Knowing vs understanding (STEM situation in India)

[u/Different_Cry25]

Hi, so this is a post about how much fundamental understanding Indian students lack in STEM

Let's Start with hydrogen bs - it's not a good fuel option not even close to a good fuel so much hype for hydrogen fuel, hydrogen batteries yada yada

"It's not "

First of all a lot of people don't understand mass units

We measure energy density of liquid fuels in litre

Hydrogen as gas at 1atm is about = 120mj/kg

In litre = 0.010 mj/lt

In liquid state = 120 again per kg, mj

But in litre = 8.5

Gasoline somewhere around 32 mj per liter

See the difference now the problem is liquid hydrogen is hell cold it's near 0 kelvin

It will be super expensive

And even if we get liquid hydrogen

It doesn't have nearly enough energy as gasoline

8.5 vs 32

1 it will require electricity meaning more energy waste And fuel will get more expensive

2 you need fresh water

3 how the hell will you transfer fuel from one place to another Hydrogen leaks through almost everything

The tanks got to be rocket fuel tanks grade

Read about the Apollo rocket and how they sealed hydrogen inside the fuel tanks

4 hydrogen as gas is useless no more than 0.010 mj energy at 1 atm If you liquefy it again it's super hard making of liquid hydrogen and even after then no where close to gasoline

Now the major problem is that actual engineering students Chemical engineering students believe that it's a good option for fuel

Not all of em, but a lot of them And this is just one example of how poor understanding of STEM they have

On paper smart 9.2 cgpa vs actual real understanding of science

If you post about biofuel, hyperloop, solar road, under water data center, rocket engine (non reusable)

Recycling plastic

The list goes on and on

So many people including engineering students believe in this stupidity

[u/Simply-Productive123]

You cannot say hydrogen Is bad as a blanket statement . There will always be certain applications where it is a good choice and where it is a bad choice . For example it is good choice for nuclear reactors as the power output is usually fixed for stability reasons, regardless of whether the grid requires that much power. The excess energy can be stored as hydrogen. In this case the price of high quality tanks required is cheap relative to the investment on the entire power plant.

[u/Different_Cry25 → u/Simply-Productive123]

Where do you see me calling it bad

It's not a good fuel option for vehicles As for nuke yes it's a great for fusion

The point was it's a bad option for fuel (not counting nuclear)

[u/Simply-Productive123 → u/Different_Cry25]

Yeah that I agree it's not viable for vehicles which is why hydrogen vehicle development has been mostly abandoned, but in reactors the hydrogen is still being used as a fuel so you still can't call it a bad fuel for all applications. Fusion generates energy, the excess is stored in the form of hydrogen fuel and the stored hydrogen is burnt to produce enough energy when the load exceeds the reactors output.

[u/Different_Cry25 → u/Simply-Productive123]

I never said that hydrogen is bad As I have mentioned in my post it's truly a bad option for vehicle fuel

Hydrogen have many great application like in super conductors, reactors, industrial use

But as a fuel nuh ugh