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How about installing more windmills & solar farms & using the surplus energy to produce hydrogen?
The only place it 'might' make sense to use hydrogen is for aviation fuel
Assuming liquid hydrogen can be used safely in aviation and that the lower density can be built into the frame without hurting space standards etc
It has about 1/3rd the mass of Jet fuel for a given unit of energy but is less dense even when a liquid. So it will take up more space but have 1/3rd the mass
While the fuel will likely be more costly than jet fuel is today, the lower mass should make the plane more efficient so needing less hydrogen energy to fly a given distance or able to carry more cargo tons for more income. A large plane could carry ~3 x the payload
Also perhaps in the steel industry where they need to produce oxygen anyway so could potentially use both the oxygen and the hydrogen0 -
HiMartyn1981 wrote: »Also, having taken the COP into account, heat pump leccy running costs could well be less than GCH gas costs.
... tell me about it! - our HP has been soaking up our microgeneration quite a lot over the past couple of weeks ... and this is supposed to be flaming June? ... :cool:
HTH
Z"We are what we repeatedly do, excellence then is not an act, but a habit. " ...... Aristotle
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It makes a lot of economic sense if you don't have to replace several million gas boilers.....no doubt requiring government subsidies.It makes no economic sense whatsoever and while costs can improve we cant beat the laws of thermodynamics. You dont turn high grade fuel (electricity) to low grade fuel (chemical).
You also overlook the benefit of being able use hydrogen to store surplus daytime solar energy.4kWp (black/black) - Sofar Inverter - SSE(141°) - 30° pitch - North LincsInstalled June 2013 - PVGIS = 3400Sofar ME3000SP Inverter & 5 x Pylontech US2000B Plus & 3 x US2000C Batteries - 19.2kWh0 -
HiIt makes a lot of economic sense if you don't have to replace several million gas boilers.....no doubt requiring government subsidies.
You also overlook the benefit of being able use hydrogen to store surplus daytime solar energy.
... and supply/demand curtailment of windpower! ... why pay for turbines to remain static when the energy generated is essentially free & would therefore make complete economic sense to divert to a form of storage, whether it's chemical or potential energy and whatever efficiencies are involved, the economics of doing something trump those of doing nothing!
Anyway, take care when a serial-troll is looking to draw relatively new (to these particular threads) members into a feeding session, you'll soon be discussing nuclear fusion, house building in developing countries, the economy of Sweden, interconnectors, the health benefits of coal generation if built outside London, solar generation being uneconomical in cold(er) climates, PM2.5, the economics of EVs and why or why not nuclear is good or bad depending on which side of the bed trolls tend to get out of on any particular morning ... unless there's serious disinformation to challenge that others would need to be aware of, it may be far better to not quote troll-text - that way many of us wont have to be aware of the latest anti-anything that involves change drivel that we've endured for years from one person under various profiles ...
HTH
Z"We are what we repeatedly do, excellence then is not an act, but a habit. " ...... Aristotle0 -
It makes a lot of economic sense if you don't have to replace several million gas boilers.....no doubt requiring government subsidies.
Electrical heating is very capital cheap you can buy an electric heater for £15 and plug it into the wall (those were the most common type in Norway, which is 100% electrically heated, which by the way is proof electrical heating does work. Sweden is another electrically heated country, by comparison there is no hydrogen heated country you can point to)
When your boiler breaks down instead of paying £1,500 for a new one you can buy a cheaper 'electric boiler' if you want to keep the wet works, or replace it with an electric tank for the hot water and electric heaters for heating. Maintenance is also cheaper for an electric system
The efficiency is also 100% compared to more typically 80% for a modern boiler.
There is also efficiency gains in not having to keep alive the very intensive pipe system to keep NG or H2 being pumped into millions of homes plus electricity has little to no 'leaks' while NG does and H2 will be more difficult as its a more difficult substance to contain
The cost of converting over to electrical heating is negative capital cost and negative maintenance costs, it is a saving, so long as you convert as existing boilers break which is what would be done (we couldn't convert 30 million boilers overnight even if we wanted to do that but over 15-20 years as they naturally die is fine)
By comparison the cost of building chemical plants adds huge costs because
1: they are not cheap to build
2: they require workers expensive workers to run and maintain the chemical plants and a hell of a lot of them. This is one of the reason nuclear is expensive and it is one of the reasons chemical plants will be expensive.
3 the thermodynamic losses will be very significant you have AC to DC conversion. You have electrolysis losses. You have all the energy used for the building and pumping storing compressing. You have combustion inefficacy in your hydrogen boiler
4 no chemical plant is totally clean what will the waste streams be?
By comparison electrical heating is
1: negative cost
2: no additional workers
3: Very high efficiency total wind farm to electrical heater is circa 93% efficient or if using a heat pump then 2-3 x as efficient again but then there is the capital and maintenance costs of a HP
4: there is no byproducts or waste in transmitting and using the electricity this way compared to chemical plants which have lots
The electrical system is also much lower embodied waste and energy.
Half a dozen electrical heaters might weigh 6kg while the typical wet system is more than 20 x that. So less materials and less transport cost for the electric home
Plus no need to build monster sized chemical plants which will take many years and cost a lot in land and materials
Plus overall lower energy needs due to efficiency so fewer wind mills needed in total0 -
It makes a lot of economic sense if you don't have to replace several million gas boilers.....no doubt requiring government subsidies.
Also you would have to change the boilers you cant just switch from NG to H2 at least the boiler heads need to be changed as a bare minimum. Plus H2 is a lower energy density carrier per cm3 which will likely mean many homes pipes will need to be upgraded to be about 3 x as thick (in cross area) so how do you fancy your floors and walls being ripped apart to change gas lines? and possibly the thicker pipes that transmit the NG nationally and locally may need to be upgraded so a lot of digging up roads and laying new pipesYou also overlook the benefit of being able use hydrogen to store surplus daytime solar energy.
We dont have surplus daytime solar energy
And we wont built 'surplus daytime solar energy energy' because no one is going to build PV farms to sell the output for zero
Plus solar actually works with batteries its surplus is a lot easier to store because it can be discharged every night. While wind surplus is much more difficult to store as it can be in surplus for a week and in deficit for a week or even multiple weeks0 -
OK....what about increasing wind & solar production & then using the surplus energy to make hydrogen. This can then be used to generate electricity & power your electric boilers.Electrical heating is very capital cheap you can buy an electric heater for £15 and plug it into the wall (those were the most common type in Norway, which is 100% electrically heated, which by the way is proof electrical heating does work. Sweden is another electrically heated country, by comparison there is no hydrogen heated country you can point to)
When your boiler breaks down instead of paying £1,500 for a new one you can buy a cheaper 'electric boiler' if you want to keep the wet works, or replace it with an electric tank for the hot water and electric heaters for heating. Maintenance is also cheaper for an electric system
The efficiency is also 100% compared to more typically 80% for a modern boiler.
There is also efficiency gains in not having to keep alive the very intensive pipe system to keep NG or H2 being pumped into millions of homes plus electricity has little to no 'leaks' while NG does and H2 will be more difficult as its a more difficult substance to contain
The cost of converting over to electrical heating is negative capital cost and negative maintenance costs, it is a saving, so long as you convert as existing boilers break which is what would be done (we couldn't convert 30 million boilers overnight even if we wanted to do that but over 15-20 years as they naturally die is fine)
By comparison the cost of building chemical plants adds huge costs because
1: they are not cheap to build
2: they require workers expensive workers to run and maintain the chemical plants and a hell of a lot of them. This is one of the reason nuclear is expensive and it is one of the reasons chemical plants will be expensive.
3 the thermodynamic losses will be very significant you have AC to DC conversion. You have electrolysis losses. You have all the energy used for the building and pumping storing compressing. You have combustion inefficacy in your hydrogen boiler
4 no chemical plant is totally clean what will the waste streams be?
By comparison electrical heating is
1: negative cost
2: no additional workers
3: Very high efficiency total wind farm to electrical heater is circa 93% efficient or if using a heat pump then 2-3 x as efficient again but then there is the capital and maintenance costs of a HP
4: there is no byproducts or waste in transmitting and using the electricity this way compared to chemical plants which have lots
The electrical system is also much lower embodied waste and energy.
Half a dozen electrical heaters might weigh 6kg while the typical wet system is more than 20 x that. So less materials and less transport cost for the electric home
Plus no need to build monster sized chemical plants which will take many years and cost a lot in land and materials
Plus overall lower energy needs due to efficiency so fewer wind mills needed in total
In addition, a small amount of hydrogen could be added to the ng supply without the need to modify any boilers?
A hydrogen distribution network would speed up the adoption of fuel cell vehicles as well.
Batteries are great for smoothing the peaks & troughs of renewable energy generation, but they don’t have the capacity for sustained discharge at grid level demand. Hydrogen could do that.4kWp (black/black) - Sofar Inverter - SSE(141°) - 30° pitch - North LincsInstalled June 2013 - PVGIS = 3400Sofar ME3000SP Inverter & 5 x Pylontech US2000B Plus & 3 x US2000C Batteries - 19.2kWh0 -
it may be far better to not quote troll-text - that way many of us wont have to be aware of the latest anti-anything that involves change drivel that we've endured for years from one person under various profiles ...
HTH
Z
Unfortunately, because of continuous requoting of such text, I have ended up with another person on my ignore list!0 -
❄️❄️❄️
I apologise in advance for any offence caused.Northern Lincolnshire. 7.8 kWp system, (4.2 kw west facing panels , 3.6 kw east facing), Solis inverters, Solar IBoost water heater, Mitsubishi SRK35ZS-S and SRK20ZS-S Wall Mounted Inverter Heat Pumps, ex Nissan Leaf owner)0 -
Hi
... and supply/demand curtailment of windpower! ... why pay for turbines to remain static when the energy generated is essentially free & would therefore make complete economic sense to divert to a form of storage, whether it's chemical or potential energy and whatever efficiencies are involved, the economics of doing something trump those of doing nothing!
Why would you send 1 unit of 'free' wind power to a hydrogen plant when you can send 1 unit of 'free' wind power to a resistant heater in a home or office.
Why go to the trouble and cost of converting the electricity to hydrogen when you can use the energy directly?
Electrical heating works, Norway and Sweden are proof of this. More or less 100% electrically heated
A country like the UK can go to ~70% electrical heating with offshore wind power, the remaining 30% will be a big problem
The good news is, we are at least 2 decades away from electrifying heating to more than 70% so its not a problem that needs addressing anytime soon0
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