I thought it is a great piece. I am just posting part of it. In the early years, the intermittent nature of renewable energy was thought to be of little concern. We could use renewable electricity when available and switch back to conventional fuels when needed. But as renewable sources become a cornerstone of our energy mix, we will need to find ways to store power for those times when renewables are unavailable. Sunlight is, by far, the most abundant energy source on earth. But how do you store surplus electricity to use when you need it? Possibilities include batteries, ultracapacitors and flywheels, all of which have important uses. One of the most attractive options is to use the sun’s energy to make hydrogen, store the hydrogen until it’s needed, and then put it into a fuel cell to make electricity. At the time of the first Earth Day in 1970, these technologies faced formidable challenges. Solar modules were ultra-expensive devices produced by a cottage industry whose only significant customer was NASA. Hydrogen was tricky to store and expensive to transport. Fuel cells required expensive catalysts like platinum. Those did not appear to be monumental challenges for a species that had split atoms and gone to the moon. But gasoline was cheap and the oil industry was politically potent. Technical challenges are overcome only with ample funding, creative minds and dogged perseverance. America’s embarrassingly modest, start-and-stop federal support has been more of a tease than a sincere effort to build an industry. The latest tease relates to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. For no good reason, the federal tax credit for fuel cell vehicles ended last December while the incentives for battery powered cars continue to be in effect until each manufacturer has sold 200,000 such vehicles. Helping manufacturers achieve economies of mass production makes vastly more sense than cutting off incentives on some utterly arbitrary date. Hydrogen fuel cells are the future of renewable energy storage
Yes, using excess renewable electric to make hydrogen, and then using the hydrogen to make electric in industrial fuel cells when the renewables can't meet demand is a possible use of the technology. As for FCV incentives, http://priuschat.com/threads/alternative-fuel-incentives-discussion.152081/
You have to sign up for the politics board. i put it there figuring energy policy and politics will be entwined.
