The problem with LOHC is that it releases a lot of heat, 9 kWh per kg of H2, at the site of production which is energy rich, and requires input of 12 kWh per kg of H2 heat energy at the side of consumption, which is energy poor that may need this heat energy for local heating in winters.

A much better solution would be pipeline transport of H2, wherein the energy required to compress the H2 at the energy-rich site will be significantly recoverable at the side of consumption by the use of pressure recovery turbines. Germany can get a H2 pipeline from North Africa whereby H2 will be produced from solar PV and sea water, to transport to Germany, now that the Nord Stream pipelines were destroyed. Japan and Korea can get H2 pipeline from China going briefly under the sea. China can produce a lot of H2 from the desert areas in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Inner Mongolia to transport all around China via pipelines.
Compression energy from the compressed H2 on board vehicles can also be recoverable during consumption by the use of pressure recovery turbines.

Liquid H2 is more energy intensive and more expensive than compressed H2, and should be reserved for aviation wherein the extreme lightness of LH2 would give big advantage in payload and fuel consumption to more than offset the higher cost of making LH2.

Point is unless there is some fast and immediate innovation, the production of hydrogen will continue to be supplied by fossil fuels.
I hope for those here who so viciously advocate for H2, that the innovation to produce clean H2 will be a reality.

@Lad:

' those here who so viciously advocate for H2...'

:-0 :-0!!

We may occasionally point out that many of your arguments agin hydrogen are nonsensical, but that it hardly being 'vicious'

For instance your present notion that because most hydrogen is currently produced by reforming fossil fuels, that it fixed and immutable, and it is inconceivable that that could change.

Aside from the umpteen billions going in right now to build green hydrogen production chains, if your argument were valid it would have been impossible to switch to electric cars, as the vast majority of cars ever produced are ICE.

Thanks, Gryf for the info. Direct electro-reduction of Toluene is great if it costs less than and is more efficient than producing the H2 first and then hydrogenate the Toluene.
The disadvantage of LOHC for power generation is that it requires higher temperatures waste heat not available with current combined-cycle gas turbine power plants. Only single-cycle gas turbine power plant can be used, and this would really limit the efficiency.
Furthermore, a system for returning the depleted LOHC back to the generating source is another big disadvantage in comparison to the use of a single line natural gas piping to feed to the power plant. This natural gas piping can later transport H2 if and when green H2 will replace natural gas, so no major infrastructure change would be necessary with the use of green H2 directly. Using trucks to transport the LOHC to and from the power plants would be too costly and inefficient.

However, for surface transportation, the use of LOHC with combustion engines would overcome the public fear of compressed H2 and would be meet with easier acceptance, and perhaps with lower certification cost and maintenance cost for the fueling stations and fueling system due to no high-pressure involved and very low flammability of LOHC like di-benzyl-toluene, although the potential for leakage with ground contamination and cancer-causing potential will have to be dealt with.

@Lad:

I am completely on your side in arguing that sequestration etc is often used as a very poor cover story for the continued extraction of fossil fuels - 'cough' - Sunak - 'cough'

However, we should not throw out the baby with the bath water, and the underlying validity of technologies should not be assessed on the basis of the way that they are misused and misrepresented.

Whenever you can, of course you don't go through the energy losses, expense and hassle of converting electricity to hydrogen et al and back again, although that is becoming far more viable than your use of the present percentages of hydrogen from fossil fuels against green hydrogen indicates.

But the fact remains that many sectors are utterly impossible to decarbonise without the use of hydrogen etc, which is why it is being done.

Here is a just out analysis from the Royal Society of the need in the UK for truly massive amounts of hydrogen storage, to make it viable to run a grid on 100% renewables:

https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/low-carbon-energy-programme/large-scale-electricity-storage/

Alternatives are orders of magnitude too small, or much more expensive, they reckon; but hydrogen storage on the needed scale is wholly practical, according to their considerable expertise.

A few caveats from me, as I am far from a one-eyed hydrogen enthusiast as some seem to imagine:

The need for storage in most other places is lower, for instance in the US, as they are nearer the equator with less seasonal variability - it is wind, not solar, which really makes it dicey allowing against variability, although volcanic eruptions although rare woud certainly have a major impact.

And they assess against compressed air storage, when in my NVHO compressed carbon dioxide as being built right now by Energy Dome is way superior.

And perhaps to a presently undetermined degree natural hydrogen simply pumped from the ground will reduce the need for storage, and drastically reduce costs.
We don't know how exploitable or big the resource is, but so far, it is coming in at the top end of all the tests.

Evan with those caveats though, hydrogen including storage as an energy vector will play a major, major role.

It ain't a fight against batteries, but another weapon in decarbonisation, which can reach the places batteries can't.