this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2023
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Well the issue with renewable power like wind and solar, is that they are not stable.
Having a battery in order to store the energy and release it when the demand is higher than production is one part of the solution.
But what happens when there wasn't enough solar and wind to replenish the batteries if those batteries aren't enough for the demand? Power shortages, which are pretty bad to get.
One of the solutions to this is natural gas for a simple reason : it's very fast to start generating power or to stop. It's also not very expensive, at least when there isn't a war... The co2 equivalent emissions aren't as high as coal either.
Nuclear power on the other hand is very hard to stop. Having a surplus of power on the grid is also very bad. Some of it could be used to recharge the batteries, but there would be some loss at some point.
Except that H2 can be electrolyzed from water and is an emerging carbon-free fuel source. The nuclear power can just stay on all the time and we let H2 production drop a little when the wind is low and the sky is dark.
It's another solution, now there is also issues with costs. However with time the costs can be reduced.
For hydrogen based on this video : https://youtu.be/M0fnEsz4Ks0 there could be some hope for large hydrogen storage for a smaller cost (not used in cars tho, due to the weight).
Hydrogen production however is/was very ineficient. However there is also some hope for this https://youtu.be/m0d6iljzzEI
So with this, maybe it could be an interesting solution to store energy.
Tho I'm not sure how efficient it would be to produce energy from that stored hydrogen, and how efficient it could be for the entire hydrogen production/storing/electricity production chain.
Even if the current technology for producing zero-emission hydrogen is relatively inefficient, that's not really such a problem since it's a zero-emission process.
Especially when the bulk of your hydrogen production comes from excess energy generation
The issue isn't emissions, it's costs. Sadly we don't live in a dream world, and everything has a cost.
Even running excess production into hydrogen production has costs (transport, storage, infrastructure...).
The current (not taking in consideration the new tech currently in testing) beeing highly ineficient creates many cost issues.
Less effieicnt means that more power needs to be used to get that amount of hydrogen, reducing the gains on electricity surplus.
The storage beeing ineficient means a higher running cost, more space used, less of that space...
The transport beeing ineficient also increases the running costs, but also the emissions if the transport uses fossil fuel. Of it uses hydrogen, well it increases the running cost even more. That expensive produced hydrogen is used for transport...
The electricity production from hydrogen being ineficient increases the used hydrogen to get the same energy amount, which then increases the costs because more of that expensive hydrogen has to be used.
So taking all this into account, being "clean" doesn't necessarily make it is viable compared to other storage or energy production tech.
The costs have to be taken in account because resources don't appear magically.
Mining Uranium has a cost. Buying it from abroad has a cost, paying people to maintain all that has a cost...
The relative costs are just a question of policy. Legislators could make fossil fuels prohibitively expensive tomorrow if they really wanted. Anyway, if Australia doesn't have a good source of fissile material (I have no idea), that is a fair point against nuclear power there. However, that just means other big, ambitious emission-free power projects should be considered instead, like deep-well geothermal, concentrated solar, and coerced rooftop solar. Seemingly cost effective half measures that keep fossil fuels in the mix are a mistake.
There is no shortage of bullshit from budding energy companies.
"It's a good technology for filling in the gaps around renewables, as well as storage and other methods for making sure that power's still reliable..."
This does make some sense, like having a diesel generator in your home for the few times a year the power goes out. It's also useful for shutting up the, "sometimes the wind doesn't blow and there's no sun at night" crowd.
It's also kind of a slight of hand. Fossil fuels shouldn't be part of the mix at all, but the article just accepts the premise that they must. If natural gas or other fossil fuels aren't allowed, then then the economic case for nuclear power is stronger.
As for needing needing natural gas to "fill in the gaps", that's just fossil fuel industry propaganda. It's a non-issue with nuclear power. Whenever electrical demand drops you can just divert the power to make hydrogen/ammonia to store the extra energy or produce zero-emission fertilizer.
The article says "gas", not "natural gas". Australia already has plenty of gas infrastructure including pipelines so the situation might be similar as to Germany: First, use natural gas as the one fossil fuel that you're using precisely because gas plants regulate fast and natural gas can be replaced by synthesised gas, then, once you have enough renewable capacity, actually do the switch. And boy oh boy has Australia potential for renewable generation, they'll also want to produce tons of hydrogen anyway to smelt (and stop being a 3rd-world style economy that's exporting raw ore).
Is this "gas" not a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane?
Sounds like an excuse to perpetuate the fossil fuel racket.
The only people writing articles about energy are lobby groups.
There is a propaganda campaign going on in Australia at the moment from the natural gas lobbyists with ads on the TV where they're pimping themself out as "partners in the transition to renewable energy".
Also this report is being used by both sides of politics here, one saying it rightfully justifies focusing on renewables and the other claiming it's being "used unfairly as a weapon" against nuclear energy. Also, the latter is pimping nuclear instead largely because they're controled by mining companies who have a lot of political influence here oh and we also happen to dig that shit out of the ground.