[chrisb]

I was wondering if these could be used to store hydrogen generated by solar water-splitting? Could the hydrogen be piped in place of natural gas? Or combined with natural gas? seemingly "town gas" was primarily hydrogen [1]. Or it could generate electricity via combustion or fuel cell, providing dispatchable renewable energy with grid-scale storage :)

An averaged-size gas-holder has capacity of ~50,000 m^3 [2]. Gas holders store gas at essentially atmospheric pressure, so the stored hydrogen has an energy density of ~0.01 MJ/L [3] = ~10^7 J/m^3. So the gas-holder energy capacity is ~5*10^11 J = ~140 MWh

In comparison Dinorwig pumped-storage power station in the UK has an energy capacity of ~9000 MWh [4]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_gas#Composition

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_holder

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density

[4] http://www.withouthotair.com/c26/page_191.shtml

[ptaipale]

Hydrogen is explosive, corrosive, and it literally leaks through materials, unlike natural gas. Town gas may have had it as component but it sounds scary, unlike natural gas.

[awjr]

Thought storing Hydrogen was notoriously hard because it can penetrates rather effectively through pretty much anything.

[chrisb]

I can't find a reference now, but as I understand it this isn't so much of an issue at low pressure.

Apparently underground low pressure storage has been used successfully: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_storage#Underground_hy...

[KaiserPro]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_gas

Seemed to be not to hard with town gas (which was >50% hydrogen)