On 5/14/2015 1:49 PM, Larry Dighera wrote:
It takes energy to make the hydrogen because it doesn't exist
in it's free state naturally on Earth. Currently, most hydrogen
is produced from natural gas, with CO2 as a byproduct.

It takes energy to compress it, or liquify it.

It takes energy to refridgerate it to such low temperatures.
and to keep it there.

Photovoltaic powered electrolysis of H2O would be my choice to produce
hydrogen. It might even power the compressor and condenser to liquefy it also.
Other than the energy used to make the solar cells, there is no energy cost and
no byproducts. Making this practical will take some ingenuity, but
theoretically, I'd suppose it is possible.


Sorry, but there is no free energy, and there is no totally clean
energy, not even solar. At present, there isn't enough solar energy to
go around. There isn't likely to EVER be enough solar energy to go
around, that's also true of wind and hydro power.

More importantly, if we divert solar energy from the grid to make
hydrogen, then we must make up the difference from somewhere else, which
means burning more fuel. So there is no advantage to diverting "clean"
energy towards something like producing hydrogen, whilst we are burning
coal (or whatever) to make grid power. Energy is energy! Wasting
energy is always a dirty thing to do, even if it's solar. And the
hydrogen energy cycle is inherently wasteful.