Ironically hydrogen works well as a storage solution for the variability of wind and solar. When you have a large excess of them, you can run electrolyzers to generate green hydrogen. And then when the grid needs some more supply, we can use that hydrogen to make up the gap.
Which is basically the same problem with green transportation: A car is usually lightly used, but every once in a while you drive hundreds of miles. That requires a high capacity energy storage mechanism where “efficiency” is not that big of a concern. But that creates the need for hydrogen cars. At best, you can conceive of a plug-in hybrid car where short trips are battery powered. But then you have redundant infrastructure, and it is simpler to just to move everyone to hydrogen.
I will also say that transport and storage of hydrogen is way better than what people are envisioning here. Full disclosure, I work for a hydrogen energy company, so I am biased, but I also have seen things in this space work well
Ironically hydrogen works well as a storage solution for the variability of wind and solar. When you have a large excess of them, you can run electrolyzers to generate green hydrogen. And then when the grid needs some more supply, we can use that hydrogen to make up the gap.
Which is basically the same problem with green transportation: A car is usually lightly used, but every once in a while you drive hundreds of miles. That requires a high capacity energy storage mechanism where “efficiency” is not that big of a concern. But that creates the need for hydrogen cars. At best, you can conceive of a plug-in hybrid car where short trips are battery powered. But then you have redundant infrastructure, and it is simpler to just to move everyone to hydrogen.
I will also say that transport and storage of hydrogen is way better than what people are envisioning here. Full disclosure, I work for a hydrogen energy company, so I am biased, but I also have seen things in this space work well