[Retric]

Hydrogen is also a byproduct of some source of energy, it doesn’t just materialize.

The difference is batteries are vastly more efficient at storage and doing useful work with that stored energy. There’s use cases where that’s fine like rocketry, but efficiency or energy density is usually a dealbreaker.

[jimnotgym]

Vastly more efficient at storing electricity. Vastly more expensive to construct, using rare materials. Have a Vastly shorter lifespan than a hydrogen tank and much lower energy density. Everything is a compromise

[Retric]

Many batteries actually last significantly longer than common hydrogen storage tanks, hydrogen embrittlement is a major issue. Type III and IV tanks have a life cycle of 10 years. https://www.awoe.net/Hydrogen-Storage-LCA.html

Hydrogen has also terrible volumetric energy density. It’s also really heavy until you scale to huge tanks.

[Heston]

Hydrogen's volumetric energy density is about as good as lithium-ion. The cost of replacing a hydrogen tank vs a lithium battery is absolutely massive. You also aren't considering the energy density lost in cold weather for batteries.

[Retric]

Almost the same in the short term requires you to liquify hydrogen and then use it immediately. Because the energy density rapidly goes to zero for any application with a moderately sized tank. On top of which you need a cryogenic tank, costing you even more volume.

Liquifying hydrogen also costs you another ~10-13 kWh /kg where Hydrogen only contains 33kWh if you want heat, but more like 10-15kWh/kg if you want to do useful work. So you’re roughly paying double the energy for the same amount of energy stored.

[rocqua]

How expensive, big, and heavy would a hydrogen tank (farm) be if it had to supply a whole winter for, say, 1million people. I ask because one of the bigger transition issues I see in Europe is load shifting from summer surplus to winter deficits, specifically for heating.

[pfdietz]

On such a scale hydrogen would be store underground in solution-mined salt caverns, not above ground in tanks.

Europe has enough salt formations to potentially store millions of GWh of hydrogen, far more than would be needed.

[_ph_]

Why would you want to store enough energy to supply for a whole winter? Wind energy delivers most power during the winter and even solar contributes a bit. The actual amounts to store would be a fraction of that. Of course, that might be the one single good use of hydrogen as a means of storage, but way less storage is needed than most would think.

[Guthur]

What the hell are you talking about, a. batteries weren't mentioned and b. hydrogen is on the periodic table and exists as an element, and can actually be found in its pure form.

[Retric]

Pure hydrogen is not found in meaningful quantities on earth.

There’s a huge demand for hydrogen in industry and it’s almost exclusively met with steam methane reforming there’s some methane pyrolysis and a little green hydrogen but not much. If people could just drill for it, they would happier do so as being so light it’s easy to separate out from other gasses.

[pfdietz]

> Pure hydrogen is not found in meaningful quantities on earth.

This is not necessarily true. A recent discovery in France could contain as much as 250 million metric tons of hydrogen (but that's a generous upper bound).

[Retric]

Sure there’s useful amounts of grey hydrogen but not enough for any kind of energy transition.

We’re talking about the useful energy from ~1 number power plant over its lifespan. So find ~1,000 such locations and that would be a big deal.

[pfdietz]

This is white hydrogen, not grey hydrogen.

It's not clear what would be available globally if it were looked for as it was in France.

[Retric]

Ahh ops flipped though there’s a really long list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production

[zejn]

While hydrogen can be found in its pure form, the reserves are not really developed.

Hydrogen is generally considered a storage, not a resource. Same as battery.

[Dylan16807]

> a. batteries weren't mentioned

What do you think people mean when they say "electric" in this context? It's batteries.