White hydrogen

[cromwell]

I read a rather speculative article by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Telegraph yesterday, to the effect that there is a "very real" possibility that vast reserves of natural hydrogen "may" be beneath our feet. And be easily and cheaply extracted.

But what caught my attention was the discovery of hydrogen beneath the village of Bourakebougou in Mali, in 2012.
The hydrogen there is 98% pure.

It was discovered by a local man who was drilling for water.

Whilst smoking a cigarette...!!

[cruiser2]

How did he know it was hyrogen?

It is a gas and would not have a name on it.

[Suff]

As ever the devil is in the detail.

If you walk the links, you find that the estimate of gas coming from thousands of relatively small Russian Hydrogen sites is in the hundreds of millions of cubic meters annually. This is a high estimate.

If you read the wikipedia article on white Hydrogen, the largest sites are subsea in extremely difficult conditions.

Now let's look at the reality of what we are trying to replace. A quick look on Google tells me that Russia is the Second largest producer of natural gas with 761 Billion cubic meters of gas a year. The US is First.

Now let's take a step back and look at the requirements for energy to replace gas. Gas for generation is, at best, 60% efficient. Gas for heating and industry is less.

If you want to educate yourself on exactly how much energy we are talking about globally, how much less we will use by transitioning most to electric and how much we will use for green hydrogen where we cannot remove gas from the industrial landscape, then a very good start is the Tesla investor day presentation 2023.

Oh don't worry you don't need to read any of the Tesla "crap", just the first 31 pages which is Generic about how much energy and storage is needed to get us 100% off fossil fuels.

It discusses the energy needed, the resources needed, the reduction in mineral extraction and the Hydrogen needed. It is a good primer.

What is more it is so generic that the Tesla Fanbase was really irked that they had to listen through it all before they got to the real Tesla stuff.

Why the Tesla presentation? Because they put it all together, it exists in different areas but no single entity has brought it all together.

Once you have read it you will realise that H2 is going to be a speciality product where it is impossible to electrify.

Once you know this you can simply dismissal of this BS for exactly what it is.

Humanity on this planet has one and exactly One chance to avoid catastrophe for humanity (don't worry about the planet, that will be fine), just one chance.

That is to electrify from clean energy sources (that includes Nuclear), as fast as possible and solve the hardest problems last with green hydrogen with the excess clean electricity.

If you get this firmly fixed in your mind then you can follow up on all this crap and discover who is paying to feed it to you.

Because all this stuff Is paid for. Just as all the stuff about how cigarettes didn't cause cancer was paid for.

All they wanted to do was sow doubt. Exactly the same as the cherry picked graphs on Global warming. Some of you might remember all the claims about "cooling" since 1998. You 2ill never hear that again because Every year is now warmer than 1998 but 1998 was picked because it was a 50 year massive high el nino. So they could lie to you.

This Hydrogen stuff is exactly the same thing.

[Suff]

Whilst smoking a cigarette...!!

Which tells you something else. If you are a manic space fan and watched the NASA sls launch attempts you know that Hydrogen only creates an explosion risk at a certain concentration.

Clearly the concentration was too low.

[cromwell]

Cruiser, I think the man with the cigarette didn't know what it was. The people who subsequently investigated found out that it was naturally occuring hydrogen.

[Workingman]

If you really want to broaden your mind and cut through the crap and BS forget Tesla and Wikipedia.

Type "White Hydrogen" into your favourite search engine and read some of the scientific and technological papers written by various scientists, technologists, geophysicists and geologists in those journals. These are people who have studied the issue and know what they are talking about.

What you will find are pros and cons about the "potential" of this 'discovery', which is really in its infancy. They will come from independent experts in the field and also from such organisations as the USGS, UKGS, South Australian GS and others. including oil and gas companies. You will not get the Ladybird version and the twisted 'facts' the EV adherents and zealots will give you: just the facts. They will try to trash any alternative version to their religion. It's what they do.

Most people are being level-headed about where all this might lead us. Not all, but many.

Then remember that at one time Li-ion batteries were only good for powering digital watches, key-ring torches and so on. Look where they are today.

As for the explosions BS:

Hydrogen gas forms combustible or explosive mixtures with the atmospheric oxygen over a wide range of concentrations in the range 4.0%–75% and 18%–59%, respectively.

© Hanane Dagdougui, ... Ahmed Ouammi, in Hydrogen Infrastructure for Energy Applications, 2018

That's me out.

[Suff]

I did read the scientific articles. Then I took the size of the finds and compared them to the volume of just gas being pulled out of the ground today.

Just gas. Very few cars run on gas and Oil volumes are similar to gas.

Reality is that the planet already has sufficient energy to replace almost all of the gas and would in use today. We need to stop chasing fairy stories and damned we'll get on with generating, storing and using it.

Scientific papers do not happen by magic. They are created by studies and studies have to be paid for. The studies are funded and those who pau the funds want specific results.

All you have to do is type into Google "fossil fuel backed scientific studies" to learn the ugly truth of surfing Google for study results.

You need to know who paid for it before you take it as gospel.

[Suff]

As for the explosions BS:

Hydrogen gas forms combustible or explosive mixtures with the atmospheric oxygen over a wide range of concentrations in the range 4.0%–75% and 18%–59%, respectively.

© Hanane Dagdougui, ... Ahmed Ouammi, in Hydrogen Infrastructure for Energy Applications, 2018

Exactly, the concept traction was less than 4%.

But it makes a story doesn't it.