Having read Rep. Peter Abbarno’s gushing endorsement of hydrogen as “the clean energy transition” fuel as well as Economic Alliance of Lewis County Director Richard DeBolt’s lobbying for the Fortescue hydrogen plant in our county, I’m left to wonder whether Abbarno or DeBolt ever took physics or paid attention to the looming electric power shortage we have in out state.
The production of hydrogen uses more energy than it produces despite some politicians having swallowed the Kool-Aid promoting hydrogen as a perpetual fuel.
Here are some simple and easy to understand facts: Hydrogen production is a wasteful use of electric energy. One hundred units of electric energy are needed to produce about 70 units of potential hydrogen energy. That’s an immediate 30 percent loss. I say potential hydrogen energy because in the real world, current fuel cells using hydrogen are even more inefficient, reducing the conversion of electric energy to usable power to about 40 percent, a 60 percent loss. Only politicians and fools would use electric energy this way, but perhaps I am being redundant.
If hydrogen is the fuel of the future, you would think private investors would be lining up to get in on the “next big thing.” Instead, it is taxpayers being asked to fund up to $1 billion to build a hydrogen production plant in Lewis County using hydroelectric power, which is such short supply that we muse now plan for potential brownouts and then give the plant to an Australian company whose major business is in Asia. Say what?
It is not surprising that Lewis County is the target of hydrogen promotion. We seem to have political and economic leaders who either have conflicts of interest or utter lack of knowledge needed to make energy decisions in our best interest.
If hydrogen is the “next big thing,” let’s see private companies and investors put their money where their mouths are rather than putting their hands in taxpayers’ pockets. Ever wonder why the liberals in Seattle are not offering their water and electricity for this project? Maybe they are not as dumb as we often think they are.
Rodney Crocker
Toledo
