Dear gq community,
Over the last few days, the topic of hydrogen has repeatedly been the subject of interesting discussions.
Just yesterday there was an interesting discussion in which I expressed my opinion that hydrogen drives have lost out to battery drives in passenger cars and are therefore dead. I am still of this opinion.
Hydrogen is dead!
However, just a short time later I read a mega-interesting article on energy consumption and storage that fundamentally changed my mind about investing in hydrogen!
Hydrogen is alive!
You may think that the rabbit has eaten something wrong, but that is by no means the case and I would like to pick you up on this @Epi
@SAUgut777
@Multibagger
@Tenbagger2024 and of course anyone else I can't think of at the moment ;)
Due to the ever-increasing amounts of energy required for data centers and industry, the procurement of energy is becoming increasingly important. Above all, green energy from wind, water, thermal energy etc. is in demand here. But the energy generated cannot be stored adequately.
Battery storage systems have too little capacity and lose stored energy.
And this is where hydrogen comes in.
I would like to explain it simply in my own words, but I am attaching interesting links that go into more detail.
The unused energy from renewable energy sources is used to produce hydrogen and store it in former natural gas caverns. It is also possible to store the hydrogen in salt caverns.
If too little renewable energy is generated, the hydrogen is converted back into electricity. The efficiency is currently "only" 60%. However, it should be noted that this 60% would not exist without the storage option.
Another advantage of using salt and natural gas caverns is that no cost-intensive earthworks are necessary.
Several companies in Germany are already moving in this direction. Among others, I have read about projects by $LIN (-0,76 %) Linde, $DE0005682504 EWE, $RWE (+1,31 %) RWE or even $UN0 (-1,78 %) Uniper are being driven forward.
Here are a few more links that I found interesting. There is a lot more information on this, some of it very technical, but Google is our friend.
This text was written by a rabbit without the help of an AI - so please forgive spelling mistakes or incompleteness ;)
Salt caverns:
Natural gas caverns:
Somewhat older material:
https://www.energieforschung.de/de/aktuelles/projekteinblicke/2021/risa
