Are the governments of some countries, including Portugal, seeing something that scientists have not yet found?
In “Why a hydrogen economy doesn’t make sense” a Phys.org article published in 2006, a fuel cell expert Ulf Bossel explains that a hydrogen economy is a wasteful economy.
The large amount of energy required to isolate hydrogen from natural compounds (water, natural gas, biomass), package the light gas by compression or liquefaction, transfer the energy carrier to the user, plus the energy lost when it is converted to useful electricity with fuel cells, leaves around 25% for practical use — an unacceptable value to run an economy in a sustainable future.
According to professor Bossel, an input of 100 kWh AC, can result in 69 kWh of energy available in an electric car, through the processes already known.
The same input would result in 23 kWh available in a hydrogen powered car in the case of the conversion process being compression, or 19 kWh if the process is liquefaction.
Bossel’s overall energy analysis of a hydrogen economy demonstrates that high energy losses inevitably resulting from the laws of physics mean that a hydrogen economy will never make sense. Read Bossel’s full paper here.
“Huge sums of money were committed too soon, and now even good scientists prostitute themselves to obtain research money for their students or laboratories—otherwise, they risk being fired. But the laws of physics are eternal and cannot be changed with additional research, venture capital or majority votes.”
And now, 14 years later, was Bossel wrong? Has technology dramatically change? Were the laws of physics wrong after all? Or are governments still looking for the lost chimera that no one else can see burying tons of money?
What do you think? Please share your thoughts.