• saigot@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    4 months ago

    A perfect Electrolysis reaction takes about 39kwh to produce 1kg of hydrogen that if burned at 100% efficiency would yield 33kwh of power. More realistically it takes 50-60kwh to produce 1kg that is burned to produce ~25kwh of usable energy.

    I’m not too sure about converting hydrogen to methane but that will have energy overhead as well, and then you have to deal with the fact that 6% of natural gas production today is leaked into the air, which both further hurts the efficiency of synthesizing it and also has a significant climate impact.

    I think it willl almost always be cheaper to just provide electricity directly except in cases where energy density is far more important than efficiency, which is not the case for stationary homes.

    • delirious_owl@discuss.online
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      4 months ago

      It doesn’t have a negative climate impact if the source is renewables. That’s the point. Its basically free gas.

      Solar energy doesn’t run at night. Wind doesn’t always run. Hydro doesn’t work during droughts.

      This is a battery that solvers these issues.

      • saigot@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        4 months ago

        If you take co2 and convert it to methane and then release that methane you are increasing the impact of that co2 by 6x.