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The hydrogen economy hasn't made since to me from when I first heard about it 15+years ago. It's one of the clearest examples of academics not understanding how business works.

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XorNot 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

The hydrogen economy has had a lot of not very subtle backing from the gas industry, which is fully aware that they would have no problem selling hydrogen cracked out of natural gas if it ever took off.

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m101 4 days ago | parent [-]

The battery economy has had a lot of very not subtle backing from the government.

	▲	ZeroGravitas 4 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		And they were right. Well done governments! Cheaper transport, cleaner air, less resource extraction, more flexible demand for electricity which allows more renewables (another government backed success story) which in turn means cheaper power and cleaner air.
	▲	XorNot 4 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		And this is serving the nefarious purpose of?

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coderenegade 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Hydrogen makes sense as a chemical feedstock for methanol and ammonia. It also scales well to grid energy storage, because you can add hundreds of GWhs at a time, and the technology is mature (Moss Bluff opened in 1983). You wouldn't use hydrogen in vehicles, because methanol is easy to make, and is a much better fuel for non-aero applications. Shipping is moving to methanol for that reason.

	▲	adrian_b 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Hydrogen also makes sense as a reducing agent replacing coal for producing steel and other metals, where it makes possible the production of metals with less impurities.

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masklinn 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The hydrogen economy never had anything to do with academics. It's a fallback plan by the oil industry.