It's called "electrolysis of water". Not new, but maybe somebody has found a better ways of doing it. At present, hydrogen is commercially generated by reforming CH4.
there are obviously ways to generate electricity that don't involve oil or gas.
Yeah ... you can fission uranium or plutonium. Everything else is either carbon or solar. And solar is limited to 1 kw/m2 at the top of the atmosphere, at the equator, at high noon.
No, it’s not “electrolysis of water”; it’s a replacement for the Haber process that generates it’s hydrogen in situ and runs at conditions much closer to atmospheric pressure & temperature.
No, it’s not “electrolysis of water”; it’s a replacement for the Haber process that generates it’s hydrogen in situ and runs at conditions much closer to atmospheric pressure & temperature.
Some places have more hydro than they can use. Iceland generates 100% of its electricity with hydro and geothermal. Plenty of desert areas can be used to site solar PV without much penalty, because they're useless for agriculture. (If you're not feeding the grid but generating a chemical fuel, it doesn't matter that the sun doesn't shine sometimes.)
Watch: link.