Yahoo Finance Engineers Are Building Huge Salt Caves to Store Huge Amounts of Hydrogen
A huge system of caves in Utah is the future home of a massive hydrogen energy project.
The caves offer a natural alternative to thorny questions about storage of hydrogen.
Hydrogen still needs to move further away from reliance on the fossil fuel industry.
Scientists are going back to the salt mines, literally, to find a revolutionary new way to store large quantities of hydrogen for energy. Proponents say this could be a step toward unlocking hydrogen for renewables—something that could change the energy landscape if it were resolved.
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“The project would initially have enough energy to power 150,000 households for one year and is scheduled to be operational by 2025,” Fuel Cell Works reports. “It is being managed by Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS), a maker of gas turbines, and Magnum Development, which owns salt caverns for liquid fuel storage.”
This works by basically repurposing existing, enormous caves to store reserves of hydrogen as well as other fuels. The same way fresh water coalesces in aquifers beneath Earth’s surface, these huge caves give scientists a nature-made storage facility.
Not only is it convenient, but it solves a huge structural problem with where and how to contain the amounts of hydrogen we’ll need for a future where even a small fraction of energy is from hydrogen.
Salt in particular makes a great medium for storing and then continuing to generate green hydrogen. CNBC explains how the caves are used to store and generate hydrogen:
“Caverns can be created in salt domes by drilling into the salt dome and injecting the rock with water, which dissolves the salt. The resulting brine is extracted, leaving a large cavity. The next step is storing hydrogen in the cavern. Hydrogen electrolyzers can convert water into hydrogen by using renewable energy from solar and other sources. The hydrogen can then be stored, and reconverted to electricity when needed.”
Fuel Cell Works reports that while these caves are in the U.S., the major push for salt cave storage is in Europe. Increasing hydrogen energy is a big part of the European Union’s near-future energy strategy, but right now, hydrogen is hamstrung by some logistical problems. First, tapping hydrogen resources today mostly involves using hydrocarbons from fossil fuels, making the “cleanliness” of hydrogen more of a question than an answer.
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And second, hydrogen is a high-volume and flammable gas, so many supply chains involve sinking it into other materials or supercooling it into a liquid—technologically fine, but costly, high-energy, and again, contrary to the goal of cleaner and less environmentally costly energy.
The model suggested for salt cavern hydrogen storage closes the loop by offering a great medium to store the hydrogen energy and in a location that’s easy for transport to nearby municipalities.
The hydrogen industry still has some pronounced links with petroleum, which is something worth thinking about in the context of emerging hydrogen technology and plans. But the salt caverns of Utah and elsewhere offer one piece of a future where hydrogen can take its place among renewables options on municipal energy “menus” around the world.
And based on international reports and estimates, the broad approach going forward is one with more, not less, of these high-quality options.
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