Yes this is true. And again: Me being against nuclear power plants does not make me a coal proponent. I think we have to get rid of both and aim for 100% renewables, which is feasible according to current studies.
For me the most danger lies in storing high level radioactive waste on the surface where it's prone to accidents and can easily contaminate air and ground water.
I don't really know of a storage system that is free of risk. The Three Gorges Dam is more potentially deadly than any reactor for instance as it has 400 million people at risk.
I'm no proponent of these massive structures with unimaginable impact on their environment either. Also Germany will probably never have a structure of this size in the foreseeable future. In order to produce enough energy during times when wind and solar energy is scarce, Germany wants to build 40 climate neutral hydrogen power plants until the 2030s in order to phase out coal power production.
As far as I understand it we will therefore not need more batteries.
Neutral hydrogen power plants? If it's not green hydrogen it's just fossil fuels with more steps and on top of that hydrogen is difficult to store causing it to lose upwards of 60% of the energy put into it.
Then what? Are they going to burn it or are they going to run it through fuel cells that use expensive catalysts?
I think the idea is to produce the green hydrogen by employing renewables during time of high production yields and using this produced hydrogen when the renewables don't produce enough.
This is what I gathered but I'm not 100% sure.
That seems like a misguided approach because green hydrogen is not really efficient. To use it to fuel mobile applications is one thing but to use it for the electrical grid is a misguided venture in my opinion.
I think pumped hydro is likely a better medium with about 80% efficiency while green hydrogen is lucky to get half that.
I don't think that's right, since during times of high solar or wind production, more energy is produced than is consumed. This energy will then be used to create hydrogen. This is a very battery like concept which enables the buffering of renewable energy using hydrogen production. Because of this assymmetry we do not need twice the amount of renewable power plants.
Okay I think I understand, you mean because of the energy lost to the process during hydrogen production, right?
This is true, but it's again a question of how can we produce climate neutral energy without employing fossil fuels or nuclear energy, and if that means we have built more renewable power plants, to fill the hydrogen tanks, why not just build them?
Sure, if it was free to build, it would be better than not having them (though worse than more efficient types of storage), assuming the cost of refining the steel breaks even.
There's a reason fossil fuel companies fund hydrogen.
Yes this is true. And again: Me being against nuclear power plants does not make me a coal proponent. I think we have to get rid of both and aim for 100% renewables, which is feasible according to current studies.
For me the most danger lies in storing high level radioactive waste on the surface where it's prone to accidents and can easily contaminate air and ground water.
How do you think renewable energy can be stored?
I don't really know of a storage system that is free of risk. The Three Gorges Dam is more potentially deadly than any reactor for instance as it has 400 million people at risk.
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I'm no proponent of these massive structures with unimaginable impact on their environment either. Also Germany will probably never have a structure of this size in the foreseeable future. In order to produce enough energy during times when wind and solar energy is scarce, Germany wants to build 40 climate neutral hydrogen power plants until the 2030s in order to phase out coal power production. As far as I understand it we will therefore not need more batteries.
Neutral hydrogen power plants? If it's not green hydrogen it's just fossil fuels with more steps and on top of that hydrogen is difficult to store causing it to lose upwards of 60% of the energy put into it.
Then what? Are they going to burn it or are they going to run it through fuel cells that use expensive catalysts?
I think the idea is to produce the green hydrogen by employing renewables during time of high production yields and using this produced hydrogen when the renewables don't produce enough. This is what I gathered but I'm not 100% sure.
That seems like a misguided approach because green hydrogen is not really efficient. To use it to fuel mobile applications is one thing but to use it for the electrical grid is a misguided venture in my opinion.
I think pumped hydro is likely a better medium with about 80% efficiency while green hydrogen is lucky to get half that.
I don't think it's a question of efficiency. It's a question of producing the least amount of CO2 as possible. This is where green hydrogen shines.
It really is though. If you need twice as many solar panels to make the same energy it's a very pertinent problem.
I don't think that's right, since during times of high solar or wind production, more energy is produced than is consumed. This energy will then be used to create hydrogen. This is a very battery like concept which enables the buffering of renewable energy using hydrogen production. Because of this assymmetry we do not need twice the amount of renewable power plants.
You do though. You need to refill the storage faster than it is drained, it's a simple numbers game.
If you waste half the electricity produced going hydrogen over pumped hydro then you need more renewables.
Okay I think I understand, you mean because of the energy lost to the process during hydrogen production, right? This is true, but it's again a question of how can we produce climate neutral energy without employing fossil fuels or nuclear energy, and if that means we have built more renewable power plants, to fill the hydrogen tanks, why not just build them?
Sure, if it was free to build, it would be better than not having them (though worse than more efficient types of storage), assuming the cost of refining the steel breaks even.
There's a reason fossil fuel companies fund hydrogen.
Of course this is more expensive. This is the price for being independent of fossil and nuclear fuel.
Fossil fuel companies support hydrogen plants that use fossil fuel to produce "grey" hydrogen, not green hydrogen produced by renewables.