>>>Yupp, that stretch from Switzerland to Baden Baden is great - dunno if the sun shining there more often than in any other part of Germany (good for grapes and people) or swiss mentality tampering not-so-nice-parts found in Germany and France - they try to pick the best down there.
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>Tempus fugit... blessed with a wee family place near Basel, it feels like only yesterday that my daughters and I invaded Germany across the Ryan River from France when the river was briefly diverted for the canals/Electricite du Rhun. We also enter France or Switzerland via the usually unmanned Freiburg gate at the Europort since all the gates end up in the same concourse on the other side. Marvelous part of the world. Perhaps when current national Howard Hughes exercises resolve, we can all meet up for a glass of good Alsatian.

How did you know I am growing some fuzz on my chin at the moment ? Yupp, If you are there (or dropping in via FRA) give some advance notice. Will not force you to aquire a liking to our sour apple cider ;-)

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>BTW, just swapped 2000 Passat wagon for a 3.0TFSI Allroad. Another magnificent vehicle from the same stable that I suppose I will keep for 20 years like the last one, assuming you're still allowed to drive vehicles that burn stuff for motive power...

I think this needs to be looked at from another POV: Solar cost has fallen a lot in the last 30 years. If this trend can be continued like in the previous 12-15 years, where mass production of solar panels started, prices will fall even further - and while power2gas only has effiency of 25-30%, that becomes irrelevant if price per kWh drops a lot further. At the moment the problem and cost switches from PV generation to storage - small mostly decentral batteries will be fine in summer for night consumption, but in winter you need heat, when there is almost no PV harvested.
If electricity cost is small enough, pushing summer excess solar into gas net and storage caverns (probably as Methane, not H2) at a cost competititve to fracking cost will be good for the climate (esp. if CO2 certificates can be avoided by using CO2 created in industry again in power2gas), allow you to keep gas driven heating and will open up motive power (at least for long range and trucks) from that source in the long run, as I think cost of PV will drop faster than battery storage will get better. In the mean time there will be enough for environmentalists to try to fix like keepeing enough rain from going directly into canalization, as even water rich Germany needs to realign to changing patterns (avoiding local floods AND keeping enough clean stuff for grapes and beer)
And yes, there will be lots of growing pains like exploding trucks due to leaking "natural" gas, as gasoline and esp. Diesel is safer by a wide margin, but H2 phantasies - either fuel cell or engine-controlled explosions IMO have more problems in safety and storage losses.

my 0.00022 (any currency by then)
thomas