From Climate Scepticism

BY ROBIN GUENIER

What could possibly go wrong?

A few weeks ago The Royal Society published this comprehensive report: Large-scale energy storage. It can be found HERE . I thought this might be of interest and had planned to write a short commentary as a basis for discussion. But the wind has been taken out of my sails, first by two excellent articles by the redoubtable Francis Menton at Manhattan Contrarian and this morning by a useful and interesting post by Chris Morrison at The Daily Sceptic. Menton’s articles – titled ‘A Semi-Competent Report On Energy Storage From Britain’s Royal Society’ and ‘It’s Time To Build The Intermittent Plus Hydrogen Storage Demonstration Project!’ – can be found HERE and HERE . Morrison’s piece – titled ‘Batteries Will Not Solve Renewable Energy Storage Problem, Says Royal Society’ – can be found HERE .

I suggest anyone who’s interested should first read at least the Executive Summary, Chapter 1 (Introduction) and Chapter 10.1 (Conclusion) of the Royal Society’s report – the Conclusion is especially interesting as it’s essentially a commentary on each of the report’s chapters – and then read Menton’s and Morrison’s articles.

A few comments:

1. As Menton has noted, the report’s analysis of the problem that has to be overcome – far worse than I thought – is extremely helpful.

2. However their ‘solution’ would be a quite extraordinary undertaking. Is it even feasible? The report notes numerous uncertainties such as the stated need for ‘detailed engineering estimates’. One item that took my eye was the statement that ‘Building the number of caverns that this report finds will be needed by 2050 will be challenging, but not impossible’. My experience of project management suggests that in practice such words mean that it almost certainly is impossible. If so of course, the whole undertaking would be pointless.

3. In any case, it’s hard to imagine that anyone living anywhere near any of these proposed caverns filled with hydrogen is likely to be very happy. Surely such concerns could kill the project?

4. This is an extraordinarily complex ‘solution’ and, given the UK’s apparent inability to complete large projects on time or within budget (e.g. HS2) would seem, even if shown to viable (practically and economically), to be doomed to failure from the outset.

5. It seems probable that, even in the unlikely event that the project could be shown to be technically viable, it would be so enormously expensive that no government could approve it.

6. With impressive logic based on a comprehensive analysis of the facts, the Royal Society has concluded that large-scale hydrogen storage is the only realistic solution to the wind and solar power intermittency problem. Therefore if, as seems likely, their ‘solution’ isn’t realistic either, there is no solution and the net zero project is wholly unachievable.