Re:Nuclear is back on the table for a green future
by adrianN on Wednesday June 15, 2022 @11:03AM
(#31754017)
How is energy storage at scale unsolved when we can synthesize Methane quite easily? Grid scale storage is just a matter of cost. It's unclear which technology will be the most cost effective, but if we wanted to we could just store energy as Methane and pay the 50% efficiency cost.
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Re:Nuclear is back on the table for a green future
by pdabbadabba on Wednesday June 15, 2022 @11:12AM
(#31754172)
If this is so simple, why don't we do it? Or is that the question you're asking?
Of course, that 50% efficiency cost seems like a bit of a bear in itself. If you lose half of the stored power, that would seem to significantly drive up the total lifecycle cost of a Watt of wind power. (Recognizing, of course, that not all of it must be stored.)
The cost and inefficiency (==cost) of storage seems like an unfortunate thing to handwave away in a conversation about relative costs.
Re:Nuclear is back on the table for a green future
by adrianN on Wednesday June 15, 2022 @11:14AM
(#31754208)
No, it's obvious why we don't do it: it's fairly expensive and we currently don't have enough renewable supply to fill tanks with Methane. Grids can easily be 70+% renewable without any storage at all. Money is currently better spent increasing supply than building storage.
Re:Nuclear is back on the table for a green future
by ZeroGravitas on Wednesday June 15, 2022 @11:27AM
(#31754437)
We do it already on a grand scale.
It's just that since we live in a world where we burn lots of gas, we don't need to do the "generate synthetic methane" step, we can just burn less of it.
Sure, we could spend billions on generating synthetic methane from renewables while at the same time burning natural methane, but that would be stupid.