Hydrogen Energy Researcher Spends Career Exploring Dead Ends
Follow the increasingly lonely and isolated life of a researcher who committed to hydrogen for energy two decades ago
It’s trivially easy to be snared by hydrogen for energy. Then it’s easy to start solving the problems of hydrogen for energy. Then it’s easy to wave away a problem set of hydrogen for energy as not your concern. And then solve more of the problems for energy. And wave away another group of problems as something someone else will solve. And then solve yet another problem with hydrogen for energy.
And then you are at the bottom of one of many slippery slopes in the domain of hydrogen as an energy carrier and have no idea how you got there or how to get out. Your heart is still in the right place, working toward a solution for climate change, but your mind and likely money, career, firm and quite probably stock price are stuck down a rabbit hole of your own devising which is currently hindering climate action.
Let’s start this journey in a 6th or 7th grade classroom. Proto-men and -women are gathered around lab benches in schools. They have water and electricity. And they make hydrogen. They prove that they do by burning it. This is an experiment that can be conducted with a cup of water and a 9V…
