Storing energy as hydrogen (and oxygen) / Cool it down to store energy

[ssilk]

This replaces this idea: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 605#p86992

TL;DR
- Hydrogen is created (for example by dissociation, see down; this method has the nice side effect, that it cleans the pollution, because of the generated oxygen)
- But it is warm then and must be cooled. This is the same process as with water, which must be warmed to be loaded up with energy (Water with only 15 degrees produces no electric power in the steam engines).
- In other words: The optimal burning of hydrogen (in a turbine) happens, if the hydrogen is cooled down to -252 degrees Celsius. Or in other words: The energy that is needed to cool it down so deep is then stored in the fluid (this has nothing to do with real physics , but it is somehow comparable and easy understandable).
- Hydrogen can gain much more energy by cooling, than water. So it is the ideal fluid, to store energy; much, much more than with accumulators.
- The volume/pressure doesn't change in this process (see https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =10#p87285 )
- to be not completely symmetric to water, hydrogen could have a twist: If hydrogen is warm and under higher pressure (=level), it can destroy pipes.

Introduction
Current electric energy generation:

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cold water --- heated in boilers ---> hot water --- used in generators (=steam engines) ---> electric energy

solar panels ---> electric energy

loaded accumulators ---> electric energy

These three ways exists. And only these three!

Storing large amounts of energy
There are ways to store energy:
- As items: https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/index.php?title=Fuel
- As hot water: https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... _hot_water and https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... orage_tank
- In accumulators: https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... ccumulator

What I want is a fourth way of storing energy, in form of hydrogen. Hydrogen can store even more energy than hot water.

Creating hydrogen
Hydrogen is created by dissociation:

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Water ---- electric energy ---> Warmed up hydrogen (and oxygen that cleans the air)

For faster/more effective transfer:
Hot water --- electric energy ---> Hot hydrogen  (and oxygen that cleans the air)

Oxygen is not really needed for this idea; it can just be ignored! Hydrogen alone will add the same amount of gameplay. So I ignore it in the rest of the explanation!

Cool it down, to gain energy

See this post, which explains this part much better: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =10#p87238

Aggressive behavior (optional!)
This feature isn't really needed, it is a small twist, that prevents, that hydrogen is just a repetition from what you learned from water.

Hydrogen can be stored, but needs to be cooled. If they are getting too hot for too long for too much pressure the pipe explodes. This is also the biggest disadvantage, you loose the stored hydrogen/oxygen, until the broken part is replaced.

These are the new entities to handle that:
- A dissociator: uses electric energy and splits water into hydrogen and oxygen (which disappears into the air and cleans it a bit). The hydrogen is warmed up in this process.
- A turbine: Burns hydrogen (and takes oxygen out of the air and pollutes it like so) and produces electric energy and hot water.
- A heat exchanger: Two inputs and two outputs; Put cold water in and hot hydrogen, get warm/hot water and cold hydrogen. Needs much less energy than cooler.
- A cooler: Needed to cool any liquid; in this case the hydrogen or the hot water. Needs energy for that. The more cool the hydrogen is, the more energy it can hold (like with hot water, but the other way around).

Anything else needed for this idea is already there.

Some scenarios:

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Cold water   --- boilers ---> hot water --- steam engines ---> electricity 
     electricity --- dissociator (+ water) ---> warm hydrogen --- heat exchanger --->
     cold hydrogen --- cooler ---> very cold hydrogen

The heat exchanger can warm up the cold water before the boilers.

Hydrogen --- turbine ---> electric energy + hot water
The hot water can be used again for steam engine to produce also electric energy.

uranium --- processing somehow ---> enriched uranium --- nuclear reactor --->
       masses of hot water --- steam engines ---> electric energy .....

uranium --- processing somehow ---> enriched uranium --- nuclear reactor --->
      masses of hot hydrogen --- cooling ---> cold hydrogen

[Takezu]

Well bob's mods has a whole electrolysing chain for Hydrogen oxygen, but used for other purposes.

Atomic power goes the route with the Nuclearpowerplant...

WHat about refeining the hydrogen one step further, into Deuterium or so called Heavy Water, to use it in somwhat like a Fuisionreactor.

I mean if we have a portable for our Power Suit, why not make the real deal to power our factory?

Or Hydrogen-oxygen Fuel Cells, which would safly return the stored energie from the electrolysis?
(Which would iirc round about 40% return of the energie at least with todays technic, who knows what it would be in future)
Such fuel cells, would be a nice addition to Accumulators for nighttime, even if the return would be only 60% or less of the expendet energy in the electrolyses.


That would be some of my thoughts about Hydrogenfuel.

It's a pretty nice idea.

[ssilk]

Atomic power goes the route with the Nuclearpowerplant...

Why? It would be just like every game: put uranium in, power goes out. I suggest put uranium and cold water in and hot water comes out. It's just like a big burner.

WHat about refeining the hydrogen one step further, into Deuterium or so called Heavy Water, to use it in somwhat like a Fuisionreactor.

Well, the point is, that in the this FFF there is a picture on a whiteboard. And on it it can be seen "hydrogen" (H2) as power source for the space...

And I think this idea with hot and cold hydrogen is somehow new. Maybe it's not usable like so, but maybe someone has a better idea into that direction.

[Takezu]

I meant the Mod Atomic Power, i think its called ore something in that direction.
It does exactly that, Uranium Fuel in, hot water out. At least it did last time i looked.

Hydrogen by itself is a poor power source, energy to get is "almost in anycase" (as far as im aware) higher as the means to get energie from it.
And gaining more energy from it as needet to get it is physikly impossible, law of energy conservation.

Even its chemical energyvalue isn't the best. It's abundance is it's advantage

I must admit the hydrogenturbine wasn'T a thing that i thought about, but there again the law of energy conservation. Surly it would heat your water, but you can't gain more energy from it as you would have needet to get the hydrogen in the first place, you would loss energie in the process into the enviorment. Physiks are cruel i know.
The only way to get the same amount of energy out, would be a system that don't lose energy in any step, and thats something thats only to be thought about, you lose it everywhere.

Well i don't know how you thought about the losses in energy. Let's put that aside.

Hot and Cold Hydrogen, how should it work, heat it get it to som converter and get it cold out?
Wouldn't that be exactly as heating water and running it throug an engine?

Or is the big point the means of storage?
True it would give you some better form of Storing MJ then the puny accumulators.
Space wise at least. And then, yes would make sense to run it through a turbine and feeding the rest to an engine.
As backuppower quite nice thought.

[bobucles]

You can also store solid fuel from processed oil. Oil is a source of unlimited power, and remains fairly decent even with a depleted pump.

How many sources of electricity does a player need, exactly?

[Takezu]

Don'T you like variety?

It'S always nice to have an other option at hand.
If living of depletet oil wells suits you, nice, but i would really like some other means.

So may i ask you, why not?

[bobucles]

Because there are already ways produce, store, and renew energy. The only thing left to do is make a more confusing production chain for bigger power numbers.

[Takezu]

Thats like going to a party calling it bad, because further down the street is an other party, with less people.

On the other hand nobody forces someone to build something. If you don't want, don't do it.
But that doesn't deprive it's right of existance.

[bobucles]

Three questions:
1) Why is cold hydrogen better?
2) Why is cold water used to make hydrogen better? Cold water is an unlimited free resource.
3) Why does this also generate electricity THREE WAYS? First the hydrogen is made, then it is cooled, producing hot water for energy, then it is cooked, producing energy, and the cooking produces hot water for MORE ENERGY.

All I'm seeing here is an infinite energy loop. If you add efficiency modules to the mix then it's a blatant perpetual motion machine. Energy makes hydrogen, which can produce hot water energy two different ways AND be stored/cooked on its own. If the ultimate goal is to make a super powerful energy source to replace accumulators, why not just make some fancy sci-fi like a superconducting ring, some kind of antimatter storage (hey it goes BOOM), or use alien artifacts to make alien stuff?

[Takezu]

There is NO such thing as an infinit energie loop, it CAN'T exists, ther is only one because you want to make one out of.
This looks to me more like an alternativ form of energy accumulation. Whats wrong with that.

Does every thing must be as easy as bulding Accumulator, setup done?

[ssilk]

@Takezu: I try to anwer a bit.

Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_ ... on_methods
Especially
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_ ... ectrolysis

Yes, there are mods. The devs said, there will be more types of energy in the game: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... hp?f=9&t=5
Atomic power lays on the hands.

If you want to store serious amounts of hydrogen, you need to cool it. Otherwise: booom.
If the hydrogen is too hot and the pressure too high it will explode and destroy pipes or whatever.

You mentioned "law of energy conservation". The cooling takes energy. Much energy! But the advantage is the density of energy you can reach with this. Which is of course lower, than the energy you put in.

Or is the big point the means of storage?

Exactly. That is - as already said - the most important part: Storing energy.

There is no perpetuum mobile. You don't gain energy. You store it. Or you make the process more efficient (with the water-cooler). That's all. You don't gain energy, indeed you loose a lot.

This looks to me more like an alternativ form of energy accumulation. Whats wrong with that.

It is too easy and stupid boring to lay out masses of accumulators. I want energy storage on much higher level and adding just a bigger accumulator is really stupid. AND the hydrogen can (obviously?) be used for the rocket. So it is needed somehow.

1) Why is cold hydrogen better?
2) Why is cold water used to make hydrogen better? Cold water is an unlimited free resource.
3) Why does this also generate electricity THREE WAYS?

1: Because it is then more dense. Well, this is not really realistic, but I think it is understandable.
2: Cold water is used to pre-cool the warm hydrogen and to make the process more efficient, because it doesn't cost energy to cool it like so and you can use the warm water for electric energy.
3: Why not?

First the hydrogen is made, then it is cooled, producing hot water for energy, then it is cooked, producing energy, and the cooking produces hot water for MORE ENERGY.

No, first you need electric energy. Then you can make hydrogen out of that. Then you need to cool it. To cool it efficiently you cannot use only water (you can cool it down only to 15 degrees minimum with water and heat-exchanger, but you need to cool hydrogen much more, -252 degrees, short before it gets liquid, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_hydrogen ). This costs a lot of power. But this process is nothing else, then the burners, when they heat the water; the hydrogen can then be burned much more efficiently.

See it so: 15 degrees warm water cannot be used to produce electric energy. But 100 degrees hot water let the steam engines work with 100% efficiency.
The same with hydrogen: 100 degrees warm hydrogen (just a number, this needs to be balanced) cannot be used for energy production. And is very dangerous: If the pressure gets too high it will destroy the pipes and you loose the hydrogen.
You can cool it eventually down to 15 degrees with water only. With that temperature it can be burned, but it will not create much energy (maybe 20% efficiency). If you cool it down more, the energy-level you can get by burning in the turbine rises. (because of the "density")

The output of the turbine is then again 100 degrees hot water, but much less, than the amount of water you put in (maybe only 1-10%, maybe the water just evaporates? ). My thought to that was, that this hot water can be used to power some control: If the turbine runs (because the energy is needed) the hot water can be used for signaling, that new hydrogen must be produced. Or vice versa: If you hot water comes out, this doesn't produce hydrogen, because it is empty.

All I'm seeing here is an infinite energy loop.

I'm not. This is not a physically correct simulation. All what's needed is, that it is understandable.

If you add efficiency modules to the mix then it's a blatant perpetual motion machine.

I mentioned nothing about that. And no, this is not a perpetuum mobile.

Energy makes hydrogen, which can produce hot water energy two different ways AND be stored/cooked on its own. If the ultimate goal is to make a super powerful energy source to replace accumulators, why not just make some fancy sci-fi like a superconducting ring, some kind of antimatter storage (hey it goes BOOM), or use alien artifacts to make alien stuff?

Because I want to lay more pipes, to make the cronstructive chaos perfect. Think if all the connections needed to create a really cool looking and efficient power storage.

[Takezu]

Silk Hydrogen as form of energy storage is quite a good idea.
It would be a net loss, but i've done right, could power you long enough to get
the mainproblem under control.

That would be something that current accumulators aren't capable of.

The easy way would be some form of Electrolysis.
As far as i'm aware there is no pressure system in Factorio itself, am i right?
Thats why you choose cooling where i'd choosen compression?

The boom effect needs a specific amount of elementary oxygen mixed into the hydrogen. No oxygen no boom too much oxy and the BOOM will only go plop.
But right is "warm" H² is more likly to go boom as cold. But under the right conditions, it blows up anyways.

Surly some energy out of the cooling process could be recoverd through heat exchanging, but most would go lost into the enviorment.
But true, the MJ you could store surpass Accumulators with ease.

But a minor catch, i don'T think it would be practicable to cool Hydrogen to round about 20 Kelvin, you could however raise the boiling point by pressure.
But thats where it goes to my question about a pressure system.

[Koub]

For gases (and most fluids), cooling and compression are two sides of the same coin : when you compress, temperature raises. When you cool, pressure lowers. PV=nRT, and all that stuff.
If you want, you can test it at home : take a bycicle hand pump, a bicycle, and inflate a tire. you'll feel the pump get warm, a lot more than when there is no tire and you pump into nothing.

If you compress, and don't want temperature to raise above a certain point, you have to cool at the same time.

All the point is how to store energy into something that doesn't need square miles of flat terrain (like it's the case for accumulators), even at the cost of some loss (but obviously not too much, because we wouldn't want to do energy storage area /10, but solar panels area x10 ).

[Takezu]

Pressure times Volume equals amount of substance (in mol) times gas constant times temprature
Gasequation would have been a term to me also

Yes they are two sides of the same medal.

And thanks of reminding ...
The more i think about, introducing pressure would only shove the energycosts from cooling to pressurising.
Well in the end only shoving numbers around with no real gain ^^

[ssilk]

Well, pressure in Factorio is equal to the level of the fluid. That's a decision, which is needed, cause calculation of real gases would be really too hard for the CPU.

So, with 0.12 we can see also the level of the storage tanks. See last FFF. The level can just be understood as something between 0% and 100%. If the level is 100%, the full storage capacity of the fluid is reached. The storage is also called "liquid stack" and every entity handling with fluids have one or more liquid stacks (the refinery for example needs 5). For pipes it is 10, for storage tanks it's 2500 units of fluid (UOF), so a storage tank is nothing else than a big pipe with 4 input/outputs instead of 2.

This is then a much simpler calculation, cause: level == pressure == volume. (*)

So forget everything about pressure * volume = density. Or lowering pressure (= level = volume) by cooling. This is not the case, the handling is much, much simpler, cause the volume keeps the same all the time, no matter, if we are cooling it or not. And so also the pressure. Only the energy, that is contained in the fluid (here hydrogen, there the water) rises, by changing the temperature. In the case of the water energy rises by warming it up. In the case of hydrogen energy rises by cooling it down. Both takes energy.

In other words: Like cold water you cannot use warm hydrogen to make energy out of it.
In other words: The colder you make the hydrogen, the more energy is stored in it.

The only twist I introduced (and this is not really needed to play it, cause it makes things a bit more complicated, but I thought it is just an interesting twist, because otherwise it would be just a mirror of the boiler/steam engine system for hot water) is, that warm hydrogen with too much pressure (=level) will break pipes. Cause that will force the players to install some kind of regulation, that not too much hydrogen is produced at once, using pumps to lower the pressure of the warm hydrogen and other twists. Nice game-situations, if then the energy breaks down and the regulation fails. I think we can see a lot of designs then, that prevents the system to behave unstable in such situations.

(*) I need also to mention, that fluids in factorio don't change their temperature themselves. They are not loosing temperature or gaining temperature, no matter how long the pipes are. This is also a needed simplification of the fluid model in Factorio.

[Takezu]

Ah don'T ^^' energy never rises by cooling something down.
Something that cools passes its energy on to something other.

You'd rise the energydesity, thats energy per volume not energy.

SO correct cold Hydrogen stores more energy but not because it has more energy, it has more mass in the same space.

I know that that was your point but the words energy rises by cooling.
No offens, that was so wrong that it hurts my head .

Heating -> Using energy to store potential energy in a medium that does work.
Cooling -> Using energy to pack more medium in the same space, to have a higher energy density.

The breaking pipes would be a nice twist, but i have one other for you.
You can't use iron pipes. Corrosion, H² corrodes iron, pretty fast.
gameplay wise, we would ne copperpipes or plasticpipes. and tanks for that matter.
That would a twist i like to see. And for that matter a change reagrding H2SO4-
Feels strange to me to pump that stuff around in Iron, when i've learned 3,5 years how corrosiv it is.

[ssilk]

You'd rise the energydesity, thats energy per volume not energy.

Yes, and if you paid attention to what I wrote you know now, that there is an equality between density, volume and pressure in Factorio.
It just doesn't happen. No need to explain that further.

You can't use iron pipes. Corrosion, H² corrodes iron, pretty fast.

That's the reason, why it eventually explodes with warm H². But reality? This is a game. I can carry half a ton of iron plate and run around with it in the same speed as if I carry nothing. So, why should there be a problem with using iron pipes?

[Takezu]

i'm chemist can't be helped

As said no offens meant.
You're completly right the volume doesn't change at any point so the energy rises, based on rising energydensity.
But as said, a sentence like cooling rises energy, let me remember vocational school, and gives me a headache.
So were the little things at that time which could take hours of discussions about nothing ...

As to the pipes, i think about pipes that would give you more time. Like make it with iron no problem, but the risk is higher as
if you make it with steel. As to the reality fact see first line

[ssilk]

I think it is very ok to ask such question; that's in my eyes the sense of discussions. And I really didn't explain everything good enough.

So I have updated the first post, added a TL;DR and a bit more explanation.

[Takezu]

TBH, i have now idea what TL;DR stands for.

But the update makes the mainpoints quite clear.
And even without corrosiv effects, it would a) be a nice storage system for energy and b) you're idea with the dissociator, the cleaning of pollution,
would add a gameplay feature that i miss a bit. I've hundrets of means to destroy the enviorment, but noway to contain the damage.
And i'm not thinking of revising, but a bit of containment would be really nice. Also thinking of, i think it was in one post or FFF can't remember exactly,
that our pollution might became visible, through dying nature. Even if it woulden't be that much would a nice feature to have.