When we were young, hydrogen came in one colour-and you couldn’t see it. It was a just a load of bubbles the Teacher made in the chemistry lab. Fast forward fifty years, and it seems to come in a baffling spectrum of colours. There’s Green, pink, grey, gold, blue, black, brown and turquoise. [1] This handy guide from the National Grid will take you further. They’re all different industry nicknames where the stuff comes from. Just to confuse matters, different people seem to use the same nicknames to mean different things. But underneath all this lies one simple truth-hydrogen gas could represent a useful path to a sustainable future, and still enjoy what might pass for a tolerable lifestyle.
For reasons of space, we’ll concentrate on one exciting sounding candidate which insiders dub Gold hydrogen. The redoubtably named International Electrotechnical Commission waxes rather lyrical about it here [2] It’s a reputable outfit, and there are some good links for those with the coffee time to delve a little further. But-all that glistens is not gold, as Shakespeare once memorably observed. Writing in The Conversation, David Waltham produces a thoughtful balance sheet of the pros and cons of Gold Hydrogen (bewilderingly, his definition of it is a bit different to the IEC’s) He is far from anti; but this well-expressed caveat is well worth bearing in mind
The big question, though, is how seriously to take gold hydrogen. Will it turn out to be an over-hyped distraction of very limited utility? Or will it provide a pain-free path into a low-carbon future? The truth probably lies between these extremes, but only time (and further research) will tell us.
Well said Professor Waltham. That’s how LSS thinks. On just about everything.
#hydrogen fuel #fuel cell #green hydrogen #gold hydrogen #sustainable #global warming #climate change
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