General > General Technical Chat
"Gas Armageddon": Energy/electricity prices in EU/UK (and how to deal with them)
nctnico:
--- Quote from: Stray Electron on August 25, 2022, 12:23:20 pm --- Many Enviro-nuts are touting Hydrogen but there is NO infrastructure in place for a hydrogen production, distribution or cars or industry to use it.
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You are 1000% wrong about this. https://www.shell.com/media/news-and-media-releases/2022/shell-to-start-building-europes-largest-renewable-hydrogen-plant.html
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/06/30/netherlands-to-build-10-gw-national-network-for-green-hydrogen/
Hydrogen is going to be the new oil & gas.
JohanH:
--- Quote from: madires on August 25, 2022, 12:42:04 pm ---
Over here special protection rules apply to historic buildings. You aren't allowed to change the face of such a building in any way. So you can't simply add insulation. And adding insulation at the inside would most likely damage the walls on the long term by shifting the dew point further inside. Heats pumps are great but not a panacea. We have to check the feasibility for each building.
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It's still possible to do something (e.g. insulation in attic). And it is possible to install much larger radiators so that you can run lower heating temp. It won't be as efficient as a modern building, but people have done it. And if it can't be done, then some rules have to be changed or new methods be found. I've mainly insulated inside, but you have to be careful, you can't use as much insulation as in a modern building. Keep in mind, the larger and more radiators you use, the lower the temp can be and the better the efficiency of the heat pump. I don't use thermostats in radiators at all, to not prevent the pump from working optimally. The system is optimized to use the best static curve between outside and inside temp. This of course takes some time and expertise to tune, so I don't expect that everyone will have as good results. Inevitably, there will be a lot of installed heat pumps that works on too high temperature, fighting thermostats and wasting electricity. Depends a lot on the installer, too.
Ultimately, floor heating is best, because you will get largest possible heating area. This could possibly be an option in older houses. I did consider doing this. Now only the 1/3 newly built part of the house has floor heating, but the heat pump doesn't benefit much from it because it has to produce higher temp for the radiators (5-10 °C higher).
tom66:
--- Quote from: nctnico on August 25, 2022, 01:14:28 pm ---Hydrogen is going to be the new oil & gas.
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I do see a strong future for hydrogen (or syngas, but probably both will be used.)
Whilst I'm not convinced it makes sense for vehicles, the use of hydrogen as a storage mechanism for renewable energy is just a no brainer. There is no other technology that can possibly compete for seasonal energy storage. Not batteries, not molten salt, not pumped hydro.
It does worry me that the infrastructure is only trickling into place though. We need gigawatt-scale plants!
themadhippy:
--- Quote ---UK imports loads but not from Russia
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Biggest import from russia was coal , https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9523/ Around 2% of uk electricity is generated from coal, in summer we use around a third less electricity than winter so it seems theirs plenty of capacity in summer not to be burning the stuff.Of course we could be digging our own home produced coal but someone put a stop to that,funnily enough the same person was also responsible for selling the north sea oil and gas of to their mates the highest bidder to make the books look good,instead of following norways example.
richard.cs:
--- Quote from: tom66 on August 25, 2022, 01:43:47 pm ---I do see a strong future for hydrogen (or syngas, but probably both will be used.)
Whilst I'm not convinced it makes sense for vehicles, the use of hydrogen as a storage mechanism for renewable energy is just a no brainer. There is no other technology that can possibly compete for seasonal energy storage. Not batteries, not molten salt, not pumped hydro.
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The low efficiency of creating it by electrolysis is unfortunate, but not necessarily a show stopper depending on the source of the energy input. What I can't see is why we would ever use hydrogen as H2 (an inconvenient gas that's hard to liquify, low energy density, explosive in pretty much all concentrations, leaks through almost everything, embrittles metals, etc.) rather than stick it to some carbon atoms and make synthetic methane or synthetic LPG. This carbon could be from an agricultural source making the output fuel carbon neutral, or it could be petroleum-derived, which would still give a significant reduction in net CO2 by increasing the energy content of the fuel.* About the only time pure hydrogen is useful is for fuel cells which does not seem to be the primary use-case when hydrogen is discussed.
That said, in the UK hydrogen seems to be mainly pushed by organisations that own large amounts of gas distribution infrastructure, and it feels a lot like them desperately trying to stay relevant and keep their network of pipes valuable.
* e.g. convert C35H70, a randomly chosen molecule that roughly equates to heavy fuel oil, to 35x CH4. Calculating crudely about an additional 50% more energy is released on combustion, for the same CO2 emission.
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