They could also possibly be used as power plants for disaster areas.

At last! A H2-based fuel cell application that actualy makes sense (probably). Combined with 'Wingsail' technolgy (with the 'sails' covered in thin film PV to boot), you could really have a practical - but ecologically sound - alternative to ocean traversing bunker-oil-fuelled cargo ships. Or we improve cross-continental rail services massively. But that's a *lot* of extra trains and the railways to carry them - and you are still stuck with a lot of trains running on diesel and at getting between continents where it's ships (or planes/rockets) or nothing.

Encouraging, within its limitations. I believe the ultimate answer (in maybe 10 yrs) is Gen 4 Molten Salt reactors, fail-safe & economical, over their lifetime.

And there aren't a whole lot of ports where these behemoths dock, so the question of rolling out fueling intrastructure everywhere isn't a big deal. I wonder how much cargo capacity you would have to forgo to make long-distance travel feasible. Somehow with that prediction of $600 trillion in economic losses over the next 80 years, a few percent inefficiency doesn't seem like as big a deal.

"It's going to take several generations of battery development to enable long-range electric shipping operations," of course it will but if we never get it started, it will never fulfill the promises.

IMHO, using hydrogen as fuel for any kind of land/air/sea vehicle is extremely bad idea! Because any leak/rupture of a hydrogen fuel tank could easily cause a massive explosion (not just a fire)! Hydrogen is no ordinary fuel! & just imagine, if a container ship exploded like a giant bomb!

Fears of a "hydrogen bomb" are not justified. H2 can be safely handled with known technology- as the H2indenberg Society has shown.

My complaint is that people keep thinking of H2 as a fuel- it is not. That said, H2 does not exist in a usable form on Planet Earth, it must be made via electricity or radiation, with the associated fuel costs and efficiency losses. H2 is only an energy storage system.

Any program that is cost effective but not controlled and a monopolistic income earner for one of the cartels does not stand a chance.
This is evident from the 'on board, on demand' Hydrogen fuelling system used by Aeroflot for twelve years prior to the breakup of the USSR!!!!
This is the prime hindrance.

Cool little article. But you don't have to say hydrogen energy has "difficulties with storage, transport and inefficient generation" unless you're a Big Oil guy, because that simply isn't true. Hydrogen generation through electrolysis is easy and more efficient than extracting crude oil and refining it.

Any program that is cost effective but not controlled by a monopolistic income earner for one of the cartels does not stand a chance. This is evident from the 'on board, on demand' Hydrogen fuelling system used by Aeroflot for twelve years prior to the breakup of the USSR!!!! This is the prime hindrance.