is where an application of an electric current is used to break the water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen. To produce ‘green’ hydrogen this way from zero-carbon electricity is just another green energy myth because of the enormous energy cost to split the water. It is the reverse of what the fuel cell does.
Thermodynamically water splitting makes no sense. The energy inefficiencies of both methods make them practically impossible. More energy is consumed than is produced in either process. That is because of basic physics!
You might object, saying zero-carbon electricity can be produced. True, but at what cost? And the cost of zero-carbon electricity being cheap is another myth. For example, if nuclear energy was used to split water by electrolysis you could produce hydrogen without any carbon dioxide. But if you can produce electricity this way, to split the water, why wouldn’t you just use the electricity to power the national grid? That would be a far more efficient method.
But the Climate Cult doesn’t like nuclear. They love solar and wind but no modern baseload power generator can survive on such intermittent and unreliable sources.
Besides, there is only one real process that efficiently uses sunlight, carbon dioxide and water vapour to produce energy (in the form of sugars) and oxygen at 100% efficiency using a quantum mechanical proton-powered engine. And that is photosynthesis in green plants, an invention of the Creator. Read Decarbonise the Planet, Are They Mad?
It is pure fiction to believe you can somehow separate water into its natural component gases and then burn them again to produce energy efficiently. That is, with a positive net energy output. It is equivalent to perpetual motion machines and fairies in the bottom of the garden.
Boiling This Down
There is really only one industrial process that produces large amounts of hydrogen gas and that is methane pyrolysis. The only other process, steam reforming with carbon sequestration, costs more energy to produce the same amount of hydrogen gas.
All the other fairy-tale imaginings, like splitting water, are the equivalent to a ‘free lunch’. But there is ‘no free lunch’. You always have to pay.
In physics when some theory is proven to be so utterly bad and we have no better way to describe it, we say it is ‘not even wrong’. In other words, it is way worse than wrong. If it was just wrong it would be far better.
The physics of this universe defies every Climate Cult’s dream. You cannot get energy from something that has lost its energy content to do any work. Read It Was No Accident: All Forms of Energy Were Provided by the Creator.
The primordial methane gas the Creator has given us on this planet, as a cheap efficient source of fuel, is in a thermodynamic state most useful to do work. It is easily combined with the abundant atmospheric oxygen producing heat that can be used to produce cheap electricity. And for different reasons, the same can be said of coal. Read Coal, the Creator’s Providential Provision.
Hydrogen gas production from the methane mined from gas wells is foolish beyond belief. And any ideas of splitting water is ‘not even wrong’! Myth busted!
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