Nolan most of what you say is basically true but I think needs to be put in more perspective. To address your comment on water vapour.
(1) the sun exports entropy in the form of radiant energy (short wave) to the earth, the earth is an open system so it exports its entropy to the universe as long wave . The universe as a whole is a closed system entropy cannot go anywhere else so it builds up until eventually we see the demise of the universe in about 5 billion years .
The earth's entropy is being trapped by green house gas build up and reradiated back to the earth building entropy in the form of heat on the earth, eventually it is radiated back and some escapes but the build up of earth's heating continues. The earth has been denuded of vegetation, like grasses and forest. Poor agricultural practice, burning fossil fuels etc. allows more and more carbon to cycle back to the atmosphere in the form of CO2, a large amount is dissolved in the oceans as well, bare earth absorbs high amounts of heat reaching high temperatures that affect the life in the soil and its ability to feed plant life through the roots, increasing evaporation and reducing soil moisture, enhancing drought.
Water vapour surrounding the earth traps the dust and pollution from industry and agriculture and other activities, that enhance dust storms, and adds to the greenhouse effect quite profoundly, the water vapour's ability to form rain bearing clouds is reduced and cirrus type clouds prevail, the cirrus cloud still allows radiant heat to reach the earth surface adding to the problem.
The enhancement of trees and grassland as pasture on the billions of hectares of denuded earth introduces transpiration and latent heat of evaporation which radiates more heat as entropy back to the atmosphere than just refection, it releases pseudomonas bacteria back into the water vapour seeding it, creating rain bearing cloud, this cloud also reduces radiation from the sun reaching the earth and cooling the earth. The increased vegetation increases photosynthesis and ultimately through the action of soil microbiota carbon builds in the soil, quite rapidly if managed properly. The higher carbon in the soil takes emitted carbon and legacy carbon from the atmosphere and sequesters it in the soil, this acts like a sponge, absorbs water allowing transpiration to take place, improving the cycle, and relieves drought or dry conditions, heat and the greenhouse effect. the intense rainfall situations that occur are also mitigated.
For every 10 grams of carbon in the soil we get 1gram of Nitrogen naturally occurring, the Mycorrhizal soil fungi feed the plants with minerals and certain bacteria trap nitrogen from the air feeding the plants that create more photosynthesis making more nutrients feeding animals and allow humans in turn to feed on animals and plants.
if we have renewable energy we reduce emissions and with regenerative agriculture we sequester carbon increase productive rainfall and food production and create cooling on the planet.
To address the second part of your post The green hydrogen is produced from the renewables, it carries the energy that the renewables produce from solar and wind they are the source of energy the hydrogen is the carrier. So we need extensive renewable infrastructure to get extensive green hydrogen.Lithium ion batteries are more efficient than hydrogen and are more conducive to light transport like cars. The lithium is a carrier of energy it need the renewables as a source as well as the hydrogen.
The green hydrogen is more suited to green steel manufacture and can be used for electricity as well and large heavy transport. Its difficult to transport via pipes or ships, but this is being addressed by industry. The major energy providers and steel manufacturers realise that innovation and forward thinking is needed to do these things. green steel is coming of age.
Andrew Forrest realises that Pilbara iron ore needs to be able to be converted into DRI ore by green hydrogen if it is going to remain a major supplier in the future, at the moment it is too low grade, but he says he has found a way to do it, hence his increasing involvement in all aspects of green hydrogen production. Sorry about the long winded response.
Expand
(20min delay)