David MacKay used to pop up occasionally at Euan Mearns' site Energy Matters which had extensive discussion of the feasibility or not of all sorts of renewables plans, and Roger Andrews frequently analysed the storage problem in various contexts and dimensions and locations. He acknowledged that this work supplemented his original work on SEWTHA. There is also his last interview, now being slowly memory holed by the internet, when he knew he was dying of cancer, in which he is quite explicit in saying that renewables do not offer a solution for the UK. An appalling delusion...
Euan's post on EROEI appeared about a month later. I am sure he would have engaged on it. Perhaps he hadn't really thought right through. See this comment:
Always helpful to look back at earlier predictions and I must say I am a bit surprised that we have reduced our CO2 emissions so much (but then if I think of my energy bill perhaps I'm not so surprised). However, what has happened to global CO2 emissions in that time? And of course the global metric can be the only that matters (according to those pushing CO2 reduction agenda) as the UK is a mere pinprick on the world's production. I'm not really interested in being able to shout at other countries (China, India, Russia and other developing nations) in 2050 "look at what we did" from my 18th Century lifestyle and they have continued to emit CO2 unabated (which they will).
I think an approach that has been glossed over with hydrogen is not to store it for power (outside the most extreme peaks) but to store it for industrial consumers. This lets the bulk of H2 production be in the seasons when there is surplus power, and to divert that power to grid use in the seasons with high demand. It also avoids the P->H->P double conversion penalty. As long as H2 is actually the form it is needed anyway (for steel, chemicals, etc) it has very low losses vs. Using it directly as it’s made.
Hydrogen is used in several industrial processes, and I guess those processes need to run 24 x 7 to be most economic, so if we produce H during periods of low demand for that purpose, then the storage requirement won't be very large. For industrial heat, I think we go to nuclear Gen III/IV for that. I'm not a big fan of hydrogen for the reasons you outline.
I used to use MacKay's book in my teaching. A modern successor is by Tom Murphy, Energy and Human Ambitions one a Finite Planet. Available in print or free download form, UC Davis.
I enjoyed Mackay’s book when it first came out, and my take is that the government just pinched the heat pump idea and ignored the difficult sums, and things like mandating insulation standards to save energy. If effort was spent on making superinsulation (aerogel-based) cheap and required, it could avoid a huge amount of energy wastage and cheaper bills. Unfortunately, as I have found out in my bathroom upgrade project, installers have never even heard of it. Mandate it for all fridges and freezers from a given date? Or insist suppliers offer the option at least. Then think about building standards.
David MacKay used to pop up occasionally at Euan Mearns' site Energy Matters which had extensive discussion of the feasibility or not of all sorts of renewables plans, and Roger Andrews frequently analysed the storage problem in various contexts and dimensions and locations. He acknowledged that this work supplemented his original work on SEWTHA. There is also his last interview, now being slowly memory holed by the internet, when he knew he was dying of cancer, in which he is quite explicit in saying that renewables do not offer a solution for the UK. An appalling delusion...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCyidsxIDtQ
11 days later he was dead. You wouldn't have guessed.
Thanks for that link. I hadn't seen that before. He was a great man.
I am just a bit disappointed that he doesn't seem to bring EROEI explicitly into his thinking.
Euan's post on EROEI appeared about a month later. I am sure he would have engaged on it. Perhaps he hadn't really thought right through. See this comment:
https://euanmearns.com/eroei-for-beginners/#comment-19709
Euan highlighted a few MacKay comments here:
https://euanmearns.com/david-mackay-the-final-cut/
Always helpful to look back at earlier predictions and I must say I am a bit surprised that we have reduced our CO2 emissions so much (but then if I think of my energy bill perhaps I'm not so surprised). However, what has happened to global CO2 emissions in that time? And of course the global metric can be the only that matters (according to those pushing CO2 reduction agenda) as the UK is a mere pinprick on the world's production. I'm not really interested in being able to shout at other countries (China, India, Russia and other developing nations) in 2050 "look at what we did" from my 18th Century lifestyle and they have continued to emit CO2 unabated (which they will).
I think an approach that has been glossed over with hydrogen is not to store it for power (outside the most extreme peaks) but to store it for industrial consumers. This lets the bulk of H2 production be in the seasons when there is surplus power, and to divert that power to grid use in the seasons with high demand. It also avoids the P->H->P double conversion penalty. As long as H2 is actually the form it is needed anyway (for steel, chemicals, etc) it has very low losses vs. Using it directly as it’s made.
Hydrogen is used in several industrial processes, and I guess those processes need to run 24 x 7 to be most economic, so if we produce H during periods of low demand for that purpose, then the storage requirement won't be very large. For industrial heat, I think we go to nuclear Gen III/IV for that. I'm not a big fan of hydrogen for the reasons you outline.
https://davidturver.substack.com/p/popping-the-hydrogen-bubble
I used to use MacKay's book in my teaching. A modern successor is by Tom Murphy, Energy and Human Ambitions one a Finite Planet. Available in print or free download form, UC Davis.
I enjoyed Mackay’s book when it first came out, and my take is that the government just pinched the heat pump idea and ignored the difficult sums, and things like mandating insulation standards to save energy. If effort was spent on making superinsulation (aerogel-based) cheap and required, it could avoid a huge amount of energy wastage and cheaper bills. Unfortunately, as I have found out in my bathroom upgrade project, installers have never even heard of it. Mandate it for all fridges and freezers from a given date? Or insist suppliers offer the option at least. Then think about building standards.