NPR

Slick wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 9:33 am

David in Gwent wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 7:47 am

Line6 HXFX wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 6:36 am Typical British, wanting to bury and build all sorts of toxic shit all over the beautiful Welsh landscape.


What happens when the Sea levels rise a couple of foot (they need to be near bodies of water) and we have fukashimas all over the South Wales coastline?
Wales should just get independence and aim to become energy independent.
Wales is already a Net exporter of electricity..

"In 2019, Wales generated 27% of its electricity consumption as renewable electricity, an increase from 19% in 2014. The Welsh Government set a target of 70% by 2030. In 2019, Wales was a net exporter of electricity. It produced 27.9 TWh of electricity while only consuming 14.7 TWh."

Do you have a timeline on when the sea levels are going raise a couple of feet please?

27 years.

Citation please.

David in Gwent wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 9:50 am

Slick wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 9:33 am

David in Gwent wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 7:47 am

Do you have a timeline on when the sea levels are going raise a couple of feet please?

27 years.

Citation please.

Sorry, it was just a shocked reaction to you being a climate change and renewable energy sceptic. It's probably nearer 28.

weegie01 wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 9:11 am Sorry to jump in on this, but I am sure I saw some astonishing statement that the only reason the UK is one of the top offshore wind power generators is due to it being effectively impossible to build much cheaper onshore wind farms in England.

Meanwhile they are going up all over the place in Scotland.

Whilst there was certainly opposition at first, to most people now they are just part of the landscape.

I had a quick Google but failed to find info on the differences between Scotland and England, other than the fact that all the biggest onshore windfarms are in Scotland.

Onshore wind isn't a panacea and comes at a cost to bird and bat populations. While not as significant as continued habitat erosion, it's not negligible, especially for birds of prey who tend to gravitate towards areas of high wind where they can soar on air currents.

I'm a big believer in investing in more tidal power.

Slick wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 9:58 am

David in Gwent wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 9:50 am

Slick wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 9:33 am

27 years.

Citation please.

Sorry, it was just a shocked reaction to you being a climate change and renewable energy sceptic. It's probably nearer 28.

I'm not a renewable energy sceptic. However, I reserve the right to laugh at Germany for their zealousness.

I'm equally shocked to find out that you're one of the "The world is boiling, let's kill all the cows" crew.

Militaries/navies use SMR because money is no object and they solve the logistics problem of keeping subs and large ships fuelled for long periods far from their bases. Neither of these properties apply to civilian electricity generation.

They've never found a compelling use on land - even by military - because they're stupidly expensive. The only long-term use of a SMR on land was at McMurdo in the antarctic which was eventually ripped out and replaced with diesel generators - it proved cheaper to regularly ship diesel to an antarctic base than run a small nuclear reactor there.

Since the 1960s and earlier, SMRs have been promoted and billions have been spent and yet not a single one has entered civilian use.

There's a reason why reactors have gotten bigger and bigger since the 1970s - the ERP (a third generation reactor design) is nearly 1.5GWe because it's the only way nuclear technology can even attempt to compete compete financially with the alternatives. Coal in the 1990s killed the financial case for nuclear which was in turn was out-muscled by natural gas turbines in the 2000 and now renewables.

The UK government had to guarantee to pay 106 GBP per MWh from Hinckley C index linked over 35 years to make the numbers work. In contrast, in the last off-shore wind auction, the auction price was 36 GBP per MWh for 14 years. If a large reactor requires paying 3 times as much for electricity than current competition, then fundamental laws of physics/heat engines - Carnot efficiency - mean smaller reactors will be even more expensive.

sockwithaticket wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 9:59 am Onshore wind isn't a panacea and comes at a cost to bird and bat populations. While not as significant as continued habitat erosion, it's not negligible, especially for birds of prey who tend to gravitate towards areas of high wind where they can soar on air currents.

The American Bird Conservancy did a large scale study of bird deaths in the USA and estimated that that a little over 1 million birds are killed by wind turbines in the US each year. 5–6.8 million are killed each year by communication towers, the 60–80 million killed by cars/vehicles, the 67–90 million killed by pesticides, or half a billion killed by cats each year in the US.

And that's for on-shore turbines. Off-shore turbines, if more than 3km from the shore, kill absolutely f*ck all birds.

David in Gwent wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 10:04 am I'm not a renewable energy sceptic. However, I reserve the right to laugh at Germany for their zealousness.

You laugh at the biggest electricity exporter in the world? In 2021, they had exported net $9.88B worth of electricity while the United Kingdom imported $3.79B worth. Yeah, those Germans are idiots investing in cheap wind electricity production.

derriz wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 10:19 am

sockwithaticket wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 9:59 am Onshore wind isn't a panacea and comes at a cost to bird and bat populations. While not as significant as continued habitat erosion, it's not negligible, especially for birds of prey who tend to gravitate towards areas of high wind where they can soar on air currents.

The American Bird Conservancy did a large scale study of bird deaths in the USA and estimated that that a little over 1 million birds are killed by wind turbines in the US each year. 5–6.8 million are killed each year by communication towers, the 60–80 million killed by cars/vehicles, the 67–90 million killed by pesticides, or half a billion killed by cats each year in the US.

And that's for on-shore turbines. Off-shore turbines, if more than 3km from the shore, kill absolutely f*ck all birds.

Never claimed there weren't other things that kill more birds, but if there are less killy alternatives to proposed new infrastructure, let's pursue those first? No objections to offshort at all.

I'm also a believer in massively restricting cat (and dog) ownership for their environmental and ecological footprints. Pesticides also need to get in the bin given the insectageddon we're in the midst of.

TBF I think DACs point was more about their shutting down all their Nuclear plants and replacing them, in the short term at least, with brown coal generation.

But yes they have and are investing hugely in wind and solar.

Why haven't they brought in legislation to fit solar panels to all new build properties, where viable?..

derriz wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 10:24 am

David in Gwent wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 10:04 am I'm not a renewable energy sceptic. However, I reserve the right to laugh at Germany for their zealousness.

You laugh at the biggest electricity exporter in the world? In 2021, they had exported net $9.88B worth of electricity while the United Kingdom imported $3.79B worth. Yeah, those Germans are idiots investing in cheap wind electricity production.

Yet are involved in an energy crisis and a recession.

TB63 wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 10:44 am Why haven't they brought in legislation to fit solar panels to all new build properties, where viable?..

In all seriousness, the very fact that there isn't an official answer to your question other than "good systems are expensive" and not all new builds would benefit from Sps" then I think it's because it would be diverting profit away from places they don't want profit diverting from.

PornDog wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 10:38 am TBF I think DACs point was more about their shutting down all their Nuclear plants and replacing them, in the short term at least, with brown coal generation.

Except that's not really what happened if you look at a graph of the German electricity mix over the last 20 years. The reduction in electricity production from hard coal and lignite was bigger than that of nuclear, in absolute terms. Maybe if they had kept some of these ancient nuclear reactors going, they could have reduced the carbon intensity of their electricity production even more. But even that's arguable - do you invest your money in keeping old plants going or accelerate the switch to newer cheaper technologies, that are clearly the future?

The reason that wind and solar are killing all the opposition is because of simple finances and economics and not hippies or misguided politicians. There's been widespread public opposition to nuclear power since the 1970s and yet nuclear kept growing until about the mid 1990s - when the competition (particularly coal) became much cheaper - it's been in global decline since then going form supplying nearly 25% of electricity globally to under 10% today. Solar and wind were uneconomic until about 10 years ago but now are so much cheaper that 90% of all added electricity generation capacity globally last year was either wind or solar. Money talks.

Anyway I was more responding to the charge that Germany had somehow shot itself in the foot with it's switch to renewables when in fact, the switch has allowed them to become the biggest net electricity exporter in the world. Listening to some commentators, you'd think Germany didn't have enough electricity these days.

David in Gwent wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 10:49 am Yet are involved in an energy crisis and a recession.

Unlike the UK which sailed through the ructions caused to global energy markets by the invasion of Ukraine without a bother in terms of energy prices or economic damage? Oh wait.....

sockwithaticket wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 10:35 am

derriz wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 10:19 am

sockwithaticket wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 9:59 am Onshore wind isn't a panacea and comes at a cost to bird and bat populations. While not as significant as continued habitat erosion, it's not negligible, especially for birds of prey who tend to gravitate towards areas of high wind where they can soar on air currents.

The American Bird Conservancy did a large scale study of bird deaths in the USA and estimated that that a little over 1 million birds are killed by wind turbines in the US each year. 5–6.8 million are killed each year by communication towers, the 60–80 million killed by cars/vehicles, the 67–90 million killed by pesticides, or half a billion killed by cats each year in the US.

And that's for on-shore turbines. Off-shore turbines, if more than 3km from the shore, kill absolutely f*ck all birds.

Never claimed there weren't other things that kill more birds, but if there are less killy alternatives to proposed new infrastructure, let's pursue those first? No objections to offshort at all.

I'm also a believer in massively restricting cat (and dog) ownership for their environmental and ecological footprints. Pesticides also need to get in the bin given the insectageddon we're in the midst of.

Why?

Please don't cut and paste an article, I'd like to hear it in your own words.

sockwithaticket wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 10:35 am Never claimed there weren't other things that kill more birds, but if there are less killy alternatives to proposed new infrastructure, let's pursue those first? No objections to offshort at all.

This "bird murdering turbines" is the latest crypto-climate change denier meme from the US culture wars. Trump regularly comes out with this line to argue against renewables.

I don't know whether you're of this persuasion or not - but given the numbers, it's really hard to take objections to wind turbines on the basis of their killing birds seriously. The numbers I gave are at the most conservative to back my arguments - the estimates from United States Fish and Wildlife Service are that for every bird killed by a wind turbine, over 10,000 are killed by cats and dogs, 900 are killed by collisions with vehicles, 2,500 are killed by flying into buildings, etc. Bird deaths by collision with turbines is barely statistical noise - not even a tenth of a percent.

derriz wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 3:53 pm

sockwithaticket wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 10:35 am Never claimed there weren't other things that kill more birds, but if there are less killy alternatives to proposed new infrastructure, let's pursue those first? No objections to offshort at all.

This "bird murdering turbines" is the latest crypto-climate change denier meme from the US culture wars. Trump regularly comes out with this line to argue against renewables.

I don't know whether you're of this persuasion or not - but given the numbers, it's really hard to take objections to wind turbines on the basis of their killing birds seriously. The numbers I gave are at the most conservative to back my arguments - the estimates from United States Fish and Wildlife Service are that for every bird killed by a wind turbine, over 10,000 are killed by cats and dogs, 900 are killed by collisions with vehicles, 2,500 are killed by flying into buildings, etc. Bird deaths by collision with turbines is barely statistical noise - not even a tenth of a percent.

Ironic that the fat orange one owns loads of skyscrapers and they're responsible for - as you note - an utter shedload of bird deaths. Birds don't really 'get' windows.

derriz wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 11:14 am

David in Gwent wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 10:49 am Yet are involved in an energy crisis and a recession.

Unlike the UK which sailed through the ructions caused to global energy markets by the invasion of Ukraine without a bother in terms of energy prices or economic damage? Oh wait.....

Why do you bother with this clown? His standard response to anything bad in the UK is to say “Yeah but Country X is waaaay worse….”

Sandstorm wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 7:00 pm

derriz wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 11:14 am

David in Gwent wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 10:49 am Yet are involved in an energy crisis and a recession.

Unlike the UK which sailed through the ructions caused to global energy markets by the invasion of Ukraine without a bother in terms of energy prices or economic damage? Oh wait.....

Why do you bother with this clown? His standard response to anything bad in the UK is to say “Yeah but Country X is waaaay worse….”

There hasn't been a good thing said about the UK on this forum since it opened its doors.

David in Gwent wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 7:19 pm

Sandstorm wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 7:00 pm

derriz wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 11:14 am
Unlike the UK which sailed through the ructions caused to global energy markets by the invasion of Ukraine without a bother in terms of energy prices or economic damage? Oh wait.....

Why do you bother with this clown? His standard response to anything bad in the UK is to say “Yeah but Country X is waaaay worse….”

There hasn't been a good thing said about the UK on this forum since it opened its doors.

That's because you stink the place up.

laurent wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 7:57 pm

David in Gwent wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 7:19 pm

Sandstorm wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 7:00 pm

Why do you bother with this clown? His standard response to anything bad in the UK is to say “Yeah but Country X is waaaay worse….”

There hasn't been a good thing said about the UK on this forum since it opened its doors.

That's because you stink the place up.

Le Français est plus lent qu'une truffe.

Sandstorm wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 7:00 pm Why do you bother with this clown?

I'm bored and haven't anything better to do. I'm on holidays with in-laws all talking French and my French is shite.

derriz wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 10:11 am Militaries/navies use SMR because money is no object and they solve the logistics problem of keeping subs and large ships fuelled for long periods far from their bases. Neither of these properties apply to civilian electricity generation.

They've never found a compelling use on land - even by military - because they're stupidly expensive. The only long-term use of a SMR on land was at McMurdo in the antarctic which was eventually ripped out and replaced with diesel generators - it proved cheaper to regularly ship diesel to an antarctic base than run a small nuclear reactor there.

Since the 1960s and earlier, SMRs have been promoted and billions have been spent and yet not a single one has entered civilian use.

There's a reason why reactors have gotten bigger and bigger since the 1970s - the ERP (a third generation reactor design) is nearly 1.5GWe because it's the only way nuclear technology can even attempt to compete compete financially with the alternatives. Coal in the 1990s killed the financial case for nuclear which was in turn was out-muscled by natural gas turbines in the 2000 and now renewables.

The UK government had to guarantee to pay 106 GBP per MWh from Hinckley C index linked over 35 years to make the numbers work. In contrast, in the last off-shore wind auction, the auction price was 36 GBP per MWh for 14 years. If a large reactor requires paying 3 times as much for electricity than current competition, then fundamental laws of physics/heat engines - Carnot efficiency - mean smaller reactors will be even more expensive.

EPR might be just too big though every reactor type has problems initially hence the last ones to start build usually being completed fastest. I'm not really looking to expand UK nuclear capacity overall just maintain it as a base so we can get rid of coal, gas and "biomass" sooner. There are a lot nuclear plants near their end of life.

Sandstorm wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 7:00 pm

derriz wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 11:14 am

David in Gwent wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 10:49 am Yet are involved in an energy crisis and a recession.

Unlike the UK which sailed through the ructions caused to global energy markets by the invasion of Ukraine without a bother in terms of energy prices or economic damage? Oh wait.....

Why do you bother with this clown? His standard response to anything bad in the UK is to say “Yeah but Country X is waaaay worse….”

It’s good fun watching him argue with someone who really knows what they are talking about, let it go

inactionman wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 3:56 pm

derriz wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 3:53 pm

sockwithaticket wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 10:35 am Never claimed there weren't other things that kill more birds, but if there are less killy alternatives to proposed new infrastructure, let's pursue those first? No objections to offshort at all.

This "bird murdering turbines" is the latest crypto-climate change denier meme from the US culture wars. Trump regularly comes out with this line to argue against renewables.

I don't know whether you're of this persuasion or not - but given the numbers, it's really hard to take objections to wind turbines on the basis of their killing birds seriously. The numbers I gave are at the most conservative to back my arguments - the estimates from United States Fish and Wildlife Service are that for every bird killed by a wind turbine, over 10,000 are killed by cats and dogs, 900 are killed by collisions with vehicles, 2,500 are killed by flying into buildings, etc. Bird deaths by collision with turbines is barely statistical noise - not even a tenth of a percent.

Ironic that the fat orange one owns loads of skyscrapers and they're responsible for - as you note - an utter shedload of bird deaths. Birds don't really 'get' windows.

Don't forget, the noise of the turbine, gives you cancer..

petej wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 11:24 pm EPR might be just too big though every reactor type has problems initially hence the last ones to start build usually being completed fastest. I'm not really looking to expand UK nuclear capacity overall just maintain it as a base so we can get rid of coal, gas and "biomass" sooner. There are a lot nuclear plants near their end of life.

I think the nuclear power industry is finished. i think the EPR is final nail in the coffin. even the Finnish and Chinese ones that have actually been completed have been plagued with issues and have been up and down since starting operations. EDF is now proposing a redesign so "learning curve" theory isn't going to apply to reduce the costs for the EPR as more experience is gained in building them. and remember design work on the current "third generation" EPR started 30 years ago.

So the weird tory hard-on for nuclear power and pushing through hinkley c - against all industry and expert advice on how uneconomic it was - means the uk will be stuck with a reactor design which will obsolete before it's even built. and will require british consumers paying twice the long term average wholesale price for the electricity it produces for 35 years. madness.

Unlike wind, solar and battery projects which have queues of private investors lining up to provide funding so that competitive auctions are used to decide who is allowed to build capacity, every single nuclear project requires governments to provide the capital and/or absorb all the project risk and the industry survives by rent seeking - lobbying gulible or wilfully ignorant governments to pay for projects which no private investor would consider.

The entire nuclear energy industry is just one massive failure after another in terms of new reactor projects - has there been a successful new nuclear reactor project in the west since the 1990s? Cost overruns (all of them), extreme timeline overruns (flamenville, vogtle), cancelations after spending billions (vc summer), corrupt execs getting jail time (westinghouse), etc. The nuclear proposition is hardly financially justifiable even if the most optimistic project plans were achieved, never mind that the average project overrun seems to be about 10-15 years with double or 3x budget overruns common.

derriz wrote: Thu Aug 17, 2023 1:52 pm

petej wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2023 11:24 pm EPR might be just too big though every reactor type has problems initially hence the last ones to start build usually being completed fastest. I'm not really looking to expand UK nuclear capacity overall just maintain it as a base so we can get rid of coal, gas and "biomass" sooner. There are a lot nuclear plants near their end of life.

I think the nuclear power industry is finished. i think the EPR is final nail in the coffin. even the Finnish and Chinese ones that have actually been completed have been plagued with issues and have been up and down since starting operations. EDF is now proposing a redesign so "learning curve" theory isn't going to apply to reduce the costs for the EPR as more experience is gained in building them. and remember design work on the current "third generation" EPR started 30 years ago.

So the weird tory hard-on for nuclear power and pushing through hinkley c - against all industry and expert advice on how uneconomic it was - means the uk will be stuck with a reactor design which will obsolete before it's even built. and will require british consumers paying twice the long term average wholesale price for the electricity it produces for 35 years. madness.

Unlike wind, solar and battery projects which have queues of private investors lining up to provide funding so that competitive auctions are used to decide who is allowed to build capacity, every single nuclear project requires governments to provide the capital and/or absorb all the project risk and the industry survives by rent seeking - lobbying gulible or wilfully ignorant governments to pay for projects which no private investor would consider.

The entire nuclear energy industry is just one massive failure after another in terms of new reactor projects - has there been a successful new nuclear reactor project in the west since the 1990s? Cost overruns (all of them), extreme timeline overruns (flamenville, vogtle), cancelations after spending billions (vc summer), corrupt execs getting jail time (westinghouse), etc. The nuclear proposition is hardly financially justifiable even if the most optimistic project plans were achieved, never mind that the average project overrun seems to be about 10-15 years with double or 3x budget overruns common.

Every large project has both cost over runs and timeline overshoots. Certainly not unique to this industry.

There are cost and time overruns and then there are nuclear cost and time overruns which are in a league of their own. Flamenville: 3.3b budget started 2007 intended finish 2012 - still under construction with euro 19b spent. Olkiluoto Started 2005 planned operation 2010, first output a watt 2023 and already shutdown because of “issues”, budget 3.2b final cost 12b. Vc summer - bankrupted Westinghouse, $9b spent before abandoning the project as final budget estimated at $20b+, prison sentences for correction and bribery, vogtl: final cost $30b for two reactors 3x initial and years late. This is a selection of European and US projects but EVERY single nuclear project of the last 30 years has been a disaster.

What does the future hold for Irish power Derriz? Are we ever going to get serious and cover the west coast in turbines?

Am involved in the consumption end. About 20 MW but likely to increase to 40-50 MW. ESB always trying to put the heebie jeebies up us re power and cost.

You better not be involved in demand response schemes.

Amateur interest only Fester although it's a fascinating sector - worked on a disastrous IT project in the industry and developed an interest from there.

We had a good head start with on-shore wind - hit 2nd globally for % of wind generation couple of years back - but are far behind in terms of off-shore. Somewhat understandable - as off-shore was about 3 times the price of on-shore until about 2 years ago. But this is what you're dealing with - an industry moving so fast that business models are up-ended every couple of years.

Currently all the momentum globally has shifted to off-shore wind - the blades have been getting longer and longer - and there just aren't so many on-shore locations that are suitable for the new breed of monster turbines. This won't reverse I think as energy is proportional to blade length squared - so bigger and bigger turbines is the way to make them more efficient. Additionally off-shore has much higher capacity factors - typically you'll get about 50% more energy out of a turbine located off-shore than the same on-shore. In the last CfD UK auctions off-shore prices were actually less than on-shore.

But it feels like the success of on-shore wind generation in Ireland led to complacency and Ireland has fallen badly behind with off-shore and it'll take a few years to catch up as we're late to the stampede for building off-shore turbines across northern Europe. Still there are aggressive plans for off-shore expansion but most (or all) of the off-shore licenses in the last RESS auction went to East coast projects - it's too deep off the west coast for current tech and floating turbines are (currently) much more expensive.

In theory we should will have more than doubled installed wind generation capacity by 2027 if all the projects with licenses are built but there remains questions about whether Eirgrid has done enough to prepare the transmission network for new connections. This would mean 60-70% of the electricity mix coming from wind.

There was also a big chunk of solar allocated in the last auction - nearly 1GW. Ireland is not a good place to put solar panels - about half as efficient as somewhere like Spain - but because panels have dropped in price so much (over 90% reduction in the last decade), it's now economic and profitable to build solar farms in northern Europe - so everyone is doing it.

Grid-scale batteries will be the next tech to cause ructions - once manufacturing can catch up with the demand. In the US, they are already significantly more competitive than natural gas peaker plants - an inflection point was passed about 2.5 years ago. Current levels of battery storage in ireland is very limited but they are ideal grid-tech - can scale down economically (unlike wind turbines) can be sited anywhere.

Finally the new interconnector to France has passed planning i believe but it will take years longer than it should as NIMBYs insisted on underground HVDC transmission instead of traditional AC pylons. More interconnectors to britain are planned to add to the current 3. We currently import more than we export on a net annual basis via the interconnectors but I can see this changing. My bold prediction is that Ireland will become a net energy exporter in as soon as 15 years. Until 6/8 years ago 90% of energy was imported, the amount of wind turbines rolled out means this is already down to 65%.

Something we're looking at is hydrogen generation both as a fuel and a way to store energy for days it's not windy. So build the massive wind farms, use them to power the grid and excess for H2, then you can use the H2 for calm days. Higher tech version of Turlough Hill if you like.

Eventually all HGVs should be powered by hydrogen.

I'm a hydrogen skeptic. None of the proposals are compelling except the use of electrolysis to replace the production of grey hydrogen in industrial processes.

And it turns out that it's a powerful (indirect) greenhouse-gas so the fact that it's almost impossible to contain - the molecules are so small they can permeate steel - means that it has no benefit over syngas/methane. The storage/transport of hydrogen is a technical/engineering nightmare.

The round-trip efficiency of electrolysis/fuel cell or combustion is atrocious - 40% or so. So it's a very inefficient way to store energy.

The transport experiments with hydrogen buses, trains (saxony) and cars (california) have all been complete failures despite almost endless government support. Because of the poor round-trip efficiency, the cost of fuel in the form of green hydrogen is 2.5 times that using the electricity to charge batteries. I can't see any commercial fleet going for it. People whine about the lack of charging infrastructure for EVs but the infrastructure for hydrogen "filling stations" is incredibly expensive, complex and seriously fucking dangerous.

The other idea, to mix some hydrogen into natural gas, is daft. You don't want to be combusting hydrogen/natgas mix in your home unless you fancy sucking down 8/10 times as much nitrous oxides as methane/natural gas produces.

Hydrogen has been "the fuel of the future" for over 100 years with f*ck all to show for the 100s of millions if not billions spent on it.

Ah you can contain it alright. Just a bit more difficult than some of the other gases. It does hilarious stuff in a cryo N2/O2/Ar system. Passes through like a ghost.

N2 is pretty expensive to liquefy but H2 is a different level altogether.

Fires with hydrogen. Do you know what the best fire detection tool is?

Hydrogen fire sounds like a complete nightmare. I vaguely recall reading that the US military or some such used straw brooms held in front of them to avoid accidentally walking into the invisible flames of a hydrogen fire. F*ck that - no interest in using a hydrogen "filling station" serviced by breakfast-roll man... Btw curious, what's your general area of business Fester?

That's exactly it. Straw brooms.
Heat is too intense for heat detection to work well.
Also the concentration range at which is combusts is 4-96%.

I'm a gas fellow.

Well, the rapid expansion of renewable electricity generation couldn't/can't happen without gas given how it supports demand following particularly with open-cycle turbines. Unlike coal or nuclear which are useless in that regard. Looks like for the next few decades, all electricity will either come from renewables or NG - nothing else makes sense financially. You ever hear anything about the plans for Foynes/Tarbert - will the LNG terminal happen?

Anyway, now that we know that leaked hydrogen has potent greenhouse effect - discovered less than 10 years ago, I dunno why anyone is persisting with it at all - however much natural gas is lost to leakage, much more hydrogen will surely leak given it's physical properties, defeating the whole purpose I would have thought. Focus should be on synthetic methane which is easy enough to create using the output of hydrogen electrolyzers. Then you've got a fuel which can be relatively easily stored and used with all the existing infrastructure and is carbon neutral.

derriz wrote: Mon Aug 21, 2023 10:22 pm Well, the rapid expansion of renewable electricity generation couldn't/can't happen without gas given how it supports demand following particularly with open-cycle turbines. Unlike coal or nuclear which are useless in that regard. Looks like for the next few decades, all electricity will either come from renewables or NG - nothing else makes sense financially. You ever hear anything about the plans for Foynes/Tarbert - will the LNG terminal happen?

Anyway, now that we know that leaked hydrogen has potent greenhouse effect - discovered less than 10 years ago, I dunno why anyone is persisting with it at all - however much natural gas is lost to leakage, much more hydrogen will surely leak given it's physical properties, defeating the whole purpose I would have thought. Focus should be on synthetic methane which is easy enough to create using the output of hydrogen electrolyzers. Then you've got a fuel which can be relatively easily stored and used with all the existing infrastructure and is carbon neutral.

If only you could get a synthetic liquid fuel without using land that can grow food/crops.

I still think the electricity is the easy bit compared to domestic heating and transport.

Yeah, agree that biofuels are a terrible idea - but synthetic methane isn't a bio fuel - it's "manufactured" from hydrogen produced by electrolysis - so assuming no leaks (hmm...) - carbon neutral.

Yes electricity generation is only part of the puzzle - domestic heating/cooking, transport and industrial are the other 3 of the 4 big carbon emitters. But it makes sense to concentrate on electricity first - as then everything in the other areas that we electrify will be a win in terms of emissions.

Transport seems to be taking care of itself at least the big ticket items - assuming the exponential growth of EV sales continues means the end of the ICE is closer than many think. Meanwhile slow but steady improvements in battery tech are starting to make them viable for other forms of transport; battery trains are growing fast around Europe and the improvements means short flights are now possible.

Domestic heating will be tricky. But at the least every gas hob and oven should be thrown out asap - not only for climate change reasons but because the particulates and NOx they emit have been discovered to be terrible for human health.

I'm more and more confident that we will be able to slash CO2 emissions fairly quickly - by 3/4s in 10 or 20 years. But more and more pessimistic that it will be too late to prevent the planet from getting fucked up.

Interesting use case for for short haul, low capacity electric airplanes and their potential to completely revolutionise how we actually move around.



first five minutes is more about the relationship between airlines and emissions, but then presents a pretty fascinating use case.

I think we missed the chance to do away with automobiles altogether. Could have done a rail system where folks have their own cars and their house driveway is effectively a rail siding.

Key in where you want to go and off you go on the fixed track.