FYI, there is potentially enough natural hydrogen to last for thousands of years: https://www.science.org/content/article/hidden-hydrogen-eart...

As a shortcut to zero emissions, it has major potential. Nor is it "non-renewable" in the same as fossil fuels. It naturally regenerates in the same way geothermal regenerates.

You are being totally dishonest by claiming renewable energy never generates negative prices: https://balkangreenenergynews.com/negative-power-prices-reve...

Everyone already accepts that it is renewable energy causing this. This is a major flaw in your logic, and frankly you are deluding yourself on this point.

Your solution of overbuilding renewable energy is that has been proposed many times before. It is usually called overprovisioning. The problem is that implies truly ridiculous amount of excess renewable that can be dumped into hydrogen production. Rather than eliminating the need for hydrogen, it creates the situation for where nearly free hydrogen will materialize. And since it is cheaper to move around hydrogen than electricity, hydrogen will end up displacing much of the grid instead.

Hydrogen today is simply a byproduct of natural gas production. As a result, hydrogen traditional meant natural gas infrastructure and hydrogen is produced when it is needed. If it was its own separate resource, we will have a dedicated infrastructure for it. This mirrors the path that natural gas itself followed, since it was originally a by-product of oil production.

The critics are simply lying about the potential efficiencies of hydrogen. In reality, it is an electrochemical system and has same theoretical efficiency as batteries. All the critics are doing are conflating practical limits with technological limits. But even this is backfiring, as their understanding of "practical" limits are stuck in the 1990s if not earlier. Large installations can reach significantly higher levels of efficiency, and perhaps even rival batteries and other energy storage ideas: https://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/review20/fc330_ghezel-a...

> Develop an energy storage technology based on Reversible Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (RSOFC) system capable of round trip efficiency of 70% and projected energy cost of less than $100/kWh

As I mentioned the part about hydrogen being 10x cheaper to move around than electricity, that claim would extend to all related aspects, such as valves and pumps. Not to mention why you would think "valves and pumps and shit" would be expensive at all. These are minor costs compared to the fundamental technology itself. Also, there was not mass production of electrolyzers in the past. I'm curious as to why you even make this claim at all, since it is a pure assertion that has no evidence behind and does not even pass the "smell test." It comes off as total BS.

In reality, what is happening is the process of mass production of electrolyzers, just like it happened with photovoltaics: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-29/green-hyd...

> China’s capacity to manufacture electrolyzers – the equipment used to make green hydrogen – could grow about 20 times by 2028 as costs of the clean energy source plunge, according to CICC.

It is an obvious repeat of the same scenario as with photovoltaics. History is clearly repeating itself.

What is your counterevidence to that claim them? The person in question, Ad van Wijk, is a professor and has been a long-term researcher in renewable energy. If he is making that claim, it should be taken as credible and not be dismissed on your own opinion.

Even if there was only one hydrogen pipeline of similar length, then wouldn't that be sufficient to demonstrate the claim in question? Not sure how this is an argument at all. Not to mention that thousands of km of pipelines globally: research in this area: https://www.iea.org/reports/hydrogen-supply

Except if the hydrogen is made off-site, it can now utilize excess renewable energy production. In particular, the times when renewable energy is free or negatively priced. That will make the problems they listed go away. Then even admitted to that in the article:

> But Mr Mulcahy said hydrogen might become competitive for mining trucks in the future if it could be purchased at the mine gate, in the same way diesel is purchased from external providers now.