Hydrogen produced from electrolysis using nuclear fuel is dubbed “pink hydrogen”. The EU relies on nuclear energy for about 25% of its energy needs. But these powerplants can't produce electricity as cheaply as renewable sources on strong sunny/windy days. So do you decommission them or keep them? A new proposal to divert nuclear power during the day to an electrolyzer to produce clean hydrogen, while also capturing the waste heat to further improve efficiency of the process, appears to be a new way to maximise nuclear assets. But the jury is still out - watch this space. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-01/hydrogen-goes-nuclear-as-u-k-reactor-pivots-toward-renewables
One of the draw-backs of distributed energy resources (DER's) like rooftop solar on commercial buildings is the voltage volatility caused when trying to export
surplus energy back into the grid. To avoid volatility, grid operators often
curtail the amount of energy that can be returned - meaning surplus
clean energy (and money) is wasted.
Enter EleXsys, and their AI-driven solution, ensuring DER’s don’t overload
the system, don’t waste energy & deliver maximum financial & environmental
returns to their owners - be that IKEA or a local community micro-grid.
Breakthrough Energy Catalyst program is seeking to significantly decrease the cost of priority clean technologies to increase their availability in market & accelerate decarbonisation. Via a tweaked public-private partnership financing model the European Commission & Catalyst will reportedly mobilize a total of $US1 billion (€820 million) over the next 5 years to build large-scale, commercial demonstration projects in 4 areas;- green hydrogen, direct-air-capture (DAC), long-duration energy storage and sustainable aviation fuels.https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/07/clean-energy-innovation-sustainability-jet-fuel-storage/
Supercapacitors charge and discharge rapidly, don't lose total capacity over time like batteries do, can operate in a wide range of temperatures and can be super light and thin. But unlike batteries, they can't provide a steady, slow release of energy, they can't really hold onto a lot of energy, nor can they hold onto their charge for too long and their energy density tends to be lower. But what if you could combine the best of a supercapacitor with the best of a battery?Researchers at QUT might just have done that, creating a long-life, super-charged material.https://www.qut.edu.au/research/article?id=173028