Re:Terraform makes carbon neutral natural gas
by pfdietz on Thursday April 04, 2024 @04:19AM
(#39927779)
The economics of storing hydrogen for long periods is just fine, compared to the economics of storing energy in batteries for long periods.
Re:Terraform makes carbon neutral natural gas
by pbmonster on Thursday April 04, 2024 @04:41AM
(#39927916)
> compared to the economics of storing energy in batteries for long periods
Which doesn't say much, since practically nobody is doing that.
Re:Terraform makes carbon neutral natural gas
by jillesvangurp on Thursday April 04, 2024 @04:46AM
(#39927969)
Also the need for this long term storage is never quantified by those we need it. Put a twh number on it and the problem melts away. We're actually producing batteries by the twh per year now.
Re:Terraform makes carbon neutral natural gas
by pfdietz on Saturday April 06, 2024 @05:57AM
(#39951289)
People (particularly nuke bros, including some at MIT) are doing it in their arguments purporting to show 100% renewable grids are not feasible.
Re:Terraform makes carbon neutral natural gas
by bryanlarsen on Thursday April 04, 2024 @03:40PM
(#39934892)
> their synthetic gas still is an order of magnitude more expensive than natural gas
No it's not. their projections are for $10/kcf.
Most hydrogen produced today is used onsite to produce something else for this reason. Moving it around just adds cost and complexity.
Terraform seems to have made some progress with hydrolizers. But before people start popping champagne bottles, their synthetic gas still is an order of magnitude more expensive than natural gas. So, the value proposition of replacing one of the cheapest (but dirty) fuels with a clean alternative that is much more expensive is limited. And of course the process of using the captured carbon, releases all of it back to the atmosphere. For most use cases, switching to synthetic gas would push those use cases into the deeply unprofitable region. I.e. you'd be considering many other alternatives before committing to that.
Green hydrogen at the price levels they are citing is ballpark getting to a stage where it could replace grey hydrogen and be worth the extra cost just to clean up existing uses of hydrogen. So, things like fertilizer production and other chemical processes. It's still more expensive but the difference could be bridged with subsidies and incentives.