$1 Billion for Hydrogen Hub Coming to Michigan
mlive.com | Oct. 13, 2023 | Sheri McWhirterLANSING, MI – A whole lot of hydrogen is coming.
Michigan was tapped by federal energy regulators to build a new clean hydrogen hub and develop regional supply chains for the fuel source. The goal is to create a market for fueling trucks and heavy-duty vehicles with clean hydrogen, which comes without any tailpipe emissions.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced $1 billion in federal funding for the project by Midwest Alliance for Clean Hydrogen, known as MachH2. She said it would bring thousands of jobs to Michigan.
The comments that caught my attention:
“bring thousands of jobs to Michigan”
Until the federal gravy train FINALLY stops on the tracks. These types of people know NOTHING about job creation. They think spending our tax money on make-work jobs is “job creation.” It’s nothing but a path to a failed nation.
The government is always yammering about “creating a market” or “building infrastructure to create a market,” yet NOT ONE of their ridiculous pipe dreams EVER comes true.
Three quarters of the money will find it way to the pockets of corrupt politicians, union bosses, and the exec staff of startup company who vote “D” and make big “contributions” of the money to the Dem pols. (see “Solyndra”)
One quarter of the money will build something that doesn’t work, will be shut down, will be abandoned, and will be a rusting hulk wasteland within five years. (see “Solyndra” again)
Then the government will say “We just need to try harder and better” and fund the next one with the second billion dollars. (see “Solyndra” yet again)
We’ve all seen this movie so many times.
If this hydrogen project is such a great idea, then why am I being asked to give MACH a billion dollars?
Another billion dollar boondoggle. Where does the power come from to crack the hydrogen?
Hydrogen combustion is not emission free. The emission is H2O. And the production of hydrogen requires energy from what source? And hydrogen storage is expensive and can be risky. This hydrogen fad is not really a solution to anything.
“‘…which comes without any tailpipe emissions.”
I guess we’re not supposed to notice this zero emissions claim.
Is the combustion done in air?
Hydrogen might be a way to make solar & wind power an option for making desalinization plants more efficient. Beyond that, it is difficult to transport or store, costs way more energy to produce than it gives back, and has a unique set of hazards associated with its use. In other words, a typical government boondoggle that the private sector won’t touch…
Gov. Whitmer: “I have just been advised by my office that we will need an additional 1 billion for new and improved Flux Capacitors, whatever the hell those are but I will get back with you on it.”
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1c/Hindenburg_disaster.jpg/800px-Hindenburg_disaster.jpg
And, there’s that…
Ooohhh the humanity…
Accidents on the highway will look like this:
https://youtu.be/S7wUIJJpvcE?si=3HWTT1zT7b5-Nka1
Wow.
OK, important safety tip: don’t even stand as close as this cameraman is.
Ever seen those pneumatic pumpkin canons? Pressurized gas doesn’t even have to be combustible to be dangerous af.
..and why does it always have to show a gas bag before major disasters??
All work is accomplished by moving energy through a distance.
Any time you collect energy, meter energy, & transport energy, you lose some each step of the way.
The most efficient systems use the least number of steps to collect, meter & transport the energy from where you collected it to where the work is accomplished.
Given these sets of rules, it’s impossible to beat the energy density of nuclear fuels. The density of nuclear blows all other forms of energy transport out of the water. Next in line are hydrocarbons by an order of 10K at this point.
The greens are diddling around with really low density energy sources and this in itself produces massive amounts of waste that swamp the amount of waste currently produced by our conventional energy sources. It makes way more sense to economize the fuels we currently use than to pretend that these alternate sources might some day in the future be able to be used more efficiently.
It’s efficiency that improves the health of the planet. Not a focus on the reduction of a single pollution vector, like CO2. ALL the infrastructure that goes into the collection, metering, transport, and use of an energy source produces pollution in many forms. Can’t ignore those for the sake of a single demonized one.
I was just sitting here thinking about potential engineering issues with hydrogen vehicles. I live in the northeast. It gets colder than a witches you know what in the winter.
What do you do with the reaction product (water) in the winter? Trail snow behind yourself as vapor instantly undergoes deposition? Dump it on the road as a liquid? Keep it from freezing onboard until you can dump it later? The longer you keep it, the heavier your vehicle gets the less efficient your energy transport becomes.
Just because it’s water doesn’t mean it isn’t a system challenge, or an environmental challenge.
Doing a bit of research, the fuel cell itself requires liquid water on startup. That means if you’re parking it outside in the winter (at your destination, say) you probably need to either maintain a system that heats the water so that it’s available as a liquid for you to use the cell when you want to leave, or have some type of backup system that gets you started while the onboard water is melted so that the cell can be started. You also have to have some type of system that keeps stuff from growing in the water or filters it out…
Math time.
A Watt is a unit of energy use per second. Same as horse power. In fact 1 hp is the same as 745.7 Watts.
A Watt hour is energy use per second per hour.
A barrel of oil contains 1.7 megawatt hours of energy that we use in vehicles at about 20% efficiency (340 Kwh).
We use about 17.8 million barrels of oil per day in the US.
That’s about 6 terawatt hours per day.
The US already consumes about 11 Twh power day. Shifting oil to electric would require nearly doubling supply. That would require nearly doubling the infrastructure of the grid. And that’s an average. Clearly usage is not evenly distributed across America. Some local infrastructures would have to grow exponentially.
Would you say unicorn farts have an equal chance?
I always thought MashH2sh*ts was more east…
I ain’t no masshole
I always thought MashH2sh*ts was more east…
{editors note} Stop using that word.
If a mere $1b investment would bring a profitable industry producing jobs on a continuing basis then private investors would do it. The operable word being profitable and the one thing we know the government knows nothing about is making a profit. Profit to them is paying off interest groups and taking others people money.