Hydrogen Economy Could Make It Rain More
Not long ago, we were surprised by a piece of news on the science dissemination channel “Hope!” It stated that increasing forest mass (planting trees) would increase rainfall in that area due to the increase in humidity. They called it the short water cycle, produced by the water vapor released by leaves. If you want to see the news, click here.
The news (in the form of a short video) seemed so interesting to us that we wanted to read more about the topic and see what analogies there might be with the water vapor generated in new hydrogen technologies.
In our research, we found some very interesting things. The key to the cycle is water evaporation. Liquid water evaporates, rises, and when it cools, it falls in the form of precipitation (yes, yes, this is nothing new, all your kids are learning it in science class, but the next part, you might not know, so pay attention).
- Only 10% of evaporated seawater reaches land and precipitates. The sea and oceans are where most water evaporates, but they are also where most rainfall occurs.
- The average time a water molecule stays suspended in the air is 10 days from when it evaporated. After this time, it falls as rain or snow.
All of this makes us think that if hydrogen vehicles are widely adopted, rainfall will increase since we will be increasing water vapor in land areas.
If we take Spain’s current vehicle fleet here, 32,567,996 vehicles, and assume hydrogen is adopted in 10% of that number, and assume all are cars (average mileage of 15,000 km/year and a consumption of 1 kg of H2/100 km), we get nearly 4.4 million cubic meters of water vapor emitted into the atmosphere over our territory.
We don’t know if this will actually make it rain more, but as we say around here, “it sure looks like it!” If this seems interesting to you and you want to contribute, write to us.
If you’ve made it this far, hold on because there’s still more to learn. We want you to know that at Lean Hydrogen, we can help you with your hydrogen project. We are a consulting and engineering firm specializing in hydrogen production projects through electrolysis, injection into natural gas (blending), and mobility (hydrogen refueling stations).
Visit our blog “Lean Hydrogen” for more interesting content about this gas: https://leanhydrogen.whdev.es/blog/
Photo by Kaique Rocha: https://www.pexels.com/es-es/foto/rocio-de-agua-en-el-panel-de-vidrio-transparente-125510/
