Dangerous stuff all this ‘green’ hydrogen. Apart from a tendency to explode unless handled with extreme care, its higher combustion temperature can produce more harmful nitrogen dioxide than natural gas. Nitrogen dioxide is a nasty pollutant and has been linked to childhood asthma and other major ailments. Furthermore, hydrogen is the lightest of gases and escapes easily into the atmosphere – where a newly-published science paper suggests, pound for pound, it produces 37 times the warming of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. This is because hydrogen is oxidised by the hydroxyl radical leading to the formation of tropospheric ozone and stratospheric water vapour. Both these gases are so-called ‘greenhouse’ gases and alarmist scientists are keen to exaggerate their effect. If you are worried about atmospheric pollution and greenhouse gases, despite all past observational evidence that suggests the ‘greenhouse’ impact of the gases ‘saturates’ at certain levels, then promoting hydrogen is a very bad look indeed.
If green hydrogen was a poor person’s car, London Mayor Khan would have no hesitation in slapping a hefty Ulez charge on it. Obliging Imperial College might be relied on to provide a ‘statistical construct’ pointing out that hundreds of thousands of people will die.
But as is becoming increasingly clear, hydrogen is the only game still standing in town to back up unreliable wind and solar. Batteries are useless given their horrendous expense, limited lifespan and requirement to dig up vast quantities of the Earth’s crust. Not forgetting their tendency to explode and burn uncontrollably if not handled with care. Carbon capture appears to be an excellent opportunity for fools to be parted from their money chasing a ridiculous dream. One must fervently hope an efficient scheme to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere is never invented since removing 60% of the trace gas will lead to all plant and human life dying on Earth.
An interesting paper has just been published in the peer-reviewed journal Energy Science & Engineering which reviews the “challenges” with using the existing natural gas system to deliver hydrogen. It concludes that in considering hydrogen’s physical and chemical properties, “it is not an effective decarbonisation tool for use in homes and buildings”. Hydrogen is said to leak from pipes at a rate up to three or four times more than natural gas and, as suggested, the claimed effect on the atmosphere will not be easy for activists to excuse.
The paper is of interest since it seems to be the work of the Environmental Defence Fund, a highly influential Green Blob-funded activist and campaigning think tank. In short, it is another example of the penny dropping in even fanatical Net Zero circles about the lack of back-up energy for wind and solar. Not before time, it might be noted, since in countries like the U.K. there is still Miliband madness in the air with plans to ‘decarbonise’ the electricity grid by 2030.
Using hydrogen in existing gas systems has “major consequences for safety, energy supply, climate and costs”, argue the authors. Blending hydrogen with natural gas offers only small reductions in CO2 emissions, while a transition to full hydrogen is not possible without significant retrofits and replacements. The authors steer clear of putting a price on this but note that even if technical and “economic barriers” – the polite term for unimaginably large sums of money – are overcome, “serious safety and environmental risks remain”.
Concern is also expressed about the manufacturing process to produce hydrogen. There are noted to be more than 1,000 proposed projects aimed at scaling up zero and low-carbon hydrogen, but there are said to be “challenges” associated with each “clean” production method. “No method is universally beneficial to the climate,” they note.
Last year, an influential report from the U.K. Royal Society kicked batteries into touch as a viable electricity storage solution for unreliable wind and solar. But lacking any alternative back-up, the Royal Society turned to hydrogen as a possible solution. The report envisaged dissolving huge salt caverns capable of decadal storing of ‘green’ hydrogen. Salt caverns, which anyway would leak hydrogen through permeable loss, are only available in a few places in the U.K., so a huge network of specialist pipelines would be needed to move the gas to turbines on constant standby. Specialist pipelines that would cost billions of pounds and would invariably leak and present a danger to anyone in the vicinity. At the time, Francis Menton of the Manhattan Contrarian noted that the authors’ “quasi-religious commitment” to a fossil-free future led them to minimise and divert attention away from critical cost and feasibility issues.
Bottom line – there is no cost effective, feasible, reliable and scalable replacement for hydrocarbons available, or likely to be available, in the near future. Blackouts and severe rationing will be inevitable if uncompromising ideologues like Ed Miliband at the U.K. Department of Energy continue to be allowed to wreak havoc with the energy requirements of a modern industrial society.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
A non-solution for a non-problem?
___________________________________________________________________________
The Global Warming Potential numbers! HaHa Ha Ha Ha Ha !
If our good friends on the left try to knock that down as mathematical misdirection, which it is, then they will have to admit that the whole GWP scheme is propaganda.
I’m really getting tired of hearing this. Even if there were an efficient way to remove CO2, the only people I hear about removing this much CO2 are bloviating climate skeptic zealots.
OTOH, there certainly seems to be a dearth of common sense at both extremes.
That quote didn’t say it was the goal of anyone- he’s just making the point that IF there was a 60% drop, it would be a huuuge problem- though I doubt it would cause all life on Earth to die. The dearth of common sense is far greater at one end.
You may be right Joseph. It could take a 65% reduction to kill everything. But once photosynthesis stops all plants die and without plants all animals die. That’s simply the way it is.
but all those decaying bodies would produce more CO2 for photosynthesis.
Only for a while…
That extra would also be removed and stored.
As a US politician state a few years back, what we have to do is get all of the CO2 out of the air. Apparently that politician had no desire to eat.
Post says:”…a dearth of common sense at both extremes.”
Please tell us what both extremes are.
The is a very effective process for CO2 removal. It’s called photosynthesis and it removes CO2 at a rate proportional to the mass of photosynthesising organisms. Luckily, increasing CO2 concentrations result in increasing mass of plants and thus greater CO2 removal and it requires no investment or government programs. All the proposed carbon capture and storage solutions are trivial and negligible in comparison to what mother nature does for free.
“lock up” all forests and grasslands from human use or interventions?
The Earth has already greened by at least 15% in the past few decades without having to lock anything away.
Spreading a little iron dust in the ocean would be a big help.
Most of the CO2 from the use FF is absorbed by the oceans. A large portion is used by phytoplankton, as evidence by the large amounts of the plants and animals therein. Another large portion is converted bicarbonate anion which is used for coral formation and for shell formation.
Yes, the point is that biological processes constitute a substantial negative feedback to CO2 concentration increases. Spending money on CCS is just another green boondoggle.
If CO2 is removed from the air, it will be rapidly replaced by CO2 from the oceans and from fresh water sources on land.
At the MLO in Hawaii, the concentration of CO in dry air is 427 ppm by volume. This is only 0.839 grams of CO2 per cubic meter of air. One cubic meter has 1.29 kilograms of air. This small amount of CO2 can heat up such a large amount of air by only a very small amount. CO2 is trace greenhouse gas, and we really do not have to worry about it.
The claim by the IPCC since 1988 that CO2 is the cause of the recent global warming is a lie, the objective of which is to further the UN’s programs via the UNFCCC and the UNCOP of the distribution of the funds donated by all the countries to help the poor countries cope with global warming and climate change. The amount funds for these programs is many billions of dollars.
“If CO2 is removed from the air, it will be rapidly replaced by CO2 from the oceans and from fresh water sources on land.”
Harold, I’ve never heard this before, can you elaborate on the physical process?
You’re saying that to be effective we must also “Capture Carbon” from the oceans proportionally?
It is based on Henry’s Law, which is explained at Wikipedia.
CO2 is moderately soluble in water. Water at 0 deg. C can contain about
0.355 grams of CO2 per 100 milliliters. Before a can of soda pop is filled and capped, the soda is cooled ca. 5 deg C and carbonated with pressurized CO2. A 12 oz can of soda pop contains about 1.3 grams of
CO2.
You should also read my reply above to Ric C.
I’ve always thought that a brilliant example, sir. It’s seen in every soda filling plant in the world.
“The oceans and air are at CO2 equilibrium constantly exchanging CO2. If CO2 is removed from the air the 50-70 times as much CO2 in the water as air will simply replace it.”
If this is the physical reality, how does Carbon Capture receive any serious consideration, never mind actual construction?
The oceans and air are at CO2 equilibrium constantly exchanging CO2. If CO2 is removed from the air the 50-70 times as much CO2 in the water as air will simply replace it.
If 420ppm is bad, and 280 ppm is good according to the climate fanatics, then pointing out how close that is to plants dying is appropriate!
Better 1000ppm than 280ppm!
At 500 ppm, deserts will be gone and crops will be plentiful everywhere
At 420 ppm, the world increased its greening by 22%, from 1900, as proven by satellite
At 280 ppm, crops are poor.
At 200 ppm, crops are only suited as animal feed
At 150 ppm, crops are the same as during arid conditions
At 150 ppm of CO2 about 80 percent of the land plants die and the land animals die with them.
https://pioga.org/just-the-facts-more-co2-is-good-less-is-bad
Nuclear power solves the electricity problem. Cheap electricity can be used to cover for many fossil fuel problems by lateral thinking.
For example hydrogen can replace carbon monoxide as a reducing agent in smelting.
The problem as I see it, is that atmospheric carbon is not the issue – although its being made out to be.
The real problems is the increasing cost of extraction of fossil fuels.And the lack of suitable alternatives in many niche markets. The most urgent of which is portable safe lightweight off-grid power.
Synthetic hydrocarbons can be made especially from bio waste, but there is simply not enough. You can directly synthesise hydrocarbons if you have a supply of carbon feedstock – but where to get that?
I suppose carbonate rock is a possibility, but that wont change the ultimate extra emissions of Co2.
But really, do we care?
Won’t we simply have a greener world with more plants sucking it all up?
“You can directly synthesise hydrocarbons if you have a supply of carbon feedstock – but where to get that?”
Forests are loaded with “junk wood” that foresters don’t have a market for, thanks to the greens who hate woody biomass power plants and even pellet factories. And that forest junk wood is cheap. Still existing biomass plants in central New England only pay about $20/ton for chipped wood for delivery to the facility. Maybe that’s still too high- I dunno.
If you Google “Ethanol percent of corn crop” you will find out that:
Ethanol manufacturers in the United States use about 40% of the
corn crop to produce ethanol and related co-products. Most of the
ethanol is used as a domestic transportation fuel.
So let’s turn the forests into biofuel?
Maybe you shoulda used a </sark> tag I dunno.
I’m not saying that. Pay attention. To do good forestry, we must remove the weed trees- which we also call “junk wood”. We have insufficient markets for that kind of wood. Perhaps some of it could go to biofuel- it has been proposed- perhaps it’s not feasible economically. Don’t start thinking like the forestry haters who say all the wood going to Drax is from clear-cutting forests- which is nuts- it’s not true. it’s the weed trees that go to Drax and which, possibly, though unlikely, could go to biofuel. Going to Drax, of course, makes it into a kind of biofuel- it gets burned and generates power. The only real argument against it is about subsidies- which is a complex issue since almost everything gets subsidies, openly or hidden. It’s a fair argument, but to say American foresters are destroying forests to feed Drax is idiotic and false.
To a politician and his friends, everything is feasible with enough subsidies, and enough lies to befuddle the ignorant
You add up all these subsidies over the many decades, and they will easily exceed the US national debt
Subsidies are just another form of welfare, but when it goes to the well off and companies- it would be rude to call it welfare. Maybe if we start calling all subsidies welfare, there’d be less of it.
In WWI the germans ran their war machine on diesel made from wood
via Fischer-Tropsch. They did much of the same during WWII only they
used coal instead of wood. Here in the northern rockies our forests were
hit with a beetle that killed millions of trees. The math on that is 20tons/acre
of dead trees. The yield is 80ish gallons of diesel per ton. 20X80=1600 gal/acre.
On a local rehab project the FS is going to burn 40,000 acres sometime
in the next year. 40,000X1600=64,000,000 gallons of diesel @ur momisugly $3.00/gal
Volvo the Swedish company has built a portable Fischer-Tropsch plant that
with a tank of LNG has been used in Canada by private timber companys
to treat the beetle kill up there. The bulk of the kill went to several biomass
plants. The bio diesel was used to run the field operations…This sort of
management is prohibited by law here in the US.. I have more but don’t
get me started.
FT was invented after WWI. It indeed was used by Germany to make fuel during WWII, but its primary feedstock was coal. Some wood may have been gasified for the process, but coal has a higher energy density and is easier to process.
The beetle kill back in 06 wiped out millions of acres of timber
in this area. It hit during the big recession and the lumber industry
shut down. There was a large pulp mill in Frenchtown that closed then
basically due to lack of demand from things. Everything went digital
it was said..
The loggers would skid the whole trees to the landing and lop and limb
there, grind the slash and feed into large container truck. The money
they got from the pulp plant financed the fuel side of all the logging in this region at that time. About 100 truckloads a day 7 days a week. from my region.
The outgoing governor at that time Brian Schweitzer tried to
obtain the pulp mill and convert it into FT plant. It was then that the
laws about the large timber companys would have to approve it under
federal law became known publicly in this area. The timber management has mostly collapsed after that and has gotten worse. In Canada they built 6 250MW plants to deal with the dead trees. A company in Niagara NY built the feed units for these units and one of the exec’s I met sent me a ton of pics including the portable FT plants..
The financial consequences from not having the infrastructure to manage the forest is immense.
Then people wonder why wood is so expensive- when they some lumber. If we managed most of the forest land in America, there would be a flood of high quality wood- and it would flood the world. America is already considered the wood basket for the world- but it could be more so- and bring prices down. But excessive bureaucracy and the idiot enviros and greens prevent this.
During WW 2, we rode a wood-fired bus. It was towing a wood-fired gas generator to operate the bus engine. Worked great, until we ran out of wood.
Then we rode our bikes WITHOUT rubber tires, I.e., on the rims. It was noisy.
All this because the Germans stole everything they could drag to Germany.
We loved and the underground killed many of those Germans
Don’t forget the high concentration of CO2 in seawater. Perhaps CO2 extraction for feed stock can be part of the problem of solving many fresh water deficiencies for coastal city populations through desalination using nuclear power.
What is junk wood for humans is food for the flora that is replenishing the forest soil for healthy, thriving trees.
If there is a lot of junk wood, it merely means trees are dying at a faster rate than the flora can use them.
Excess junk wood happens in modernity-sickened forests.
But—- you and billions of other people LOVE wood products- which are NOT cheap- they’ll be cheaper if forests are WELL MANAGED and to do so, we need to WEED THE FORESTS, which means getting RID of those “junk trees”. You don’t understand the meaning of junk wood. I’ll give you an example- a large % of all white pine tree have been severely damaged by the white pine weevil which chews up the top of the tree- then the side branches start growing up- so the tree is severely distorted- and USELESS for timber, thus it’s value is ZERO.
More examples: many species have almost ZERO timber value, like hemlock, poplar, red maples that are crooked or in clumps, etc.
So, you don’t know WHAT THE F*UCK you’re talking about. I think we’ve had this discussion before but obviously you are too dense to learn. You are using the language of the idiot enviros and greens. Thus, you are one.
“Excess junk wood happens in modernity-sickened forests.”
It happens when the forests are NOT managed properly. From a pure nature point of view, there is of course no such thing as junk wood. But from our point of view, they are weeds. They aren’t weeds because they were “modernity-sickened”- no more than weeds in your garden are “modernity-sickened”.
Not so sure that the increasing cost of FF extraction is a problem. Other than the end point cost to consumers. So long as renewables keep driving up the cost of energy to the end point consumers, more costly oil exploration and extraction is viable. Drive down the price and oil becomes unattractive…unless less costly methods are developed…like fracking
Obviously those people that claim Nuclear Power Plants are to expensive have no Idea of the real sales price of NPP Electricity. I have worked for over fifty (50) years in the commercial Nuclear power industry. Every plant I know of was selling power at a price less than $0,03 per kWh to federal customers, and heavy manufacturing, 24/7 costumers. Until 9/11 at which time the NRC mandated 24/7/365 security forces with monthly training requirements. That created about one new employee for each MWh nameplate rating of the plant. E.g. a 800 MWh plant would need about 600 Security employees. That is about twice the number of engineering and Operation employees. Before the NRC mandates after the TMI-II incident most plants were serious about implementing no metering for home use of electricity. All of these NRC mandates only decreased the probability of an incident from 10 ^-23 to 10 -^24
Using hydrogen to smelt iron ore is 30% more expensive as compared to coke.
In contrast to large scale hydrogen distribution system site-specific use of green hydrogen has passed the technical and economic threshold for some companies.
AM Green takes final investment decision on giant Indian renewable hydrogen-to-ammonia project
Subsidy mining is profitable for some but not the public at large, in most cases.
Are you suggesting that I’m not going to be able to take a ride in a HyperLoop anytime soon? Or make burgers on a fusion powered grill?
Yes, but it is still possible to watch a Mr. Fusion in the back of a car fueled by beer cans power a time travel machine.
The Indian subsidies are based on lowest bidder. They run for 3 years and have a maximum of $0.50/0.40/0.30/kg/y. This encourages startup (reduce front-end cost by about 10% which is not a make or break situation) but investors are looking at long term profitability. Maybe the project will fail but at this point India has awarded subsidies to 8 such projects. They should be coming on line before long so we’ll see if they fold up their tents in a few years. Given the size of the investments my guess is that the number crunchers and engineers have built in a comfortable margin of error as discussed in the article.
Yep, and the plan is to use an existing urea plant for production. There has already been articles on this site where it has been pointed out existing infrastructure is inadequate for hydrogen production and storage… we shall see.
Existing infrastructure might be inadequate but as the article points out that is why they are investing in oversized production and storage. The large number of mega-dollar projects underway suggests that some serious analysis has been done. That does not mean that they can’t fail but the conservatism of the projects increases their chance for success.
Green hydrogen for the celebrated Port of Oakland project is made from natural gas. https://www.gov.ca.gov/2024/08/30/governor-newsom-state-and-federal-leaders-celebrate-launch-of-californias-first-in-the-nation-hydrogen-hub/
It is. And natural gas is almost entirely methane. Methane is, chemically, CH4, one carbon atom with an atomic weight of a we bit over 12 and 4 hydrogen atoms with a total atomic weight of 4. Three times as much carbon as hydrogen. And guess what the carbon winds up as when hydrogen is extracted from methane?
CO2
I could propose a simpler and more economical process that involves semantics and green paint.
We can agree that pulling CO2 and hydrogen out of the air really sucks.
The UK National Engineering Policy Centre and The Royal Academy of Engineering issued a joint paper on ‘The role of hydrogen in the net zero energy system’ in September 2022.
It notes:-
“Hydrogen leakage is likely to cause an increase in methane, water vapour and tropospheric ozone which all contribute to the greenhouse effect. The global warming potential over a 100 year period of hydrogen is estimated to be double that of previously published calculations.”
They also acknowledge that the need for electrolysers could “lead to a temporary ramping up of dispatchable generation and delay the phasing out of fossil fuels” and the UK would need to build wind farms with a capacity of 15 – 60 GW “equivalent to 2-6 times the current UK operational windfarm capacity just to supply hydrogen” .
Further more “the best use of low carbon hydrogen has yet to be determined”
Strangely they don’t comment on what should be a showstopper, that is, it is an immutable fact that it takes more energy to produce hydrogen than that hydrogen then contains.
“immutable fact that it takes more energy to produce hydrogen than that hydrogen then contains”
That’s a silly statement…lots of energy-for-sale schemes are like that. It’s the cost of the input energy to make the energy product that is important. Burning wood contains lots of heat but it is viable energy storage to heat your vacation cabin only because you didn’t have to pay for the energy to photosynthesize it.
Perhaps Dave could have been a bit more clear. It does, in fact, take more energy to produce, distribute, and use hydrogen as a fuel than the energy it contains.
Never said it didn’t. Just said that if the photovoltaic sunlight input is cheap enough to make hydrogen fuel….it doesn’t matter whether it takes more energy to produce hydrogen than it contains, and there are lots of examples of this in the real world. BTW, I’m NOT hydrogen storage supporter, as the downvoters seemed to think…just pointing out an immutable fact, this one of economics.
Obviously efficiencies make it stupid to take grid electricity at X cents/KWR and convert water to hydrogen so you can later convert it back to grid electricity at X cents/KWH. And we don’t have cheap enough PVcells to call PVE “cheap enough” either.
__________________________________________________________________________
The global warming potential numbers are a total scam.
We are NEVER told how much warming CH4 & N2O will
actually cause. We’re not going to be told how much
warming H2 will cause either.
The reason for that is it is an unmeasurable fraction of a
degree over that 20 or 100 year period they tell us about.
Hmmm maybe they will, but if they do say how little the
effect for H2 turns out to be, they’re gonna hafta admit
the GWP numbers for every GHG is also bullshit.
Two months ago, I stopped recommending all hydrogen articles on my blog. along with nuclear fusion and perpetual motion machine articles. They are all science fiction.
But I could not resist reading this article at the Daily Sceptic. I have no doubt H2 affects the stratosphere but 37x sounds like baloney.
The increase in hydrogen concentration also increases the amount of tropospheric ozone and stratospheric water vapor, contributing to the greenhouse effect.
Puzzling that the referenced study was by a green group that should be biased in favor hydrogen.
I think hydrogen, of any “color”, is a green dream used to keep the Nut Zero green dream alive for leftists. Maybe nuclear fusion will be their next green dream?
Here is one reason I’m no longer recommending hydrogen articles for my blog. This is just plain old hydrogen, not green hydrogen.
For a semi-truck:
7-10 miles per kg of H2 for the semi truck. With 9 miles per kg, and $36 for a kg of hydrogen in CA for that semi truck, they would be paying 36/9 = $4.00 per mile for an H2 fuel semi.
Tesla electric semi gets 2 kwh/mile, rate of electricity is 16 cents per mile- so $0.32 per mile for a Tesla EV semi.
Diesel at $3.75/gal, 7.5 mpg- that is $0.50 per mile for a diesel semi. MPG ranges from 6 for older trucks to 10 for new trucks.
NOTES:
Deisel trucks need just 5 minutes to fill dual 100 gallon fuel tanks for a 1,500 mile range: Fuel tanks on these trucks commonly hold 100 to 150 gallons, and semi trucks typically have two.
Tesla semi 500 mile extended range needs 30 minutes for only 350 miles of range: (Batteries recovers up to 70 percent of range in 30 minutes using Tesla’s Semi Chargers.)
The diesel semi will need one 5 minute fuel stop for 1,500 miles of range. They use dual high speed pumps for the two tanks that pump 50 to 60 gallons a minute.
The Tesla 500 mile range EV semi will need four 30 minute fuel stops, adding up to 2 hours, for 1,400 miles of range. A Tesla driver might be able to eat a meal during an EV charging stop and save some time versus a diesel driver.
The hydrogen truck: No H2 refueling infrastructure outside of CA.
That’s one reason hydrogen articles are just science fiction.
Mr. Greene, for the details see: “The Future of the Hydrogen Economy: Bright or Bleak?” at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232983331
Thank you for that info.
Hydrogen is also quite explosive. Another Hindenburg type accident, which will surely come, will kill the market
Nuclear fusion has been the green dreamers dream of the future for many decades. But just how to turn the heat of a plasma at 100,000,000C into electricity presents two problems – how to make and sustain the plasma and how to convert the heat into electricity using materials that actually exist.
The real green dream is a guaranteed “basic income” on par with Prince Harry.
What is the URL of your blog?
Every solution has unexpected side effects. Newtons Third Law, the Law of Karma, these guarantee there will be side effects.
The problem is that when people put forward novel solutions the side effects are as yet unknown, so the tendency is to assume they don’t exists.
This is why pilot projects are required before deciding a course of action. Something that has not yet been done in the rush for net zero. We have sent the army into battle without first sending scouts to map the course.
Covid jabs?
Jabs and masks worked in Japan when everybody used them.
Here in the US only about half the people used them and the death rate per 1 million people was six times higher in the US than in Japan.
The masks keep infected people from exhaling virus particle into the air in the 2-3 days before symptoms start.
True, the masks reduced the spread of Covid by infected, but people were sold that the masks would make them safe. They did not. Problem is, people did not handle the masks properly, got the droplets on their fingers, and self-infected themselves.
For the most part, the big spreaders occurred by the mandatory stay at home in a closed, not well ventilated room. People would have been better outside enjoying the sunshine and fresh air.
Bring back the hydrogen zeppelins to create a new market for hydrogen
We need more Hindenburg zeppelins
62 successful flights
Slight problem with #63
No product is perfect
Every product can be improved. I’d recommend using a hydrogen/helium mix to reduce flammability. Or maybe even use a hydrogen bladder within a helium bladder.
Isn’t helium really expensive?
That’s the main reason to minimize its use.
The Hindenburg fire was caused when the airship impacted a power line and the skin caught fire. The burning hydrogen was a consequence of the fire, not the cause.
The mining, manufacture, instalation, and maintenance of windmills and solar panels is producing vastly more CO2 than is being saved.
The “solution” is in fact making the problem worse than if we had simply done nothing. Not only do we need to vastly overbuild renewables due to the low capacity factor, we also need to build a 2nd parallel system for energy storage.
Please! Make the “problem” worse… we can take it… but we need some rain along with it… Thanks.
But It Doesn’t Matter
Amazing that CO2 is so dangerous, yet every other gas is worse. No doubt it will kill almost every human alive today over the next 100 years.
You wrote, “Bottom line – there is no cost effective, feasible, reliable and scalable replacement for hydrocarbons available, or likely to be available, in the near future.”
This is simply false. There are currently over 400 water-cooled nuclear reactors operating worldwide and dozens under construction. The technology is well proven and the safest of all means of electricity production in the world. They are cost effective despite contrary screams made by many ignorant people, the are feasible, exceedingly reliable and come as big or little as you want.
Harold the Organic Chemist Says:
Nuclear power plants produce only electricity. The heavy industries and the heavy transportation systems will always use ENORMOUS amounts of liquid fossil fuels.
Mining, forestry, and agriculture use many billions gallons of Diesel fuel every year. Use Goggle and search for “Maersk Emma” and check out its fuel capacity and consumption.
A Boeing cargo 747-800 ER with APC takes off on a long flight 346,000 pounds of fuel.
The Airbus A380A takes off on a long flight with 386,000 pounds of fuel.
The blast furnaces at iron smelters use many millions of pounds of coke every year.
Natural gas is now the fuel for the new generation of CCGT power plants.
I’ll stop now. Have you now got the gist about fossil fuels?
Yes, for electricity generation. Not so good for transportation.
Total nonsense of course.
This isn’t a reasonable statement. There are hydrocarbon compounds that can be created with potentially the same or greater efficiency as producing hydrogen (using excess wind and solar generation) that are most likely far easier to store and transport. The fact that they produce CO2 when burned to generate electricity can be waved away as least as easily as when burning wood chips since producing these compounds uses CO2, thus “recycling”. This is not to suggest that any of the ideas are actually reasonable, only that plain hydrogen is definitely not the only possibility.
Bigger issue: Since it will take more energy to produce the hydrogen than will ever be gotten from burning it, hydrogen is an energy SINK, not an energy SOURCE.
And since the energy used to produce it will basically all come from (whether directly or indirectly) fossil fuels anyway, hydrogen is nothing more than a delusional tail-chasing exercise.
Very nice Chris. Wind, solar, battery and hydrogen are not substitutes for fossil fuel and nuclear, not individually or collectively. Fire up all fossil fuel and nuclear generators, build new fossil fuel and nuclear generators, remove all wind and solar from the grid and update the grid.
“Nuttin from nuttin leaves nuttin”
or something like that. If CO2 doesn’t cause global warming, by my count 37×0 = 0. Maybe take another tack?
Uh … https://energycentral.com/c/gr/cryogenic-storage-plant
So, there are those who believe that pulling CO2 out of the air and burying it is the answer. The those, this question? What happens when we run out of storage space? What then?
There are developments at universities, MIT, UofM, etc., that are developing technologies for converting CO2 to methane using sunlight. The work is promising, but there is no large scale prototype for demonstration. If it turns out to be feasible, then keeping the gas powered steam turbine generators online would be a good thing and recycling the CO2 a benefit to reducing fuel costs.
Seems a better approach than burying CO2.