Widespread Use of Hydrogen May Hurt Ozone Layer

Saeger writes "The AP has a story about a CalTech study which has found that the Hydrogen Economy may deplete the ozone layer by 'as much as 8 percent' on the assumption that '10 percent to 20 percent of the hydrogen would leak from pipelines, storage facilities, processing plants and fuel cells in cars and at power plants.'" CalTech's press release has more information.

Comments

Only applies to pure hydrogen

[worst_name_ever]

One would hope that the "hydrogen-based economy" would not be operating on pure gaseous - or even liquid - hydrogen! Gaseous hydrogen is annoying to keep sealed inside a system with any number of fittings (those tiny molecules like to leak out of anything) not to mention is extremely flammable.

I was under the impression that the "hydrogen-based economy" would actually transport its energy around in a more easily handled form, e.g. methanol which can be trucked around and handled more easily than pure hydrogen.

To me, this paper appears to be saying: "If the hydrogen economy is based around this arbitrary and unworkable assumption we made, bad things would happen!" Well, okay...

Re:overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

That's only one problem with the future "hydrogen economy".

Sure, hydrogen is in abundance, in outer space. Who's going to go get it?

What's the major source for hydrogen right now? Natural Gas. What's the major byproduct of extracting hydrogen from Natural Gas? Carbon Dioxide.

Sure, you can do electrolysis. Unfortunately, you need a lot of electricity to do that. Until nuclear power becomes popular again, there's not enough capacity in our power infrastructure. Not to mention that, in the US, most power is generated from coal.

Have you seen the price of Natural Gas lately?

It will be interesting to watch how we overcome these hurdles.

It's an engineering problem

[panurge]

I spent some time some years ago in a facility that handled a hydrogen mixture.
It is indeed very hard to prevent hydrogen leaks (the small molecule goes straight through even slightly porous metal) and it is difficult to detect, except when you get up to a couple of percent when a very small spark can cause a very interesting experience (like the roof being embedded in the car park.) On the other hand, that's the reason why a lot of work has to go into preventing gross leaks.

The same problem existed with the original town gas, which was practically odorless (CO + hydrogen + nitrogen) and of course the solution was to put in an odorous tracer gas. I am sure that with modern sensor technology a suitable tracer could be found that would be detectable in even minute quantities

Given that in the past we've been cavalier about low BP compounds and their ill effects - benzene in gas, CFCs, - it would be really good if this time governments and environmental scientists got their act together in advance. Leakage is not a reason not to use hydrogen, any more than the possibility of a leak is a reason not to put in plumbing. It's just a potential problem to be prevented.