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My reply was refuting your claim that hydrogen storage was cheap. Now you're going off on a tangent about short term vs. long term storage and ignoring the cent

My reply was refuting your claim that hydrogen storage was cheap. Now you're going off on a tangent about short term vs. long term storage and ignoring the central point of my previous comment: the cost estimates for hydrogen storage are nowhere near cheap. > Yes, the cost to store hydrogen for LONG TERM STORAGE is higher than the cost to store electricity in batteries for SHORT TERM STORAGE. But the cost to store hydrogen for long term storage is LOWER than the cost to store electricity in batteries for the long term. > If you are comparing batteries short term with hydrogen long term, you are comparing apples and oranges. I'm not comparing anything. I'm providing a source on the cost of hydrogen storage, to refute your unsubstantiated claim that hydrogen storage is cheap. And as it turns out this cost is extremely expensive, regardless of whether it's used for short term or long term storage. > Your study does NOT say batteries are cheaper than hydrogen for long term storage. They could not possibly be cheaper for that, since there are too few charge/discharge cycles to amortize the batteries' very high cost per kWh of capacity. Correct, this study is about the cost of hydrogen not a comparison versus batteries. And for the second time, nowhere did I compare hydrogen against batteries. My reply doesn't even mention batteries once. All I used this study for was tho find an estimate for the cost of hydrogen storage. And that cost is $1,400 per kilowatt hour per year for normal estimates and $800 per kilowatt hour per year for optimistic estimates. This is incredibly expensive, contrary to your claim that the cost of hydrogen storage is "so damn low". > You seem to be saying "just use short term storage!". But that's not a legitimate approach, since there are long term variations in supply and demand. Short term storage only applies to short term variations. The point is that it's extremely expensive, and not a viable solution for any type of storage. Short term or long term. The cost per kilowatt hour of storage is just way too high to be viable. $800 per kilowatt hour per year for the optimistic estimates, and $1,400 for realistic estimates is insanely expensive. And again this is assuming that the electricity provided to convert water to hydrogen is free. In what world is $800 to $1,400 per kilowatt hour per year, "so damn cheap"? For hydrogen to achieve even just 1 day's worth of energy storage for the USA (11.5 TWh daily usage) at a cost of $800 per kilowatt hour per year would cost $9 trillion dollars per year. And remember, that's the optimistic estimate and assuming that the energy used to produce hydrogen is free. This isn't about short term vs long term storage. Hydrogen storage is incredibly expensive, it's not "so damn cheap".

pfdietz 6y ago
You misrepresent what I wrote. I didn't say hydrogen was cheap. I said the PER ENERGY CAPACITY part of hydrogen storage was cheap. And it is! It's like 200x times cheaper than the same aspect of battery storage. So if we get into a situation where the per-energy capacity costs are really import (such as, long term storage), hydrogen beats batteries. There are, of course, OTHER parts of a hydrogen storage system, whose costs scale with the input and output power, not the stored energy. And these other parts (and the lower efficiency) make hydrogen uncompetitive for diurnal load leveling. But hydrogen is superior to batteries if the goal is to store the energy for considerably longer periods. It is TOTALLY about short vs. long term. As for whether hydrogen is "incredibly expensive": for the things it is suitable for, it is cheaper than the alternatives. Try to optimize a CO2-free power system using just wind, solar, and batteries in Europe, vs. one that also includes hydrogen storage. The latter is cheaper! It's also cheaper than a system that includes new nuclear power plants > In what world is $800 to $1,400 per kilowatt hour per year, "so damn cheap"? Your units there don't even make sense. BTW, I hope you aren't taking ratio of energy capacity to power-related costs suitable for diurnal storage and applying that to a seasonal storage system. The latter charges up and discharges over months, so the ratio is very different.
- manfredo 6y ago
  > I said the PER ENERGY CAPACITY part of hydrogen storage was cheap. And it is! It's like 200x times cheaper than the same aspect of battery storage. So if we get into a situation where the per-energy capacity costs are really import (such as, long term storage), hydrogen beats batteries. Right, and this claim is totally false. It's not cheaper than batteries, let alone 200x cheaper. Where are you getting this figure that hydrogen storage is 200 times cheaper than battery storage? > But hydrogen is superior to batteries if the goal is to store the energy for considerably longer periods. It is TOTALLY about short vs. long term. No, it's not. Again, are you just completely ignoring the costs presented in the study? > As for whether hydrogen is "incredibly expensive": for the things it is suitable for, it is cheaper than the alternatives. Try to optimize a CO2-free power system using just wind, solar, and batteries in Europe, vs. one that also includes hydrogen storage. The latter is cheaper! It's also cheaper than a system that includes new nuclear power plants No, it's not. Again, even just providing 1 day's worth of nuclear power costs over 9 trillion dollars every year using the optimistic estimates. Using the mid range estimates this figure is $16T per year. > Your units there don't even make sense. Cost of storage is measured in both capacity in duration. The unit answers the question, "how much does it cost to provide X amount of storage over Y duration"? Hence, kilowatt hour per year. Or $ KWh/yr as shown in the study. I'm not sure what is hard to understand about cost per kilowatt hour per year. $800 KWh/yr means it costs $800 dollars to provide 1 kilowatt hour of storage capacity for one year.

pfdietz 6y ago

You misrepresent what I wrote. I didn't say hydrogen was cheap. I said the PER ENERGY CAPACITY part of hydrogen storage was cheap. And it is! It's like 200x times cheaper than the same aspect of battery storage. So if we get into a situation where the per-energy capacity costs are really import (such as, long term storage), hydrogen beats batteries. There are, of course, OTHER parts of a hydrogen storage system, whose costs scale with the input and output power, not the stored energy. And these other parts (and the lower efficiency) make hydrogen uncompetitive for diurnal load leveling. But hydrogen is superior to batteries if the goal is to store the energy for considerably longer periods. It is TOTALLY about short vs. long term. As for whether hydrogen is "incredibly expensive": for the things it is suitable for, it is cheaper than the alternatives. Try to optimize a CO2-free power system using just wind, solar, and batteries in Europe, vs. one that also includes hydrogen storage. The latter is cheaper! It's also cheaper than a system that includes new nuclear power plants > In what world is $800 to $1,400 per kilowatt hour per year, "so damn cheap"? Your units there don't even make sense. BTW, I hope you aren't taking ratio of energy capacity to power-related costs suitable for diurnal storage and applying that to a seasonal storage system. The latter charges up and discharges over months, so the ratio is very different.

manfredo 6y ago
> I said the PER ENERGY CAPACITY part of hydrogen storage was cheap. And it is! It's like 200x times cheaper than the same aspect of battery storage. So if we get into a situation where the per-energy capacity costs are really import (such as, long term storage), hydrogen beats batteries. Right, and this claim is totally false. It's not cheaper than batteries, let alone 200x cheaper. Where are you getting this figure that hydrogen storage is 200 times cheaper than battery storage? > But hydrogen is superior to batteries if the goal is to store the energy for considerably longer periods. It is TOTALLY about short vs. long term. No, it's not. Again, are you just completely ignoring the costs presented in the study? > As for whether hydrogen is "incredibly expensive": for the things it is suitable for, it is cheaper than the alternatives. Try to optimize a CO2-free power system using just wind, solar, and batteries in Europe, vs. one that also includes hydrogen storage. The latter is cheaper! It's also cheaper than a system that includes new nuclear power plants No, it's not. Again, even just providing 1 day's worth of nuclear power costs over 9 trillion dollars every year using the optimistic estimates. Using the mid range estimates this figure is $16T per year. > Your units there don't even make sense. Cost of storage is measured in both capacity in duration. The unit answers the question, "how much does it cost to provide X amount of storage over Y duration"? Hence, kilowatt hour per year. Or $ KWh/yr as shown in the study. I'm not sure what is hard to understand about cost per kilowatt hour per year. $800 KWh/yr means it costs $800 dollars to provide 1 kilowatt hour of storage capacity for one year.