The usual objection made to the use of hydrogen especially in liquid form is efficiency, contrasted to batteries.

This objection is perfectly understandable from the historic perspective.

Renewables were a very small percentage of energy production, were a precious and scarce resource, and lower efficiency was often simply more fossil fuel burn by another route.

However, renewables are now, and will be increasingly, both cheap and abundant.

So instead of 'It is less efficient, case closed' the question should change if other benefits, less use of scarce or poisonous materials, or more convenience are possible.

Perhaps more like 'It is less efficient, so what?' ;-)

The energy penalty of liquifying hydrogen is theoretically something like 12% at the lowest, and currently at perhaps 30%.

Where energy is expensive, polluting, and scarce, that would be an overwhelming case against.

None of those are going to be the case.

Just as we don't have the minimum size house, even though they are more energy efficient, there is little or no reason to give up more convenient goods transport purely due to some energy penalty.

@yoatman:

We are at one in condemning and being utterly repulsed by the homicidal record of the fossil fuel industry, enabled by venal bought politicians, and a can't be bothered public.

Even so, it is simply invalid to write off technologies simply due to guilt by assosciation.

It is a wicked world, and we have to deal with it the way it is, and try to mitigate the ill effects.

As for cost, if it don't work out for that, it ain't gonna happen.

My view is that it should come in at an acceptable cost, and that it is the only realistic way of getting the power about without digging half of Europe up to lay cables, which is simply not going to happen, and we will keep missing targets for transmission just as we are at the moment until we have a realistic view of that.

GdB

Yep, and the grid is more reliable if the cables are installed underground.
Unfortunately it is way, way more expensive, which is why there are so many pylons:

https://nation.cymru/news/energy-firm-at-centre-of-pylons-row-claims-putting-cables-underground-would-cost-up-to-10-times-more/

'A controversial plan to connect energy produced from onshore wind to the National Grid via a network of pylons running through some of Wales’ most attractive countryside would cost between six and 10 times as much if it was transported underground, according to the company behind the scheme.'

Here is an overview of grid connection hassles:

https://www.ft.com/content/a3be0c1a-15df-4970-810a-8b958608ca0f

'In the UK, Spain and Italy more than 150GW of wind and solar projects are stuck in grid connection queues in each country, according to figures from BloombergNEF.'

They also have a graph showing overground and underground cabling, with the latter a fraction of the former.

Enthusiasts usually talk in terms of 'streamlining applications' by which they mean driving pylons though regardless of destruction of the countryside, or how much people object.

The underground alternative is far too expensive to be in the debate, save for limited stretches.

In contrast most of the energy for heating etc in the UK is currently transported as natural gas, which could be converted to carry hydrogen, albeit at a lower capacity for the equivalent pipeline to NG, but probably just about right as solar, better insulation etc means that not so much will be needed.

There is much talk about the inefficiency of hydrogen boilers, but a deafening silence on the massive efficiency of home fuel cells, which can utilise the heat from electricity generation for hot water right on the spot where it is needed giving an electrical plus thermal efficiency of 90% plus. There are hundreds of thousands operating right now in Japan.

As for the supposed 'impossibility' of transporting those tricky little hydrogen molecules through pipelines, not only was the grid when I was a boy transporting coal gas, which was around 50% hydrogen before its conversion to NG, but for instance:

https://triton-hydrogen.com/introducing-tritonex/

' Hydrogen Barrier Efficiency: Tritonex establishes a complete isolation barrier between hydrogen gas and other surfaces, effectively preventing penetration. It has passed the ISO 17081:2014 Hydrogen permeation test standard with 0.000% penetration of the hydrogen.
Ease of Application: The coating can be easily applied without necessitating any modifications to existing infrastructure, streamlining the implementation process.'

And there are other solutions.

It should be noted that for decades we have had hundreds of kilometers of hydrogen pipes.

@yoatman:

I thought I would also note that although the fossil fuel firms are quite as black as you paint them, the renewables energy folk are grey, not shining white!

That is not to indicate that notions of moral equivalence: 'they are all as bad as each other' are valid or anything other than a cover, as they ain't.

But it does mean that unfortunately we have to distinguish finer shades, and total opposition or support for whatever is not too clever.

That is pretty much the nature of capitalism, for as Adam Smith remarked"

' “People of the same trade seldom meet together, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some diversion to raise prices.”

This unfortunately applies also to folk in renewables.

Many years ago I did a blog on wind turbines in the North sea, where to put it bluntly cost projections were absolute tosh, and cost way more, mostly because they had simply assumed maintenance to cost the same as on land, which at the time was ridiculous.

It is very true that since then costs etc have dropped drastically, and maybe the extra costs were a price worth paying to develop the technology.

Just the same, they were quite deliberately misrepresenting and misleading.

That is relevant to the present discussion as in the case of transmision cables the drive is to try to land the expence on someone else, both through demanding construction at 'Goverment' expence, ie other people and doing construction with utter disregard for ruining the landscape as it is cheaper.

Unsurprising self interest also explains why they disregard repurposing NG pipelines, as that would knock a major hole in funds they hope to be given to build transmission lines.

That is why there is so much talk about inefficient hydrogen boilers, and radar silence on massively efficient home heat pumps, which potentially can counteract much of the comparative inefficiency of of turning electricity in the North sea into hydrogen.

Absolutely none of that should be taken as any sort of attempt at moral equivalency with the massive misdeeds of the fossil fuel industry, but a recognition that we are dealing with imperfect people and institutions under extreme pressure to cover up anything which may be detrimental to promoting their proposed solutions.

So for me at least I have to try to look at things on a case by case basis, to try to reach any sort of rational assessment, rather than adopting position 'from first principles' and absolutely opposing anything which is associated with the fossil fuel industry.

@Yoatman:

I have provided figures from sourced links showing to the contrary, over long distances especially.
As for storage, batteries are fine for up to around 4 hours, but are way, way off being able to handle longer periods, for instance overnight to enable round the clock usage of solar.
I personally support compressed CO2 for overnight, which would enable much higher rates of cheap storage for overnight in most of the world where solar is relatively constant.
That would not do the job fully in northerly locations like the UK however, and for long term storage hydrogen and derivatives such as methanol are the only practical solution.

Once again, you are making blanket entirely sweeping statements when the reality is:
'It depends'

In this case on how far, and for how long.

yoatman:

Your remarks would seem to apply equally to the existing NG pipeline grid being repurposed to carry hydrogen rather than relying on still questionable technology for running on all electric.

Way cheaper than forcing through umpteen connectors for electricity from renewables locations.

From the UK perspective let me assure you that the Scots and Welsh are never going to allow their countries to be desecrated to the extent necessary to provide power to England, and this Englishman is in total agreement with them.

The grid build in Europe is simply not happening, nor will it.
See above links.