Nothing new about electrolytic hydrogen

First Posted: 2020.07.31, Last Revised: 2020.07.31, Author: Tom Brown

Original Twitter post

Carbon Brief Q&A that embedded the post

Despite the current hype, there's nothing new about electrolytic hydrogen.

100 MW electrolysers since late 1920s for fertiliser and heavy water
100 GWh salt cavern storage since 1960s
4500 km hydrogen pipelines today

What was missing was abundant low cost power.

Figure 1: NEL's Rjukan electrolysers from the 1920s

From 1920s-1970s, 100+ MW water electrolysers were built across world to meet demand for ammonia for fertiliser.

Prerequisite: cheap power from hydro dams.

All were dismantled as other power demand grew and fossil gas became available to make ammonia.

Figure 2: Large electrolysers built in the past (Electrode Processes and Electrochemical Engineering, Fumio Hine, 1985)

Electrolysis was also the means of making heavy water (D2O), a neutron moderator, from its discovery in the 1930s until the GS process replaced it in the mid-1940s.

Heavy water was crucial for making the atomic bomb.

This made electrolysis of great military importance in WWII.

Figure 3: Rjukan in the 1930s

History buffs can read more about the US heavy water production program here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-9_Project

and about Allied attacks on the Norwegian heavy water plant when it was under Nazi occupation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_heavy_water_sabotage