In reply to Jed Rothwell's message of Thu, 19 May 2022 17:39:02 -0400: Hi, [snip] >Generating hydrogen with wind turbines is a way to store the energy. That >is needed because wind power does not come on demand. It may be that >battery storage is now more economical than storing hydrogen. However, for >large scale storage, hydrogen may have an edge. I wouldn't know about that.
I think it would, because the fuel/electrolysis cell itself is of fixed size, and hence cost, whereas the cost of hydrogen storage in a tank decreases per unit volume, with the size of the tank. This is not true of batteries. The cost of the tank is proportional to the surface area, which doesn't increase as fast as the volume. i.e. for a spherical tank, the ratio of volume to surface area is (4/3*Pi*r^3)/(4*Pi*r^2) = r/3, so the larger the radius, the larger the ratio, and the cost of storage per unit volume decreases. In a rechargeable battery the mobile ion (or it's associated atom) has to be stored in one of the electrodes. In a fuelcell, both gasses can be removed, Oxygen vented to the atmosphere, Hydrogen stored in a tank. If no one clicked on ads companies would stop paying for them. :)
