[viczena]

Just some calculation for the H2 cavern they build now. 5t of H2 equals 150MWh. You need 400MWh to produce it. They intend to use 15 Wind turbines to produce the H2. Every one of them has 1Mw power.

So all 15 turbines together have to run 27h full power to fill the reservoir. So in reality four days of good wind. Just producing for the cavern.

If you use the H2 in cars, the efficiency is 30%. So you can use 50 MWh in the cars. So you produced 400MWh just to deliver 50MWh.

If you want to backup 50MWh in Tesla megapacks today, it would cost you around 19 Mill Euros. Less than the cavern and the H2 producing facility. And with much less maintenance costs (around 60k Euros/year). And it is the price of today, batteries get cheaper every year. The turbines can fill the battery pack 8 times faster.

And no environmental survey needed. No danger zone. No 24/7 security staff. H2 is quite explosive. Remember the Hindenburg desaster or Fukushima. You need large salt deposits in the earth if you want to build a cavern. Rather rare occasion.

[GlennF]

H2 was actually the propulsion for both the second and third stages of the Saturn V Apollo moon landing rockets:

https://www.space.com/18422-apollo-saturn-v-moon-rocket-nasa-infographic.html

https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/513855main_ASK_41s_explosive.pdf

[viczena]

These lunatics even used liquid H2 in very large quantities. Real big cochones.

"Hydrogen has a very broad flammability range—a
4 percent to 74 percent concentration in air and 4 percent to
94 percent in oxygen; therefore, keeping air or oxygen from
mixing with hydrogen inside confined spaces is very important.
Also, it requires only 0.02 millijoules of energy to ignite the
hydrogen–air mixture, which is less than 7 percent of the energy
needed to ignite natural gas"

[GlennF]

These lunatics even used liquid H2 in very large quantities. Real big cochones.

In terms of the Saturn V  " ... the second stage carries 260,000 gallons (984,000 liters) of liquid hydrogen fuel and 80,000 gallons (303,000 liters) of liquid oxygen ... "

[Richard230]

In terms of the Saturn V  " ... the second stage carries 260,000 gallons (984,000 liters) of liquid hydrogen fuel and 80,000 gallons (303,000 liters) of liquid oxygen ... "

That is a lot of very cold liquid. 

[AzCal Retred]

The corporate bean counters of Air Liquide, a major multinational commercial business, chose the cheapest most functional method to store pure H2! They simply followed what 100 years of industrial history told them already worked, who knew?

https://www.airliquide.com/sites/airliquide.com/files/2017/01/03/usa-air-liquide-operates-the_world-s-largest-hydrogen-storage-facility.pdf
Paris, January 3, 2017
www.airliquide.com
Follow us on Twitter @airliquidegroup
USA: Air Liquide operates the world’s largest hydrogen storage facility
Air Liquide has recently commissioned the largest hydrogen storage facility in the world, an underground cavern in Beaumont, Texas, in the Gulf Coast region of the U.S.
This unique hydrogen storage cavern complements Air Liquide’s robust supply capabilities along the Gulf Coast, offering greater flexibility and reliable hydrogen supply solutions to customers via Air Liquide’s extensive Gulf Coast Pipeline System.
The underground storage cavern is 1,500 meters deep and nearly 70 meters in diameter. The facility is capable of holding enough hydrogen to back up a large-scale steam methane reformer (SMR) unit for 30 days. Hydrogen is typically reformed from natural gas, since it is present in very small quantity in the air. As such, it is of great benefit to have a large, interconnected storage solution to optimize supply to customers reliably and efficiently. Hydrogen is used in the refining process to desulfurize fuels and in a number of other industrial and manufacturing processes.
Hydrogen’s environmentally sustainable benefits go beyond its industrial applications. As clean energy, hydrogen used for mobility powers fuel cell vehicles with zero emissions, and can be stored and used to help manage electric grid demand.
This new hydrogen cavern follows the commissioning of Air Liquide’s first pure helium storage facility in Germany in July 2016. These initiatives illustrate Air Liquide’s innovative technologies and engineering capabilities to provide a reliable supply chain.

https://industry.airliquide.us/air-liquide-welcomes-us-secretary-energy-jennifer-granholm-its-porte-tx-hydrogen-facility
Air Liquide Welcomes U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm to Its La Porte, TX Hydrogen Facility
News | May 27, 2021
Secretary Granholm’s first official travel outside of Washington, D.C. since her confirmation as Secretary of Energy earlier this year.  Secretary Granholm’s visit will include a briefing on Air Liquide’s innovation and investments in the advancement of hydrogen, a tour of the La Porte facility and the opportunity to meet with employees.
The La Porte Industrial Complex, which was commissioned in 2011, produces gaseous hydrogen and steam-generated electrical power.  It is Air Liquide’s largest hydrogen production facility in the U.S., capable of producing up to 125 million cubic feet per day.  The La Porte facility is connected to Air Liquide’s extensive hydrogen pipeline network, which totals more than 200 miles and includes our 3 billion cubic feet hydrogen storage cavern.
“We are honored to welcome Secretary Granholm to the Air Liquide La Porte Industrial Complex, an  anchor of our Hydrogen Production System on the Gulf Coast,” said Mike Graff, Chairman & CEO of American Air Liquide Holdings, Inc. “Hydrogen is essential for the transition to a low-carbon energy economy. While creating thousands of American jobs, hydrogen will help transform the current energy system by providing a reliable, affordable, secure and versatile low-carbon energy source. We look forward to continuing our decades-long partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy and are encouraged by this Administration’s support for advancing private investment and accelerating the deployment of low-carbon and renewable hydrogen. Air Liquide shares the Administration’s commitment to ensuring hydrogen plays a critical role in the Clean Energy Transition as the U.S. continues its energy leadership in the 21st century.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/01/how-salt-caverns-may-trigger-11-trillion-hydrogen-energy-boom-.html#:~:text=Caverns%20can%20be%20created%20in,water%2C%20which%20dissolves%20the%20salt.&text=Hydrogen%20electrolyzers%20can%20convert%20water,reconverted%20to%20electricity%20when%20needed.
Storing fuel in salt caverns isn’t new, but hydrogen’s growing role in decarbonization has revitalized interest in the concept. The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve has long stored emergency crude oil in underground salt caverns on the Gulf Coast, and notes they cost 10 times less than aboveground tanks and 20 times less than hard rock mines. The Reserve has 60 enormous caverns, typically 200 feet in diameter and 2,500 feet tall, and one “large enough for Chicago’s Willis Tower to fit inside with room to spare.”
Caverns can be created in salt domes by drilling into the salt dome and injecting the rock with water, which dissolves the salt. The resulting brine is extracted, leaving a large cavity. The next step is storing hydrogen in the cavern. Hydrogen electrolyzers can convert water into hydrogen by using renewable energy from solar and other sources. The hydrogen can then be stored, and reconverted to electricity when needed.

[GlennF]

That is a lot of very cold liquid. 

Probably the main reason that United did not purchase a fleet of Saturn V boosters for Moon Landing tourism and sight seeing operations

[viczena]

@410: Again you do what you do best: Just recite some google links without really understanding anything (same as CNBC). The desastrous inefficiencys dont change if you make H2 caverns larger.

Air liquide uses this cavern to store H2 for their methane production, that is on site. It is a buffer storage for their production. Nothing more. The hydrogen itself is generated by a generator which transforms natural gas. These giants can produce up to 9t of hydrogen per hour.

So just as a buffer in the production the inefficiencys dont matter. They are paid for by the product: Methane. Which is 4 times as expensive as Diesel, if you would use it as a propellant for vehicles (as methanol).

As a buffer to store energy the H2 caverns are completely foolish.

[AzCal Retred]

And again you fail completely open when presented with evidence contrary to your mantra. Renewable energy is intermittent, it needs to be harvested when it happens, it cannot be mined or pumped as needed. Storage makes capture and later utilization possible.

The CNBC article talks about RE production curtailment:
“California curtailed between 150,000-300,000 MWh of excess renewable energy per month through the spring of 2020, yet saw its first rolling blackouts in August because the grid was short on energy,” says Paul Browning, CEO of Mitsubishi Power Americas."
All of that lost capacity could have been converted & stored. Curtailment guaranteed that it was lost. Conversion electrolyzers and cavern/well storage are the tools needed.

You also seem to be confused about what Air Liquide is actually doing. Methane (CH4) from oil wells is "reformed" to strip off the H2, they aren't making & storing methane. This is "blue hydrogen", a darling of the petro folks. The article clearly states that the Air Liquide salt cavern is storing hydrogen.
https://www.airliquide.com/sites/airliquide.com/files/2017/01/03/usa-air-liquide-operates-the_world-s-largest-hydrogen-storage-facility.pdf
The underground storage cavern is 1,500 meters deep and nearly 70 meters in diameter. The facility is capable of holding enough hydrogen to back up a large-scale steam methane reformer (SMR) unit for 30 days. Hydrogen is typically reformed from natural gas.
https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-production-natural-gas-reforming

As Germany is at the mercy of Russian gas supplies, I don't see your hesitation to try to remediate that. Curtailed or off peak renewables can be stored if you have the equipment. Having the Russians control your economy could have very bad consequences. A good argument can be made that opposing storage of domestically sourced H2 is more of a pro-Russian stance; Germany needs to have ready energy alternatives. You aren't going to start up a "mothballed" coal or nuke plant in a usefully short timeframe. It's clear that salt cavern storage of H2 is valid and economic. It's also clear that storing low cost energy that is otherwise lost is a matter of national energy security. Germany doesn't have a Texas to fall back on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream
Nord Stream (former names: North Transgas and North European Gas Pipeline; Russian: Северный поток, Severny potok) is a system of offshore natural gas pipelines in Europe, running under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany.
The Nord Stream projects have been fiercely opposed by the United States and Ukraine, as well as by other Central and Eastern European countries, because of concerns that the pipelines would increase Russia's influence in Europe, and because of the knock on reduction of transit fees for use of the existing pipelines in Central and Eastern European countries. The builders contend that the pipeline is more important to Germany than Russia, which could just as easily sell the gas to China and other Asian nations.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/01/how-salt-caverns-may-trigger-11-trillion-hydrogen-energy-boom-.html#:~:text=Caverns%20can%20be%20created%20in,water%2C%20which%20dissolves%20the%20salt.&text=Hydrogen%20electrolyzers%20can%20convert%20water,reconverted%20to%20electricity%20when%20needed.
“The formation has the potential to create up to 100 caverns, each one capable of holding 150,000 MWh of energy,” says Browning. “It would take 40,000 shipping containers of batteries to store that much energy in each cavern.” 

European ambitions
Despite their storage potential, low operating cost and the fact that underground salt distribution is well known, only a handful of salt caverns have been created to store hydrogen. However, the concept is quickly gaining momentum in Europe, where the European Commission sees the share of hydrogen in Europe’s energy mix rising from under 2% as of 2019 to 13-14% by 2050.

Funded by the German government, the HYPOS alliance of over 100 companies and institutions aims to build a salt cavern in the Central German Chemical Triangle in Saxony-Anhalt with about 150,000 MWh of energy from wind power-generated hydrogen. Regulators are now reviewing the plans and when filling begins in 2023 or 2024, it could be continental Europe’s first hydrogen storage cavern, according to Stefan Bergander, a HYPOS project manager. Meanwhile, French gas utility Teréga and Hydrogène de France have agreed to launch the HyGéo pilot project in a disused salt cavern in southwestern France’s Nouvelle-Aquitaine region; it will store about 1.5 GWh of energy, enough for 400 households for a year.

“Underground storage, in salt caverns or in porous media (i.e., in aquifers or in depleted oil and gas fields) is the only way to cope with big storage capacities,” says Louis Londe, technical director at Geostock, a French company specializing in underground storage. “Many hydrogen cavern projects for energy storage are blooming in Europe. At present, they are at the design stage. Not surprisingly, the leading countries are those where salt is the most present: Germany, U.K., Ireland, France, Netherlands.”

Europe has enough salt formations on and offshore to theoretically store about 85 petawatt hours of hydrogen power, according to a study published this year in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy. The figure is hypothetical, and doesn’t take economics into account, but for example, 1 PWh of hydrogen is enough to supply today’s electricity demand in Germany for an entire year, says Dilara Gulcin Caglayan, lead author of the study and a scientist at the German research center Forschungszentrum Jülich’s Institute of Energy and Climate Research

“Our calculations show that without implementation of hydrogen salt caverns, there’s no cost-optimal pathway to achieve our climate goals,” says the institute’s deputy director Martin Robinius, a coauthor of the study. “By 2040, we will need a lot of hydrogen salt caverns, but if we don’t start building them now, we won’t be able to build them to scale to meet those goals.”

As part of its goal to be climate-neutral by 2050, the European Commission recently produced a hydrogen roadmap saying rapid, large-scale deployment of clean hydrogen is key for the European Union to lower greenhouse gas emissions by at least half by 2030, adding that “Investment in hydrogen will foster sustainable growth and jobs, which will be critical in the context of recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.”

“The issue of storage is, of course, key to delivering energy transition and in this respect hydrogen and hydrogen technologies have a critical role to play,” says Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, secretary general of Hydrogen Europe, an alliance of about 250 companies and research organizations that has called for Covid-19 recovery investment of €55 billion ($65 billion) in salt cavern storage to 2030 to build hydrogen capacity of 3 million metric tons. “Large scale hydrogen storage facilities, mainly salt caverns and possibly some empty gas fields, need to be part of hydrogen infrastructure.”

[viczena]

It only shows that you are able to use cut & paste. Great. My 5 year old newphew is able to do the same.

Yes, alternative energies are Flip-.Flop. And the produce power shortages, as long as they are not buffered. But H2 is not appropriate for this task, as it is much too inefficient. And even today the adequate amount of battery storage is cheaper. And not as dangerous as H2.

Germany and the EU throw insane amounts of cash into this dead technology. In the false hope they could gain some leadership in something. While they lost the BEV battle completely. No surprise germany already has the highest energy prices in the world, loosing production capability every day.

[Arschloch]

You can't expect the members of the European Committee to invest in something that's got the potential to make life easier for anyone but themselves. This is the folks that fear work, especially manual labour like the devil fears holywater.

[Karl Childers]

It only shows that you are able to use cut & paste. Great. My 5 year old newphew is able to do the same.

Yes, alternative energies are Flip-.Flop. And the produce power shortages, as long as they are not buffered. But H2 is not appropriate for this task, as it is much too inefficient. And even today the adequate amount of battery storage is cheaper. And not as dangerous as H2.

Germany and the EU throw insane amounts of cash into this dead technology. In the false hope they could gain some leadership in something. While they lost the BEV battle completely. No surprise germany already has the highest energy prices in the world, loosing production capability every day.

To say any technology is dead may not be accurate and possibly a disservice , quite often they are one breakthrough away from becoming viable. If first go rounds are imperfect and we throw are hands up and say it's a dead end then we will never advance whatever the research. If this were the case we wouldn't have electricity, something for example that got off to a slow start with many missteps, and much money spent to no avail, still we got there, it's way to soon to be calling hydrogen a dead technology. Our technical advances world wide were not built on defeatist attitudes.

[viczena]

You canot breakthrough the laws of physics. H2 is dead.

Now is my time for an indirect argument (as simple math and the laws of physics obviously does not do the trick): If H2 is such a good idea, why does everybody leave the sinking ship? Toyota is now the only respectable company, that did not delete H2. They invested a lot, and got subsidies from the legislation. Its just a matter of time, until also Toyota leaves. As soon as they can do it without loosing face.

[Karl Childers]

You canot breakthrough the laws of physics. H2 is dead.

Now is my time for an indirect argument (as simple math and the laws of physics obviously does not do the trick): If H2 is such a good idea, why does everybody leave the sinking ship? Toyota is now the only respectable company, that did not delete H2. They invested a lot, and got subsidies from the legislation. Its just a matter of time, until also Toyota leaves. As soon as they can do it without loosing face.

So corporations losing subsidies  and an opportunity for a quick turn around on profit is the bottom line and the true indicator of the viability for hydrogen? No one in that sphere of influence is in it for the long haul, it's all about profit, when someone else comes along and makes it work they'll be all over it

Laws of Physics?  When the steam locomotive came along there was the worry that the speeds it was capable of would cause it to disintegrate. You might have fit in well with that crowd. Science has been a history so far of theory, research, setback and revision. It's all about breaking barriers that were once deemed impossible. Minds are like parachutes, they function best when open.

[viczena]

In contrary, subsidies are rising. The EU throws out an insane amount of money. But not even Tesla wanted their subsidies. They refused to take their 1bill $ subsidy for the battery factory.

Laws of physics: If you produce H2 by electrolyse, you lose half of the energy. If you put this H2 into a fuel cell, you will never get more than 35% back. Simple thermodynamics. If you can call it simple at all.

If you are able to brake these laws, you have found the perpetuum mobile. Good luck hoping for that to happen.