Government and gas-focused industry body resist conclusion that heat pumps are ‘only viable’ option for heating UK homes

  • @Mojojojo1993
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    411 months ago

    Why not use lecky ? Hydrogen is pretty expensive to produce and to store.

    Why not just use electricity.

    Hydrogen could be useful for aircraft or off grid situations.

    • @alvvayson
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      611 months ago

      With some nuclear capacity, electric heating makes the most sense. Just let off-peak boilers use that off-peak nuclear electricity.

      The problem is, a lot of people want to push 100% renewables.

      Solar overproduces in summer and wind has strong days and weak days. Batteries are economically great for short term energy storage (i.e. charging and discharging at least once a day and profiting off of those arbitrages), but they will always be way too expensive for seasonal or multi-day storage. Imagine paying a very cheap $50 for a kWh battery in 2030 and only cycling it 50 times a year. Over a decade, that’s an insane 10c per kWh just for the battery, excluding all other generating and financing costs.

      The only way out is to have the windmills generate hydrogen on windy days and then push the hydrogen through the old natural gas pipelines.

      And you’ll have to subsidize it, because economically it will never be very competitive.

      • @Mojojojo1993
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        211 months ago

        Nothing is too expensive. The amount of money that is wasted as astronomical. Think some could be put to good use.

        Good fo some things for hydrogen or use those extra days to charge Evs and charge all the home batteries.

        Plenty things they could charge

        • @alvvayson
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          011 months ago

          I, for one, am not happy with the way energy prices are going.

          Wat too expensive for my taste. A quadrupling in a decade for me.

          • @Mojojojo1993
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            111 months ago

            What are you saying? You want more coal ?.

    • HypxOP
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      111 months ago

      If the goal is just making heat, there’s little difference between the two.

      • @Mojojojo1993
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        311 months ago

        Well now no. That’s dumb. I can burn humans to make heat. I can burn coal. The point is the least amount of damage to the planet and the things on it ?

        Us

        • HypxOP
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          211 months ago

          Both are zero emissions. Neither of which does much harm to the planet.

          • @Mojojojo1993
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            111 months ago

            Hydrogen can be produced from fossil fuels though. Unfortunately no way to say hydrogen was produced through green means

            • HypxOP
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              211 months ago

              That’s true of electricity too. There’s no way of telling fossil fuel from green electricity.

              • @Mojojojo1993
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                111 months ago

                This is true. Which is why you remove fossil fuels from the grid. Why add extra costs and infrastructure for hydrogen. Just use electricity for heating and hydrogen for planes maybe long haul truckers and sea freight

                • HypxOP
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                  211 months ago

                  The infrastructure cost for hydrogen is much cheaper than the cost of expanding the grid. We simply start making a lot of green hydrogen and that will displace fossil hydrogen. Even the grid will rely on hydrogen for backup power generation.

                  • @Mojojojo1993
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                    111 months ago

                    The grid needs upgraded though. So they a moot point. The grid wasn’t built for renewables and it wasn’t built to deal with the way we currently need it. It’s also underdeveloped and underfunded.

                    So no I hear you disagree.

                    https://theconversation.com/time-to-get-real-amid-the-hydrogen-hype-lets-talk-about-what-will-actually-work-144579

                    Hydrogen is expensive to contain and to transport. It has its uses but it’s really not necessary. If we use solar and wind correctly. We need batteries. And we don’t even need that. We can just use pumped systems and other systems to use power.