5 ms·
And which solution is that? Lithium ion batteries? To put this in perspective, global lithium ion battery output [1] annually doesn't amount to 1 hour's worth o
by Manuel_D 5y ago
And which solution is that? Lithium ion batteries? To put this in perspective, global lithium ion battery output [1] annually doesn't amount to 1 hour's worth of US electricity usage (500 GWh). Hydroelectric storage? You essentially need to repurpose an alpine lake as a dam. That's geographically dependent, and it's dubious it'd scale well as viable hydro sites become more and more remote. The remaining things like electricity-to-gas, or thermal storage only exist in prototypes, and might not even be feasible let alone viable.
In response to your edit:
> As solar and wind costs continue down, synthesizing methane and kerosene from captured CO2 and synthetic hydrogen will shortly be cheaper than mining, refining, and transporting them, even without the carbon taxes. Synthesis of those, and of ammonia and hydrogen itself will absorb unlimited "overbuilt" peak generating capacity, and stocks of all of those serve as storage.
Nobody has successfully built a grid-scale energy-to-gas plant, ever. It remains the stuff of prototypes. This approach is very much in the "hypothetical" phase. There are serious unsolved problems in energy-to-gas:
* It needs a source of carbon to convert H2 to methane. This could come from biofuels, but those aren't available in sufficient supply.
* Producing large quantities of hydrogen without CO2 emissions remains difficult. Almost all methane comes from steam reformation (CH4 + 2O2 -> CO2 + 2H2), which emits carbon dioxide. Electrolysis can't be done effectively.
Currently, power to gas storage is way more expensive than either lithium ion or hydroelectric storage and it's unclear whether it'll ever be cheaper than existing options.
1. https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/blog/top-electric-vehicle-markets-dominate-lithium-ion-battery-capacity-growth https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights...
- ncmncm 5y agoObviously not lithium batteries. Even suggesting it demonstrates you are not serious. And, obviously hydrogen will not continue to be made from hydrocarbons. It will instead be feedstock for synthesizing hydrocarbons. Carbon would need to be extracted from air, or at least from exhaust, to get carbon credits.
- Manuel_D 5y agoWhat you're describing is a combination of electrolysis and the Sabatier process [1]. And as I explain before there are major obstacles to actually converting electricity to methane at scale. It needs a source of carbon, and extraction of carbon from the air or exhaust is not feasible. Furthermore, massive electrolysis of hydrogen is also not something we have been able to do. Almost all hydrogen is produced through carbon-emitting steam reformation [2]. In short, converting electricity to methane and then back to electricity again is not a presently available option and it's unclear whether it'll ever be viable at stale. Grid-scale energy storage remains an unsolved problem 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production
- ncmncm 5y agoIt is fortunate that you are not making decisions, then, for the people who are directing the use of billions of dollars invested in exactly the activities you insist do not work.
- Manuel_D 5y agoAre they? Who is building grid-scale power to gas storage?
- ncmncm 5y agoThe Brits are switching to store wind-generated hydrogen in undersea cavities where they now stockpile natural gas. A similar project is going on in Utah, and another in Texas. All three are utility-scale production systems, not pilot projects. Other storage media being built out for full-scale production use include iron-air batteries, where (IIRC) $1.5B is going into factories, a liquified-air storage system in Chile ($0.5B), and synthetic ammonia in Norway. Nobody can track even a fraction of the utility-scale pumped-hydro projects under construction world-wide. We will need hundreds times as much of these, and of others, in the end, which will all take decades to build out.
- vmladenov 5y agoWhy isn’t pumped-water energy storage more commonplace?
- _Tev 5y agoBecause it's not much (if even that) cheaper than batteries in practice, it's very limited by geography (best sites for this are often already used for it), and there are significant environmental concerns (mountains are often protected areas, because humans have not managed to destroy them as much as other places).