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.
My Blog has become My Nuclear Journey 