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> unless government policies mandate it or restrict batteries or blue hydrogen

Yes, but I think this the most likely outcome. Natural gas is only cheap in certain areas, and the past few years have made everyone very, very aware of the geopolitics involved in getting hold of it. While global warming is not going away, and I question the extent to which CCS actually happens with blue hydrogen.

Batteries are capital equipment in the same way as electrolysers are. They're great at short term storage, but medium-term is still a bit more of an issue. "Restrict batteries" is obviously not on the table except for stupid retail corner cases where utilities have captured the regulator.

There's a potential market for lots of green H2 in Haber nitrogen, metals refining, and synthetic jet fuel etc, but only if the cheap CO2 emitting option is priced out or banned, or H2 electrolysers get comparable capital prices to battery storage.

by leonidasrup1 hours ago|

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With CO2 emitting option is priced out or banned, direct hydrogen production using high temperature sulfur–iodine cycle without H2 electrolysers could be economic option. The heat could be supplied from high temperature nuclear reactor.

by Jolter1 hours ago|

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How to make hydrogen production cheaper and easier: include an atomic reactor component.

Huh?

I’d be interested in hearing about some scenario where this actually costs less, given the cost of building anything nuclear in 2026.

by leonidasrup50 minutes ago|

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I agree, the experience building nuclear reactors is mixed bag. Some builds failed, like Flamanville 3, Hinkley Point C, Vogtle 3. Some builds succeeded: Barakah nuclear power plant, Fuqing 5,6. It really depends on maturity of supply line and political support.

by leonidasrup2 hours ago|

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Sometimes the price of natural gas is even negative, there is too much of it.

"Natural gas at Texas’s Waha hub is trading at negative $7.05 per million British Thermal Units, hitting a record low of negative $9.52 on April 15."

https://www.barrons.com/articles/natural-gas-texas-negative-...

There are different kinds of water electrolysis equipment, with different capital expenditure and operating expenses.

"Alkaline electrolyzers are cheaper in terms of investment (they generally use nickel catalysts), but least efficient. PEM electrolyzers are more expensive (they generally use expensive platinum-group metal catalysts) but are more efficient and can operate at higher current densities, and can, therefore, be possibly cheaper if the hydrogen production is large enough."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water#Efficien...

Anything using platinum-group metals will be very expensive. Therefor catalytic converters in cars use very little platinum-group metals.

"The amount of palladium in a converter can vary, but it is typically around 2-7 grams." https://vehiclefreak.com/how-much-palladium-is-in-a-catalyti...

by Tuna-Fish2 hours ago|

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Reducing the capital cost of electrolysis is extremely good, because it makes plants that only produce when electricity is cheap (midday in sunny climes, when wind is blowing in the Nordics) more feasible.

If this works out at scale (lots of problems can be found between a lab discovery and mass production), this is legitimately a very good thing for renewables.

by whizzter2 hours ago|

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There's one case, rural areas often have abundant energy sources (hydro, wind,etc) but few consumers, in Northern Sweden f.ex. a lot is produced but there's a lot of losses in transporting the energy south.

Now, yes, as long as natural gas is cheap(inbetween US or Soviet wars) it'll probably be the core for hydrogen, however batteries won't help much in the north since the transmission rather than usage is the cap even with batteries so excess production could be redirected towards hydrogen production.