4 ms·

Efficiency is quite low: 40%-60%. I would say it's only worth it if the marginal cost of producing the hydrogen is close to 0.

DrNosferatu 2y ago
Isn’t a more viable economic “battery” to just turn on your LLM training massive data center, or Aluminum smelter (or any other high-consumption, low-urgency industrial process) when there’s excess electric production?
goodpoint 2y ago
This not a problem at all when using PV. Plus, the generated heat can be used.
- rini17 2y ago
  It is, water electrolysis is surprisingly fickle process.
- crote 2y ago
  The issue is that it's a self-defeating mechanism. PV doesn't produce zero energy during wintertime, they just produce less. You're going to be building additional PV to charge the Season Battery, but those additional panels will also be providing power during the winter. If your battery's efficiency gets bad enough the added winter power from those extra panels is going to be enough to cover the winter shortage - so you don't even need the battery at all. You'd essentially just be turning a huge amount of power into heat for nothing.
  - goodpoint 2y ago
    The mechanism you described is tautological. If you assume people will install infinite PV than the problem is solved. In reality, the battery is needed when the battery is needed. It might be a long cold winter, or maybe just few evenings after rainy days, but a cheap long lasting battery is still useful.
  - derriz 2y ago
    A good point. Depending on the latitude/weather/etc, the difference between winter PV production can see a reduction of between 40% and 85% compared to summer output (sampling from [0]). Panel prices have dropped so much, it's far more likely that, at least with places where summer output is double that of winter or less, that simply doubling the number of panels solves the problem. Batteries and PV are cheap and getting cheaper all the time, are proven and are absolutely trivial to install, operate and maintain compared to ANY conceivable process that involves hydrogen. I don't get the apparently insatiable drive/impulse that drives people to put so much effort into shoehorning hydrogen into the energy sector. It's expensive, inefficient, dangerous, leaky and is a potent greenhouse gas[1]. The hydrogen idea has been around for over 100 years, has never worked at scale, despite many efforts and large investments. It's time to walk away and concentrate effort into technologies that have actually delivered and have already reduced carbon emissions at scale. [0] https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/pvwatts.php https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/pvwatts.php [1] https://www.dnv.com/article/is-hydrogen-a-greenhouse-gas--243214 https://www.dnv.com/article/is-hydrogen-a-greenhouse-gas--24...
    - thargor90 2y ago
      The biggest problem is heating in winter, which requires way more energy than cooling in summer. So for colder areas doubling Panels will not be enough.
  - 7e 2y ago
    There will always a use for surplus energy. Are you really going to curtail surplus solar in the summer when you could just build storage for it? That’s the profit maximizing solution, even if the efficiency isn’t high. It just needs to be cheap.
    - crote 2y ago
      Of course there will always be a use for surplus energy. It's basically free, so we'll probably see whole new industries pop up to make use of it. For example, an aluminium smelter might use free summer energy to turn alumina into aluminium, and turn the plant off in the winter - at which time the labor force can do extended maintenance and do post-processing on the aluminium produced during the summer. Although finding an industry where such seasonal turnovers are viable isn't trivial, if you find one it's going to be far more profitable than very lossy storage.
Culonavirus 2y ago
[flagged]
- HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
  Pushing energy research?
  - Culonavirus 2y ago
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HIVmSewHqMY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HIVmSewHqMY
aDyslecticCrow 2y ago
Cut down for another 60%-80% efficiency for producing the hydrogen. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032123007888 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136403212... Unless you also have a nuclear reactor to perform the high-temperature electrolysis process. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-temperature_electrolysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-temperature_electrolysis Which only Japan seems to be working on building at the moment. https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/production/japan-plans-hydrogen-production-with-next-generation-nuclear-reactor-using-heat-and-only-minimal-electricity/2-1-1621135 https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/production/japan-plans-hydro... It's cool tech, and I like that it's researched. But I think it's not a breakthrough that could realistically help the grid at the moment.

DrNosferatu 2y ago

Isn’t a more viable economic “battery” to just turn on your LLM training massive data center, or Aluminum smelter (or any other high-consumption, low-urgency industrial process) when there’s excess electric production?

goodpoint 2y ago

This not a problem at all when using PV. Plus, the generated heat can be used.

rini17 2y ago
It is, water electrolysis is surprisingly fickle process.
crote 2y ago
The issue is that it's a self-defeating mechanism. PV doesn't produce zero energy during wintertime, they just produce less. You're going to be building additional PV to charge the Season Battery, but those additional panels will also be providing power during the winter. If your battery's efficiency gets bad enough the added winter power from those extra panels is going to be enough to cover the winter shortage - so you don't even need the battery at all. You'd essentially just be turning a huge amount of power into heat for nothing.
- goodpoint 2y ago
  The mechanism you described is tautological. If you assume people will install infinite PV than the problem is solved. In reality, the battery is needed when the battery is needed. It might be a long cold winter, or maybe just few evenings after rainy days, but a cheap long lasting battery is still useful.
- derriz 2y ago
  A good point. Depending on the latitude/weather/etc, the difference between winter PV production can see a reduction of between 40% and 85% compared to summer output (sampling from [0]). Panel prices have dropped so much, it's far more likely that, at least with places where summer output is double that of winter or less, that simply doubling the number of panels solves the problem. Batteries and PV are cheap and getting cheaper all the time, are proven and are absolutely trivial to install, operate and maintain compared to ANY conceivable process that involves hydrogen. I don't get the apparently insatiable drive/impulse that drives people to put so much effort into shoehorning hydrogen into the energy sector. It's expensive, inefficient, dangerous, leaky and is a potent greenhouse gas[1]. The hydrogen idea has been around for over 100 years, has never worked at scale, despite many efforts and large investments. It's time to walk away and concentrate effort into technologies that have actually delivered and have already reduced carbon emissions at scale. [0] https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/pvwatts.php https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/pvwatts.php [1] https://www.dnv.com/article/is-hydrogen-a-greenhouse-gas--243214 https://www.dnv.com/article/is-hydrogen-a-greenhouse-gas--24...
  - thargor90 2y ago
    The biggest problem is heating in winter, which requires way more energy than cooling in summer. So for colder areas doubling Panels will not be enough.
- 7e 2y ago
  There will always a use for surplus energy. Are you really going to curtail surplus solar in the summer when you could just build storage for it? That’s the profit maximizing solution, even if the efficiency isn’t high. It just needs to be cheap.
  - crote 2y ago
    Of course there will always be a use for surplus energy. It's basically free, so we'll probably see whole new industries pop up to make use of it. For example, an aluminium smelter might use free summer energy to turn alumina into aluminium, and turn the plant off in the winter - at which time the labor force can do extended maintenance and do post-processing on the aluminium produced during the summer. Although finding an industry where such seasonal turnovers are viable isn't trivial, if you find one it's going to be far more profitable than very lossy storage.

Culonavirus 2y ago

[flagged]

HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
Pushing energy research?
- Culonavirus 2y ago
  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HIVmSewHqMY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HIVmSewHqMY

aDyslecticCrow 2y ago

Cut down for another 60%-80% efficiency for producing the hydrogen. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032123007888 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136403212... Unless you also have a nuclear reactor to perform the high-temperature electrolysis process. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-temperature_electrolysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-temperature_electrolysis Which only Japan seems to be working on building at the moment. https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/production/japan-plans-hydrogen-production-with-next-generation-nuclear-reactor-using-heat-and-only-minimal-electricity/2-1-1621135 https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/production/japan-plans-hydro... It's cool tech, and I like that it's researched. But I think it's not a breakthrough that could realistically help the grid at the moment.