this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
560 points (97.3% liked)

World News

32286 readers
861 users here now

News from around the world!

Rules:

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Cheaper for everyday (and everyseason) operation probably no, but it's still valuable backup capacity. Differently put you want to subsidise turning hydrogen into electricity just enough that it's there when you really need it, maybe a task for the network operators. It's already now the case that gas plants get bought by network operators because they can't run often enough to turn even half a profit but the network still needs them for stability, and turning natural gas plants into hydrogen plants is nearly trivial (need to exchange burner nozzles, basically, unless a complete idiot designed the plant).

Now, 50 years down the line all those gas plants might be out of commission and we'll have fusion but in the mean time, yep there's going to be at least the capacity to turn hydrogen into electricity.