“chief executive, Graham Cooley, points out that it is much easier to store molecules such as hydrogen than electrons in batteries.”

Is that really true?

We ⁦ @SunampLtd⁩ were in an ⁦ @innovateuk⁩ project with ⁦ @ITMPowerPlc⁩ years ago 1/ https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55763356

The project “Coated Metal Hydrides” was trying to make a hydrogen storage system using H2 stored into metal foam. The outcome was a bit disappointing on performance and cost.

Meanwhile over the same period electron storage using metals aka lithium batteries became massive!

The other side of this is that hydrogen H2 is a very small molecule. It does permeate metals in bad ways leading to embrittlement and can get through other materials like plastics that would stop a bigger molecule like methane CH4.

So pipes for methane may not take hydrogen 3/

I think I understood that the pipe also needs to be bigger to carry the same amount of energy as hydrogen versus a methane (aka natural gas) pipe so reusing the offshore infrastructure to carry hydrogen ashore won’t take as much energy. 4/

Finally will it be possible to drop the cost of electrolysis equipment far enough that they can be saved only to be the marginal load at times of maximum wind production and minimum grid demand? 5/

Overall I hope so, as there are many uses for hydrogen as inputs to industrial chemistry.

Constrained wind, utilised at source, electrolysed and transported ashore using upgraded existing natural gas infrastructure is a great dream. 6/

Impressed so many are trying. Wishing them well as they can avoid the use of steam reformed methane in places where we use that for hydrogen today.

But please don’t read into this that we’ll Heat the Nation using a drop in replacement for the gas grid. /end