A funny thing happened back in the middle 1800s. A man ran a 7-ton electric locomotive a mile and a half.
The motor was powered by a storage device. In the late 1800s, people drove their cars around all day using a storage device.
These storage devices became better and better, until they could power trucks and buses for hundreds of miles.
They are still getting better and better. Of course they can be depleted, and it’s good to havea backup methods to
cover these cases and to keep the storage devices charged when there’s no sun or wind. Hydroelectric dams powered
by water-storage are widely-used, and some flat places still burn fossil fuels to do that as well.
Well, yeah, the hydrogen solution to build out renewable overcapacity and storing production surplus as green hydrogen in natural gas caverns is dead in the water. So private households better start budgeting for sodium-ion backup for hybrid solar inverters which are island and black start capable, for when planned load shedding events start.
It will be cheaper than fossil fuels at some point in the future. The benefit of not being a finite resource. We can speed this process up if we scale up sooner rather than later.
We are already running out of fossil fuels (particularly diesel) so that’s a given. If we are going to see significant green hydrogen generation, it will likely be in advanced dirigistic economies like China.
Except you can’t power 24/7/365 with renewable alone, so you still need gas turbine backup.
A funny thing happened back in the middle 1800s. A man ran a 7-ton electric locomotive a mile and a half. The motor was powered by a storage device. In the late 1800s, people drove their cars around all day using a storage device. These storage devices became better and better, until they could power trucks and buses for hundreds of miles.
They are still getting better and better. Of course they can be depleted, and it’s good to havea backup methods to cover these cases and to keep the storage devices charged when there’s no sun or wind. Hydroelectric dams powered by water-storage are widely-used, and some flat places still burn fossil fuels to do that as well.
You need a buffer with at least 60 TWh in case of Germany. There is no economic electrochemical energy storage system for that capacity.
That’ll teach them to plan ahead!
Well, yeah, the hydrogen solution to build out renewable overcapacity and storing production surplus as green hydrogen in natural gas caverns is dead in the water. So private households better start budgeting for sodium-ion backup for hybrid solar inverters which are island and black start capable, for when planned load shedding events start.
The easy solution is to just make green hydrogen. It’s an already solved problem, lacking only political will.
It is expensive though, so not a self runner in a free market economy.
It will be cheaper than fossil fuels at some point in the future. The benefit of not being a finite resource. We can speed this process up if we scale up sooner rather than later.
We are already running out of fossil fuels (particularly diesel) so that’s a given. If we are going to see significant green hydrogen generation, it will likely be in advanced dirigistic economies like China.