[boris]

"Which is exactly why the "hydrogen economy" is an important feature of the total energy package--STORAGE and transmission of energy with hydrogen solves your "demand" problem. "Load-balancing" then becomes an inherent part of the transmission system. It also is more efficient for transmission over long distances, and works for nuclear as well (no more need for load-balancing gas turbines--just design the nuke plant with a larger capacity factor)."

Hydrogen is just a big storage battery--which must be charged by electrolyzing water using fossil fuels or nuclear plants.

Forget the middleman and go directly to all-electric vehicles as a thought experiment. No longer can you load-balance with, e.g., hydrogen production. The extra generating capacity you would need to supply all of the vehicles in the U.S. is 500,000 megawatts, roughly 500 brand-new 1,000 megawatt nuclear plants. With hydrogen, the situation is WORSE, since electrolyzers run at ~70% efficiency (tops) meaning you would need ~714,000 megawatts.

--Boris

[Wonder Warthog]

"Forget the middleman and go directly to all-electric vehicles as a thought experiment. No longer can you load-balance with, e.g., hydrogen production. The extra generating capacity you would need to supply all of the vehicles in the U.S. is 500,000 megawatts, roughly 500 brand-new 1,000 megawatt nuclear plants. With hydrogen, the situation is WORSE, since electrolyzers run at ~70% efficiency (tops) meaning you would need ~714,000 megawatts."

As usual, wrong on all counts. There is NO battery with the necessary amperage storage--which is why all the emphasis on fuel cells. It is theoretically possible to build electrolyzers which are MORE than 100% electrically efficient (i.e. high-temp. ones which are run capturing the waste heat from another power source). Which would you rather pay for---500 new nuclear power plants, or a third world war? I think the new energy infrastructure would be a LOT cheaper, personally.