Even if you assume ample clean electrical energy as a given, breaking up hydrocarbons is still the easiest way to get hydrogen.
Together, solar/wind/nuclear/hydro produce about a third of all the world's electrical generation. Despite this, only 4% of hydrogen production in 2020 used electrolysis; 95% was produced from fossil fuels.
Deceptive? I'm comparing sources of hydrogen that don't produce CO2, to those that do. The supply of carbon neutral electrical power far surpasses the supply of carbon neutral hydrogen power. It's not even close.
I don't know why you're bringing Germany specifically into this (misdirection? deception?) The overwhelming majority of hydrogen production comes from fossil fuels no matter what country you look at. If you replaced all the nuclear and hydro in the world with solar power, most hydrogen production would still be coming from hydrocarbons. Germany produces about 10% of their electrical energy with solar power, so do you think they produce 10% of their hydrogen with solar powered electrolysis? Hell no they don't.
Electricity -> hydrogen sucks even if you have a 100% solar grid. "Green hydrogen" cannot compete with batteries. Hydrogen only looks kinda okay relative to batteries if you're getting the hydrogen cheap by breaking apart hydrocarbons instead of water (aka "gray hydrogen"), and even then it sucks and has gotten out competed.
That's simply not relevant. Exclude nuclear from my above comment, consider only solar and it makes no difference. Using any kind of electricity, solar or otherwise, to split water to get hydrogen is not competitive with steam reforming of hydrocarbons and it certainly isn't competitive with batteries. The most economically efficient way to get hydrogen is to get it from hydrocarbons, and even that is not competitive with batteries.
> Green hydrogen produced by the electrolysis of water is less than 0.1% of total hydrogen production.
This is not the way it's done, and it's not because we don't have enough solar panels. It's because electrolysis sucks. Hypothesize a country where 100% of the grid is run off solar if you want to, "green hydrogen" is still dead on arrival.
That’s 1.7% of the worlds population, which is definitely a solid representation of the world.
Just as an aside, there is this little known country: China, it has 47 active nuclear power plants with ~10 more under construction and 15-20 more in the planning stage. But maybe they haven’t heard about Germany and California!
> Dams are now being removed at a rate of more than one a week on both sides of the Atlantic.
> The building of dams in Europe and the US reached a peak in the 1960s and has been in decline since then, with more now being dismantled than installed.
A major reason why:
> Many large-scale hydropower projects in Europe and the US have been disastrous for the environment.
Interesting, thanks. Hadn't heard about any plans to phase out hydro here in Germany. I knew we didn't build new ones (for the reason you've stated + at some point there's not enough space left), but don't remember any discussions to remove existing ones.
Together, solar/wind/nuclear/hydro produce about a third of all the world's electrical generation. Despite this, only 4% of hydrogen production in 2020 used electrolysis; 95% was produced from fossil fuels.