5 ms·

Too bad there's no infrastructure in place for producing synthetic fuel with the surplus electricity. It might not be efficient, but if we're producing surplus

by 2000UltraDeluxe 3y ago

Too bad there's no infrastructure in place for producing synthetic fuel with the surplus electricity. It might not be efficient, but if we're producing surplus electricity anyway, then even inefficient storage/usage won't be a waste.

black_puppydog 3y ago
Compared to any (currently practical) storage, just laying more wires to places that don't currently have too much wind/sun is much more efficient. Turns out, cables are relatively cheap, compared to batteries.
- mywittyname 3y ago
  Honestly, wasting the energy is cheap compared to batteries. It's okay to waste excess capacity so long as it is wind/solar/nuclear.
- pbhjpbhj 3y ago
  How cheap are international cables compared to electrolysis for hydrogen production paired with lorries for transport?
  - whizzter 3y ago
    The conversion ratio is quite bad, however if you MUST burn something (like in Steelmaking mentioned in the sibling comment) then it starts to make more sense but iirc it's still calculated to be slightly more expensive steel compared to coal currently (but if we continue building out variably producing power like wind, solar while augumenting the regular production the general idea is that the intermittent spikes could be used for affordable production).
- 2000UltraDeluxe 3y ago
  Absolutely! Alas, the Finnish administration seems more interested in using areas with cheap electricity to attract electricity-intensive industry rather than, say, exporting it to other countries. Heck, in neighbouring Sweden they have issues transferring power from the large hydro dams in the north, to the densely populated south where the power is needed. While building better grids is practically doable, I don't see it happening anytime soon; the idea, of using cheap electricity to entice a FAANG to build a data center in one's backyard is preferable to most elected officials here. In that situation it's probably better business to just buy cheap electricity off the market and use it to do something useful.
- whizzter 3y ago
  Over longer distances the transmissions losses makes cables more inefficient (otherwise all of Europe could easily be powered by Saharan solar-power). The flooding mentioned in the article is about 1000km away from the major population centers in Finland and Sweden. Transforming to burnable fuels via electricity is actually useful for some applications and actually in the planning stage with some steelmakers (as a replacement for coal!) like h2 green steel in the same region of Sweden as the floodings. They claim that steelmaking is up to 7% of global co2 emissions and being able to move to gas produced with cheap electricity might be only marginally more costly than coal. https://www.h2greensteel.com/ https://www.h2greensteel.com/
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  Not necessarily. For a worked example, it's cheaper to power Boston with a large number of local solar panels and batteries than it is to power it with a small number of solar panels and batteries in Arizona connected to Boston via HVDC lines. https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2020/12/27/the-future-of-electricity-is-local/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2020/12/27/the-future-of-...
bluefirebrand 3y ago
Why would we produce synthetic fuel when we have batteries? We also have other ways to store electricity. Am I missing sarcasm in your comment or something?
- Incipient 3y ago
  Batteries (lithium particularly) are not storage devices. They're grid stabilising devices. They are simply not able to store meaningful quantities of energy at an affordable price. In our city, we are installing a battery that can power 160k homes for 2h, at the cost of AU$200m. That's just not "storage", it's designed to flatten out peaks and troughs in supply.
- aenis 3y ago
  The batteries are not cost efficient, and take up lots of space. Not great for the Northern Europe - expensive land, strict zoning laws, etc.
- dahfizz 3y ago
  Gasoline has an energy density like 100x batteries. As an energy storage medium, it's excellent. The thousand pounds of batteries in a Tesla contain the same amount of energy as ~3 gallons of gas.
  - 2000UltraDeluxe 3y ago
    This. It, along with diesel, is also the power source for most wheeled veichles in current operation on the planet. I'm sure EV's is going to take over in most areas given enough time. Until then, it's only logical to run ICE's on green fuels if available. Synthetic fuels made with excess solar/wind certainly sounds like it would fit that description. Also, we already have infrastructure in place for handling large amounts of petrol and diesel, so storage and handling is a solved problem.
  - bluefirebrand 3y ago
    How many gallons of gas need to be burned to account for the entire lifespan of that battery? My point is that when talking about storing excess energy from the grid, maybe storage density isn't as important as storage availability.
Incipient 3y ago
The problem is any plants that would be producing synthetic fuel, fertiliser, etc would all be operating 100% of the year. They wouldn't be an "on demand" plant - the economics wouldn't support it (mostly due to capex). With excess wind/solar, pumped hydro would be the storage mechanism, but that clearly doesn't apply when a country has an excess of hydro too!
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  I’m guessing they are referring to liquid hydrogen fuel production. Are those plants so expensive to setup that they have to run 24/7 to make up their investment? Lots of articles say it might eventually be economical, like https://inl.gov/article/using-excess-energy-to-split-water-could-help-make-hydrogen-a-key-player-in-the-clean-energy-future/#:~:text=Clean%20hydrogen%20production,called%20solid%20oxide%20electrolysis%20cells https://inl.gov/article/using-excess-energy-to-split-water-c....
  - Retric 3y ago
    There’s several thresholds here. Something that operates 50% of the time can mostly limit things to cheap power. Something that’s viable operated 10% of the time can always get cheap power.
    - Incipient 3y ago
      Do you have any examples of this? I've never come across any major capital project that wasn't designed for 85%+ uptime (and the downtime was simply for maintenance)
      - Retric 3y ago
        A lot of infrastructure isn’t 100% 24/7 even if it gets regular use. Subway systems both shut down for much of the day but they also operate well below maximum rush hour capacity. Many factories, office buildings, and even stores spend the majority of the day/week empty or very close to it. Below that you have schools which often close for several months a year. Entertainment venues even multi billion dollar sports stadiums may spend a lot of time empty. Where possible they aim for year round operations, but often it’s not viable. Below that you have peaking gas electric power plants, as many grids pay for reserve capacity that’s very rarely used. Some extreme cases might not even be used beyond validating it still works in a given year.
credit_guy 3y ago
Many industrial processes have a high capital cost. If you build a plant that can make synthetic fuel, you don't want it sitting idle 70% of the time. If the plant is extraordinarily cheap capital-wise, then you are ok to use if for load balancing. But the usual suspects (aluminum smelting, water desalination, production of synfuels) don't qualify. Maybe making hydrogen via electrolysis qualifies, but then you have a storage and transportation problem. Still, I think hydrogen is probably the best use case for cheap but intermittent electricity.

black_puppydog 3y ago

Compared to any (currently practical) storage, just laying more wires to places that don't currently have too much wind/sun is much more efficient. Turns out, cables are relatively cheap, compared to batteries.

mywittyname 3y ago
Honestly, wasting the energy is cheap compared to batteries. It's okay to waste excess capacity so long as it is wind/solar/nuclear.
pbhjpbhj 3y ago
How cheap are international cables compared to electrolysis for hydrogen production paired with lorries for transport?
- whizzter 3y ago
  The conversion ratio is quite bad, however if you MUST burn something (like in Steelmaking mentioned in the sibling comment) then it starts to make more sense but iirc it's still calculated to be slightly more expensive steel compared to coal currently (but if we continue building out variably producing power like wind, solar while augumenting the regular production the general idea is that the intermittent spikes could be used for affordable production).
2000UltraDeluxe 3y ago
Absolutely! Alas, the Finnish administration seems more interested in using areas with cheap electricity to attract electricity-intensive industry rather than, say, exporting it to other countries. Heck, in neighbouring Sweden they have issues transferring power from the large hydro dams in the north, to the densely populated south where the power is needed. While building better grids is practically doable, I don't see it happening anytime soon; the idea, of using cheap electricity to entice a FAANG to build a data center in one's backyard is preferable to most elected officials here. In that situation it's probably better business to just buy cheap electricity off the market and use it to do something useful.
whizzter 3y ago
Over longer distances the transmissions losses makes cables more inefficient (otherwise all of Europe could easily be powered by Saharan solar-power). The flooding mentioned in the article is about 1000km away from the major population centers in Finland and Sweden. Transforming to burnable fuels via electricity is actually useful for some applications and actually in the planning stage with some steelmakers (as a replacement for coal!) like h2 green steel in the same region of Sweden as the floodings. They claim that steelmaking is up to 7% of global co2 emissions and being able to move to gas produced with cheap electricity might be only marginally more costly than coal. https://www.h2greensteel.com/ https://www.h2greensteel.com/
bryanlarsen 3y ago
Not necessarily. For a worked example, it's cheaper to power Boston with a large number of local solar panels and batteries than it is to power it with a small number of solar panels and batteries in Arizona connected to Boston via HVDC lines. https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2020/12/27/the-future-of-electricity-is-local/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2020/12/27/the-future-of-...

bluefirebrand 3y ago

Why would we produce synthetic fuel when we have batteries? We also have other ways to store electricity. Am I missing sarcasm in your comment or something?

Incipient 3y ago
Batteries (lithium particularly) are not storage devices. They're grid stabilising devices. They are simply not able to store meaningful quantities of energy at an affordable price. In our city, we are installing a battery that can power 160k homes for 2h, at the cost of AU$200m. That's just not "storage", it's designed to flatten out peaks and troughs in supply.
aenis 3y ago
The batteries are not cost efficient, and take up lots of space. Not great for the Northern Europe - expensive land, strict zoning laws, etc.
dahfizz 3y ago
Gasoline has an energy density like 100x batteries. As an energy storage medium, it's excellent. The thousand pounds of batteries in a Tesla contain the same amount of energy as ~3 gallons of gas.
- 2000UltraDeluxe 3y ago
  This. It, along with diesel, is also the power source for most wheeled veichles in current operation on the planet. I'm sure EV's is going to take over in most areas given enough time. Until then, it's only logical to run ICE's on green fuels if available. Synthetic fuels made with excess solar/wind certainly sounds like it would fit that description. Also, we already have infrastructure in place for handling large amounts of petrol and diesel, so storage and handling is a solved problem.
- bluefirebrand 3y ago
  How many gallons of gas need to be burned to account for the entire lifespan of that battery? My point is that when talking about storing excess energy from the grid, maybe storage density isn't as important as storage availability.

Incipient 3y ago

The problem is any plants that would be producing synthetic fuel, fertiliser, etc would all be operating 100% of the year. They wouldn't be an "on demand" plant - the economics wouldn't support it (mostly due to capex). With excess wind/solar, pumped hydro would be the storage mechanism, but that clearly doesn't apply when a country has an excess of hydro too!

seanmcdirmid 3y ago
I’m guessing they are referring to liquid hydrogen fuel production. Are those plants so expensive to setup that they have to run 24/7 to make up their investment? Lots of articles say it might eventually be economical, like https://inl.gov/article/using-excess-energy-to-split-water-could-help-make-hydrogen-a-key-player-in-the-clean-energy-future/#:~:text=Clean%20hydrogen%20production,called%20solid%20oxide%20electrolysis%20cells https://inl.gov/article/using-excess-energy-to-split-water-c....
- Retric 3y ago
  There’s several thresholds here. Something that operates 50% of the time can mostly limit things to cheap power. Something that’s viable operated 10% of the time can always get cheap power.
  - Incipient 3y ago
    Do you have any examples of this? I've never come across any major capital project that wasn't designed for 85%+ uptime (and the downtime was simply for maintenance)
    - Retric 3y ago
      A lot of infrastructure isn’t 100% 24/7 even if it gets regular use. Subway systems both shut down for much of the day but they also operate well below maximum rush hour capacity. Many factories, office buildings, and even stores spend the majority of the day/week empty or very close to it. Below that you have schools which often close for several months a year. Entertainment venues even multi billion dollar sports stadiums may spend a lot of time empty. Where possible they aim for year round operations, but often it’s not viable. Below that you have peaking gas electric power plants, as many grids pay for reserve capacity that’s very rarely used. Some extreme cases might not even be used beyond validating it still works in a given year.

credit_guy 3y ago

Many industrial processes have a high capital cost. If you build a plant that can make synthetic fuel, you don't want it sitting idle 70% of the time. If the plant is extraordinarily cheap capital-wise, then you are ok to use if for load balancing. But the usual suspects (aluminum smelting, water desalination, production of synfuels) don't qualify. Maybe making hydrogen via electrolysis qualifies, but then you have a storage and transportation problem. Still, I think hydrogen is probably the best use case for cheap but intermittent electricity.