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If nuclear energy causes such a toxic effect to our environment, then why do we shy away from hydrogen?

I understand that hydrogen is extremely volatile. To my understanding, hydrogen gives off little to no harmful byproducts versus nuclear material.

At this point we are now dealing with nuclear waste and a half life of some of these products is 16 million years?

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    $\begingroup$ I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is not a question about physics $\endgroup$
    – John Rennie
    Commented Dec 12, 2016 at 17:29

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The contrast of "hydrogen vs. nuclear energy," or hydrogen "versus" any other energy source, doesn't make sense because hydrogen is not a source of energy. Rather, it's an energy storage medium. To use hydrogen for energy applications requires obtaining free hydrogen, typically from electrolysis of water (i.e. separation of H$_2$O into H's and O's). This separation requires energy, which might come from fossil fuels, nuclear power, solar power -- whatever. One can't simply say "let's use hydrogen" without stating where that energy will come from.

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  • $\begingroup$ Agreed, and to further help illustrate your point, the nuclear energy was trapped in the heavy nuclides many eons ago by some supernova explosion. So even nuclear energy is an energy storage medium. The advantage is the process of storing the nuclear energy was done long ago, not by humans, and does not cost us as much to harvest it other than the cost of cleaning up a mess when things go awry. $\endgroup$
    – docscience
    Commented Dec 11, 2016 at 19:33
  • $\begingroup$ @docscience: yes, good point. Strictly speaking, since energy is fundamentally conserved, every energy "source" is an energy storage medium. It is convenient, however, to make the distinction, as you write, between storage that we have to do and storage that occurred "for free" long ago or through some naturally occurring process. $\endgroup$
    – Raghu Parthasarathy
    Commented Dec 11, 2016 at 20:41
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In addition to hydrogen being an energy storage medium, and not an energy source, it has other problems. Because hydrogen is the lightest element, it is difficult to get a substantial mass of it into a confined space. In order to carry enough hydrogen in an automobile fuel tank to get "reasonable" range, the hydrogen currently has to be compressed to very high pressures, which requires a lot of energy. In addition, the hydrogen molecules, being small, are difficult to handle from a materials-handling perspective, as the molecules tend to migrate into metal and cause hydrogen embrittlement, which can be a HUGE problem if you want to store hydrogen in your automobile fuel tank at dozens or hundreds of atmospheres. In addition, hydrogen is quite explosive when it is mixed with air, so any leaks in confined spaces will definitely lead to uncontained explosions. There are probably other problems associated with hydrogen, but just for the problems mentioned here, the impracticality and product safety aspects of putting hydrogen into automobiles is currently preventing such a technology from being adopted for public transportation.

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  • $\begingroup$ One of the best ways to store hydrogen for vehicle purposes, without requiring dangerously high pressures, is to attach the hydrogen atoms to a "skeleton" of 6 to 10 carbon atoms to form a liquid substance known commonly as" gasoline"... $\endgroup$
    – DJohnM
    Commented Dec 12, 2016 at 2:18
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I guess the first, most pertinent point is - what method of hydrogen energy production are you talking about? It seems like you're talking about hydrogen for vehicles vs nuclear which is applied to the power grid currently... this is totally incompatible for comparison as it's small vs large scale.

If you're comparing both at the large scale, the only use I know of for hydrogen power production of this magnitude is fusion - which is by definition nuclear. The actual comparison is fission (current) vs fusion (future). It is like comparing black and white (as shades).

If you're comparing small scale, there's no current method I know of using any "nuclear" technology.

Either way, you can't compare the volatility, pros and cons of "nuclear vs hydrogen" without being more specific as to the particular methods.

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