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I think the article's issues with hydrogen as a small-vehicle fuel have mostly been borne out -- one thing that seems to have happened since 2007 is that batter

I think the article's issues with hydrogen as a small-vehicle fuel have mostly been borne out -- one thing that seems to have happened since 2007 is that battery technology has gotten a lot better, and electric cars are proving to be a practical solution for a lot of use-cases. But the article seem to condemn Hydrogen as any part of any zero-carbon economy because of this, as though any energy medium unsuitable for cars is automatically disqualified entirely from the green economy. I can imagine other use-cases where Hydrogen actually works well. In large vehicles, for example, where a heavy reinforced tank isn't as much of a liability, like maybe a locomotive. The use of hydrogen as an energy-storage medium for large stationary power plants also seems reasonable, maybe a solar power plant could split water when sunlight is abundant, and recombine it in the fuel-cell when energy-demand is high, using hydrogen storage to bridge the gap. Or, similarly, a nuclear plant could split water at an efficient, steady "base-load" rate, and recombine it at different rates to match demand. Viewed as an industrial-scale energy-storage medium, it makes more sense. It still has to compete with other industrial-scale energy storage media, but it's a very different landscape from vehicle fuels.

pfdietz 7y ago
Hydrogen storage in underground caverns is not only feasible, it's actually practiced in several places around the world. Hydrogen's place is for rare times when renewables or short term storage can't do it. This is the last 10-20% of the electrical power market, the part nuclear fans seem to harp on (even though nuclear would be terrible for filling it also.) For such rare uses fuel cells would be inappropriate; gas turbines would be better (even if the round trip efficiency were lousy.)
- lazyguy 7y ago
  Hydrogen is only useful as 'short term storage' of energy. So whether or not Hydrogen is useful really boils down to whether or not hydrogen is a superior source of energy storage versus Lithium batteries, compressed air, flywheels or whatever. > This is the last 10-20% of the electrical power market It's not the 'last 10-20% of the electrical power market'. What renewables like solar and wind can't cover, without effective energy storage, is 100% of the power requirements 30-40% of the time. Solar only works when the sun is shining. Wind mills only work when the wind is blowing at a appropriate speed. Unless you produce a massive excess of energy and then store it somewhere then neither of these two technologies can ever replace traditional power generation. The best you can can achieve otherwise is to have solar power during the bright hours of the day and then massive number of natural gas turbines to pick up the slack the rest of the time. Traditional power generation plants are a poor match with renewable because they can't vary their output quick enough to match the wildly variable capacity of solar and wind. So the important part of the question is whether or not hydrogen is a useful mechanism to store the energy. And so far it has not been.
  - kortex 7y ago
    My take on energy storage is this: Ultimately, hydrogen is more scalable than almost any other energy storage method, save sodium/air batteries (if we can figure that out) and using electric vehicles as batteries (dependent on consumer behavior to scale). - lithium has scarcity issues which will only get worse with electric vehicles - liquid batteries likewise require some more rarer elements, corrosive enough to require - underground storage (of air pressure, CO2, etc) requires caverns/mines on site - pumped hydro has even tighter site constraints - biofuel/synfuel is decent for mid-to-long term storage, but slow to generate - flywheel has energy density issues Hydrogen, your main limits are basically steel for tanks, and some rare metals in catalytic amounts. There hasn't been enough incentive in energy storage deployment to push the scaling up and costs down. But I think we are closest to an "embarrassingly parallel" deployment of hydrogen as energy storage.
    - pfdietz 7y ago
      Lithium comprises only a very small fraction of the mass of Li-ion batteries. The resource constraints are on other elements, like cobalt, used in the electrodes. Lithium could become much more expensive without greatly affecting the economics of Li-ion batteries.
  - pfdietz 7y ago
    "Hydrogen is only useful as 'short term storage' of energy." This is exactly backwards. It is only useful for long term storage. For short term storage, other alternatives would more efficient and economically superior. Hydrogen's advantage is that huge quantities of it can be stored underground, at very low cost. Hydrogen can act as a literal rainy day energy fund, and to smooth over seasonal differences in energy production and use.

pfdietz 7y ago

Hydrogen storage in underground caverns is not only feasible, it's actually practiced in several places around the world. Hydrogen's place is for rare times when renewables or short term storage can't do it. This is the last 10-20% of the electrical power market, the part nuclear fans seem to harp on (even though nuclear would be terrible for filling it also.) For such rare uses fuel cells would be inappropriate; gas turbines would be better (even if the round trip efficiency were lousy.)

lazyguy 7y ago
Hydrogen is only useful as 'short term storage' of energy. So whether or not Hydrogen is useful really boils down to whether or not hydrogen is a superior source of energy storage versus Lithium batteries, compressed air, flywheels or whatever. > This is the last 10-20% of the electrical power market It's not the 'last 10-20% of the electrical power market'. What renewables like solar and wind can't cover, without effective energy storage, is 100% of the power requirements 30-40% of the time. Solar only works when the sun is shining. Wind mills only work when the wind is blowing at a appropriate speed. Unless you produce a massive excess of energy and then store it somewhere then neither of these two technologies can ever replace traditional power generation. The best you can can achieve otherwise is to have solar power during the bright hours of the day and then massive number of natural gas turbines to pick up the slack the rest of the time. Traditional power generation plants are a poor match with renewable because they can't vary their output quick enough to match the wildly variable capacity of solar and wind. So the important part of the question is whether or not hydrogen is a useful mechanism to store the energy. And so far it has not been.
- kortex 7y ago
  My take on energy storage is this: Ultimately, hydrogen is more scalable than almost any other energy storage method, save sodium/air batteries (if we can figure that out) and using electric vehicles as batteries (dependent on consumer behavior to scale). - lithium has scarcity issues which will only get worse with electric vehicles - liquid batteries likewise require some more rarer elements, corrosive enough to require - underground storage (of air pressure, CO2, etc) requires caverns/mines on site - pumped hydro has even tighter site constraints - biofuel/synfuel is decent for mid-to-long term storage, but slow to generate - flywheel has energy density issues Hydrogen, your main limits are basically steel for tanks, and some rare metals in catalytic amounts. There hasn't been enough incentive in energy storage deployment to push the scaling up and costs down. But I think we are closest to an "embarrassingly parallel" deployment of hydrogen as energy storage.
  - pfdietz 7y ago
    Lithium comprises only a very small fraction of the mass of Li-ion batteries. The resource constraints are on other elements, like cobalt, used in the electrodes. Lithium could become much more expensive without greatly affecting the economics of Li-ion batteries.
- pfdietz 7y ago
  "Hydrogen is only useful as 'short term storage' of energy." This is exactly backwards. It is only useful for long term storage. For short term storage, other alternatives would more efficient and economically superior. Hydrogen's advantage is that huge quantities of it can be stored underground, at very low cost. Hydrogen can act as a literal rainy day energy fund, and to smooth over seasonal differences in energy production and use.