3 ms·

A more pertinent question is possibly can we make enough storage to smooth the supply sufficiently to allow adoption of solar as the principal electricity suppl

A more pertinent question is possibly can we make enough storage to smooth the supply sufficiently to allow adoption of solar as the principal electricity supply technology. Seems like we're going to need to become more diurnal and more seasonal in our approach to industry? Make hay while the sun shines, as the idiom says.

radicalbyte 4y ago
We're getting to the point where wind > hydrogen > combustion will be cheap enough to cover that kind of swing. We're going to be connecting electric systems over a huge landmass which will resolve much of the non-seasonal swings.
marcosdumay 4y ago
Sodium-sulfur batteries are made of two very abundant elements, where the other active elements are mostly aluminum oxides and the structural elements are iron and carbon. Hydrogen is hard to store, but there is sufficient space for satisfying most of our needs by itself. Hydrogen generators are also mostly made of iron, carbon, and aluminum, or alternatively a lot of organic chemicals and aluminum. Pumped hydro has some problems to compete on the open market, but it also can satisfy most of our storage requirements by itself. Pumped hydro systems are made mostly of steel. What kinds of resources do you expect we to run out of?
- Mvandenbergh 4y ago
  Hydrogen is extremely easy to store underground. It is expensive to make (i.e. inefficient and capital intensive) and to move around with compressors but actually storing it if you have access to salt domes and depleted gas fields is not hard at all. If the thesis is that electrical energy will be hyper abundant 80% of the time and deeply scarce the remaining 20% (which is the case if you use only solar and wind) and that periods of scarcity are correlated - so a "bad" day is likely to be preceded and followed by other "bad" days, then large scale hydrogen storage is quite a good match to get you through your worst week.
  - marcosdumay 4y ago
    "Extremely" is really not a good way to describe it. Yes, salt domes are quite viable. They are more the "expensive" kind of storage, and require a lot of scale. They are probably not economically viable for electricity storage as it's usually understood, but they are cheap enough that it's perfectly viable to dig them at a loss for societal assurance. They are certainly a lesser drag on the economy than nuclear power. AFAIK the vast majority of depleted gas fields can't be used for hydrogen storage. The ones that can are obviously a major gain, but those aren't enough to sustain a society. Storing hydrogen is perfectly viable, and won't have any catastrophic impact on electricity prices. But the "extremely easy" is a bit too optimistic.
_ea1k 4y ago
I think industries that are overwhelmingly dependent on energy often are like that now. Energy prices vary throughout the day and some industries (aluminum?) are very price sensitive.

radicalbyte 4y ago

We're getting to the point where wind > hydrogen > combustion will be cheap enough to cover that kind of swing. We're going to be connecting electric systems over a huge landmass which will resolve much of the non-seasonal swings.

marcosdumay 4y ago

Sodium-sulfur batteries are made of two very abundant elements, where the other active elements are mostly aluminum oxides and the structural elements are iron and carbon. Hydrogen is hard to store, but there is sufficient space for satisfying most of our needs by itself. Hydrogen generators are also mostly made of iron, carbon, and aluminum, or alternatively a lot of organic chemicals and aluminum. Pumped hydro has some problems to compete on the open market, but it also can satisfy most of our storage requirements by itself. Pumped hydro systems are made mostly of steel. What kinds of resources do you expect we to run out of?

Mvandenbergh 4y ago
Hydrogen is extremely easy to store underground. It is expensive to make (i.e. inefficient and capital intensive) and to move around with compressors but actually storing it if you have access to salt domes and depleted gas fields is not hard at all. If the thesis is that electrical energy will be hyper abundant 80% of the time and deeply scarce the remaining 20% (which is the case if you use only solar and wind) and that periods of scarcity are correlated - so a "bad" day is likely to be preceded and followed by other "bad" days, then large scale hydrogen storage is quite a good match to get you through your worst week.
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  "Extremely" is really not a good way to describe it. Yes, salt domes are quite viable. They are more the "expensive" kind of storage, and require a lot of scale. They are probably not economically viable for electricity storage as it's usually understood, but they are cheap enough that it's perfectly viable to dig them at a loss for societal assurance. They are certainly a lesser drag on the economy than nuclear power. AFAIK the vast majority of depleted gas fields can't be used for hydrogen storage. The ones that can are obviously a major gain, but those aren't enough to sustain a society. Storing hydrogen is perfectly viable, and won't have any catastrophic impact on electricity prices. But the "extremely easy" is a bit too optimistic.

_ea1k 4y ago

I think industries that are overwhelmingly dependent on energy often are like that now. Energy prices vary throughout the day and some industries (aluminum?) are very price sensitive.