8GW is also about 40% of the energy their coal plants produce. It's not "measly" at all.

depends on location, size of turbines, spread of turbines, average wind speed at given height, etc.

on average, new offshore wind farms in the UK are already pushing beyond 40%-45% cf.

so now we need a disease that selects against these variants. problem solved! I love science.

>I'd be interested in where you got the terrible efficiency data from.

most peaker plants use single cycle gas turbines, which have fairly low efficiency. it's usually in the low 30s for newer plants depending if the plant has heat exchangers to cool the incoming air.

there are also peaker plants that use reciprocating engines, these ones have even worse efficiency.

standard combined cycle gas thermal plants have a second cycle that uses the waste heat from the first cycle to increase the efficiency; in this case it's between 40% and 60%.

you forgot the greens and greta thunberg.

Because much of the infrastructure isn't there or it hasn't been modified to support hydrogen. There will definitely be a hydrogen economy in the future, but that's still in the future.

Renewables need to be funded and built, investments need to be redirected into emerging technologies necessary for the production, transportation and use of hydrogen, e.g., electrolyzers, hydrogen turbines, fuel cells, hydrogen storage, subsidies and policies need to be created to make hydrogen appealing to hard-to-decarbonise industries.

I think everyone understands that a hydrogen economy will have to emerge very soon, but this is a thing with a lot of moving parts, so it's going to take a lot of effort (& money) to make it happen. There are also uses, for which hydrogen will simply not be feasible anytime soon, so other approaches will have to be pursued (e.g. heating and light vehicles).

🙄

today's grids contain large amounts of capacity that's seldom used. this includes peaker plants, which have terrible efficiency.

... because the hydrogen economy doesn't exist right now.

you pretty much described today's electricity grids.

culture wars and corruption.

it's already happening elsewhere.