Comment on Tesla small shareholders
The amount of hydrogen needed to power anything doesn’t matter. The renewables are intermittent so the solar and wind rated capacity has to be 3 to 4 times the peak load. Thus there is going to be too much renewables electricity for much of the time. At the present, that is being ‘curtailed’ – just thrown away. Instead that power will be used to generate hydrogen and the cost for the hydrogen will be essentially free – using electricity that would otherwise be wasted.
The green hydrogen will be used for heating, anywhere natural gas is now used. The use for FCEVs will just be another part of that use. I presume the first use for green hydrogen will be for industrial, especially for making fertilizer. Later the heating and transportation.
In the US, 95% of electric storage is pumped hydro. But there are a lot of battery storage systems being installed. Batteries used too much expensive raw materials but the latest battery storage uses LFP batteries, without cobalt or nickel. But they’re still dependent on a supply of lithium. CATL is changing that by changing to sodium ion chemistry, which should free up a lot of lithium.
The problem with batteries is the cost. It costs very little to generate hydrogen, even though the electrolysis isn’t that efficient. But solar electricity is free, so excess solar power can be used to electrolyze hydrogen. That can then be stored for use any amount of time later, like during winter.
