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Of course it's more efficient to use batteries, these are all entry level arguments. Perhaps I misread the audience. The infrastructure cost is totally differe
by Gravityloss 12y ago
Of course it's more efficient to use batteries, these are all entry level arguments. Perhaps I misread the audience.
The infrastructure cost is totally different. Electrolysis and immobile storage of hydrogen is very cheap.
We don't have a lot of places where for a significant portion of time when there is excess power from renewables, but we will, in the future.
Edit:
To clarify: if you want to produce say 40% of your yearly energy needs from wind and solar, you have to oversize the production since there are many days they produce very little. That then means there are days when they produce more than is consumed. The excess energy could be used for electrolyzing hydrogen from water.
Note no carbon involved. Also the low efficiency doesn't matter, as the energy is "free". Low cost of energy storage method is much more important in this case.
Any other reasons than "batteries are more efficient" for downvoting?
- dTal 12y ago>immobile storage of hydrogen is very cheap Where did you get this idea? You have to keep liquid hydrogen extremely chilled, under extreme pressure, and it inevitably leaks out. Compare to pumped water energy storage, which is at ambient temperature and pressure and has similar efficiency to the electrolysis -> fuel-cell cycle.
- Gravityloss 12y agoStored in any way, it's cheap compared to batteries. Also many places don't have reservoirs and mountains for pumped storage. I'm not a big believer in the hydrogen economy, but at least incorrect notions should be corrected ("no source of hydrogen besides natural gas to be seen").
- greglindahl 12y agoThat's not what the guy you responded to said.
- Leynos 12y agoHow much additional cost is incurred by converting the hydrogen to methane (combining with atmospheric CO2), then utilizing existing gas infrastructure?
- GhotiFish 12y agolots of solutions to this, one is to take carbon out of the atmosphere and make more well behaved molecules like methane http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction#Energy_storage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction#Energy_storag...