You still don't know that. I have pointed out to you that the measure is not the energy input but the market value of the energy output. You also don't know what the future price of the alternatives will be. That is why the article is wrong. It assumes that simply because it would require more energy to crack H2 than it can deliver, it is not a viable transport fuel. That is a wrong-headed assumption. There are other measures that must be considered before you can make an judgment. We don't even know if it will be an energy intensive effort to generate H2. There is a possibility it could be a relatively simple biological process.
I have no problem with using nuclear, solar, wind, hamsters on a wheel or micro-organisms to generate the H2 as long as the delivered product is economical when compared to the alternatives. Without knowing the costs of all the other components of a future H2 infrastructure and comparing them to the future cost of hydrocarbon infrastructure, I am not prepared to rule H2 out as you and this writer have so boldly done. In fact, no one knows what those costs will be and no one can even predict them right now. Only the market can ever sort that out and looking at the history of how our markets have done amazing things in the past (the electrical and hydrocarbon infrastructures that grew from uneconomical nothings to fully developed in just a few decades) I'll be content sit back and see what happens.
BTW. This would normally be the point where I would trot out some old quotes by very learned people in the past confidently and authoritatively declaring that the airplane had no future, that man would never get meaningful energy from the atom, that electricity would only be valuable to large industry and municipal lighting, that the automobile was a passing fad or that AC could not possible run a motor. But I feel this conversation has gone on long enough. You have your mind made up and I'm not going to change it for you.
The people who think H2 will "solve" our energy problems don't understand that it takes more energy to produce H2 than is released when it is burned or used in a fuel cell.
I thought our energy problem was that we don't have enough and that its too expensive. The energy "lost" in making H2 doesn't fix the first problem and I don't see how it would reduce our costs. Maybe I'm missing something here.
H2 only makes sense (at least in the short term) in places where there is no infrastructure for refueling (like outer space)
I'll leave the safety problems to the engineers.
You seem to have me tagged as some kind of old man who refuses to believe that modern technology will ever work. Quite the opposite is true. I'm just realistic and have a better grasp on physics then most.
TANSTAAFL. Only when we've solved our energy problem and its cheap and plentiful enough to use the "extra" to make H2 will we start to see it used for transportation. If we built solar power satellites that could be the case in the next 40 years (I'm being optimistic).
I just hope I live long enough to see the dropping cost of H2 for my car intersect the rising cost of gasoline. I'm 37 years old. Please ping me when the market value of the energy output reaches that point.