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The benefit of Hydrogen is not as a means of energy distribution but as storage. We have grappled with this problem for a while and it’s becoming more and more

by samtho 4y ago

The benefit of Hydrogen is not as a means of energy distribution but as storage. We have grappled with this problem for a while and it’s becoming more and more pertinent as we transmission to using the electrical grid for more and more. Batteries have their limitations, they require specific materials, slow to charge, and difficult to recycle. Hydrogen is the most abundant substance in the universe, and just needs to be crested and stored. We will eventually get to point with solar that we will have excess energy that needs to be used but nothing to consume it. Modern hydrogen electrolysis is about 80% and once the hydrogen is stored, using a hydrogen fuel cell to generate electricity is about 60% efficient. That’s a 48% efficient process which is still better than 0% by letting that energy go unused. This space has not seen significant innovation because it has not been a major focus. Given a significant political or economic force, we can bring the efficiency up, waste down, and standardize hydrogen containment and pressure systems. Complaining that a solution is inefficient, which has not been innovated on, is small-minded thinking.

greenthrow 4y ago
Hydrogen is a horrible means of energy storage, even when stationary. Splitting water, compressing the hydrogen and then converting it back to energy even with expensive, much more rare materials intensive fuel cells, is still far less than 50% efficient. Batteries are better than 80% efficient and are much easier to produce than fuel cells. Burning hydrogen is just completely bone-headed.
- samtho 4y ago
  You are stuck in the thinking that what we have is going to be as good as it gets and are unable to see past the details of current tech and reaching for this ideal of efficiency that batteries are frankly an outlier of. The efficiency metric does not matter if we have power being generated and no way to either burn or capture this energy at the rate at which it is generated. Yes, batteries are the most efficient at making power available to us at the moment of demand, which is why they will take over a portion of the vehicle market (think local delivery vehicles, commuter vehicles, anything that returns to the same spot or travels predictability) but other means of power storage will be required for other use-cases. Batteries have an upper limit as to how fast they can charge, and there are cases where we need to be able to sink excess power or risk losing 100% of it. There will come a time where we have excess power to burn but the fleeting nature of renewables will require that we store this energy somehow, which I fully believe that hydrogen will play a role in as you are able to create it at a rate proportional to energy you put in, which is more important that efficiency. Batteries will not scale to our needs at more than a micro-grid level. Scaling hydrogen production will bring down the marginal cost of producing each unit. Remember that current battery tech was not as easy to produce as it is today for precisely the same reasons I am hypothesizing that fuel cell technology will become easier and cheaper to produce and more efficient in its operation so I will just reiterate this from my post: > Complaining that a solution is inefficient, which has not been innovated on, is small-minded thinking.

by samtho 4y ago

greenthrow 4y ago

Hydrogen is a horrible means of energy storage, even when stationary. Splitting water, compressing the hydrogen and then converting it back to energy even with expensive, much more rare materials intensive fuel cells, is still far less than 50% efficient. Batteries are better than 80% efficient and are much easier to produce than fuel cells. Burning hydrogen is just completely bone-headed.

samtho 4y ago
You are stuck in the thinking that what we have is going to be as good as it gets and are unable to see past the details of current tech and reaching for this ideal of efficiency that batteries are frankly an outlier of. The efficiency metric does not matter if we have power being generated and no way to either burn or capture this energy at the rate at which it is generated. Yes, batteries are the most efficient at making power available to us at the moment of demand, which is why they will take over a portion of the vehicle market (think local delivery vehicles, commuter vehicles, anything that returns to the same spot or travels predictability) but other means of power storage will be required for other use-cases. Batteries have an upper limit as to how fast they can charge, and there are cases where we need to be able to sink excess power or risk losing 100% of it. There will come a time where we have excess power to burn but the fleeting nature of renewables will require that we store this energy somehow, which I fully believe that hydrogen will play a role in as you are able to create it at a rate proportional to energy you put in, which is more important that efficiency. Batteries will not scale to our needs at more than a micro-grid level. Scaling hydrogen production will bring down the marginal cost of producing each unit. Remember that current battery tech was not as easy to produce as it is today for precisely the same reasons I am hypothesizing that fuel cell technology will become easier and cheaper to produce and more efficient in its operation so I will just reiterate this from my post: > Complaining that a solution is inefficient, which has not been innovated on, is small-minded thinking.