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Germany should pick this up and pledge to be free of fossil fueled power plants by 2025, banning energy generated from fossil fuels from being bought and consum
by belorn 5y ago
Germany should pick this up and pledge to be free of fossil fueled power plants by 2025, banning energy generated from fossil fuels from being bought and consumed.
If they can beat France on cost then here is a political win to be made. Be it using lithium batteries to store up 3-4 weeks worth of the nations energy consumption, or the more likely green hydrogen which is commonly suggested as being more likely choice for wind energy.
The current commercial viable lithium battery solution, that which solar farms has written articles about, is around 4 hours of 80% capacity. Not bad. Every day the batteries get charged when the sun is at its peak and powers prices is at its lowest point, and every day when the sun goes down they can utilize the highest price point as demand exceed supply of cheap energy.
For wind it is a bit more complicated. You can have a few weeks of good weather, followed by a long period of low wind conditions and high demand. A few hours won't cut it, and the more capacity you add the slower the discharge cycle will be. Green hydrogen would be a more economical storage medium, but right now the technology is having a hard time to be economical viable. That said it would benefit the world if Germany made a run for it so we can compare the cost to nuclear.
- rsj_hn 5y ago> pledge to be free of fossil fueled power plants by 2025 Unlike pledges, which can be produced instantly, actually bringing reliable power online takes more than 3 years. It's these types of pledges that make the public view these replacement efforts as fundamentally unserious. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of nuclear and think the industrialized west should follow in France's footsteps. But we will not get there by 2025. We may never get there as long as we approach this problem in such an unserious manner.
- belorn 5y agoThe parent post is claiming that the storage solutions are right now cheaper than the alternatives. If they are already here in terms of costs then bringing them online should be fairly quick ordeal. I agree with you however that it will take much longer than 3 years. Lithium batteries can be done today for the kind of storage solution which they are suitable, but not for wind. The green hydrogen might work, but we have yet to see large scale production and we are nowhere near to have it operate as an alternative to natural gas on a nation scale. Germany should really make an attempt if they wish to take a different path from France, but it will likely take a few decades if its successful.
- natmaka 5y agoEnergy storage: there is a gorilla in a corner of the room, see https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360319919347299 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03603... Solar and wind often overproduce (leading to negative prices). This (otherwise useless energy) will be used to produce dihydrogen (water electrolysis), which will be stored, then used to produce electricity (fuel cell).
- catlikesshrimp 5y agoAlthough I love the concept, it seems hydrolisis isn't very efficient transforming electrical energy to chemical energy. Until it is ready, it is not ready. Canadian politicians are pledging to develop blue hydrogen in Alberta. That means transforming hydrocarbons into hydrogen. Yep, it is as stupid as it sounds. Consume fossil fuels to produce hydrogen and label it blue energy.
- natmaka 5y agoWe are not embarked in a race on efficiency. A system able which is: - able to store otherwise is wasted energy - affordable (the total price of this storing-then-reconversion into electricity is OK) is adequate - storing in adequate volumes is adequate, even if its total efficiency is below .01 Blue hydrogen isn't good (emission-wise), but may be used as a way to evaluate and enhance what will ultimately be a green (electric energy only produced by renewable used to obtain dihydrogen) system. Moreover there are quick and decisive progress towards better efficiency.
- adrianN 5y agoElectrolysis is decently efficient (>70%), but turning the Hydrogen back to electricity loses quite a bit. Nevertheless, the real question is cost, not efficiency. As you noted during peak production the electricity is essentially free. If it's cheaper to use existing NG infrastructure to store Hydrogen and run gas turbines with it than building an equivalent amount of batteries, then we should go for it. Given that world lithium battery production is insufficient right now, and different battery chemistries are still experimental, proven technology like electrolysis+gas turbines seems like a good idea.
- inter_netuser 5y agoFrance is building nuclear because Germany and others will need to import more in 2025. It's as simple as that. They are an exporter.