EU Hydrogen economy/power scam

[nctnico]

It's very difficult to store it as it will diffuse through a steel wall, breaking it in the process, called Hydrogen embrittlement.

Then don't use a steel wall ... pay for aluminium, stainless, composite whatever.

And if it's escaped, a tiny bit of energy is enough to set a hydrogen-oxygen mixture to explode.

Likely at very lean mixtures do to its propensity to escape. As I said, it's hard to get it to detonate.

Meanwhile a sprinkler system turns an ammonia leak into a low hanging poison cloud ... it's a sideways step at best.

For starters, you need 3x the tanks to store the same amount. 3x the ships, the tanks, the pipes.
I know this country has this irrational hatred of natural gas, but I expect technical people to be more educated on these subjects. Also the green transition would be better if we wouldn't wreck our wallets in the process.
As I said, we already have the infrastructure to use, store, drive around with, heat with methane we only need to make it renewable.

The problem with making methane are: 1) it costs energy and thus money to make 2) where are you going to get the carbon from? 3) When burning methane (compared to using hydrogen in a fuell cell) you get NOx emissions which are bad for health. If you factor these in, your cost picture is going to be entirely different. On top of that, hydrogen doesn't need to be liquified perse. It just depends on where the cost optimum is at. For underground storage in salt caverns, hydrogen is not liquified for example.

[Siwastaja]

But leaving natural gas in the ground is "letting it go to waste" in about the same way that not drinking a bottle of cyanide solution is "letting it go to waste". If you include the externalities, the value gained by "not letting it go to waste" is negative.

And fossil sources under your own political control are the only ones that you can actually prevent from being released into the atmosphere. So, it's actually preferable to buy the fuels you need elsewhere and keep your own stuff in the ground forever.

Look at it realistically: it's not like you can just suddenly plug every hole. And some gas is co-produced with oil drilling. And we do need oil for chemical processes e.g. manufacturing plastics.

I mean, it is a useful temporary solution for filling the gaps in renewable generation, but it obviously increases the CO2 content of the atmosphere, so how can it possibly sidestep the storage issue?!

And building storage systems can be done without any CO2 emissions at all? No, you need to evaluate the full environmental footprint of each alternative solution, and like most optimization problems, there would be some sweet spot somewhere; which would shift over time, but probably never reach absolute zero use of fossil fuels. CO2 impact of fossil fuels is indeed quite high per energy, but it's very easy to calculate and analyze. It makes little sense to use fossil fuels when better alternatives are available, but using difficult alternatives could easily release more CO2 if you do the full calculation of the alternative impacts. Which is convenient to ignore, because calculation is difficult.

Right now I do believe we are still far from the sweet spot, but expecting absolute zero fossil fuel use will be much further in the future than you might guess because that would require basically redesigning everything totally from scratch, probably including significant changes to our living styles.

But dropping the use to 10-20%? Well within reality, I say. This way, exploration of new oil/gas reservoirs could be ceased (which is super expensive, so that money would be better spent e.g. in development of renewable storage); politically unstable and thus expensive sources could be ignored; and CO2 released to atmosphere would drop by said ratio. Is it enough to "stop climate change" - I don't know, the subject is too complex, but I mean, this is basically what environmentalists are saying, that we overconsume by ratio of 3-4, or that with our current lifestyles, the planet "could handle" maybe 1-2 billion people. Assuming these environmentalists are right, then surely it sounds like dropping fossil fuel use to 10-20% should be sustainable.

Now I think this is important to understand, because if we take unrealistic aim of zero fossil fuel use, that drives us to solve most difficult problems first, for which the solutions are expensive and probably not environmentally very good. Like forcing hydrogen or lithium ion battery based grid energy storage, while we still haven't picked the low-hanging fruit of controlling existing implicit (parasitic) energy storage (HVAC systems, EVs).

[nctnico]

Nobody is saying the transition needs to be instant. But if you want to have an effect by 2050, you have to start building large infrastructure now regardless of 'low hanging fruit'.

[tszaboo]

Once CO2 stops being a byproduct of fossil fuels and becomes a resource to be acquired from the environment, it gets very expensive.

Sure, so this is only going to be a solution for the next 30 years or so.
Meanwhile the price of CO2 is practically negative, since you would need to pay for carbon credits.
The issue is that we are trying to come up with absolutist solutions to these issues. While we could spend 20% of the effort and money, and reach 80% of the same result.
Just stop oil. -> So no toothbrushes or roads from tomorrow.
Ban on petrol cars.  -> How about plug in hybrid, using 80% less fuel and 80% less batteries?
No gas boilers. -> CHP plants, reducing waste heat by 80%
I mean 30 years from now we might be talking about artificial plastics made with fusion power directly from air.

[zilp]

Look at it realistically: it's not like you can just suddenly plug every hole. And some gas is co-produced with oil drilling. And we do need oil for chemical processes e.g. manufacturing plastics.

Yeah, I am looking at it realistically, which is why I wrote that "stopping suddenly" is not a good idea.

But no, we do not need oil for chemical processes, including for manufacturing plastics. We do need it now, because that's how manufacturing is currently set up, but there is no fundamental need to use oil.

And building storage systems can be done without any CO2 emissions at all?

Net zero? Well, yes, it can, obviously? It's probably not a sensible short-term goal, but of course it can be done.

No, you need to evaluate the full environmental footprint of each alternative solution, and like most optimization problems, there would be some sweet spot somewhere; which would shift over time, but probably never reach absolute zero use of fossil fuels.

Except: Yes, that is exactly what needs to be done. I mean, really, the goal is not to reach zero by a certain point, but rather there is a limit on how much additional CO2 we can put into the atmosphere. If we decrease emissions fast, then it would be fine to stretch the remaining amount over a century or longer. But ultimately, however low the rate gets, the sum will at some point hit the limit, and that's when we we'll have to stop emissions.

Of course, that means net emissions. So, in the long run, it's fine to burn wood, which causes CO2 emissions, if we grow new forests at the rate at which we are burning them. If we somehow manage to reduce the CO2 content of the atmosphere, we could potentially also keep burning fossil fuels, of course. But chances are that removing CO2 from the atmosphere will be more expensive than the benefit of burning fossil fuels, so it's maybe not that bright an idea.

CO2 impact of fossil fuels is indeed quite high per energy, but it's very easy to calculate and analyze. It makes little sense to use fossil fuels when better alternatives are available, but using difficult alternatives could easily release more CO2 if you do the full calculation of the alternative impacts. Which is convenient to ignore, because calculation is difficult.

It's just that where we need to go, it can't easily release more CO2, because we need to decarbonize everything.

But of course, it is an important consideration during the transition that we don't build infrastructure that lets us save miniscule amounts of CO2 emissions where the construction of that infrastructure releases more than whatever ca be saved using that infrastructure.

Right now I do believe we are still far from the sweet spot, but expecting absolute zero fossil fuel use will be much further in the future than you might guess because that would require basically redesigning everything totally from scratch, probably including significant changes to our living styles.

Well, as I wrote, that depends on how fast we act now. If we act decisively globally now, so that emissions drop drastically fast, then we indeed could stretch the remaining volume over a long time while we figure out how to cheaply decarbonize the rest.

On the other hand, if we keep doing things at the current speed, chances are we'll just have to make significant changes to our lifestyle, because our lifestyle can be changed, the reality of the physics of atmospheric heating and the effects that that has on just about everything can not be changed, and if we don't change our lifestyle then, then physics will change it.

But dropping the use to 10-20%? Well within reality, I say. This way, exploration of new oil/gas reservoirs could be ceased (which is super expensive, so that money would be better spent e.g. in development of renewable storage); politically unstable and thus expensive sources could be ignored; and CO2 released to atmosphere would drop by said ratio. Is it enough to "stop climate change" - I don't know, the subject is too complex, but I mean, this is basically what environmentalists are saying, that we overconsume by ratio of 3-4, or that with our current lifestyles, the planet "could handle" maybe 1-2 billion people. Assuming these environmentalists are right, then surely it sounds like dropping fossil fuel use to 10-20% should be sustainable.

I mean, I obviously don't know who specifically you are referring to here, but it's very likely that you are misunderstanding them here.

The burning of fossil fules is not sustainable under any circumstances. Mind you, there is no process anymore that forms fossil fuels on earth. Fossil fuels were created because there were no microbes that would digest the organic material before it could undergo the processes that form fossil fuels. That isn't the case any more. Burning fossil fuels therefore unavoidably increases CO2 content of the atmosphere.

What they presumably rather mean would be something like "if we switched to sustainable methods, then earth could support n billion people at our living standard". I.e. the resources would be sufficient, but you still have to handle them correctly.

Now I think this is important to understand, because if we take unrealistic aim of zero fossil fuel use, that drives us to solve most difficult problems first, for which the solutions are expensive and probably not environmentally very good. Like forcing hydrogen or lithium ion battery based grid energy storage, while we still haven't picked the low-hanging fruit of controlling existing implicit (parasitic) energy storage (HVAC systems, EVs).

It's just that we are running out of time, and doubly so if we want to have time left to hopefully solve the last 20% in a reasonably economical way.

I mean, it's not completely wrong what you say, in that we obviously shouldn't waste CO2 emissions on stuff that never saves more CO2 than building it emits in the first place. But we absolutely must work on grid storage now, for example. And also on controlling loads, of course. And also on better grid storage, of course. And I guess sodium batteries look kinda promising for grid storage in particular.

[wraper]

It's just that we are running out of time, and doubly so if we want to have time left to hopefully solve the last 20% in a reasonably economical way.

I mean, it's not completely wrong what you say, in that we obviously shouldn't waste CO2 emissions on stuff that never saves more CO2 than building it emits in the first place. But we absolutely must work on grid storage now, for example. And also on controlling loads, of course. And also on better grid storage, of course. And I guess sodium batteries look kinda promising for grid storage in particular.

IMHO it's rather EU is speedrunning self-destruction. If EU deindustrializes, there won't be less pollution, it would be whatever manufacturing or agriculture moving to countries that do not care about the environment at all.

[Kleinstein]

There is a limited amount of oil and natural gas and the atmosphere can tolerate a limited amount of CO2. So one the very long run 10-20% of the current emissions is not sustainable. However if the really start to reduce the consumption now, we can gain quite some years with a reduced consumption.
The longer we wait, the harder the cuts have to be. So all the delay tactics are a really bad idea. It would really help to start with quite some reducetion fast: e.g. reduce trafic and emissions from cars and planes. A fast and long overdue point would be adding taxes to aviation fuel.

I am afraid energy will become more expensive, but keeping the old system as is is also not option.
The changes may be inconvenient, but so are rising temperatures and sea level.

The oceans can absorb quite some CO2 for several hundred years. So if the atmosphesre is our only point to looks at a reduction to 10-20% may be enough to halt the rise in athmospheric CO2 levels, at least for quite some time. Truely sustainable would be only what the higher CO2 levels add the plant growth and new deposition of carbon. That would be more like 0.1 % of the current emissions (use the 27 k years effective lifetime and some 27 years to double to concentration at current levels).

Plastics don't absolutely need oil. They can as well use coal, gas and also biomass as starting material. The use for chemestry may still be one of the more effective ones - oil as fuel is to a large part easier to replace.

[Marco]

The danger of making synthetic hydrocarbons in a non emission neutral way is that it's delaying an inevitable transition.  Just continuing to make new lime based cement plants (as opposed to lime/silicate) or new coke based steel plants (as opposed to hydrogen reduction) so you can get CO2 to make synthetic hydrocarbons is going to end up needing CCS to become net zero down the line.

If AI doesn't save us, the strength of human civilization is waning due to demographics. This is the best time to create a more sustainable industrial base, hydrogen has the greatest technological readiness.

[nctnico]

There is a limited amount of oil and natural gas and the atmosphere can tolerate a limited amount of CO2. So one the very long run 10-20% of the current emissions is not sustainable. However if the really start to reduce the consumption now, we can gain quite some years with a reduced consumption.
The longer we wait, the harder the cuts have to be. So all the delay tactics are a really bad idea. It would really help to start with quite some reducetion fast: e.g. reduce trafic and emissions from cars and planes. A fast and long overdue point would be adding taxes to aviation fuel.

I am afraid energy will become more expensive, but keeping the old system as is is also not option.
The changes may be inconvenient, but so are rising temperatures and sea level.

Unfortunately worldwide CO2 emission keep rising in spite of reductions. I don't think we'll see a significant drop in use of fossil fuels any time soon on a global scale.

One of the problems is that upcoming economies also want to have the level of luxury most people in the richer parts of the world enjoy. And they don't care about CO2 and other harmfull emissions at all. And they didn't make a mess of the world either even though the poorest are likely to get hit the hardest by changing climate and rising sea levels. This makes it double important to really focus on transitioning to renewables and forms of nuclear power fast and also help / incentivize upcoming economies to do the same.

[tszaboo]

There is a limited amount of oil and natural gas and the atmosphere can tolerate a limited amount of CO2. So one the very long run 10-20% of the current emissions is not sustainable. However if the really start to reduce the consumption now, we can gain quite some years with a reduced consumption.

You cannot categorically say that. There is no evidence that reduced levels are not going to get balanced by other carbon sinks.
There is actually evidence of the contrary, there is a global greening going on.
If you look at the map, where wasn't a human effort of deforestation (I'm looking at you Brazil) there has been a very large scale increase of forest area just in the last 20-40 years.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146296/global-green-up-slows-warming#:~:text=Scientists%20say%20that%20global%20greening,the%20surge%20in%20plant%20growth.

Now it's obvious that it's bad idea to burn all fossil fuels at once at an accelerated rate. And that storing Carbon in the air is a bad idea. Meanwhile it's also obvious that plants need CO2 for food, and some of them have been near starvation levels. Why? You reduce the pre-industrial levels of CO2 just a bit, and plants just die.
I can totally see a scenario where we burn all fossil fuels, and end up with similar global temperature, similar CO2 levels, and the Sahara desert covered with a paradise. That's why I totally believe net zero is not only a bad idea, it's an idea which is born out of incredibly narrow minded inspection of reality.

[nctnico]

You are overlooking one thing here: nature doesn't need humans medling with it! CO2 levels have been rising and falling all the time; the amount of carbon available at the earth's  surface was enough for the natural ecosystem to work well before the industrialisation began. It has been enough for tens of millions of years.

If you look at the projection up to the year 2100 on the website your linked to, you can see a very worrying trend: the permafrost tundras in the northen hemisphere will start to melt. These will emit huge amounts of CO2 and methane once they start to decompose. https://climate.mit.edu/explainers/permafrost
 

[BrianHG]

Apparently, there are those doing amateur ammonia conversions on their own vehicles here in Canada, and saving a ton on our petrol prices.

See here:

[zilp]

IMHO it's rather EU is speedrunning self-destruction. If EU deindustrializes, there won't be less pollution, it would be whatever manufacturing or agriculture moving to countries that do not care about the environment at all.

For one: What is your basis for this opinion?

And maybe more importantly: So, what solution do you suggest, and why do think that it would work better than the current direction? Or do you think that nothing bad will happen if we all become "countries that do not care about the environment at all"?

[wraper]

IMHO it's rather EU is speedrunning self-destruction. If EU deindustrializes, there won't be less pollution, it would be whatever manufacturing or agriculture moving to countries that do not care about the environment at all.

For one: What is your basis for this opinion?

That it's already happening in Germany due to your stupid government https://www.spiegel.de/international/business/wirtschaftsblunder-why-germany-s-economy-is-flailing-and-what-could-help-a-c5047bf2-0c66-4a8a-bf62-e52baaef0acd
And EU crusade against farmers (because environment) is absolutely insane, especially during the Ukrainian war that heavily compromised worldwide food supply.

And maybe more importantly: So, what solution do you suggest, and why do think that it would work better than the current direction? Or do you think that nothing bad will happen if we all become "countries that do not care about the environment at all"?

My solution is doing things that actually work and make economic sense, not play with some very questionable bullshit that only sounds good on promotional papers, and is not even that good if not more harmful to the environment in the grand scheme of things. Spending money on research of unproven things is fine, wasting money on implementing bullshit in real life is not. By shooting yourself in the foot and moving industries (as they become unprofitable to run here) and agriculture to places that do not care about environment, overall things will only will get worse for the environment.

[zilp]

There is a limited amount of oil and natural gas and the atmosphere can tolerate a limited amount of CO2. So one the very long run 10-20% of the current emissions is not sustainable. However if the really start to reduce the consumption now, we can gain quite some years with a reduced consumption.

You cannot categorically say that. There is no evidence that reduced levels are not going to get balanced by other carbon sinks.

But noone is "categorically saying that"!?

And what relevance does it have that there is no evidence that reduced levels are not going to get balanced by other carbon sinks? Is your suggestion that we should ignore the predictions of current models until we have rejected with extremely high probability every imaginable potential carbon sink that could maybe turn out to balance emissions if we are really lucky? Do you think that that is a reliable approach to mitigating risks?

There is actually evidence of the contrary, there is a global greening going on.
If you look at the map, where wasn't a human effort of deforestation (I'm looking at you Brazil) there has been a very large scale increase of forest area just in the last 20-40 years.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146296/global-green-up-slows-warming#:~:text=Scientists%20say%20that%20global%20greening,the%20surge%20in%20plant%20growth.

I mean, what you are saying here is obviously true, but also pretty unsurprising, isn't it? If arctic regions thaw, you get more vegetation, who would have thought!? (Well, and more effects, but much of it pretty unsurprising.)

But notice how nothing in that article says that that in any way contradicted existing climate models.

It doesn't say "this leads to lower global warming than predicted". It just says "this leads to lower global warming than if this effect didn't happen".

And given how obvious it seems to me that one effect of warming and higher CO2 concentrations would be an increase in vegetation, at least in some areas, and at least up to a certain degree of warming (obviously, at venus level temperatures, that does not hold anymore), I would think that it is extremely unlikely that this is something that people who build climate models hadn't thought of decades ago.

Which is to say: What I read in that article is "as anyone whose job is the modeling of the earth's climate has known for decades, increases in vegetation due to warming and CO2 concentrations counteract global warming due to CO2 emissions to some degree, and here is the accumulating evidence that strengthens the confidence that we can have that our modeling of this effect is correct". Or alternatively maybe "... and here is the accumulating evidence that allows us to slightly narrow down some climate model parameters."

What I absolutely don't see is that anyone is suggesting that this means that we can emit any significant amount of additional CO2 before we get serious problems vs. what scientists have been saying in the past.

So ... what do you think the relevance of this is, and why?

Now it's obvious that it's bad idea to burn all fossil fuels at once at an accelerated rate. And that storing Carbon in the air is a bad idea. Meanwhile it's also obvious that plants need CO2 for food, and some of them have been near starvation levels. Why? You reduce the pre-industrial levels of CO2 just a bit, and plants just die.

Do you have a source for that and that that is a relevant effect?

I mean, I can imagine that there are some plants for which this is true, simply because there are all kinds of weird species that fill all kinds of weird niches on this planet, so, sure, probably that one exists, too.

But generally, evolution isn't that fast, so it would seem rather surprising to me that somehow any significant part of our global ecosystem could have evolved within 200 years or so to a point where it couldn't survive with the CO2 levels of 200 years ago anymore!?

edit: I just noticed that I got confused here. Whether slight reduction below pre-industrial CO2 levels would have such effects ... I have no idea. Also seems kinda unlikely to be a wide-spread phenomenon, but who knows?

But ... what is the relevance of this? I mean, if we somehow stopped emissions from fossil sources today, we wouldn't reach pre-industrial levels of CO2 for millenia, so what relevance do the risks of below-pre-industrial levels have for the foreseeable future?!

I can totally see a scenario where we burn all fossil fuels, and end up with similar global temperature, similar CO2 levels, and the Sahara desert covered with a paradise. That's why I totally believe net zero is not only a bad idea, it's an idea which is born out of incredibly narrow minded inspection of reality.

Now, I'll take your word for it that you can see that scenario. But do you have any evidence to back this up as an in any way likely outcome in reality, rather than just you being able to make up a story?

Also, can you back up your belief that net zero is a bad idea that is born out of incredibly narrow minded inspection of reality? Like, have you read up on how scientists have inspected reality to come to their consensus position? Can you show where their inspection of reality is narrow minded and why you think that?

Because, if I am being honest, this reads to me more like "I can easily make up some story where things turn out just fine, scientists disagree with that story, therefore, they must have inspected reality very narrow-mindedly". I.e., it seems to me like you have not actually done any work to find out how open-minded scientists are approaching the topic, how much of your ideas they have incorporated into their models, how many of your ideas they have rejected based on empirical evidence, and what that evidence is. I.e., it seems to me like you don't actually know whether they have never considered your ideas because they are too narrow-minded, or whether they have rejected your ideas out of hand because they are too narrow minded, or whether they maybe had the same idea you had, whether they maybe were hopeful that they were the ones who could once and for all prove that CO2 emissions are almost certainly a complete non-problem and we can finally ramp up coal power production as the sure-fire way to create prosperity for everyone, and so, they put in the hard work to test their hypothesis ... and failed.

So, I'd be curious to know what you have done to figure out whether scientists are saying what they are saying because they are narrow-minded, or because they have done the work to check whether your ideas would work out, and found that they don't.

edit: Also, if you are saying that rising CO2 levels could allow plants to grow in the Sahara ... how would that vegetation then stay alive once the CO2 levels are back down?!

[zilp]

IMHO it's rather EU is speedrunning self-destruction. If EU deindustrializes, there won't be less pollution, it would be whatever manufacturing or agriculture moving to countries that do not care about the environment at all.

For one: What is your basis for this opinion?

That it's already happening in Germany due to your stupid government https://www.spiegel.de/international/business/wirtschaftsblunder-why-germany-s-economy-is-flailing-and-what-could-help-a-c5047bf2-0c66-4a8a-bf62-e52baaef0acd

I am sorry, but could you be a bit more specific? That is many pages of text, and skimming through it, I didn't see anything that was fundamentally new to me, so I'm not really sure it's worth reading it all, and especially I am not sure whether I'd be any wiser as to what specifically you mean, or how that text supports your opinion.

And EU crusade against farmers (because environment) is absolutely insane, especially during the Ukrainian war that heavily compromised worldwide food supply.

Why do you think that it is insane? Like, do you understand why they are doing it? Can you explain why that's either a bad goal or why the approach that is chosen is not a good one? (And what I mean in particular is why they are doing it "for the environment", as I would think that that is not the fundamental motivation.)

And maybe more importantly: So, what solution do you suggest, and why do think that it would work better than the current direction? Or do you think that nothing bad will happen if we all become "countries that do not care about the environment at all"?

My solution is doing things that actually work and make economic sense, not play with some very questionable bullshit that only sounds good on promotional papers, and is not even that good if not more harmful to the environment in the grand scheme of things. Spending money on research of unproven things is fine, wasting money on implementing bullshit in real life is not. By shooting yourself in the foot and moving industries (as they become unprofitable to run here) and agriculture to places that do not care about environment, overall things will only will get worse for the environment.

Did you notice that you didn't actually say anything of substance?

Like, if I were the king of the EU, and I for some reason were convinced that you know the way that we need to go, so I now want to command my underlings to do as you recommend ... I have no fucking clue what I should command.

That's a bit of a problem if you want people to follow your arguments, isn't it?

[Kleinstein]

The EU policy on agriculture has nothing to do with hyrogen and little with the transition of energy supply. There is some part with bio-fuels, but that is likely the least problem for the farmers. The point is keeping a healthy environment, though it comes in difficult times.

To make a new system work and get adapted also from the developing countries we have to make it work first. This worked reasonably well with PV, that is now used quite a lot also in developing countries because it also makes econominc sense. So they don't really have to go the coal way. To get PV from an expensive low volume high tech to high volume econimical needed quite some money via subesedies. A lot of this initial phase was payed by German electricity consumers and China. Just Germany killed the industry and China added some money there.

In part the use of hydrogen for storage may need similar support to get it going and prices down for the systems, though here it also needs the extension of PV and wind, so that there is actually excess to be stored. To me it looks a bit that the support programs miss a bit the 2nd point - more storage only makes sense if there is supply.

[Marco]

I could see decentralised PV+hydrogen work in some third world countries soonish. For now PV + battery + hydrogen seasonal storage is around 90 cents/kwh at small scale, very expensive obviously but that was using non commoditized components. There are some high volume markets coming online for fuel cells, membraneless electrolysers will be able to work without RO and concrete composite tanks could reduce tank costs too.

In parts of Africa diesel generated electricity is >50c to begin with.

[tszaboo]

The problem with making methane are: 1) it costs energy and thus money to make 2) where are you going to get the carbon from? 3) When burning methane (compared to using hydrogen in a fuell cell) you get NOx emissions which are bad for health. If you factor these in, your cost picture is going to be entirely different. On top of that, hydrogen doesn't need to be liquified perse. It just depends on where the cost optimum is at. For underground storage in salt caverns, hydrogen is not liquified for example.

1) Same as hydrogen
2) Fossil fuel plants. Even if we ban it, the rest of the world are still going to burn it anyway, so might as well import it from them. And we are still going use them in gas fired power plants to use up the CH4 during winter, just capture that.
3) So does Hydrogen combustion. Most of the NOx emissions are significantly reduced in new power plants, because they set the burning temperature optimal. In fact we could reduce NOx emissions probably by a factor of 10 if we would convert coal with electricity to CH4 before we burn it.

[Marco]

The only substantial advantage of renewable methane relative to hydrogen 30 years from now,  is that it can be stored in old gasfields, hydrogen perhaps not. Obviously right now there's a ton of natural gas infrastructure, but on a long enough timeline that can be repurposed and written off.

Liquid methane is not substantially easier to deal with than liquid hydrogen.

Need to convert to propane or even better methanol to really get something easy to work with.

[wraper]

IMHO it's rather EU is speedrunning self-destruction. If EU deindustrializes, there won't be less pollution, it would be whatever manufacturing or agriculture moving to countries that do not care about the environment at all.

For one: What is your basis for this opinion?

That it's already happening in Germany due to your stupid government https://www.spiegel.de/international/business/wirtschaftsblunder-why-germany-s-economy-is-flailing-and-what-could-help-a-c5047bf2-0c66-4a8a-bf62-e52baaef0acd

I am sorry, but could you be a bit more specific? That is many pages of text, and skimming through it, I didn't see anything that was fundamentally new to me, so I'm not really sure it's worth reading it all, and especially I am not sure whether I'd be any wiser as to what specifically you mean, or how that text supports your opinion.

If you just scroll through it, you'll notice infographics that German industrialization is down. Something in particular, for example:

"Deindustrialization  has begun," says Matthias Zachert, head of the chemical giant Lanxess, which is in the process of closing two plants in the city of Krefeld near Düsseldorf.

The German Association of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (BVMW) is reporting that almost one in five member companies is considering relocating at least some elements of production to sites abroad. Meanwhile, the chemical industry is warning of an industry exodus due to high energy prices. And a study commissioned by the Berlin-based think tank Dezernat Zukunft concludes: If the government doesn't do anything about the foreseeable high energy prices, the exodus of companies will cost Germany up to 120 billion euros in economic output – and 1.3 million jobs.

As a result, of the nearly 14,000 kilometers of new power lines that the country needs, according to the government's own Federal Network Agency, only around 1,900 kilometers have been built to date. And because the inadequate existing lines are overloaded, as absurd as it sounds, wind turbines in the north often have to be disconnected from the grid. Valuable electricity is lost. Nevertheless, the plant operators receive billions of euros in compensation for the electricity that goes unused. In addition, there are high taxes and levies for electricity.

Last week, the governors of seven German states, in which the energy-intensive chemical industry is strongly represented, sent a letter to the German government in the run-up to its recent meeting. "Without decisive countermeasures, there is an acute risk of production, and thus jobs, being relocated to lower-cost locations abroad," they wrote.

And EU crusade against farmers (because environment) is absolutely insane, especially during the Ukrainian war that heavily compromised worldwide food supply.

Why do you think that it is insane? Like, do you understand why they are doing it? Can you explain why that's either a bad goal or why the approach that is chosen is not a good one? (And what I mean in particular is why they are doing it "for the environment", as I would think that that is not the fundamental motivation.)

Because surely unaffordable food prices and starvation of the poorest in the moment of crisis is more desirable than using a bit of fertilizer. And yet again, food production will move to places that do not care about pollution at all (because all people want to eat, doh) and be way less sustainable than what's currently in EU. Not to say importing food from thousands of kilometers away causes a lot of pollution by itself.

[nctnico]

The only substantial advantage of renewable methane relative to hydrogen 30 years from now,  is that it can be stored in old gasfields, hydrogen perhaps not. Obviously right now there's a ton of natural gas infrastructure, but on a long enough timeline that can be repurposed and written off.

Empty gas fields are perfectly suitable to store hydrogen.  And natural gas infrastructure is already suitable for hydrogen because the operators looked ahead for possible uses of the infrastructure in a non-fossil fuel future. Every coupling & pipe going into the ground, is suitable for hydrogen.

[tszaboo]

The only substantial advantage of renewable methane relative to hydrogen 30 years from now,  is that it can be stored in old gasfields, hydrogen perhaps not. Obviously right now there's a ton of natural gas infrastructure, but on a long enough timeline that can be repurposed and written off.

Liquid methane is not substantially easier to deal with than liquid hydrogen.

Need to convert to propane or even better methanol to really get something easy to work with.

They make about 50 LNG carrier ships per year. One made by Daewoo has the carry capacity of 80.000 Tons.
In 2022 they completed the world's first H2 carrier ship. The total capacity of it is ~80 Tons.
It's not even ballpark close.
And then there are the inerting, filling, emptying procedures, don't even get started on that.

[Marco]

The demand isn't there yet, everyone is making their own hydrogen from natural gas. Designs for much larger ships already exist and are not substantially larger than LNG ships of the same capacity.

With the same insulation liquid hydrogen only gets 1.5x the heat than methane, it's not a fundamentally different problem.

[nctnico]

The only substantial advantage of renewable methane relative to hydrogen 30 years from now,  is that it can be stored in old gasfields, hydrogen perhaps not. Obviously right now there's a ton of natural gas infrastructure, but on a long enough timeline that can be repurposed and written off.

Liquid methane is not substantially easier to deal with than liquid hydrogen.

Need to convert to propane or even better methanol to really get something easy to work with.

They make about 50 LNG carrier ships per year. One made by Daewoo has the carry capacity of 80.000 Tons.
In 2022 they completed the world's first H2 carrier ship. The total capacity of it is ~80 Tons.
It's not even ballpark close.

In the late 1800s there where millions of horse + carriages and only a few cars in the world. People reasoned cars would never become popular as horse + carriage have been used succesfully for thousands of years already