Where hydrogen is transported as a cryogenic liquid, boil-off is unavoidable, and you can expect to lose an average of about 1 percent of it per day. It'll leak out of pipes and valves if you distribute it that way, losing some 20 percent more volume than the methane gas that's now running through municipal pipelines – although since hydrogen is so much lighter than methane, this larger volume equates to just 15 percent of the weight. Store hydrogen in a compressed gas cylinder, and you can assume you'll lose between 0.12 percent and 0.24 percent of it every day. How does hydrogen escape into the atmosphere?Ī lot of it is leakage, according to a second report from Frazer-Nash Consultancy. What's more, the presence of hydrogen increases the concentration of both tropospheric ozone and stratospheric water vapor, boosting a "radiative forcing" effect that also pushes temperatures higher. There are fewer cleanup agents to go around, so there's a direct rise in methane concentrations, and the methane stays in the atmosphere longer. When hydrogen is present, however, those hydroxyl radicals react with the hydrogen instead. But hydroxyl radicals in the atmosphere clean it up relatively quickly, while CO2 remains in the air for thousands of years, so CO2 is worse in the long run. Methane is an incredibly potent greenhouse gas, causing some 80 times more warming than an equivalent weight of CO2 over the first 20 years. Hydrogen reacts with the same tropospheric oxidants that "clean up" methane emissions. One way is by extending the lifetime of atmospheric methane. How does hydrogen act like a greenhouse gas? Indeed, a new UK Government study has put these interactions under the microscope and determined that hydrogen's Global Warming Potential (GWP) is about twice as bad as previously understood over a 100-year time period, a tonne of hydrogen in the atmosphere will warm the Earth some 11 times more than a tonne of CO2, with an uncertainty of ± 5. It carries far more energy for a given weight than lithium batteries, and it's faster to refill a tank than to charge a battery, so hydrogen is viewed as a very promising green option in several hard-to-decarbonize applications where batteries won't cut the mustard – for example, aviation, shipping and long-haul trucking.īut when it's released directly into the atmosphere, hydrogen itself can interact with other gases and vapors in the air to produce powerful warming effects. Hydrogen can be used as a clean energy carrier, and running it through a fuel cell to produce electricity produces nothing but water as a by-product. New reports show how fugitive hydrogen emissions can indirectly produce warming effects 11 times worse than those of CO2. This means you only need about half the amount of hydrogen, with double the fuel economy.Hydrogen will be one of humanity's key weapons in the war against carbon dioxide emissions, but it must be treated with care. But because a fuel cell is more than twice as efficient as an internal combustion engine, a fuel cell car travels farther on that tank of hydrogen than a traditional car would on gasoline. Since the “engine” (i.e., fuel cell) has no moving parts, you’ll never need to change the oil. They can refuel in just a few minutes and the fueling experience is almost identical to a gas station. Similar to today’s gasoline vehicles, fuel cell electric cars can have a driving range of more than 300 miles on one tank of hydrogen fuel. Fuel cell cars are very similar to traditional gasoline powered cars. There are also no pollutants emitted from the tailpipe-just water! 4. Compared to conventional gasoline vehicles, fuel cell vehicles can even reduce carbon dioxide by up to half if the hydrogen is produced by natural gas and by 90%, if the hydrogen is produced by renewable energy, such as wind and solar. Unlike batteries, fuel cells do not run down or need to recharge-as long as there’s a constant source of fuel and oxygen. Fuel cells are a clean way to produce power.įuel cells are similar to batteries in that they produce electricity without combustion or emissions. Because fuel cells can be grid-independent, they’re also an attractive option for critical load functions such as data centers, telecommunications towers, hospitals, emergency response systems, and even military applications for national defense. These range from powering buildings, cars, trucks, to portable electronic devices and backup power systems. Hydrogen and fuel cells can be used in a broad range of applications. Fuel cells can be used to power several applications.
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