I was reading this and found it interesting...
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/opinions/the-modern-data-center-as-a-grid-layering-your-edge-solutions/As I've said before, I worry somewhat about how well batteries will scale, not only for EV but for energy storage.
I.e. one of the great ideas for home power is solar during the day, charging up a battery pack that provides power overnight. It's low-carbon (albeit may not be entirely "green" due to the difficulty of mining the metals used in the batteries) and is an effective way to power your home almost entirely with free energy from the sun.
But... I don't know that we can scale it to the level needed, especially for larger energy users (data centers being the one discussed in the link).
Hydrogen fuel cells are an alternative. But, the downside is that to separate hydrogen usually requires a lot of electricity, so the efficiency losses when you use conventional power sources to separate the hydrogen is a downside. And then for transportation (or home storage), the fact that hydrogen really likes to explode doesn't help.
So, at what scale does it make sense to use solar or other clean energy to separate hydrogen during the day when energy from the sun is free, and then use that hydrogen in fuel cells in the evening to power generators with only water vapor as the output?
Seems like it would potentially be even more "green" than battery storage, as you don't need to mine all of the component metals that you need for batteries.
So what's holding this back?I'm sure there are major considerations [economic/technological] that I'm missing here, but I thought I'd throw it out for discussion...
