> Renewables + storage can provide "synthetic baseload" at a cost that will likely be lower than nuclear in most places,
Try actually calculating this. Last I did I got around $100 billion per year needed for storage+renewable for the UK, which was triple the wholesale electricity annual revenue.
Got the numbers for hydrogen (energy conversion loss, storage costs per kwh, drain, cycle numbers, costs per kw)? The 2019 US department of energy storage costs paper I used didn't include it and I suspect this was because the numbers are atrocious. Compressed air storage seems like the best for day+ energy storage with batteries for hourly storage.
What do you mean by "storage"? Short term storage only, like batteries? This would lead to an overly large renewable installation to power the country in the winter.
The round trip efficiency of hydrogen is indeed bad, but for long term storage that's is overwhelmed by the much lower cost of hydrogen storage capacity, vs. batteries.
The round-trip efficiency isn't actually that bad once you realize that we're dealing with large installations here. For instance, heat can be used to make hydrogen, which is why you sometimes hear about nuclear power making hydrogen. Large installations can recapture heat, either as co-generation or use it to drive a gas turbine.
You can look at the assumptions under https://model.energy/ which were based on cost data in Europe (I believe there's a link to the source).
Per-kW cost of electrolysers is already 1/2 of the total per-kW cost given there in the 2030 assumptions (but that may include other equipment).
Cost of storage caverns is well known from natural gas, as little as $1/kWh of capacity. Cost of combined cycle plants to convert the hydrogen back to power is also well known, as these will be nearly identical to natural gas fired CC plants (just the details of the combustors will change.)
Try actually calculating this. Last I did I got around $100 billion per year needed for storage+renewable for the UK, which was triple the wholesale electricity annual revenue.
Got the numbers for hydrogen (energy conversion loss, storage costs per kwh, drain, cycle numbers, costs per kw)? The 2019 US department of energy storage costs paper I used didn't include it and I suspect this was because the numbers are atrocious. Compressed air storage seems like the best for day+ energy storage with batteries for hourly storage.