Tesla CEO Elon Musk is well known for his hatred of hydrogen, having expressed his strong opinions on the matter several times. In a recent interview with Financial Times, Musk reiterated his skepticism about hydrogen’s role in a more sustainable future. In his strongest words yet, Musk said hydrogen is “the most dumb thing I could possibly imagine for energy storage.”
As many times before, during various interviews, Musk has been asked by the FT reporter if he thought hydrogen had a role to play in accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels.
As you can see, Musk talks about hydrogen as energy storage specifically because you need to spend energy to get hydrogen. It’s not exactly like storing that energy into hydrogen, as you do with batteries, but it’s close. Despite that, hydrogen is easier to store for long periods and fairly easy to transport over long distances, so it can work as a means of energy storage better than Li-Ion batteries.
As long as it’s produced from renewable sources using green energy, hydrogen can be great for replacing fossil fuels like natural gas. It can also be considered an “energy carrier,” as it can be used to transport the energy obtained from renewables over long distances. As for hydrogen’s use to power vehicles, either in fuel cells or in combustion engines, we have to give Elon Musk some credit.
Extracted from Auto Evolution