Despite a virtually non-existent wind power industry, there was a fair amount of hype a few years ago about Patagonia harnessing its massive wind resource to produce hydrogen, and now it is being revived. Hundreds of miles from any major demand center, and with no proper transport lines, producing hydrogen may be a way to store significant amounts of electricity from nearly 20,000 MW of potential. So things are moving forward down in Pico Truncado, where a town of 15,000 residents has four turbines covering around half of its consumption--and the excess production is used to crack water.
While I am thrilled for the people of Pico Truncado and support the R&D efforts, my feeling is the cart is going before the horse here. More attention should be paid to getting Argentina's wind industry running: basically nothing has been installed for the past five years (the country has a total of 27 MW). First let's get conventional wind projects consistently on-line as the economy recovers, which will help build a strong platform to fully tap Patagonia and store hydrogen. Then, when developers have the money and experience, they will be ready to implement wind to hydrogen technology. Otherwise, wind to hydrogen in Pico Truncado will be just another hyped-up pilot, rather than the evolution of a viable energy alternative.
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