Crony capitalists are begging for massive taxpayer-backed subsidies to produce ‘green’ hydrogen gas using wind and solar as a way of converting useless, unpredictable and unreliable electricity into something that might be used as and when consumers need it; rather than something that depends on the whims of mother nature.
The majority of hydrogen available on the market (around 95%) is produced from fossil fuels by steam reforming or partial oxidation of methane and coal gasification with only a tiny fraction produced by way of biomass gasification or the electrolysis of water or solar thermochemistry.
Steam-methane reforming, the current leading technology for producing hydrogen in large quantities, extracts hydrogen from methane, usually in the form of natural gas; the process releases carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide into the atmosphere. Which, of course, doesn’t wash with the climate cult.
Another method of creating hydrogen is electrolysis, which involves chewing up enormous volumes of electricity that gets passed through a volume of water to separate the hydrogen and oxygen atoms. The big plus attached to this method is said to be that burning hydrogen gas does not release carbon dioxide gas.
If producing industrial volumes of hydrogen using electricity passed through water (electrolysis) were even vaguely economic, then the obvious way of doing so would be to use coal-fired power; the cheapest and most reliable power source, of all. Or, if you’re in the camp that considers carbon dioxide gas to be ‘pollution’, using nuclear power.
The rules of physics (not least thermodynamics) means that, whatever the power source, more energy will be expended than will ever be returned from the process of turning electricity into hydrogen gas, storing and distributing it. Which means it will not result in a net energy benefit. In other words, the whole ‘green’ hydrogen thing is an exercise in wasting phenomenal amounts of precious energy, allowing renewable energy rent-seekers to pocket the cash.
Which is where the subsidies and the suckers come in.
Ordinarily, it isn’t difficult to attract investors and separate them from their cash when there is a real prospect of profit in the wind. The fact that Australian politicians are out with a begging bowl trying to attract those investors to throw cash at the grand ‘green’ hydrogen hoax speaks volumes. Or, as the Americans put it: money talks and bullshit walks.
Eric Worrall reports on the Australian government’s latest effort to help separate fools and their money.
Australia Begs for Foreign Investment to Fund Aussie Net Zero
Watts Up With That
Eric Worrall
15 November 2021
Everyone who slammed Australia in the lead up to COP26, for failing to realise our renewable energy “superpower” potential, is now being asked to put up some of their own money.
Australia calls for foreign investment to fund its clean energy target
Sydney Morning Herald
Eryk Bagshaw
15 November 2021
Singapore: Finance Minister Simon Birmingham will plead for foreign investors to return to Australia as Chinese investment evaporates and the Morrison government relies on the private sector to fund its net zero plan.
The pitch to foreign investors at a major Asian investment conference in Singapore on Monday will aim to recast Australia from climate laggard to climate leader.
The government’s technology investment road map is expected to result in up to $20 billion being invested over the next 10 years, but the government is targeting $60 billion in investment from the private sector – much of it from overseas.
“Inbound investment into Australia is so crucial if we are to realise the potential business growth in these sectors,” Birmingham will tell the Milken Institute on Monday.
Australia is the world’s 13th largest economy but is ranked 53rd by population size, leaving it reliant on foreign capital to pump up its economy and investments in expensive clean energy technology such as hydrogen. The Milken Institute Asia Summit also features former US treasury secretaries Steven Mnuchin and Lawrence Summers, along with representatives from two of the world’s largest investment fund managers, BlackRock and Blackstone.
Sydney Morning Herald
The sad part is Australian politicians mostly actually believe in the hydrogen economy hype, and Australia’s imaginary renewable energy potential.
I would have loved to present this story as a political joke, a successful geopolitical point-scoring move against the climate hypocrite leaders of Europe.
But the real joke is on Australia, and Australia’s politicians, who mostly appear to genuinely believe that if they put up $20 billion of Aussie taxpayer’s money, private capital shall rush in and help Australia to create a lucrative new green hydrogen export industry.
Watts Up With That?
STOP THESE THINGS 
Reblogged this on whatyareckon and commented:
Going broke together?
As I’ve remarked on Twitter:
After 20 years it is obvious that magic batteries won’t solve the inherent failings of wind and solar generated electricity.
Now the “renewable energy” advocates want us to believe in magic Hydrogen.
Let’s not waste another 20 years waiting for the obvious to assert itself.
Nuclear now.
Very powerful observations:
The fundamental flaw in the idea of a hydrogen-based energy economy. Being highly reactive, elemental hydrogen, H2, is found in only small quantities in nature on the earth’s surface but is present in a very wide range of compounds.
In other words, the hydrogen is not free for the taking, but rather is already combined with something else; and to separate the hydrogen so that you have free hydrogen to use, you need to add energy. Once you have added the energy and you have the free hydrogen, you can burn it.
But that’s where the Second Law of Thermodynamics comes in. Due to inevitable inefficiencies in the processes, when you burn the hydrogen, you get back less energy than you expended to free it up. No matter how you approach the problem, the process of freeing up hydrogen and then burning it costs more energy than it generates.
So the fat Cats who have made millions if not Billions out of wind and Solar are now moving to Hydrogen which is a complete waste of space. Time our governments woke up as it is causing major stress amongst the tax payers of these countries and is NOT sustainable.
知识分子与社会!the intellectuals and society. Thomas Sowell.