A Fully Distributed Power Grid?

rleyton writes "There's an interesting and topical black-out article on an "internet inspired" hydrogen powered energy network. The premise is homes, cars, factories and offices store up hydrogen when energy is available, and supply it into the new energy network when it's not. Certainly an intriguing idea, with some interesting comments on future power management. Feasible in the next "three decades"? Perhaps."

Comments

Re:HYDROGEN Powered?

[LittleDustPuppy]

Need I remind anyone of what happened to the "Hindenburg?!

Re:1945: nuclear reactor in every car and home

[colmore]

The biggest problem with hydrogen is that it has to be produced. There isn't a whole lot of hydrogen gas floating around in easily-harvestable form, it has to be created, typically from water by electrolysis. Creating hydrogen this way requires energy, and that means you need some other form of energy.

Hydrogen makes sense for cars. Since Hydrogen can be much more efficiently burned on the small scale than gasoline, it is economical to produce hydrogen with more efficient large-scale coal or oil reactors and then burn that locally. This is more efficient than most battery solutions, which have the same problem.

However, the idea of hydrogen being used as an electricity generation method is a little silly.