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Better batteries may not be the answer. Possible other options - electrolysis of seawater https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589299120300537 h

Better batteries may not be the answer. Possible other options - electrolysis of seawater https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589299120300537 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S258929912... - scrubbing carbon from the atmosphere directly https://cen.acs.org/synthesis/catalysis/Electrochemical-method-converts-CO2-graphite/97/i9 https://cen.acs.org/synthesis/catalysis/Electrochemical-meth... Neither of these is energy-efficient, but if the energy is negatively priced they don't need to be

lkbm 6y ago
These tend to be capital-intensive, though. The big problem with most of our solutions is that you spending $50MM on a hydrogen plant and then leaving it idle half the time costs you $25MM amortized over the lifetime of the plant, so you need to be saving that much on your power bill. It's likely more economical for you to just run it on full all the time, regardless of the hourly energy prices. We do this some with aluminum smelting, but it's not as free as it initially appears. You need a high energy usage to capital cost ratio for it to be economical. (Ideally, you'd also be able to ramp up and down somewhat quickly as-needed. IIRC, there's a big aluminum plant in Germany that can do this, but it's unusual.)