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Efficiency always matters; opportunity costs. If sunlight to hydrogen is your goal a novel solution has to at bare minimum be more efficient than solar PV -> el
by thereisnospork 5y ago
Efficiency always matters; opportunity costs. If sunlight to hydrogen is your goal a novel solution has to at bare minimum be more efficient than solar PV -> electricity -> electrolyzer[0] to be useful.
[0]Known, boring technology with 99.9% of the engineering warts and technical debt already solved.
- mlyle 5y agoIt has to be more -cost- efficient, not more thermodynamically efficient.
- thereisnospork 5y agoOne tends to follow the other. Arguing that, in the judgement of process for the conversion of one form of energy (sunlight) to another (hydrogen), thermodynamic efficiency, or the measure of how well a process converts one form of energy to another isn't relevant is somewhere between obnoxiously pedantic and wishful thinking. Funnily enough I read the article after your comment, and it is even less useful, interesting, than my initial assessment (not even direct solar to H2). It has approximately the novelty and utility of porting DOOM to <insert processor here> and running it in a refrigerator.
- angus-prune 5y agoIn the real world energy isn’t always fungible. The location of the energy can be an important factor in something’s overall efficiency. If you need the end product at a particular location, the transport costs can overwhelm any differences in efficiency. The same also applies if you have excess energy in a particular location that you want to use. In either case, the transport costs can make using the less efficient process, the more energy efficient choice overall.
- new_realist 5y agoNo, it doesn't; it just has to cost less, overall. Efficiency is only a weak proxy for cost.
- clomond 5y ago*unless we are talking about energy systems and therefore VARIABLE costs matter significantly.
- mrpopo 5y agoNot if you want to consider environmental impact. The petrol in the ground is free, sunlight is free, biodiversity is free. The cost is only a human factor. Higher efficiency on the other hand usually means lower resource consumption.
- johnchristopher 5y agoWhy is that downvoted ? You might have the cheapest energy source, if it's not efficient enough to meet demand without ruining the environment for humans then it's not good. A weak proxy for cost ? Or a strong one for survival ? A cheaper steel bike is less efficient than an expensive carbon fiber bike when your goal is to get to the mountain top before the flood submerges the valley.
- wiz21c 5y agoAnd cost is sure not a proxy for efficiency.