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"Gas Armageddon": Energy/electricity prices in EU/UK (and how to deal with them)
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Marco:

--- Quote from: madires on August 25, 2022, 11:48:12 am ---A recent study (monitoring modern heat pumps across the country) shows an average COP of 2.6 for Germany.

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How many of those are with high temp radiators? The industry is infamous for cocking it up.
Miyuki:

--- Quote from: Marco on August 25, 2022, 02:55:19 pm ---
--- Quote from: madires on August 25, 2022, 11:48:12 am ---A recent study (monitoring modern heat pumps across the country) shows an average COP of 2.6 for Germany.

--- End quote ---

How many of those are with high temp radiators? The industry is infamous for cocking it up.

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People think they are maintenance free when they cost so much
Yet you will see this and people complaining about how bad it works
nctnico:

--- Quote from: tom66 on August 25, 2022, 01:43:47 pm ---
--- 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.

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If you Google around a bit, you can find reports that say exactly the same. Batteries are good for storage for single digit hours. Beyond that, hydrogen is more cost effective.
tom66:

--- Quote from: Miyuki on August 25, 2022, 02:31:20 pm ---The same pipes that now carry Natural gas around cities used to carry Town/Coal gas in the past and it is about 50% H2 and it worked without any issues.
You can switch to pure H2 distribution without major issues
There is no reason to not do so. It worked fine hundred years back.
It makes sense they want it. With Abundant renewables, there will be windows with electricity at zero or "negative" price. And they can with reasonably big storage make a fortune on using it and storing hydrogen.
It is pretty safe to store it and when it leaks it just safely rises to the sky.

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The other thing to realise is that most of the old pipes under roads etc made of iron which are vulnerable to embrittlement, are reaching end of life anyway due to corrosion and temperature cycles. And so they are due for replacement in the next 10 years anyway.

When I lived in Leeds the gas authority there was conducting an extensive replacement process.  All pipes were being replaced with plastic or polymer which can support H2.  They are currently only carrying CH4, but there is clearly the aim in the future to carry H2.

Also, almost every boiler made in the last 10yrs is capable of burning a part H2 mix without modification.  And with some simple modifications it should be possible to get up to 90-100%.

Long term I think heat pumps make the most sense for new homes, and for old homes on a case-by-case basis perhaps.  But H2 as a heating gas also makes a huge amount of sense.  It combusts cleanly producing only water vapour, has similar energy density to CH4 (a little less but not drastically so) and can use as much existing infrastructure as possible.  It may even be possible to fractionate the gas at local distribution, so you can switch an area to 100% H2 once all the boilers in that area have been tested/upgraded.

IMO even bigger than climate change is energy security, if a country can produce its own gas, no more Russia/Saudi/etc. controlling the gas market.
nctnico:

--- Quote from: richard.cs on August 25, 2022, 02:15:37 pm ---
--- 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.

--- End quote ---
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.

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If you dig a bit deeper into hydrogen you'll find that it is widely used in many industrial processes. People that make such claims seem to reason from a POV where the large scale use of hydrogen is something completely new. It simply isn't. The technology and infrastructure are there, it just needs to be scaled up from large to extra-extra-large.


--- Quote from: tom66 on August 25, 2022, 03:19:42 pm ---IMO even bigger than climate change is energy security, if a country can produce its own gas, no more Russia/Saudi/etc. controlling the gas market.

--- End quote ---
For Europe that is not going to change. There simply isn't enough land to support the required amount of renewable sources like solar and wind. Where it comes to solar, it makes sense to put the solar panels in the north part of Africa anyway because there is about twice as much energy coming from the sun in those areas compared to a large part of Europe. Marocco, Tunesia and Algeria are already gearing up to become hydrogen producers / exporters.
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