this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2026
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It's not as easy to ship electricity around as you might think. Electricity attenuates over distance, and when green sources are far from population centers, that effect is higher. To use electricity, you have to be physically tied to the power grid, or carry batteries. Those are heavy and require a bunch of heavy metals sourced from questionable places.
Hydrogen is more portable and transferable than electricity. It can be used for off-grid purposes, like vehicles and wherever you'd use propane now. And its efficiency compared to electricity doesn't really matter if you're producing it using waste voltage from surplus.
Both have their places. Converting away from fossil fuels isnt going to have a monolithic solution.
That's a good valid point for it. For such extreme edge use cases this would make sense.
I'm pretty sure transporting energy over a long distance power transmission over extreme distances like between eg Portugal or South Africa and eg China or the far tip of Russia is more energy and cost efficient than transporting hydrogen. So hydrogen only wins when the target location actually needs hydrogen, not when they need electricity. But I argue that the majority of power demand would be of electric nature.
Exactly.