Storage solutions for 100% renewable scenario's: hydrogen, ammonium and iron batteries?

General philosophy message board for Discussion and debate on other philosophical issues not directly related to veganism. Metaphysics, religion, theist vs. atheist debates, politics, general science discussion, etc.
User avatar
DarlBundren
Senior Member
Posts: 355
Joined: Mon Oct 05, 2015 4:59 pm
Diet: Vegetarian
Location: Southern Europe

Re: Storage solutions for 100% renewable scenario's: hydrogen, ammonium and iron batteries?

Post by DarlBundren »

miniboes wrote:He has a pretty low voice and talks slowly so i'd recommend playing the vids at x1,25 or x1,5 speed
Hehe all right. I have watched Shellenberg's TED talk and downloaded Pandora's box, by the way.
User avatar
miniboes
Master of the Forum
Posts: 1578
Joined: Mon Sep 15, 2014 1:52 pm
Diet: Vegan
Location: Netherlands

Re: Storage solutions for 100% renewable scenario's: hydrogen, ammonium and iron batteries?

Post by miniboes »

Some basic info on hydrogen storage from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_energy_storage#Hydrogen
Wikipedia wrote:Hydrogen is produced, then compressed or liquefied, cryogenicly stored at −252.882 °C
I suppose this means that the longer you store the hydrogen, the more energy you lose; you don't get to -252°C for free.
Wikipedia wrote:The AC-to-AC efficiency of hydrogen storage has been shown to be on the order of 20 to 45%, which imposes economic constraints.
This is lower than the guy who proposed hydrogen as a solution to me suggested; he said the efficiency was 80%. This is a big problem.
Wikipedia wrote:Hydrogen fuel cells can respond quickly enough to correct rapid fluctuations in electricity demand or supply and regulate frequency. Whether hydrogen can use natural gas infrastructure depends on the network construction materials, standards in joints, and storage pressure.
That means that if you had unlimited money and land area to fill with renewables, hydrogen can indeed solve the intermittency problem.
Wikipedia wrote:Some nuclear power plants may be able to benefit from a symbiosis with hydrogen production. High temperature (950 to 1,000 °C) gas cooled nuclear generation IV reactors have the potential to electrolyze hydrogen from water by thermochemical means using nuclear heat as in the sulfur-iodine cycle. The first commercial reactors are expected in 2030.
Why do nuclear and renewables have to be enemies if they collaborate so well? :(

The article also mentions ammonia:
Wikipedia wrote:Existing technology can be used to produce ammonia by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen with the help of electricity, then using high temperature and pressure to convert the hydrogen plus nitrogen from the air into ammonia.
I suppose producing ammonia in this way is more expensive than producing hydrogen, since hydrogen is part of the production process. I could be wrong, though.
Wikipedia wrote:Ammonia is similar to propane when stored in liquid form, unlike Hydrogen which is difficult to liquefy and store cryogenicly at −252.882 °C.
This could make ammonia the more economic option.
Wikipedia wrote:Ammonia can be stored as a liquid; a standard tank of 60,000 m3 contains about 211 GWh of energy, equivalent to the annual production of roughly 30 wind turbines on land.
That means it could be a viable alternative to electric cars (the worldwide potential of which I fear may be limited by a potential shortage of lithium). The energy density is still just 1/3rd of diesel (12.66 MJ/L vs 35.8 MJ/L), but that's much better than lithium-ion batteries (4.32 MJ/L).
Wikipedia wrote:Ammonia can be burned cleanly: water and nitrogen are released, but no CO2 and little or no nitrogen oxides.
Does the same go for hydrogen? The article doesn't mention it.

Unfortunately wikipedia doesn't mention the monetary costs per unit of energy stored for either method. That, along with the other questions I posed above, will be added to my list of questions to answer this month.
"I advocate infinite effort on behalf of very finite goals, for example correcting this guy's grammar."
- David Frum
User avatar
miniboes
Master of the Forum
Posts: 1578
Joined: Mon Sep 15, 2014 1:52 pm
Diet: Vegan
Location: Netherlands

Re: Storage solutions for 100% renewable scenario's: hydrogen, ammonium and iron batteries?

Post by miniboes »

DarlBundren wrote: Sat May 06, 2017 7:19 am
miniboes wrote:He has a pretty low voice and talks slowly so i'd recommend playing the vids at x1,25 or x1,5 speed
Hehe all right. I have watched Shellenberg's TED talk and downloaded Pandora's box, by the way.
Good going. What did you think of the talk?
"I advocate infinite effort on behalf of very finite goals, for example correcting this guy's grammar."
- David Frum
User avatar
brimstoneSalad
neither stone nor salad
Posts: 10273
Joined: Wed May 28, 2014 9:20 am
Diet: Vegan

Re: Storage solutions for 100% renewable scenario's: hydrogen, ammonium and iron batteries?

Post by brimstoneSalad »

DarlBundren wrote: Sat May 06, 2017 7:19 am
miniboes wrote:He has a pretty low voice and talks slowly so i'd recommend playing the vids at x1,25 or x1,5 speed
Hehe all right. I have watched Shellenberg's TED talk and downloaded Pandora's box, by the way.

Pandora's Promise?
miniboes wrote: Sat May 06, 2017 7:36 am Some basic info on hydrogen storage from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_energy_storage#Hydrogen
Wikipedia wrote:Hydrogen is produced, then compressed or liquefied, cryogenicly stored at −252.882 °C
I suppose this means that the longer you store the hydrogen, the more energy you lose; you don't get to -252°C for free.
Length of storage isn't as big of a deal as the sheer amount of energy you need to cool the hydrogen for storage in the first place.
Keeping something cold is actually relatively efficient as long as you have a well insulated vessel. And given that you'd be evaporating off the gas intermittently (which helps keep the rest cool pretty efficiently), you're probably fine.

Pressurization and cooling in the first place is what is thermodynamically expensive, and you're probably not getting much if any of that energy back.

Data on liquid nitrogen engines/economy should give you some indication:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_nitrogen_engine#Criticisms

Wikipedia wrote:The AC-to-AC efficiency of hydrogen storage has been shown to be on the order of 20 to 45%, which imposes economic constraints.
20% sounds more plausible, but even that seems overly optimistic for AC to AC.
I think you should check their sources on this one.
If you're using solar, you only have to go from DC to AC, might be within that range somewhere.
miniboes wrote: Sat May 06, 2017 7:36 am This is lower than the guy who proposed hydrogen as a solution to me suggested; he said the efficiency was 80%. This is a big problem.
He probably got that idea from here, misunderstanding what that means:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell#Theoretical_maximum_efficiency
Or uncritically accepting bullshit propagated by pro-solar sites.

Not only is that theoretical (nobody has actually done this), but it would be ridiculously expensive, and fuel cells recovering the power is only a part of the equation (and the most efficient part already).

Realistic numbers are around 40-60% efficient for fuel cells unless you're using the heat for something (like heating buildings).

You still have huge losses for electrolysis (unless you do steam electrolysis using waste heat from, for example, nuclear power plants).
That's going to be something like 40-70% efficient.
You still have losses for storage.
You still have losses for pumping the gas to substations.
You still have losses converting that DC power output to AC for transmission to homes and businesses.

.6 * .7 (if you're very lucky on both) = .42 pr 42% efficient. And that's not taking into account all of the other losses I mentioned, just making the hydrogen and then turning it back into DC electricity.
If you kept more than half of that all things considered, that would be impressive.

As such, I'd need to see some pretty credible numbers to believe 20%
miniboes wrote: Sat May 06, 2017 7:36 am Why do nuclear and renewables have to be enemies if they collaborate so well? :(
Nuclear doesn't have intermittency issues, and wouldn't have any need for solar.
Unrequited love turned to hate, perhaps.
miniboes wrote: Sat May 06, 2017 7:36 am I suppose producing ammonia in this way is more expensive than producing hydrogen, since hydrogen is part of the production process. I could be wrong, though.
Yes, but it's a liquid and you don't have to cool/compress it.
It's a trade off. Not clear which is more expensive. Hydrogen is probably more dangerous.
miniboes wrote: Sat May 06, 2017 7:36 am That means it could be a viable alternative to electric cars (the worldwide potential of which I fear may be limited by a potential shortage of lithium). The energy density is still just 1/3rd of diesel (12.66 MJ/L vs 35.8 MJ/L), but that's much better than lithium-ion batteries (4.32 MJ/L).
Sure. Or lead acid batteries for some applications.
I'm skeptical of lithium shortages, though.
miniboes wrote: Sat May 06, 2017 7:36 am Does the same go for hydrogen? The article doesn't mention it.
Cleaner, only water. Ammonia is dirtier than Hydrogen, but not by much.
User avatar
miniboes
Master of the Forum
Posts: 1578
Joined: Mon Sep 15, 2014 1:52 pm
Diet: Vegan
Location: Netherlands

Re: Storage solutions for 100% renewable scenario's: hydrogen, ammonium and iron batteries?

Post by miniboes »

brimstoneSalad wrote: Sat May 06, 2017 10:17 pmI think you should check their sources on this one.
If you're using solar, you only have to go from DC to AC, might be within that range somewhere.
The sources:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233987484_Fuel_cell_electric_vehicles_and_hydrogen_infrastructure_Status_2012
http://www.solarnovus.com/energy-storage-could-hydrogen-be-the-answer_N5028.html

The second source seems highly biased and cites the first one. The first one contains the following table:
2d06a11c450a410f89146a27dc3f7e4a.png
It seems they included the energy usage of the conversion in the calculations, but they don't seem to mention the energy investment of (long term) storage. I'm not sure where the 20-45% comes from, since that's not what the table says.
brimstoneSalad wrote:Nuclear doesn't have intermittency issues, and wouldn't have any need for solar.
Unrequited love turned to hate, perhaps.
I still think we need both, since few companies and countries are capable of constructing nuclear plants quickly and inexpensively right now. Korea is building very fast and cheap, but other countries do worse.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S100200710800381X

This study claims a cost of 6-20$/kwh for hydrogen fuel cells and a round-trip efficiency of 20-50%. I'm not sure how they got to those numbers, though.
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
"I advocate infinite effort on behalf of very finite goals, for example correcting this guy's grammar."
- David Frum
User avatar
brimstoneSalad
neither stone nor salad
Posts: 10273
Joined: Wed May 28, 2014 9:20 am
Diet: Vegan

Re: Storage solutions for 100% renewable scenario's: hydrogen, ammonium and iron batteries?

Post by brimstoneSalad »

miniboes wrote: Sun May 07, 2017 8:37 am The second source seems highly biased and cites the first one.
Well, that's a joke. So it's really just one source.
miniboes wrote: Sun May 07, 2017 8:37 am It seems they included the energy usage of the conversion in the calculations,
Do they show their math? And do they provide sources for that?

Also, the table is only talking about pressurized gas storage. Like barely pressurized at all, not liquified. 8 MPa is comparable to a relatively low-end consumer pressure washer you'd rent at a hardware store. Typical amount of pressure in a natural gas line.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_%28pressure%29

A little stronger than human bite force.

Under that kind of pressure you can move the gas, but you're not going to see much volume reduction.
It only costs around 2% of the energy of the hydrogen, though, so it's not very important to the final calculation (although everything adds up, including infrastructure cost and maintenance).

Wikipedia has a diagram.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_storage#/media/File:Storage_Density_of_Hydrogen.jpg
You're looking for 80 bar.

Also, this looks to be DC to DC

You can't discount conversion losses, because they can be pretty substantial. DC has serious issues with respect to voltage changes
I found somebody asking about it here:
https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/180764/can-ac-dc-conversion-losses-from-solar-panels-be-avoided-with-a-tesla-powerwall

Those losses are actually pretty complex, depending on how much DC fuel cell power you're actually converting to AC to push onto the grid and many other factors.
miniboes wrote: Sun May 07, 2017 8:37 am I'm not sure where the 20-45% comes from, since that's not what the table says.
That's important to find.
miniboes wrote: Sun May 07, 2017 8:37 am I still think we need both, since few companies and countries are capable of constructing nuclear plants quickly and inexpensively right now. Korea is building very fast and cheap, but other countries do worse.
How is the same not true for solar plants?

Solar is still less efficient, more expensive, and costs more lives and valuable resources than nuclear, but it's significantly less horrible IF you pair is with nuclear to handle intermittency and provide steam to crack into hydrogen.
miniboes wrote: Sun May 07, 2017 8:37 am http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S100200710800381X

This study claims a cost of 6-20$/kwh for hydrogen fuel cells and a round-trip efficiency of 20-50%. I'm not sure how they got to those numbers, though.
50% :lol:
I have no idea.

20% seems plausible, but like I said I'd still be skeptical of that in practice. The inclusion of 50% as a serious possibility makes me more skeptical than if they'd said 20-40%
There are a lot of losses to account for.

You might save some transmission losses by generating power closer to where it's used, but I don't think that's going to help you make any significant gains on nuclear.

I also assume this is not for any kind of compression, and it's straight DC to DC in a lab?

6-20$/kWh :shock:
I assume this is added to the price of power, and not on its own, but even so the cost of power wouldn't add much.
Power is typically quoted in MWh for comparison:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#United_States

The worst I can find is $382.5 per MWh. That's $0.38 cents per kWh

This would multiply the cost of electricity by 20 to 50 times.
It could end up costing somebody $20 to take a short warm shower given those rates.

This is not something civilization can afford.
User avatar
DarlBundren
Senior Member
Posts: 355
Joined: Mon Oct 05, 2015 4:59 pm
Diet: Vegetarian
Location: Southern Europe

Re: Storage solutions for 100% renewable scenario's: hydrogen, ammonium and iron batteries?

Post by DarlBundren »

miniboes wrote:Good going. What did you think of the talk?
The talk was pretty good. The documentary was a mixed bag, in my opinion. I understand that it's aimed at a vast audience, but I wish it was a bit less dumbed down.

I admit I'm still not 100% sold on nuclear power, I need to research more. When even the Japanese fail to meet basic safety requirements, I'm doubtful that we can deem it safe. But that might be my confirmation bias speaking.

The talk about 4th generation nuclear reactors and toxic waste was pretty interesting. Especially, the possibility of creating a closed nuclear fuel cycle. What's your opinion on it?
User avatar
miniboes
Master of the Forum
Posts: 1578
Joined: Mon Sep 15, 2014 1:52 pm
Diet: Vegan
Location: Netherlands

Re: Storage solutions for 100% renewable scenario's: hydrogen, ammonium and iron batteries?

Post by miniboes »

DarlBundren wrote: Tue May 09, 2017 8:02 am
miniboes wrote:Good going. What did you think of the talk?
The talk about 4th generation nuclear reactors and toxic waste was pretty interesting. Especially, the possibility of creating a closed nuclear fuel cycle. What's your opinion on it?
The technology isn't economical yet, but I think we have every reason to believe it will be in 20-40 years. We honestly don't need it right now; 3rd generation plants are good enough to decarbonize ASAP and 4th gen can deal with the waste that the 3rd gen produces. I do think they're important in persuading greens, since greens have a big fear of anything that leaves waste unrecycled.

One of my big beefs with renewable-only advocates (I consider myself a renewable advocate too, I just want nuclear as well) is that they are super optimistic about technological developments in solar and wind whilst assuming nuclear will always be the way it is right now. There are 6 4th gen plant concepts, and if even one of them works out it will be amazing news for humanity.
"I advocate infinite effort on behalf of very finite goals, for example correcting this guy's grammar."
- David Frum
User avatar
brimstoneSalad
neither stone nor salad
Posts: 10273
Joined: Wed May 28, 2014 9:20 am
Diet: Vegan

Re: Storage solutions for 100% renewable scenario's: hydrogen, ammonium and iron batteries?

Post by brimstoneSalad »

DarlBundren wrote: Tue May 09, 2017 8:02 am I admit I'm still not 100% sold on nuclear power, I need to research more. When even the Japanese fail to meet basic safety requirements, I'm doubtful that we can deem it safe. But that might be my confirmation bias speaking.
That's the thing, though: we don't even need to meet safety requirements to make it safer than solar.
We could have semi-regular meltdowns and nuclear would still come out ahead.

Code: Select all

Energy Source               Mortality Rate (deaths/trillionkWhr)

Coal – global average         100,000    (41% global electricity)

Coal – China                         170,000   (75% China’s electricity)

Coal – U.S.                               10,000    (32% U.S. electricity)

Oil                                               36,000    (33% of energy, 8% of electricity)

Natural Gas                                4,000    (22% global electricity)

Biofuel/Biomass                    24,000    (21% global energy)

Solar (rooftop)                              440    (< 1% global electricity)

Wind                                                 150    (2% global electricity)

Hydro – global average          1,400    (16% global electricity)

Hydro – U.S.                                     5    (6% U.S. electricity)

Nuclear – global average              90    (11%  global electricity w/Chern&Fukush)

Nuclear – U.S.                                0.1    (19% U.S. electricity)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/

Hydro in the U.S. beats the global average for nuclear, but the death toll would have to be almost five times higher globally to be beat by solar.
Wind is only a little worse... but that's if you ignore birds.
User avatar
miniboes
Master of the Forum
Posts: 1578
Joined: Mon Sep 15, 2014 1:52 pm
Diet: Vegan
Location: Netherlands

Re: Storage solutions for 100% renewable scenario's: hydrogen, ammonium and iron batteries?

Post by miniboes »

Honestly I've kind of been stumped on this one. I just can't seem to find any good sources on the subject of ammonium / hydrogen storage; what it would cost on a large scale. However, I think the burden of proof really is on the renewable advocates; they have to demonstrate that a 80-100% renewable grid is possible and affordable, or they are foolish to exclude the most reliable low carbon energy source we have.
"I advocate infinite effort on behalf of very finite goals, for example correcting this guy's grammar."
- David Frum
Post Reply