this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2025
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CO2 is a nice substance for this due to its relatively high temperature of fusion at modest pressures (and cheap ubiquity). I'd wondered why this wasn't more of a thing with air, using excess energy to liquefy it, to later let the LN2 to be vaporized/expanded in a turbine and the LOX to be used in rockets or something. But deep cryogenics are more challenging.
Or maybe use excess power to electrolyze water for fuel cell use later?
But yeah, CO2 makes a lot of sense despite its relatively poorer specific heat ratio for adiabatic expansion compared to mono and diatomic gasses.
Hydrogen storage presents a lot of challenges, because it tends to leak at normal temperatures found on Earth. So we either tolerate a lot of loss during storage, or we use lots of energy chilling it to a temperature where it won't easily escape.