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Originally Posted by photon
Lol that's awesome, though the inefficiencies make me cringe, my instinct tells me that it would take more energy to do that than simply transporting the water out there, but I don't know the kind of energy it takes to move something through a pipeline.
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Bernoulli's equation... its all about pressure differential. You need to overcome the friction losses, as well as any sort of elevation change that exists between the inlet and the delivery point.
Hydrogen gas would likely be compressed to a high pressure (potentially even to the state of being liquified) and then put into the line. The issue with hydrogen at high pressures is that it tends to cause steel to fail at a faster rate, so the material selection of the pipeline would be important.
I agree that the application is pretty specific... I'm thinking that it would be a coastal application. The process would use tide driven turbines to generate the electricity required to hydrolise highly saline water. The hydrogen, oxygen, salt and excess electricity (if any) would be the outputs. Hydrogen would likely go to pipeline/tank, oxygen to tank, salt to truck/waste, electricity to process/grid.
The hydrogen could then be used as a means to support an important yet somewhat remote population centre... you'd be getting water and electricity utility out there with a single pipeline, all being driven by tidal power.
Its kinda fun to think about, but you're right. I haven't put the pen to paper to look at how the energy is being distributed. The reality is that you're probably better off using the tidal power to run a desalinization plant and then pipelining the water directly to the remote site.
I am purely dreaming about applications of 'renewables'... I think its important to do this until humanity can settle on an energy mix that works.