Today's future energy storage idea...

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Well, working in a coal fire climate change facility, converting coal to electricity at less than 50% efficiency makes any "electricity to hydrogen" deal look dodgy.

Some (Oz) scientists came up with a photovoltaic "brick" that would take solar power, generate the requisite charge, and produce a (mixed) gas that could be separated and stored.

inefficient as heck, but not added to the inefficiencies of a thermal generator.
 
There's the unavoidable energy loss when singlet H, made by electrolysis, reverts to H2. Even if you get 96%, the fuel cells are only good for 60%, and then you have to store the H2 somewhere, which involves compression or absorption/desorption, which uses more energy.

The rechargeable battery is the way to go, since it combines hydrogen creation, storage, and fuel cell functions in one unit with no moving parts.
 
Of course there is energy loss in all processes.

All things have their tradeoffs... the battery in this application implies that you have to drive it around, each one of us schlepping 1000 pounds of battery is of course inefficient. The batteries are already Lithium-Ion, which means that they're as light as they're going to get without a major breakthrough.

I've seen and inspected the chassis of a vehicle that went 300 miles on hydrogen. Yes there are tanks for the hydrogen and there is a fuel cell. The fuel cell is relatively small, not a major weight factor.

Yes, many tradeoffs, but engineering is a discipline of analysis of tradeoffs. I still say that 96% efficiency, electricity to hydrogen has the potential to change the game. But this isn't an exhaustive analysis of the tradeoffs......
 
The most compact way to store hydrogen is in hydrocarbons, especially iso-octane. It would be really neat if someone can find a way to concentrate atmospheric CO2 and react it with hydrogen in a way that puts out hydrocarbons and oxygen at a cost that's less than all the storage technologies that would be needed for the gas.
 
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