CAElite t1_ivee2ow wrote on November 7, 2022 at 10:45 AM

Reply to comment by YpsilonY in Dutch pilot project for hydrogen heated homes allowed to begin by alex20_202020

I simply disagree, we do not have an availability issue with green energy, we have a geographic issue with green energy, in that it simply isn’t produced where people need it. You can see examples of this all over the world.

To cite my home country, Scotland, where our highlands produce over 200% of their energy requirements from wind & hydro. However where these sites are population is extremely sparse, meaning there are massive grid transmission issues getting the power to where it is needed. There’s a great video on this here highlighting Orkney https://youtu.be/8UmsfXWzvEA.

To cite a larger more relevant example to global warming, China, who currently have both the largest expansion of coal power with the largest expansion of wind & hydro. The problems they are facing is their green energy is situated predominantly in the sparsely populated west, with their industrial power houses being along the eastern coast, needing supplemented by coal generation, as China does not have adequate gas sources for cleaner generation (https://youtu.be/GBp_NgrrtPM here’s a good more in depth documentary on Chinese energy infrastructure). They are experimenting with extremely high voltage transmission lines however they are still problematic with the huge distances involved.

Grid transmission is a massive issue, and one that is being exacerbated by BEV usage, home chargers are already a huge grid issue we are seeing here in Scotland with the stress of substations and dated residential transmission lines, we have seen a 200-300% uptick in localised grid demand in affluent areas here, and that is even with our very small <5% EV adoption.

This is where many hydrogen schemes come in, it can be produced in large volumes at green energy production sites, and shipped or piped out, the same way gas & oil production happen today. Without requiring a near rebuilding of our energy grid. Where there’s losses on on paper efficiency, which is ever reducing with Japanese firms predicting an 80% production efficiency in the next 5 years (up from 30-40% in the last 5) there is potential to save billions on grid infrastructure. If you want a good video on Japans hydrogen development I think this is a good one: https://youtu.be/8UmsfXWzvEA although it’s focusing in a big way on the nuclear production of hydrogen, which is a fairly new concept, conventional production is being helped lately with the advent of carbon nano fibre filters & catalyst bases.

CriticalUnit t1_ivf2zj5 wrote on November 7, 2022 at 2:42 PM

> To cite my home country, Scotland,

Where 5 million people live and little to no heavy industry is.

You might have well suggested that the entire world follow the example of Iceland or Costa Rica.

>we do not have an availability issue with green energy

We have an OVERALL energy availability issue. Or have you been asleep this decade? To say we do not have an availability issue with green energy is just pure ignorance about energy in general

CAElite t1_ivf3p7v wrote on November 7, 2022 at 2:47 PM

Did you bother reading the rest of my post where I literally said China was a larger more relevant example that experiences the same issues.

There is not an availability issue of green energy in most of the world, however there are geographic and transmission challenges.

I can’t recall a good source of the studies but there was a lot of feasibility studies done on Saharan solar energy to be exported to industrialised Europe/Turkey, but the transmission is an astronomical barrier.

CriticalUnit t1_ivf4kf7 wrote on November 7, 2022 at 2:54 PM

> China was a larger more relevant example

Yes, they still have blackouts and industry shutdowns due to lack of electricity, green or otherwise.

This dream of shipping hydrogen isn't going to help, because you need 3x the energy to be generated and massive transportation needed to get it where the demand is. (in a situation where there is already not enough TOTAL energy)
You may not think it, but the reality is that it's easier to just build more grid transmission than roll out the rube goldberg hydrogen infrastructure needed.

>There is not an availability issue of green energy in most of the world

Again, this is 100% wrong. There is a massive lack of green energy generation happening. Now there is no lack of green energy POTENTIAL in most of the world, but we are significantly lacking in actual production.

>the transmission is an astronomical barrier.

Transportation of hydrogen is an astronomical barrier too. But you conveniently ignore that.

EDIT: Downvote all you want. It doesn't change the reality.