undefined | Better HN

0 pointsrich_sasha3y ago0 comments

So, the context is: various organisations are researching how hydrogen storage might work. And a gaggle of, hmm, commentators goes "omg did they not get the memo? Hydrogen is stoopid. Batteries much better soon".

I'm glad research is funded, because you literally never know where the breakthrough will come. Solar was painfully expensive for most of its history, now it's super-cheap.

As far as I'm concerned, a battery+wind+solar grid is just as much vapourware with serious barriers to success. I'm glad they are worked on though...

EDIT: for example, I'm quite excited about gravitation nal storage in disused mines (coal ones often, in fact). By the same token, should that be sacrificed on the altar of batteries? Or actually pursued, possibly to a happy end?

0 comments

pydry3y ago

The organizations researching it /funding it tend to be oil/gas. They are usually more focused on staying relevant and greenwashing themselves. With hydrogen they are interested because they see potential to extend the life of their natural gas assets - and not necessarily in a "green" way.

In regard to your point that we ought not to be cynical - it is true that these organizations can do great research. For instance, they knew all about global warming in the 70s.

Schroedingersat3y ago

Funding it is fine.

Funding electrolysers is fine.

Credulously accepting 1 electrolyser as a justification for 10 fossil fuel hydrogen reformers is not.

Accepting hydrogen busses and trucks as green before they actually run on green hydrogen is not.

Letting fossil fuel hydrogen steal funding from renewable projects is not.

moloch-hai3y ago

Gravity storage in weights held far above the sea floor is probably more viable than in mineshafts, because you cannot share the motor/generator and winch between multiple mineshafts, and most mineshafts do not go not very deep.

There is a lot of seabed.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse