[sebstefan]

And if we ever automate every job away, littering could be the solution

There's a hundred other things we can dump energy on before deciding to waste it ; pumping water uphill, gravity batteries, regular batteries, electrolyzing hydrogen to use for later, ...

[senectus1]

because of the versatility of hydrogen, thats where it'll be.

Fuel, "Storage", Ammonia etc

Hydrogen is likely to become the default go to once we start hitting these "fee energy" zones in big enough numbers.

[bryanlarsen]

Why the heck would you use something so difficult/expensive to store & transport like Hydrogen?

If energy is expensive than it's makes more sense to store it in batteries than hydrogen since batteries are about 3X as efficient as the hydrogen cycle.

If energy is cheap it makes more sense to use about twice as much energy to capture and attach carbon molecules to that hydrogen to create a hydrocarbon resulting in something that's easy to store and transport, and that uses existing infrastructure.

[sebstefan]

You don't have to transport it very far if you generate it onsite straight in the hydrogen powerplant that'll turn it back into electricity with between 40 to 60% efficiency

If we follow your 3rd paragraph and turn the hydrogen into hydrocarbons, not only do you lose efficiency in that process, you make CO2 as a byproduct of combustion again

Nobody is interested in storage that turns your carbon-free green energy back into greenhousing energy

The reason you might want hydrogen instead of batteries is just cost, I guess.

[bryanlarsen]

> Nobody is interested in storage that turns your carbon-free green energy back into greenhousing energy

If you make your hydro-carbons with captured carbon, the process is slightly carbon-negative. ~10% of hydrocarbons are not burned, they're turned into plastic or lubricants etc. So for every 10 carbons you take from the air, only 9 are released back.