Posted on 08/30/2024 6:52:04 PM PDT by Jonty30
I’ve implemented solar for my home. My trial run of using a small system for a year showed that it was more than worth the cost for my climate and power consumption habits. So I converted my two natural gas appliances to electric and made my cooling more efficient (variable speed heat pump, electric furnace, hybrid water heater) and added onto the solar. Since it was time to replace my wife’s car anyway we now have an EV car. And I added onto my solar system.
The result is 81% of my power consumed in the past 365 days came from homemade solar power, pulling the other 19% from the grid (mostly in the 4 coldest months). That includes charging the EV enough to drive it 15K miles (not counting charging it away from home on road trips). I’m an example that even with lots of solar, we still need a dependable grid. It’d be infeasible to invest enough into the solar to be 100% off grid without reducing our lifestyle (law of diminishing returns).
But I warn you it takes LOTS of homework on your part to make sure you’re not being played by solar contractors. And when I did find one whose numbers matched mine, I still did lots of homework. Every now and then I export data from my inverters into a free MS SQL database on my laptop and crunch the numbers to see if I ought to tweak a setting or two. That attention to detail is required to make it feasible IMHO. My inverters record telemetry in 5-minute intervals. I know at each point in time how much solar power was coming into each inverter, as well as how much power each inverter stored to the battery stack, pulled from the battery stack, and/or pulled from the grid, all to supply power to the electrical panels. I even now how much power was going to each arm within each of the 3 electrical panels.
But it’s worth it. In the past two years (since the EV and solar upgrade), the energy portion of my budget = what it was in year 2019 (the last year of Trump before the China virus distorted energy prices). What I pay now for a small power bill + a loan payment for the loan I took out to hire contractors for solar and electrical and HVAC and the water heater plus gasoline for what little we drive the gas pickup, is a hair less than what I was paying in 2019 for power bill + natural gas bill + gasoline for both cars. And the loan payment goes down as the balance is paid down (next year it’ll cost me less money). While the energy prices I mostly avoid goes up (next year I’ll save more money).
The most important part to me is being almost completely energy independent during 8 months of the year. I see it as practice runs for if the Dims use their Warmageddon cult energy policies to fully control us at mark of the beast levels.
As long as hydrogen is used in a fixed location (iow, not in a vehicle), so weight doesn’t matter, there are other methods that work or may work. This is the one that’s on the top of the lumber pile of my mind, and the Brave AI generated this nice text:
[quote] Hydrogen Storage via Hydride Formation
Hydrogen storage in metal hydrides is a promising technology for efficient and safe storage of hydrogen. Metal hydrides are compounds formed by reacting metals with hydrogen, resulting in a solid-state storage medium. This approach offers several advantages:
High volumetric energy density: Metal hydrides can store large amounts of hydrogen per unit volume, making them suitable for compact storage systems.
Safety: The solid-state nature of metal hydrides reduces the risk of hydrogen leaks and explosions, as the hydrogen is chemically bonded to the metal.
Low reactivity: Many metal hydrides exhibit low reactivity, minimizing the risk of unwanted hydrogen release or degradation.
Types of Metal Hydrides
Several types of metal hydrides are being researched and developed for hydrogen storage:
Simple hydrides: Compounds like magnesium hydride (MgH2) and lithium hydride (LiH) are simple and relatively inexpensive to produce.
Complex hydrides: Alloys like sodium borohydride (NaBH4) and lithium aluminum hydride (LiAlH4) offer improved hydrogen storage capacities and kinetics.
Transition metal hydrides: Compounds like titanium hydride (TiH2) and zirconium hydride (ZrH2) exhibit high hydrogen storage capacities and are being researched for their potential applications.
Challenges and Future Directions
While metal hydride storage shows promise, several challenges need to be addressed:
Kinetics: Improving the rate of hydrogen absorption and desorption is crucial for practical applications.
Thermodynamics: Understanding and controlling the thermodynamic properties of metal hydrides is essential for optimizing storage conditions.
Scalability: Developing large-scale production methods and integrating metal hydride storage systems with hydrogen infrastructure is necessary for widespread adoption.
Current Status and Outlook
Research and development efforts are ongoing to overcome the challenges and improve the performance of metal hydride storage systems. Companies like McPhy Energy are already commercializing magnesium hydride-based storage solutions. As the technology advances, metal hydride storage is expected to play a significant role in the transition to a hydrogen-based economy. [/quote]
additional info:
Engineering Explained:
https://www.youtube.com/@EngineeringExplained/search?query=hydrogen
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