Just when you thought Hydrogen was dead and buried

Irina Slav at Oilpro.com describes how surplus energy from solar and wind farms could be stored as hydrogen as an alternative to batteries.

….in Europe, renewable power is becoming so abundant that it could be used to produce cheap hydrogen without the need for any scientific breakthroughs. Last month Euractiv cited a report from a German analytical firm, Energy Brainpool, that said surplus electricity from solar and wind farms can be used to convert water into hydrogen through hydrolysis. Hydrogen is relatively easy to store and use when needed or fed into the hydrogen fueling station network, which, truth be told, is a very sparse network.

According to Energy Brainpool, using surplus electricity for hydrogen production can become cheaper with time as the efficiency levels of solar and wind installations rise and maintenance costs decline further. In fact, at some point in the future, hydrogen could become cheaper than natural gas, which would naturally have major implications for its adoption. Again, this is only a theory because power-to-gas facilities in some countries in Europe are subject to high feed-in tariffs and grid charges that make them uneconomical in the application outlined by Energy Brainpool.

Conversion of electricity to hydrogen through electrolysis is cheap but it’s not easy to store because of its low density. Liquid hydrogen requires temperatures of -253°C. One of the more promising options is to store vast quantities in underground caverns. ICI having been doing this in the UK for many years without any difficulties [Wikipedia].

It is also expensive to convert hydrogen back into energy. Costs of fuel cells are prohibitive. Scalability for smaller applications (e.g. motor vehicles) remains a problem.

Cigarette Butts Offer Solution To Supercapacitors’ Energy Storage

Supercapacitors are superior to batteries because they can load up on energy and discharge it much faster. They store electrical charges, unlike batteries, which store energy in chemicals. Unfortunately their size makes them impractical for most non-industrial applications.

Now a South Korean research team have found a way to shrink the size of supercapacitors, replacing carbon nanotubes and graphene with an unlikely (and inexpensive) substitute: burnt cigarette butts.

Conventionally, the devices rely on carbon because it is inexpensive, has a high surface area, has strong electrical conductivity and is stable. Now the team from Seoul National University says it has found a way to transform the cellulose acetate fibers in cigarette filters into a carbon-based material in a single, simple step. The filters are burned using a technique called pyrolysis. The resulting material contains many pores of different sizes, thus increasing its surface area and thus its performance. This is important in creating a high-performing supercapacitor, according to Professor Jongheop Yi, a co-author of the study.

“A combination of different pore sizes ensures that the material has high power densities, which is an essential property in a supercapacitor for the fast charging and discharging,” Yi says.

The scientists attach this substance to one electrode in a three-electrode supercapacitor to learn how well it could absorb and release a charge. They found that their material stored more energy than conventional carbon, graphene and even carbon nanotubes. That means that their form factor can shrink.

Read more at Cigarette Butts Offer Solution To Supercapacitors’ Energy Storage | Oilprice.com.

Pumped hydro energy storage – making better use of wind

Electricity system operators and investors could use pumped hydro energy storage to complement the growing deployment of renewable energy. The current grid struggles to push power through when it is being generated in large quantities, and to meet demand when generation is low. Storing energy from wind using pumped hydro means the electricity wouldn’t have to be sold as it is being made, but could be saved for later.

Read more at Pumped hydro energy storage – making better use of wind.