Wind Power Produced 140% Of Electricity Demand in Denmark : energy

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 20 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

This was a peak situation, but long term with even more renewable energy, that's when Hydrogen becomes relevant.
And when we have enough surplus production of electricity to produce cheap hydrogen the sky is the limit. Because cheap hydrogen can replace oil and gas everywhere.

We are not there yet, but I think it's not too far away.

the Danish Energy Agency is spearheading an ambitious plan to produce even more wind power for both export and domestic use.

And we are far from alone in this, all European countries are working towards more renewables. Which is why I think the above will become reality soon. Hydrogen is wasteful and cost a lot of electricity to make, but when electricity becomes plentiful enough that renewable production goes to waste, that's when hydrogen becomes really really relevant, and can replace everything that can't be replaced with electricity and batteries.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 16 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (14 children)

doesn't hydrogen have way worse round-trip efficiency than batteries, even before things like embrittlement? i've heard as low as 45%, with the rest just becoming heat.

[–] Ooops@feddit.org 6 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

Yes, but it can be stored where batteries lose power over time. And a lot of the infrastructure doesn't need to be build but can be converted from natural gas use.

In the end batteries and hydrogen fill two very different gaps. You can use batteries to shift the renewable production peak at noon (thanks solar) to the demand peak in the evening, maybe even flatten fluctuation (in production and demand) over a few days. But they are entirely useless as seasonal long-term storage.

Also plans to produce green hydrogen exist independently. It's a requirement to decarbonise a lot of industry processes where direct use of electricity doesn't work. It's also a raw material in chemical industry.

So if decarbonisation of more than just electricity production is the goal, large scale hydrogen production is a given. As is large scale storage as production from renewable energy will always have seasonal fluctuations. From there having it also double as long-term on-demand stored energy means just scaling up what is already there.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 6 points 3 weeks ago (10 children)

i don't remember if you and i spoke about this before but i did talk to someone on here about the fact that hydrogen can't really be stored for long periods either. whoever it was linked a statement from a german gas company claiming that their existing infrastructure could handle hydrogen without modification, and i remember coming away from that entirely unconvinced.

i'd be happy to be proved wrong but i don't believe green hydrogen is going to play a big part of the grid. i'm personally hoping for pumped hydro and thermal storage.

[–] Ooops@feddit.org 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (5 children)

Sounds indeed like bullshit. More so as here in Germany there are indeed a lot of projects using natural gas infrastructure for the planned hydrogen transport network. But definitely not without modifications.

but i don’t believe green hydrogen is going to play a big part of the grid

Europe seems to disagree, with projects worth more than ten times of those in North America and Asia combined.

Edit:

Here's the already approved part of Germany's planned hydrogen core network (new lines, converted lines, opened by 2025):

And an article about one of the earliest segments of 55km opened 1½ years ago, based on 95% pre-existing lines.

And an article (but only available in German) claiming that the planned capacity for 2025 (converted or newly build) is met with new ~525km out of ~9000km by 2032. Of which ~60% will be converted pipelines, 40% new construction.

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[–] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Yes but how will the oil companies take their unnecessary cut if you use batteries?

[–] lime@feddit.nu 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

why do you think lego is so expensive now

[–] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 4 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Because it has strong marketing and a cult-like fan base.

[–] Jiral@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Not quite. I mean, partially that is the case, but the good Chinese competition costs on many sets at least 50% of Lego if not more, so the extra margin is there but not astronomically high. Turns out, Lego is one of the most challenging toys to produce (hence it took China so long to catch up in quality, even though they have fully caught up by now), it needs ridiculously high injection molding precision and each product consists of hundreds if not thousand individual parts that need to be correctly sorted.

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[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago

That's why it will never IMO be feasible until we have surplus electric power that it can be made with. Power that would otherwise be wasted.

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[–] Skasi@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

Before using hydrogen to replace fossil fuels, you need to ensure that no fossil fuels are burned to generate electricity. Otherwise you would increase carbon emissions, not reduce them. I don't see the whole worlds energy consumption going purely green within the next 100 years.

[–] MrMakabar@slrpnk.net 8 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

The world is currently at 42.6% green electricity. Also 100years are a very long time.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Share of electricity generation from low-carbon sources

Renewables include solar, wind, hydropower, bioenergy, geothermal, wave, and tidal.

It seems like hydropower is doing a lot of lifting across the developing world. Spots like Ethiopia, Paraguay, and Brazil are all heavily dependent on hydroelectricity to power major municipalities and industrial centers.

As climate change impacts the volume and flow of major waterways, I'm a little worried how that ends up.

United States: 43%

That really shocked me. And, I gotta say, these numbers look deeply suspicious. I work in the Houston energy sector, and I can say we're not slowing down development of the Permian Basin. US fossil fuel exports are only going up. Then there's the big investment in data center fossil fuel plants that doesn't seem to be in the forecasts.

That's not to say we're also not building out enormous new solar and wind facilities, even in the belly of the Texas Beast. But the Flint Run plant alone is more than they're reporting. And that's assuming Trump doesn't get his 1.25-gigawatt Terra Energy Center in Alaska.

[–] sparkyshocks@lemmy.zip 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

And, I gotta say, these numbers look deeply suspicious. I work in the Houston energy sector, and I can say we're not slowing down development of the Permian Basin.

I think liquid hydrocarbons are much more likely to be used directly in combustion engines, rather than electricity generation. So even as oil production increases, the percentage of electricity coming from high carbon sources might still be dropping, while the primary energy numbers might go the other way.

So for our electricity mix in 2025, we reached 17.4% nuclear, 10.3% wind, 8.6% solar, 5.4% hydro, 1.0% bioenergy.

But if you look at primary energy mix, fossil fuels are much, much higher percentage: something like 16.8% low carbon (renewable + hydro + nuclear), 35.0% gas, 38.8% oil, 9.3% coal.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago

But if you look at primary energy mix, fossil fuels are much, much higher percentage

Okay, that makes a lot more sense. Thanks for clarifying.

[–] Skasi@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

This statistic includes nuclear and bioenergy. I'm unsure about bioenergy, but nuclear certainly can not qualify as green. Unless you mean green glowing stuff, like nuclear waste is often depicted.

Also 100years are a very long time

Yes and humanity is sometimes very very very slow to change for the better.

[–] jaycifer@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

They’re probably using green to mean “not CO2 producing” given the context of the discussion being about CO2 emissions. As far as I’m aware nuclear energy fits that criteria.

[–] Skasi@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

They’re probably using green to mean “not CO2 producing” given the context of the discussion being about CO2 emissions

I understand the argument and yes CO2 emissions are indeed lower. However, only marketing/sales/lobbyists/politicians would use that to sell it as green energy. It's not green, it's not environment friendly, it's not renewable.

Actually one could argue that it is extremely environment friendly, seeing as Chernobyl has become a wildlife sanctuary.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago

nuclear certainly can not qualify as green

In terms of carbon emissions, it's pretty lean. You're only really talking about the cost of concrete and of harvesting uranium fuel, which is negligible beside the cost of coal or natural gas.

humanity is sometimes very very very slow to change for the better.

The turnover to wind and solar has been genuinely shocking in its rapidity. Market forces are one hell of a drug.

[–] Chaf@slrpnk.net 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm gonna be a bit nit-picky here. You linked the "Low-carbon" source, which includes nuclear energy. Granted, long discussions can be had, whether nuclear counts as green energy, but besides that, I'd argue that nuclear should not be used to generate hydrogen - if at all it should be used the same as hydrogen would be used: to bridge gaps when not enough renewable energy is available.

If you switch to renewables-only in the source just above that graph, the world is, according to latest data (2025), at 33.76% electricity generation from renewables. So when it comes to share of electricity generation with renewables we're on par with sometime around the 1950s. If you switch that graph to absolute generation and fossil fuels, you can see that electricity generation from fossil fuels has not yet started to decline.

On top of all that, this is electricity generation, not primary energy use. For primary energy use we're currently at 8.59% world-wide.

I'm not saying this to make us give in, I'm just saying that there is a long way to go - 100 years are (hopefully) a bit too much, but it's definitely not around the corner. And as an aside maybe also highlight that reductions in (primary) energy consumption are as important as ever.

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[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

True, but with a constant 100% plus generation from renewable, there obviously wouldn't be any fossil fuel burned to generate electricity. Here we are already at 80% of our total yearly electricity generated by renewables.
When that reaches 100%, it can be done by utilizing surplus at peaks to generate hydrogen, exactly to completely prevent any use of fossil fuels.

I don’t see the whole worlds energy consumption going purely green within the next 100 years.

100 years is a very long time, back in the 70's it was considered a lofty goal to achieve even 10%, and now we are at 80!!
I don't think you have historical perspective.
Personally I think within another decade we will surpass 100% here, and have the ability to export a lot of surplus renewable energy.
I was also mostly thinking about civilized countries, not so much for instance USA.

[–] Skasi@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

"here" is nice and good, but "here" is not global. This is not about a local incident. It's easy to have "too much green energy" in one place, just build a single wind turbine and don't connect it to a grid. But using that excess power to produce an inefficient expensive fuel in one part of the world doesn't solve the global energy- and emmission- problem. It's cheaper and more efficient to transport energy all over the world and shut down local fossil fuel power plants than to produce hydrogen, ship that all over the world and burn that.

[–] Triumph@fedia.io 2 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

It's not as easy to ship electricity around as you might think. Electricity attenuates over distance, and when green sources are far from population centers, that effect is higher. To use electricity, you have to be physically tied to the power grid, or carry batteries. Those are heavy and require a bunch of heavy metals sourced from questionable places.

Hydrogen is more portable and transferable than electricity. It can be used for off-grid purposes, like vehicles and wherever you'd use propane now. And its efficiency compared to electricity doesn't really matter if you're producing it using waste voltage from surplus.

Both have their places. Converting away from fossil fuels isnt going to have a monolithic solution.

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago

Exactly.

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[–] Ooops@feddit.org 1 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

but I think it’s not too far away.

It could be not far away. That's the reason we see such a big uptick in funding and publicity for basically every right-wing moron on the planet fighting against (among other stuff) renewables.

[–] MrMakabar@slrpnk.net 1 points 3 weeks ago

One of the reasons. The other ones are Russia and China wanting to split the West and low birth rates meaning the low cost workers are harder to come by(2/3of the growth in the 25-64 year old population will be in Africa in the next 25years and the richer the country the more likely a shrinking workforce, so imagine unions lowering the work week or similar).

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago (7 children)

Local today global tomorrow.

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[–] Steve@startrek.website 10 points 3 weeks ago

WOKE NONSENSE! HELP!

[–] Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

CleanTechnica is doing shoddy reporting.

They talk about Denmark hitting 140% peak production "last Friday" in an article from 2026-09-09, so presumably that would mean 2026-09-04. Then they link an 11 year old Guardian article from 2015-07-10.

The rest of the article is also barely about Denmark at all, it is just bait.

[–] sparkyshocks@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 weeks ago

CleanTechnica is a garbage source. It consists entirely of reposts scraped from elsewhere on the internet, except summarized poorly by people (or possibly LLMs) who have barely more than a surface level understanding of the topic at hand. I don't understand why it has the popularity it does.

[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

What does this mean? The 100% all for Denmark and they could now sell the 40% to other countries? That is fantastic! (Have rates come down at all for the citizenry?).

[–] Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

It was one peak moment during a time of low usage at night with simultaneous strong winds. Assuming this is about the July 2015 moment (which CleanTechnica seems to be hiding

or even completely ignorant of).

So yes those 40% surplus were automatically exported (the European power market is integrated), but no that didn't move the needle on consumer prices.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Exported only if the grid needs it.

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[–] WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I almost don't care, so long as fossil CEOs starve.

Also, no oil wars.

[–] eleitl@lemmy.zip 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

If suddenly without fossils, 95% of the population will starve.

[–] WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Old and outdated story. I was there too when it started. Collapseniks missed the point that doing nothing will make nothing better.

[–] eleitl@lemmy.zip 3 points 3 weeks ago

It's basic biophysics. And it will happen anyway naturally, just over a longer period. Way less excess mortality.

[–] myyass@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

They must have a really good electrical grid. I remember 'brown' outs because too much electricity was generated in Vermont.

[–] MBech@feddit.dk 5 points 3 weeks ago

I've never experienced any kind of electrical failure from the grid, having lived in Denmark for 30 years. It just doesn't happen.

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