Hydrogen for Murihiku / Southland?

Letter to the ODT editor on Hydrogen hype...

In response to Mr Burke, on the subject of hydrogen...

My letter to the ODT yesterday was as follows:

Ever wondered why we hear so much about Hydrogen at the moment? The Oil companies are betting on Blue Hydrogen (from natural gas, with CCS) to protect their assets. By muddying the waters, they’re selling naive governments a fantasy product with unproven economics and barely viable technology.

The hydrogen in a Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle (FCEV) uses 3.2x as much energy and costs over 5.4x as much per km driven as a Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV).

The oxygen liberated producing Green Hydrogen is recaptured from the atmosphere when you run the FCEV… Zero sum game! Saturn V rockets using hydrogen were astronomically expensive, and today’s rockets, including obscene space tourism initiatives, use kerosene as rocket propellant.

Global gas price spikes are a result of declining profits from production in the twilight of our fossil fuel industries. Leave fossil fuel, before it leaves us…

Nathan Surendran, recovering Professional Engineer, Invercargill

It was a response to the letter in the image below, which was prompted by this “Hydrogen not an Energy Option for Manapouri” article by Wise Response Committee member Philip Temple.

Credit to Paul Martin for his extremely helpful breakdown of the hydrogen boondoggle here: Distilled Thoughts on Hydrogen