4 ms·

> All the elements of hydrogen for grid leveling are demonstrated: It's not, the ultimate demonstration being it deployed at scale. > sufficient CO2 taxes Wh

by Kuinox 4y ago

> All the elements of hydrogen for grid leveling are demonstrated: It's not, the ultimate demonstration being it deployed at scale. > sufficient CO2 taxes Which will reduce solar competitiveness to nuclear, since solar have 4x the CO2 per kwh of nuclear electricity. It also doesn't solve the big problem solar have in Europe, since it produce less than 10% of it's installed capacity right now (last 30 days average for Germany), it's not even winter yet. & > Germany's residental rates are irrelevant Except being directly tied to energy production price. > Germany soaks its citizens to subsidize power for its industry. Which should make household price cheaper, not costlier.

pfdietz 4y ago
The "at scale" argument is flaccid. It's feckless unless you can give a reason why the technology would not scale. For hydrogen, what would be that reason? We don't need to build bigger turbines or electrolysers; we just need to build more of them. That sort of thing scales wonderfully. About the only thing that might not scale is storage capacity underground, but there are plenty of salt formations and spent gas fields to store hydrogen in. We already store a seasons' worth of natural gas underground in such formations. If you want to see a GOOD example of "cannot scale", look at today's nuclear reactors. LWRs cannot scale to power the world because uranium runs out. This was the motivation for building breeder reactors. Unlike hydrogen burning turbines, hydrogen storage in underground caverns, and electrolysers, breeder reactors are still a technology under development, with serious issues (safety, economics, reliability, proliferation.)
- Kuinox 4y ago
  > breeder reactors are still a technology under development It's been 40 years we know how to build breeder reactors. And there are already been multiple commercial fast breeder reactor. But like regular nuclear reactors, yes it is a technology under development. But we also have more than 100 years to figure out the rest. > The "at scale" argument is flaccid. It's feckless unless you can give a reason why the technology would not scale. Cost, and cost. Power2Gaz already exists, you never showed how it was inferior to your tech. But in both case, there is an enormous problem you never mentioned: the efficiency of power2gas is currently of 60% at most, hydrogen included. Without including the equipement cost needed, stored solar electricity is suddendly costlier than nuclear.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    There have been no successful commercial fast breeder reactors (that is, competitive with existing burner reactors, especially when the cost of reprocessing is included.) France has mothballed their entire fast reactor effort, not even building another prototype. Fast breeders have grave safety issues inherent in their physics. The delayed neutron fraction of plutonium (or U-233) is about half that of U-235. This means any breeder is skating closer to prompt supercriticality. If a fast reactor goes prompt supercritical, it will explode more violently than Chernobyl, since the time for the neutron population to double (for a given value of k) will be orders of magnitude shorter. Worst case, it would be an actual nuclear explosion. Fast breeders also present proliferation concerns. To get a good breeding ratio, a blanket of fertile material is placed around the fissioning core, so the neutrons escaping the core are efficiently utilized. If this is U-238, the Pu produced in the blanket will be "superweapon grade", with very low concentrations of higher Pu isotopes. Thorium breeders also have proliferation concerns, from the need to separate Pa-231 and allow it to decay before. This produces essentially pure U-233 outside the core. > cost and cost Let's look at a simple model to see how using hydrogen affects cost. https://model.energy/ https://model.energy/ Try Germany using 2011 or 2012 weather data and 2030 cost assumptions (note the cost of electrolysers in China is already half the number assumed there.) The overall cost of providing a steady 100 MW output is not bad, lower than what one would pay from a newly constructed nuclear plant including the cost of construction and financing. Hydrogen helps reduce the cost here, not increase it. Even very slight amounts of hydrogen noticeably help, covering for rare prolonged dark/calm periods.
    - Kuinox 4y ago
      > France has mothballed their entire fast reactor effort, not even building another prototype. Yes due to public pressure/antinuclear lobby. > Fast breeders have grave safety issues inherent in their physics. Yet there has been a dozen of fast breeders reactors, and somes are still operating today. I trust way more the IPCC forecast on the subjects, than yours. The fully renewable path was rated "very uncertain, very risky" for the exact point I told you. The fully nuclear path for France was also uncertain and risky, but for another reason, they are uncertain we can build nuclear plant fast enough, which is understandable because they recommand a 2x increase in electricity production.
Schroedingersat 4y ago
> Which will reduce solar competitiveness to nuclear, since solar have 4x the CO2 per kwh of nuclear electricity This is incredibly disingenuous. Current gen PV produces less CO2 than nuclear, and even a $1/kg a CO2 tax would only add a fraction of a cent per kWh to either.
- Kuinox 4y ago
  IPCC 2018 report list solar PV with 48g eqCO2/kwh (median): https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5_annex-iii.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5... Nuclear is 12g eqCO2/kwh (median) The levelized cost of electricity is also listed as cheaper for nuclear.
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    A cost based on high yield mines that are almost empty and 8 year old PV tech that hasn't been used in any new project since 2017 is worthless. As is comparing electricity that costs $100/MWh after publicly guaranteed loans and after the public takes on any accident liability in excess of the cost of a quarter of one reactor to unsubsidized electricity actually sold for $15/MWh Oh look. The more up to date version of that report: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGIII_Chapter_06.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6... Which doesn't include mining from ores that are 1/10th concentration that would be required to expand nuclear enough to solve the problem. But it does show you intentionally picking out of date information to lie about LCOE. When proponents of the nuclear consistently lie about everything, it makes it very hard to believe the industry hasn't done things like forge the paperwork on essential safety parts. Luckily people like you are most likely just lying to prolong the transition from fossil fuels, and aren't part of the industry.
    - Kuinox 4y ago
      You need a backup a little your claims if you deny IPCC numbers, IPCC is considered very serious, and I said to another commenter, I have way more trust in IPCC numbers and planning than random internet commenters. You are saying "with CO2 taxes it will be profitable" The thing is, nuclear don't need CO2 taxes to be profitable, and is low carbon, if your solution was that cheap and safe, it would be more invested than nuclear is.

by Kuinox 4y ago

pfdietz 4y ago

The "at scale" argument is flaccid. It's feckless unless you can give a reason why the technology would not scale. For hydrogen, what would be that reason? We don't need to build bigger turbines or electrolysers; we just need to build more of them. That sort of thing scales wonderfully. About the only thing that might not scale is storage capacity underground, but there are plenty of salt formations and spent gas fields to store hydrogen in. We already store a seasons' worth of natural gas underground in such formations. If you want to see a GOOD example of "cannot scale", look at today's nuclear reactors. LWRs cannot scale to power the world because uranium runs out. This was the motivation for building breeder reactors. Unlike hydrogen burning turbines, hydrogen storage in underground caverns, and electrolysers, breeder reactors are still a technology under development, with serious issues (safety, economics, reliability, proliferation.)

Kuinox 4y ago
> breeder reactors are still a technology under development It's been 40 years we know how to build breeder reactors. And there are already been multiple commercial fast breeder reactor. But like regular nuclear reactors, yes it is a technology under development. But we also have more than 100 years to figure out the rest. > The "at scale" argument is flaccid. It's feckless unless you can give a reason why the technology would not scale. Cost, and cost. Power2Gaz already exists, you never showed how it was inferior to your tech. But in both case, there is an enormous problem you never mentioned: the efficiency of power2gas is currently of 60% at most, hydrogen included. Without including the equipement cost needed, stored solar electricity is suddendly costlier than nuclear.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  There have been no successful commercial fast breeder reactors (that is, competitive with existing burner reactors, especially when the cost of reprocessing is included.) France has mothballed their entire fast reactor effort, not even building another prototype. Fast breeders have grave safety issues inherent in their physics. The delayed neutron fraction of plutonium (or U-233) is about half that of U-235. This means any breeder is skating closer to prompt supercriticality. If a fast reactor goes prompt supercritical, it will explode more violently than Chernobyl, since the time for the neutron population to double (for a given value of k) will be orders of magnitude shorter. Worst case, it would be an actual nuclear explosion. Fast breeders also present proliferation concerns. To get a good breeding ratio, a blanket of fertile material is placed around the fissioning core, so the neutrons escaping the core are efficiently utilized. If this is U-238, the Pu produced in the blanket will be "superweapon grade", with very low concentrations of higher Pu isotopes. Thorium breeders also have proliferation concerns, from the need to separate Pa-231 and allow it to decay before. This produces essentially pure U-233 outside the core. > cost and cost Let's look at a simple model to see how using hydrogen affects cost. https://model.energy/ https://model.energy/ Try Germany using 2011 or 2012 weather data and 2030 cost assumptions (note the cost of electrolysers in China is already half the number assumed there.) The overall cost of providing a steady 100 MW output is not bad, lower than what one would pay from a newly constructed nuclear plant including the cost of construction and financing. Hydrogen helps reduce the cost here, not increase it. Even very slight amounts of hydrogen noticeably help, covering for rare prolonged dark/calm periods.
  - Kuinox 4y ago
    > France has mothballed their entire fast reactor effort, not even building another prototype. Yes due to public pressure/antinuclear lobby. > Fast breeders have grave safety issues inherent in their physics. Yet there has been a dozen of fast breeders reactors, and somes are still operating today. I trust way more the IPCC forecast on the subjects, than yours. The fully renewable path was rated "very uncertain, very risky" for the exact point I told you. The fully nuclear path for France was also uncertain and risky, but for another reason, they are uncertain we can build nuclear plant fast enough, which is understandable because they recommand a 2x increase in electricity production.

Schroedingersat 4y ago

> Which will reduce solar competitiveness to nuclear, since solar have 4x the CO2 per kwh of nuclear electricity This is incredibly disingenuous. Current gen PV produces less CO2 than nuclear, and even a $1/kg a CO2 tax would only add a fraction of a cent per kWh to either.

Kuinox 4y ago
IPCC 2018 report list solar PV with 48g eqCO2/kwh (median): https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5_annex-iii.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5... Nuclear is 12g eqCO2/kwh (median) The levelized cost of electricity is also listed as cheaper for nuclear.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  A cost based on high yield mines that are almost empty and 8 year old PV tech that hasn't been used in any new project since 2017 is worthless. As is comparing electricity that costs $100/MWh after publicly guaranteed loans and after the public takes on any accident liability in excess of the cost of a quarter of one reactor to unsubsidized electricity actually sold for $15/MWh Oh look. The more up to date version of that report: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGIII_Chapter_06.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6... Which doesn't include mining from ores that are 1/10th concentration that would be required to expand nuclear enough to solve the problem. But it does show you intentionally picking out of date information to lie about LCOE. When proponents of the nuclear consistently lie about everything, it makes it very hard to believe the industry hasn't done things like forge the paperwork on essential safety parts. Luckily people like you are most likely just lying to prolong the transition from fossil fuels, and aren't part of the industry.
  - Kuinox 4y ago
    You need a backup a little your claims if you deny IPCC numbers, IPCC is considered very serious, and I said to another commenter, I have way more trust in IPCC numbers and planning than random internet commenters. You are saying "with CO2 taxes it will be profitable" The thing is, nuclear don't need CO2 taxes to be profitable, and is low carbon, if your solution was that cheap and safe, it would be more invested than nuclear is.