A bit of a tangent here, but does anyone have a grasp on whether using electrolysis to store and transport excess solar/wind is a feasible thing? Could hydrogen behave as a on-demand scalable (if inefficient) store of unused power?
One of Australia's richest men, the billionaire Andrew 'Twiggy' Forrest, is shifting his focus from Mining to Hydrogen with big projects announced late last year in Australia and Argentina.
It's actually this news that made me curious about the potential for hydrogen to act as a battery for solar projects where pumped hydro doesn't make sense. I've read that the water output of hydrogen energy generation is non-recyclable, if that's solvable we could have excess solar in arid places along with a fully-contained hydrogen electrolysis and power generator combination acting as a battery
I think this is called "green hydrogen" [1] which has application as an energy storage medium, but also more. Energy storage also does not imply, that that hydrogen needs to be turned back into grid electricity, but could be used for heating or for hydrogen cars.
I'm aware of the term, 'green hydrogen', which is in contrast to 'blue hydrogen' (or as I prefer to call it 'dirty hydrogen') which is a product of methane gas extraction and allows some of that methane to escape.
> but could be used for heating or for hydrogen cars.
I'm under the impression that hydrogen ICE vehicles at scale is impractical due to lack of infrastructure, safety issues etc, at least compared to batteries
Hydrogen as a replacement fuel for vehicles is a dead duck. Batteries have won there.
Hydrogen, or zero net carbon hydrocarbons synthesized from it, is a good fit where energy density exceeds what current lithium chemistry batteries can provide, like aeroplanes, or rockets.
