‘One of the most stupid point’: Elon Musk disregards hydrogen as device for power storage space


Elon Musk has a background of sharing solid point of views concerning hydrogen as well as hydrogen gas cells. A couple of years back, when the topic showed up throughout a conversation with press reporters at the Automotive Information Globe Congress, the electrical car mogul defined hydrogen gas cells as “exceptionally ridiculous.”

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Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has actually repeated his apprehension concerning hydrogen’s function in the prepared change to an extra lasting future, defining it as “one of the most stupid point I might potentially visualize for power storage space.”

Throughout a meeting at the Financial Times Future of the Automobile top on Tuesday, Musk was asked if he assumed hydrogen had a duty to play in speeding up the change far from nonrenewable fuel sources.

” No,” he responded. “I actually can not highlight this sufficient– the variety of times I have actually been inquired about hydrogen, it may be … it’s more than 100 times, perhaps 200 times,” he claimed. “It is necessary to recognize that if you desire a way of power storage space, hydrogen is a negative option.”

Broadening on his debate, Musk took place to state that “enormous containers” would certainly be called for to hold hydrogen in fluid type. If it were to be saved in aeriform type, “also larger” containers would certainly be required, he claimed.

Defined by the International Power Company as a “functional power provider,” hydrogen has a varied variety of applications as well as can be released in industries such as sector as well as transportation.

In 2019, the IEA claimed hydrogen was “among the leading choices for keeping power from renewables as well as looks guaranteeing to be a lowest-cost alternative for keeping electrical power over days, weeks or perhaps months.”

The Paris-based company included that both hydrogen as well as hydrogen-based gas had the ability to “deliver power from renewables over cross countries– from areas with plentiful solar as well as wind sources, such as Australia or Latin America, to energy-hungry cities hundreds of kilometres away.”

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Musk has a background of sharing solid point of views concerning hydrogen as well as hydrogen gas cells.

A couple of years back, when the topic showed up throughout a conversation with press reporters at the Automotive Information Globe Congress, the electrical car mogul defined hydrogen gas cells as “exceptionally ridiculous.”

In June 2020 he tweeted ” gas cells = fool markets,” including July of that year: ” Hydrogen fool markets make no feeling.”

Evaluating by his remarks today, he continues to be unsure concerning hydrogen.

” It does not normally happen in the world, so you either need to divide water with electrolysis or split hydrocarbons,” he informed the Financial Times.

” When you’re splitting hydrocarbons, you actually have not fixed the nonrenewable fuel source trouble, as well as the performance of electrolysis is inadequate.”

Today, most of hydrogen manufacturing is based upon nonrenewable fuel sources. An additional approach of manufacturing consists of utilizing electrolysis, with an electrical existing splitting water right into oxygen as well as hydrogen.

If the electrical power made use of in this procedure originates from a sustainable resource such as wind or solar after that some refer to it as environment-friendly or sustainable hydrogen.

Hydrogen jobs utilizing electrolysis have actually drawn in passion from significant business as well as magnate in the last few years, yet it would certainly show up Musk is not a follower.

” The performance of electrolysis is … inadequate,” he informed the Financial Times. “So you actually are investing a great deal of power to … split hydrogen as well as oxygen. After that you need to divide the hydrogen as well as oxygen as well as pressurize it– this likewise takes a great deal of power.”

” As well as if you need to melt … hydrogen, oh my God,” he proceeded. “The quantity of power called for to … make hydrogen as well as transform it right into fluid type is startling. It is one of the most stupid point that I might potentially visualize for power storage space.”

Various perspectives

Musk might be prideful concerning hydrogen’s function in the power change, yet various other prominent voices are a little bit a lot more positive. These consist of Anna Shpitsberg, that is replacement aide secretary for power change at the united state Division of State.

Throughout a current panel conversation regulated by CNBC’s Hadley Wager, Shpitsberg called hydrogen “a game-changing innovation that speaks with a selection of various other resources … due to the fact that it can underpin nuclear, it can underpin gas, it can underpin renewables, it can clean up an excellent part of it therefore can CCUS [carbon capture utilization and storage].”

In other places, February saw Michele DellaVigna, Goldman Sachs’ asset equity organization device leader for the EMEA area, highlight the crucial function he felt it would certainly have moving forward.

” If we wish to most likely to net-zero we can not do it simply via sustainable power,” he claimed.

” We require something that takes today’s function of gas, particularly to take care of seasonality as well as intermittency, which is hydrogen,” DellaVigna said, taking place to define hydrogen as “an extremely effective particle.”

The trick, he claimed, was to “create it without carbon dioxide exhausts. Which’s why we speak about environment-friendly, we speak about blue hydrogen.”

Blue hydrogen describes hydrogen generated utilizing gas– a nonrenewable fuel source– with the carbon dioxide exhausts created throughout the procedure caught as well as saved. There has actually been a charged argument around the function blue hydrogen can play in the decarbonization of culture.

” Whether we do it with electrolysis or we do it with carbon capture, we require to produce hydrogen in a tidy method,” DellaVigna claimed. “As well as as soon as we have it, I believe we have a service that might come to be, eventually, at the very least 15% of the worldwide power markets which implies it will certainly be … over a trillion buck market per year.”





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