Hydrogen can be useful as a portable energy source but it’s not something you want to try to keep around in bulk. For most applications it’s safer to generate hydrogen right before you intend to use it.
Pumped hydro is still the most cost-effective and safe way to store excess energy.
Interesting, I wasn’t aware of this. How scalable is it? How easy is it to continuously cycle? Has anyone actually tried to build an energy storage system with it?
It’s pointless if the hydrogen is initially coming from cracking hydrocarbons in the first place – and the dirty secret of the hydrogen industry is that it is – so it doesn’t really get used much. Similarly, if you’re still allowed to just make gasoline from oil, it can’t compete.
It’s not a new or experimental thing, though. The Nazis used it in WWII to make liquid fuel from wood gas to overcome petroleum shortages. It would become viable (in peacetime) only if we quit allowing fossil fuels to undercut it on price.
Your rhetoric is decades out of date. We can easily store hydrogen in vast quantity at very low cost. If anything, you are spread an old oil & gas talking point. According to them, nothing except fossil fuels is storable.
The problem with storing hydrogen is related to the nature of the hydrogen atom being one proton and one electron… I don’t see how that could be “out of date”… the relatively free nature of the protons makes them particularly damaging because they can slip into and break up the structure of almost any material you might try to contain them with.
We can easily store hydrogen in vast quantity at very low cost.
I would be very interested to read a source for this.
If anything, you are spread an old oil & gas talking point. According to them, nothing except fossil fuels is storable.
Not really. It’s funny that you’re trying to paint me as a shill for fossil fuels, when the alternative storage system I recommended is (again) pumped hydroelectric, which has nothing to do with fossil fuels.
Modern tanks leak very little. Large underground cavern stores even at very low cost. You are just out of date on your information.
It doesn’t matter what you think you are advocating for. Your rhetoric is basically just oil & gas propaganda. At best, you can accept that you were fooled by it.
You clearly don’t yourself, since tanks are made of carbon fiber. Embrittlement is very alloy dependent too. Choose the right alloy and it is a non-issue.
There are vast quantities of suitable underground caverns. It gives many orders of magnitude more storage capacity than any other idea, including pump hydro (which is significantly more geographically limited).
Wind and solar are cheaper and easier to build. The nuclear power should have been built decades ago.
What is needed is an excess of wind and solar, improved international grind connections and hydrogen made during wind/solar spikes.
The rest of it’s good, but hydrogen is not a good energy storage solution. It’s a nasty thing to try to keep in a tank because of problems like embrittlement.
Hydrogen can be useful as a portable energy source but it’s not something you want to try to keep around in bulk. For most applications it’s safer to generate hydrogen right before you intend to use it.
Pumped hydro is still the most cost-effective and safe way to store excess energy.
The best way to store hydrogen is to combine it with carbon.
(As a bonus, if you do that then you suddenly don’t need a whole bunch of new infrastructure and vehicles to use it!)
Interesting, I wasn’t aware of this. How scalable is it? How easy is it to continuously cycle? Has anyone actually tried to build an energy storage system with it?
It’s pointless if the hydrogen is initially coming from cracking hydrocarbons in the first place – and the dirty secret of the hydrogen industry is that it is – so it doesn’t really get used much. Similarly, if you’re still allowed to just make gasoline from oil, it can’t compete.
It’s not a new or experimental thing, though. The Nazis used it in WWII to make liquid fuel from wood gas to overcome petroleum shortages. It would become viable (in peacetime) only if we quit allowing fossil fuels to undercut it on price.
Your rhetoric is decades out of date. We can easily store hydrogen in vast quantity at very low cost. If anything, you are spread an old oil & gas talking point. According to them, nothing except fossil fuels is storable.
Ehm… rhetoric?..
The problem with storing hydrogen is related to the nature of the hydrogen atom being one proton and one electron… I don’t see how that could be “out of date”… the relatively free nature of the protons makes them particularly damaging because they can slip into and break up the structure of almost any material you might try to contain them with.
I would be very interested to read a source for this.
Not really. It’s funny that you’re trying to paint me as a shill for fossil fuels, when the alternative storage system I recommended is (again) pumped hydroelectric, which has nothing to do with fossil fuels.
Modern tanks leak very little. Large underground cavern stores even at very low cost. You are just out of date on your information.
It doesn’t matter what you think you are advocating for. Your rhetoric is basically just oil & gas propaganda. At best, you can accept that you were fooled by it.
Lmao your comment and smugness is so ironic
I don’t think you understand how embrittlement works, or what the problem is. Define “very little”, and over how long of a lifespan?
Well, that’s not very reliable for setting up grid storage is it? I mean, you have to have a suitable cavern.
Still waiting on some sources… so far you haven’t provided any information, only opinions.
You clearly don’t yourself, since tanks are made of carbon fiber. Embrittlement is very alloy dependent too. Choose the right alloy and it is a non-issue.
There are vast quantities of suitable underground caverns. It gives many orders of magnitude more storage capacity than any other idea, including pump hydro (which is significantly more geographically limited).
It’s sad that you claim knowledge, but you can’t be bothered to google it. There are many studies out there like this one: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004223028481