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[-] Skasi@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

"here" is nice and good, but "here" is not global. This is not about a local incident. It's easy to have "too much green energy" in one place, just build a single wind turbine and don't connect it to a grid. But using that excess power to produce an inefficient expensive fuel in one part of the world doesn't solve the global energy- and emmission- problem. It's cheaper and more efficient to transport energy all over the world and shut down local fossil fuel power plants than to produce hydrogen, ship that all over the world and burn that.

[-] Triumph@fedia.io 2 points 1 day ago

It's not as easy to ship electricity around as you might think. Electricity attenuates over distance, and when green sources are far from population centers, that effect is higher. To use electricity, you have to be physically tied to the power grid, or carry batteries. Those are heavy and require a bunch of heavy metals sourced from questionable places.

Hydrogen is more portable and transferable than electricity. It can be used for off-grid purposes, like vehicles and wherever you'd use propane now. And its efficiency compared to electricity doesn't really matter if you're producing it using waste voltage from surplus.

Both have their places. Converting away from fossil fuels isnt going to have a monolithic solution.

[-] Skasi@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Hydrogen is more portable and transferable than electricity. It can be used for off-grid purposes, like vehicles and wherever you’d use propane now.

That's a good valid point for it. For such extreme edge use cases this would make sense.

Electricity attenuates over distance

I'm pretty sure transporting energy over a long distance power transmission over extreme distances like between eg Portugal or South Africa and eg China or the far tip of Russia is more energy and cost efficient than transporting hydrogen. So hydrogen only wins when the target location actually needs hydrogen, not when they need electricity. But I argue that the majority of power demand would be of electric nature.

[-] Buffalox@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago
this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2026
251 points (97.7% liked)

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