![]() It can be transported via pipelines or ships, just like liquified natural gas. But hydrogen has a lot more potential than that. Hydrogen can also be used as a fuel. (If you didn’t read our missive on fertilizers, click here ). Today, hydrogen is largely used for industrial purposes, either in oil refining or the production of ammonia fertilizers. Much is made of China’s dominance in the global market for rare earth elements – analysts tend to forget China built that dominance by toxifying its land for the next 50-100 years to do so. (Cobalt is in the lithium-ion battery that powers your smart phone.) Most are surprised when they find out that mining cobalt in the DRC is bad for the environment and involves large-scale child labor, as many as 40,000 children, some as young as six years. In 2020, the Democratic Republic of Congo accounted for 83.3 percent global cobalt ore exports. The downside to batteries is trading a few risky supply chains for fossil fuels for a lot more and riskier supply chains with environmental consequences arguably just as bad. Without batteries, you can build all the solar and wind capacity in the world you want, but if you don’t have a way to store, transport, and use that energy as needed, you won’t achieve electrification and/or decarbonization. Much of the current thinking about the future of renewable energy is that for renewables to fulfill their promise, battery technology must advance to the point where your Tesla can hold enough of a charge to get you as far as a tank of gas – and that you’re bound to find a recharging station for your battery somewhere along the way. They can be extracted cheaply and transported where necessary (or to be more precise, wherever someone is willing to pay for them). Hydrocarbons became the dominant fuel of the modern economy because the energy stored in them can power cars, factories, and networks. The problem with renewables like solar and wind is that sunshine and wind gusts aren’t, in and of themselves, a fuel source – nor are they constantly and readily available. The bias embedded within our focus thus far has been toward batteries as the key to capitalizing on the potential of renewable energy. The more transparent you can be about your biases, the better the chance you’ll be able to overcome them and see with a truly strategic perspective. (In the immortal words of Rustin Cohle, everybody judges – all the time – and if you have a problem with that, you’re livin’ wrong.) The trouble with biases is when you try to sweep them under the rug and pretend like you’ve achieved a higher plane of perfect objectivity. (If, for instance, you missed previous installments on the future of nuclear power and on the fundamentals behind rising natural gas prices, click h ere or here for more.) We have also taken a deeper look at many of the commodities crucial to cutting-edge battery technology, like cobalt and nickel, for example. ![]() With the above sentiment in mind, we turn our attention, this week, to the role hydrogen will play in the global production of energy in the future.īefore we can deal with hydrogen directly, however, let’s recap the path we’ve taken. Thus far in our commodity series, we have focused primarily on commodities tied to energy production. ” – Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon But he really is not he has only been born with the ability to learn in a quicker ratio to the passage of time than other and without conscious application, and with an intelligence to accept or reject what is already presented as knowledge. A great enough writer seems to be born with knowledge. “ A good writer should know as near to everything as possible.
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