Equinor's 320GWh hydrogen storage plan

[dan_b]

Uh oh, here we go
https://www.icis.com/explore/resources/ ... ite-for-uk

Equinor plans to convert its gas storage caverns to be able to store hydrogen instead.
But where's the hydrogen going to come from I hear you ask?

Blue Hydrogen apparently. Which means they still plan to extract as much natural gas as they possibly can, and then waste most of it turning it to hydrogen for "energy storage", which will presumably just get used by burning it in stuff again later. Meanwhile "blue hydrogen" - ie. carbon capture from that production process, doesn't exist at scale, and is also hugely energy inefficient.

The hydrogen bullshit tidal wave is incoming.

[spread-tee]

I would certainly be happy to see research into Hydrogen storage , but as you say only for green H2. Lets face it we need something to burn in our heating boilers for the foreseeable future, and if that ain't Hydrogen what is it?

Desp

[Mart]

I'm also quite scared off the hydrogen BS tidal wave. My main fears being:
1. It's a distraction technique similar to clean coal, FF CCS, and 'new' or 'small' nuclear. These ideas and technologies are mainly pushed by the FF industry as future solutions, to distract from RE and storage and to delay moving away from FF consumption.
2. If it's not green H2, then you've solved nought, and that includes FF CCS since it looks to be a busted flush economically.


However, for long term and larger scale storage, I really do think H2 will play a big part. First there'll be batteries, PHS, ideas like Gravitricity and LAES, but once these are 'full', the excess and low priced leccy left over can be used to produce H2, which even at lower efficiency, will still make sense given the large scale storage potential.

But then what happens? Using it on site for gas generation, or fuelcell generation makes sense. Compressing/liquefying it and transporting it any distance, makes little to no sense (other than for shipping). Putting it in the gas mains might be a solution, if they are capable of handling it, and the appliances too, though it's large relative volume will make it less energy dense.

Perhaps however there is an interesting alternative solution, that also helps address intermittent RE generation, and that's bio-mass generation that can demand follow and naturally has on-site 'storage'. So, before everyone panics, yes I'm aware that this industry is looking worse and worse, and the 20+yr 'short' term carbon cycle is not ideal, but what if we used Hemp, with something more akin to a 0.5yr carbon cycle. We burn it to generate leccy, we co-locate it to provide heat for some uses, then we use the emissions for a concentrated CO2 source for CC (carbon capture) but not the much harder CCS (carbon capture and sequestration), then use that CO2 to produce bio-methane with the excess stored H2, to keep the UK fleet of gas boilers running as we steadily move some space heating over to heat pumps.

I'm sure it's not as simple as this, but if the bio-mass power station has a large grid connection, then when there's excess supply and it's not generating, the grid connection could import the spare leccy for H2 production and storage.

Clearly I'm imagineering most of this, or I might just be high, and an even simpler solution might just be to produce bio-gas from the Hemp.