Tag: Batteries

3b Storage Issues

Elon Musk is such fun. What a life he leads. I have to like him; he has been saying good things about nuclear power. In one talk he gave recently, he said that we shouldn’t be surprised because sometimes he can be wrong. In 2015, during what must have been his sales pitches for batteries, he supplied information which I have used to illustrate what an enormous task we have before us if we wish to only use low carbon sources of power.

In the last few weeks, the battery in my handheld vacuum cleaner has died after less than two years. In five years, we have replaced the battery in our lawnmower three times. Luckily, two of those occurred in the warranty period. I don’t know how long the giant battery facilities last but I’m sure they will not run as long as nuclear power stations. The capital cost of nuclear is very uncertain at this stage but even assuming the worst, the world could build a lot of nuclear power for US$23 trillion.

The latest nuclear power station to be built in Finland has been a source of ridicule for those against nuclear power. Yes, it wasn’t cheap but on the latest figures floating around, Snowy 2.0 will cost a similar amount of money and not produce or store anything like the power Finland has just added. Indeed, with all the money that Germany is paying to Russia for dirty fuel, Germany could have paid off that new power station in a month.

If every car in the US was an electric vehicle (EV) and they were all used to store electricity from solar power on every household with no other use, only a fraction of the storage needed would result.

In order to produce hydrogen (with zero emissions) a process called, electrolysis. 20 – 30% of energy is lost in the process of creating hydrogen. The hydrogen must then be compressed and stored, losing another 10%. Finally, another 30% is lost when converting the hydrogen into electricity. This leaves you with 30 – 40% of the original energy used. Andrew Lerma of Flux Power (https://www.fluxpower.com/blog/hydrogen-fuel-cell-efficiency-how-does-it-compare-to-lithium-ion)

Hydrogen is very flammable and needs very careful storage techniques. There are very good reasons for producing hydrogen such as helping to decarbonise steel manufacture and for the production of fertiliser. However, it seems to be a very inefficient, wasteful and potentially dangerous method for the storage of electricity.

2h Life Cycle Analyses

I have included this graph again, as it shows the levels of greenhouse gas emissions from various power sources.

These sorts of graphs take an enormous amount of work particularly when they attempt to fully consider the life cycle of an energy source.

I could not access a full copy of the paper illustrated above and so could not check what all the sources of indirect emissions were. It takes into account all greenhouse gases. The indirect emissions from hydro arise from the production of methane and the breakdown of vegetable matter covered by the water. I would like to see an analysis for the CO2 produced when forests are chopped down to build wind farms.

Despite any variations in the numbers, the message is clear, nuclear power is a very low carbon source.

Another complication that arises when looking at emission levels arising from manufactured products is geographical and technical. For example, what were the sources of energy used during the mining, and manufacturing processes? The graph below shows how different assessments can be.

For example, when assessing CO2 emissions from electric cars, it really matters where the car was manufactured and what source of energy was used during all the stages of mining and manufacture as well as the energy used to run the cars.

You may like to view the video below by Michael Shellenberger: Why I changed my mind about nuclear power.