4 ms·

Hydrogen is not an energy source as such. You have to use energy to make it, incurring losses, then incur still more losses when you burn it. It is, at best, a

Hydrogen is not an energy source as such. You have to use energy to make it, incurring losses, then incur still more losses when you burn it. It is, at best, an energy storage mechanism, not a source.

Schroedingersat 4y ago
Yes. This is quite obviously the point. Electrolysers are dirt cheap (and prospects of technologies with battery-like efficiency commercialising are pretty good). You still only get back 50% of your energy by burning, but if the energy from the lower capacity times is enough to fully fund your panels, then electrolysing the energy from 10-3 during spring till autumn allows the use of a resource you'd otherwise dump as heat. Storage is hard, energy to power electrolysers is only cheap with solar or surplus wind, and the second stage of a ccgt is big and expensive. This would solve one of those problems. The other two are already cheaper than drilling a bunch of 20km deep holes or building a nuclear reactor.
- Turing_Machine 4y ago
  Yes, nuclear is always going to be more expensive than systems that (as of now) exist only in the imagination of their proponents. Unless another has come online since the last time I looked, there is only one (1) grid-scale solar installation in the entire world, and it was built with massive government funding.
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    > Unless another has come online since the last time I looked, there is only one (1) grid-scale solar installation in the entire world, and it was built with massive government funding. What a bizarre line to draw. The technology that benefits from being distributed rather than needing massive centralisation to be viable isn't concentrated to the point it causes the grid to be over-centralised? Whatever metric you need to satisfy those mental gymnastics you can watch it come true realtime over the next year or two by adding 'unsubsidized solar park GW' to your news topic feed.
    - Turing_Machine 4y ago
      There's such a thing as "economy of scale". You're not going to run an industrial civilization from a few hobby solar panels on someone's roof, any more than Mao was able to run an industrial civilization from crude cast iron smelted in people's back yards. > you can watch it come true realtime over the next year or two Yeah. Not happening. Not in a year or two, nor even in a decade or two. What powers heavy industry in your decentralized utopia? Some kind of reverse grid? Only about 34% of electricity is used for residential purposes in the United States, and I would be surprised if the proportion were much different in other countries.
      - Schroedingersat 4y ago
        > There's such a thing as "economy of scale". Yes, it's what allows solar modules to see 10-20% yoy reductions in price per watt and 15MW wind turbines to be more cost effective than 1MW ones. You achieve this by doing the same thing enough times that you get good at it. This is something the nuclear industry has never achieved. > You're not going to run an industrial civilization from a few hobby solar panels on someone's roof, any more than Mao was able to run an industrial civilization from crude cast iron smelted in people's back yards. Good thing there are thousands of 10-100MW scale solar parks finished every year and several GW scale plants being finished each year. Almost all new development is completely unsubsidized and auctioned of for $15-40/MWh before completion. > What powers heavy industry in your decentralized utopia? Some kind of reverse grid? The 15MW wind turbines, 5GW solar plants, 1GW battery facilities and the existing gas plants running on green fuels. Putting more than a few hundred MW in the same place creates bottlenecks in your grid and reduces its resilience. Rooftop solar can happily produce enough to cover commercial, personal transport/transit and residential with plenty to spare because you can cover worldwide average primary energy with about 50m^2 of sunlight per person. It's largely irrelevant at the moment though hecause costs are dominated by installation and coordination. > Only about 34% of electricity is used for residential purposes in the United States, and I would be surprised if the proportion were much different in other countries. This is entirely irrelevant
        4y ago

Schroedingersat 4y ago

Yes. This is quite obviously the point. Electrolysers are dirt cheap (and prospects of technologies with battery-like efficiency commercialising are pretty good). You still only get back 50% of your energy by burning, but if the energy from the lower capacity times is enough to fully fund your panels, then electrolysing the energy from 10-3 during spring till autumn allows the use of a resource you'd otherwise dump as heat. Storage is hard, energy to power electrolysers is only cheap with solar or surplus wind, and the second stage of a ccgt is big and expensive. This would solve one of those problems. The other two are already cheaper than drilling a bunch of 20km deep holes or building a nuclear reactor.

Turing_Machine 4y ago
Yes, nuclear is always going to be more expensive than systems that (as of now) exist only in the imagination of their proponents. Unless another has come online since the last time I looked, there is only one (1) grid-scale solar installation in the entire world, and it was built with massive government funding.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  > Unless another has come online since the last time I looked, there is only one (1) grid-scale solar installation in the entire world, and it was built with massive government funding. What a bizarre line to draw. The technology that benefits from being distributed rather than needing massive centralisation to be viable isn't concentrated to the point it causes the grid to be over-centralised? Whatever metric you need to satisfy those mental gymnastics you can watch it come true realtime over the next year or two by adding 'unsubsidized solar park GW' to your news topic feed.
  - Turing_Machine 4y ago
    There's such a thing as "economy of scale". You're not going to run an industrial civilization from a few hobby solar panels on someone's roof, any more than Mao was able to run an industrial civilization from crude cast iron smelted in people's back yards. > you can watch it come true realtime over the next year or two Yeah. Not happening. Not in a year or two, nor even in a decade or two. What powers heavy industry in your decentralized utopia? Some kind of reverse grid? Only about 34% of electricity is used for residential purposes in the United States, and I would be surprised if the proportion were much different in other countries.
    - Schroedingersat 4y ago
      > There's such a thing as "economy of scale". Yes, it's what allows solar modules to see 10-20% yoy reductions in price per watt and 15MW wind turbines to be more cost effective than 1MW ones. You achieve this by doing the same thing enough times that you get good at it. This is something the nuclear industry has never achieved. > You're not going to run an industrial civilization from a few hobby solar panels on someone's roof, any more than Mao was able to run an industrial civilization from crude cast iron smelted in people's back yards. Good thing there are thousands of 10-100MW scale solar parks finished every year and several GW scale plants being finished each year. Almost all new development is completely unsubsidized and auctioned of for $15-40/MWh before completion. > What powers heavy industry in your decentralized utopia? Some kind of reverse grid? The 15MW wind turbines, 5GW solar plants, 1GW battery facilities and the existing gas plants running on green fuels. Putting more than a few hundred MW in the same place creates bottlenecks in your grid and reduces its resilience. Rooftop solar can happily produce enough to cover commercial, personal transport/transit and residential with plenty to spare because you can cover worldwide average primary energy with about 50m^2 of sunlight per person. It's largely irrelevant at the moment though hecause costs are dominated by installation and coordination. > Only about 34% of electricity is used for residential purposes in the United States, and I would be surprised if the proportion were much different in other countries. This is entirely irrelevant
      - 4y ago