Hydrogen Hype
Dr Finkel (Australia’s Chief Scientist) is wrong – hydrogen will never be a “hero fuel source”.
Australia has no gas wells producing hydrogen – every bit of hydrogen we use must be generated by electrolysis of water or manufactured from natural gas or coal.
These processes consume energy. Some of that energy can be recovered by using the hydrogen as a fuel to power cars or generate electricity.
We could use solar or wind energy to generate hydrogen, but solar panels generating electricity to produce hydrogen, cannot generate electricity for consumers, industry and the millions of electric cars our political scientist also supports.
Burning hydrogen fuel is not even a zero-sum energy game – it is a negative-sum game, Dr Finkel. We can never get back the energy used to make the hydrogen.
And as for using hydrogen as a fuel for long distance trucks how does he propose to confine this dangerous, elusive, hard-to-handle, explosive gas without a complete replacement of everything in our massive diesel-powered transport industry including service stations, fuel lines, tanks and motors?
It will create jobs, but only while the sucker cash lasts.
Hydrogen is the fuel of the sun, but not a net source of energy for Earth.
