Bad News for "Green Hydrogen."

[NNadir]

5. I do not support the use of existing nuclear infrastructure to make hydrogen. I have written, however, many times...

...about thermochemical hydrogen for the production of the gas for captive use by appeal to process intensification.

Current nuclear reactors are not suitable for hydrogen production because they only produce, in the majority of cases, electricity. If one were to open a science book, one would recognize that electricity is thermodynamically degraded. Electrolysis further degrades the thermodynamics of hydrogen beyond that lost to making electricity.

The role of current nuclear infrastructure is thus to minimize the use of fossil fuels to make electricity, not to generate electricity for wasteful processes.

Being educated, I recognize that the world food supply is dependent on access to hydrogen for use in the Haber Born process. I have also suggested that hydrogen can be used to hydrogenate carbon dioxide to either methanol or dimethyl ether.

I often repeat reference to the 2011 paper by the late Nobel Laureate George Olah on this topic:

Anthropogenic Chemical Carbon Cycle for a Sustainable Future George A. Olah, G. K. Surya Prakash, and Alain Goeppert Journal of the American Chemical Society 2011 133 (33), 12881-12898.

Following this highly cited paper would be a good idea, but good ideas are often buried under bullshit and selective attention. Only a tiny fraction of good ideas make it to industrial scale. Some good ideas are attacked. Hence the destruction of the planetary atmosphere now underway because antinukes opposed a good idea.