EU Hydrogen economy/power scam - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 11, 2024, 10:32:14 pm
content: EU running Hydrogen economy/power scam while building even more "green"hydrogen readynatural gas power plants, as if natural gas is not expensive enough here already.Quote

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2024, 11:16:31 pm
content: Yes, just let me know one thing from the EU that is not dumb and a scam, though, I'm still looking.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2024, 11:22:10 pm
content: Just another random Youtube video showing a person rambling on about a subjectYeah, the truth is out there on YoutubeJust face it: hydrogen is going to be the new oil. It has long been established that for energy storage lasting for more than a couple of hours, hydrogen is cheaper compared to a battery. And the reason is really easy to understand: a battery is 100% filled with materials. A hydrogen storage vessel OTOH is empty (bonus points for storage in salt caverns). Storage is the key element the makers of the video have obviously missed but storage is the main factor which makes hydrogen so suitable as a replacement for oil.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 11, 2024, 11:25:51 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 11, 2024, 11:22:10 pmAFAIK it's only been established as a waste of money and pollutant (steam methane reforming) when it comes to anything when it's used as energy source/storage.QuoteWasting 70% of energy is not cheap by any means.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2024, 11:27:44 pm
content: You missed the part where hydrogen is being made from wind & solar. Large electrolyser plants are being build as we write. Hydrogen is going to happen; it is that simple. First for energy intensive manufacturing like steel mills and chemical plants. Later on (10 to 20 years) for electricity storage and transport.And don't make the dumb mistake of thinking in terms of efficiency. If that reasoning would work, we wouldn't be powering cars from oil. Or burn coal to make electricity.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 11, 2024, 11:30:27 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 11, 2024, 11:27:44 pmWind and solar are so cheap that you surely can economically waste 70% of produced energy. Lets build 3x larger solar power plant so we can use that energy at night

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2024, 11:33:43 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on July 11, 2024, 11:30:27 pmWhere is your storage? It is all about storage. And more importantly, cost of storage. Also, a solar panel in the Sahara receives twice the amount of energy from the sun and has no seasonal and very little weather dependant output. Hydrogen is perfect as a storage and transport medium. But this has been debated before and proper reports have been linked to; the real world has chosen to use hydrogen and has started deploying the infrastructure a long time ago.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 11, 2024, 11:39:16 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 11, 2024, 11:33:43 pmHydrogen is an absolute hell to store and transport. Very low density, leaks through everything, embrittles materials.

author: Stray Electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 12:50:54 am
content: Quote from: wraper on July 11, 2024, 11:39:16 pmAnd flammable as all hell! Anybody outside of the US remember the Hindenburg?https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Hindenburg+disaster+Airship+fire%2C+6+May+1937&ia=images&iax=imagesAnd nobody is talking about the fact that in orderrealisticallyto store and transport hydrogen, it needs to be in the liquid form and stored at -423 degrees! See Wikipedia<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_hydrogen>And while you're at it, look at the amount of energy that it takes to liquefy Hydrogen as compared to it's potential energy value!

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 01:24:29 am
content: Quote from: Stray Electron on July 12, 2024, 12:50:54 amAnd it was Hydrogen that blew up all four Fukushima reactor buildings.

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 01:26:57 am
content: Why not use Ammonia instead? At room temperature, the storage pressure is only 25psi to 200psi, not 10,000psi like pure hydrogen. 25-200psi is compatible with propane and natural gas tanks and no hydrogen embrittlement, though it is corrosive. Ammonia can be burned in a specialized ICE engine as well as be used in fuel cells while the exhaust is mostly water and nitrogen. Again, not as perfect as pure hydrogen, but, the nitrogen in ammonia can be taken from the air when made, then released once burned. Even Toyota is experimenting with an Ammonia direct engine.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 01:37:33 am
content: Quote from: BrianHG on July 12, 2024, 01:26:57 amInteresting.Unfortunately, this "hydrogen" frenzy looks a lot more like just buzzwords and politics than pure engineering.

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 02:22:21 am
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on July 12, 2024, 01:37:33 amRemember, Ammonia is just 3 Hydrogen atoms bonded to a central nitrogen atom. IE: Ammonia is a hydrogen fuel without any carbon. This chemically concentrates the hydrogen into a smaller volume with a lower pressure boiling point. 25psi for liquid Ammonia at room temp. That's the same pressure as what's in your car tires to get ammonia all the way down to a liquid. The issue is that the bond to nitrogen is strong and burning ammonia happens slowly at typical ICE piston compression levels with natural aspiration.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 02:28:38 am
content: But in fuel cells, this should be less of a problem.

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 04:44:14 am
content: Yup, saw a video of a fuel cell design a few weeks back which uses a super-charger electric air compressor for the oxygen intake. They seem to be quiet about the true efficiency gains unless you want to calculate the figures from their graphs. There are a number of companies trying this stuff...

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 04:53:21 am
content: For long term storage hydrogen is still one of the better options we have. There is some energy loss, but for the really long time scale, like seasonal it is not so much about efficiency but about the cost per energy stored. For the a few days there may be better alternatives with better efficiency. In the electrolytic cells the hydrogen can already be produced under quite some pressure, already 90% there for storrage in steel cylinders under pressure and likely more than for salt caverns.It is only flammable / explosive if mixed with air. Keep the oxigen out and evething is fine. Compared to natural gas and similar it even has the advantage that if there is a leak it excapes up quite fast and if it burns the flame is emitting very little radiation to heat up things below. It essentially needs direct contact to the flame to ignite something with a clean hydrogen flame.I am a bit sceptical about using hydrogen to make steel in the old way. There may be better electrochemical ways. The conversion to hydrogen still adds costs and losses. So unless you really need the storage function it may be better to avoid it if there is an alternative. Steel production may have to move wo places with more reliable year round renewable energy.The first step is replacing the old style producion of hydrogen that is already used in the chemical and other industry. The step back from hydrogen to electricity and as a replacemant for natural gas makes mainly sense when the first step is complete. Currently this should only be for research - not for real use unless it is produced clean.

author: jonpaul
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 04:56:46 am
content: pumped water storage, ancient technique.Used for decades in NY state till the environazis dismantled it along wiht all nuclear plants.This NY state and NYC are at hights cost and worst availability of electric power.j

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 05:38:32 am
content: Pumped water storage is great, if there is a suitable loaction. However these are limited. We will want more of it, but for most countries (maybe except Norway and New Zeeland) it wou't be enough capacity. If you have to build the mountain or use cranes it gets too expensive.

author: jonpaul
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 06:43:16 am
content: Klienstein,besides pumped water, other mechanical storage ......Flywheels (short term transient power)High pressure gas/water in sealed mines, wells undergroundjon

author: Bicurico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 07:39:42 am
content: I have a "green" solution for the planet...How about we gradually reduce the human population back to 2 billion (no need to kill people or start a war - just let it happen over the course of 100 years by limiting the number of children).Abolish interest on money - this is the reason economies have to "grow". It is actually a pyramid scheme on a finite size planet. Doomed to fail. Get rid of interest rates and there is no longer a need to grow the economy.Educate people so that they behave rational. People's retirement plan must consist in saving the exact amount of money you will need once you stop work. The current generational systems are, again, a pyramid scheme!Make products have a mandatory life expectancy of at least 10 years. Why do we need to change car, TV, mobile phone, etc. every two to four years? Only for the economy to grow. This causes so much waste!Eat less!With these simple points, we will meet all climate goals, while maintaing a high living standard.All the hype with electric cars, hydrogen, etc. is bullshit. It won't be enough for soon to become ten billion people and it does little to nothing to "save" the earth.

author: jonpaul
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 08:23:15 am
content: “The first thing we do is, let’s kill all the lawyers.”- Dick the Butcher in Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part II, 1596 - 1599.j

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 09:10:10 am
content: Quote from: Kleinstein on July 12, 2024, 04:53:21 amFor seasonal, you'd better build nuclear power plants instead of caving to idiot activists and destroy them, including forging documents in the process, then building natural gas power plants instead. Then wonder about deindustrialization. Germany in a nutshell.https://www.dw.com/en/german-ministers-quizzed-over-nuclear-phase-out-deception/a-68931166And try spreading that cancer over the rest of EU.https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2023-002175_EN.html

author: Bicurico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 09:13:47 am
content: Germany is a great example to see what happens when ideologists and communists try to rule the country.Instead of a meritocracy you get an idiocracy, where people without knowledge try to impose their vision on others.It got so bad in Germany that I truly wish that the Germans revolt and turn down their current government, which is extreme left, antidemocratic and corrupt.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 11:46:56 am
content: Quote from: Kleinstein on July 12, 2024, 05:38:32 amExperts disagree, and claim there is a great excess of hydro storage potential:https://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/global/QuoteGoing 100% on anything is straw man stuff, future energy storage will most likely be a broad mix of technologies exploiting their specific capabilities/suitabilities. Hydrogen will be part of that even if very little hydrogen is used raw at point of load, as it's a building block for all sorts of useful/practical "fuels".

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 12:43:58 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 11, 2024, 11:22:10 pmFor HVAC, which is the majority of residential load in most areas, even cheaper would be thermal storage. Just need some incentives to build it.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 01:26:00 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on July 12, 2024, 12:43:58 pmAnd how are you going to power the pumps??? And please don't say hamsters or cats

author: schmitt trigger
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 03:17:43 pm
content: “ Communication that sets out a vision for a roadmap to create a framework for an alliance that will develop an agenda”Newspeak, anyone?

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 03:33:44 pm
content: Quote from: Someone on July 12, 2024, 11:46:56 amYour comment about "going 100% on anything" is very important."Monocultures" or reliance on a single technology is not a stable long-term solution.

author: zilp
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 04:56:06 pm
content: Quote from: Bicurico on July 12, 2024, 07:39:42 amCan you explain how this works? As in, why we no longer need to grow the economy if we "get rid of interest rates"? Or why we need to grow the economy if we don't "get rid of interest rates", for that matter? Also, what do you even mean by "getting rid of interest rates"?Quote from: Bicurico on July 12, 2024, 07:39:42 amSo, you think we should also get rid of insurance against old age? What would be the advantage of that?

author: zilp
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 05:04:56 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on July 12, 2024, 09:10:10 amCould you provide a source for your claim of the forging of documents, please? If you think that one of your links is a source that substantiates this claim, could you please specify which one and where it supports this claim (possibly just quote the relevant section)?Quote from: wraper on July 12, 2024, 09:10:10 amCan you explain who the source of this text is, and why you think that this source is a reliable source of information?

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 05:50:49 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on July 11, 2024, 11:25:51 pmIt is cheaper. You have to look at total system cost.Round trip efficiency is above 70% with CHP. (not 30% as you suggested)If you want to achieve a minimal carbon footprint, you have to store energy, because your summer and winter energy usage differs by 90% and solar generation also differs easily by 90%. Now, go ahead and calculate the cost and efficiency of battery storage for 6 months, and compare that to P2G. A battery large enough to store all your energy needs for a winter. Probably going to cost more than your house. Meanwhile the same energy can be stored in a steel tank somewhere far away together with other millions of households. Probably not as hydrogen, that's a bad idea, but as LNG or CHG. Just like we do it right now. As a plus, everyone doesn't have to replace every single heating systems, build new houses, and quadruple our electricity grid capacity (if only).

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 06:06:08 pm
content: Hydrogen is the most realistic seasonal storage medium for renewable energy. Even for fuel where batteries lack the energy density (aviation and shipping) it's not bad compared to scaleable alternatives (biomass fuel does not scale).Anything which requires CO2 for synthesis will become likely become far more expensive (PV and membraneless electrolysis are likely to get very cheap, CO2 capture not so much). Nitrogen is a little easier to get, but ammonia isn't a great substance to work with either.Nuclear can obviate the need for large scale storage, but it does little for fuel.

author: zilp
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 06:51:06 pm
content: Quote from: tszaboo on July 12, 2024, 05:50:49 pmCould you clarify which direction those 90% are supposed to be in? Winter is 90% more than summer (factor 1.9) or summer 90% less than winter (factor 10)?Quote from: tszaboo on July 12, 2024, 05:50:49 pmWhy would you store any significant amount of energy for 6 months? Like, are you suggesting that we would or should only use solar generation (i.e. PV?) for electricity supply during winter?Quote from: tszaboo on July 12, 2024, 05:50:49 pmDo I understand this correctly that you think that homes should be heated by burning gases synthesized using electricity from renewable sources in heating systems in those homes?Why do you think that that would be preferable over, for example, switching to primarily heat pumps, especially considering the rather large difference in efficiency and the correspondingly much larger storage capacities that would be needed to store the much larger amount of energy needed with the significantly lower efficiency of that approach?

author: Conrad Hoffman
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 07:01:37 pm
content: The late Don Lancaster had some things to say about hydrogen if you read down a bit-https://www.tinaja.com/glib/energfun.pdfIMO, hydrogen is only desirable if you're a researcher pursuing government science grants.

author: artag
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 07:08:10 pm
content: This thread isn't 'general technical' it's politics.Can we have a 'blowhard' board for topics that generate more heat than light, please ?

author: jonovid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 07:40:10 pm
content: forget the whole renewable virtue signalling thing & let nature take its course.as mixing politics & science as a religion outside the lab can be dangerous!petroleum is still king

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 07:42:36 pm
content: Quote from: Conrad Hoffman on July 12, 2024, 07:01:37 pmFor someone so concerned with how hard it is to get H2 in the first place, he sure did easily gloss over how hard it is to get CO2 when it's not a waste stream from fossil fuel.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 07:53:46 pm
content: Quote from: Conrad Hoffman on July 12, 2024, 07:01:37 pmWell, take whatever Don Lancaster claims with a large truckload of salt. At some point he claimed he had the best photos on Ebay for the items he was selling. Reality check: the photos where piss poor.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 08:07:00 pm
content: Quote from: zilp on July 12, 2024, 06:51:06 pmThe reality is that hydrogen will need to be shipped / piped to countries with seasonal insolation year round with local storage to store excess electricity from PV during the sunny days and for buffering during the winter. Most European countries buy gas in the summer for use during the winter to keep prices constant. This is common practise for decades already so the idea of storing energy for 6 months is not that outlandish.Nuclear power plants won't be able to replace coal and gas plants due to a limited reserve of Uranium (as Kleinstein has pointed out in a previous discussion; you can easely fact check this yourself). IF you want the phase out fossil fuels, the only technology for large scale generation which is available today, are solar panels and wind turbines. Nuclear power plants which don't use/need uranium are at least 30 years away from being practical. Those are not going to make a difference before 2050.Unfortunately Greenpeace has done a great job using big oil's money to scare people away from nuclear and thus investments in nuclear have been way too low. The world is paying a hefty price due to health and climate effects.In an ideal scenario we should have had nuclear power by now which is clean, cheap and can supply when there is demand. Keep in mind that with fossil fuels, generation (supply) is on par with demand. With solar and wind as energy sources, storage and transport are required because generation (supply) and demand are far apart both in time and location.

author: zilp
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 09:32:57 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 12, 2024, 08:07:00 pmWell, I mean, what you write is kinda true, but at the same time inaccurate in relevant and potentially misleading ways.It is true that gas prices would vary more over the year if there were no natural gas storage with everything else unchanged, simply because the capacity of the import infrastructure wouldn't be sufficient to keep up with demand during the winter while it would be oversized during the summer. But that isn't the purpose of the storage infrastructure. The purpose of the storage infrastructure is to avoid building more import infrastructure (i.e., pipelines and LNG terminals), because storage is the cheaper solution. So the purpose is reduction of costs, the less volatile price is just a side effect.Which also means that it indeed isn't necessarily a priori outlandish to store energy for 6 months, in the sense that it absolutely could be done if it were necessary. However, it is pretty far from current reality. The capacity might be the order of magnitude of 6 months of natural gas demand. But energy consumption is significantly higher than natural gas alone. So, storing 6 months of current total energy consumption would, while maybe not being outlandish, still require significantly more storage capacity than we currently have ... and given that current capacity really is less than 6 months of natural gas demand, it starts bordering on outlandish, and it probably crosses the border to being outlandish when the idea would be to store hydrogen, given the much lower energy density of hydrogen.But really, the outlandish idea is that we'd need to store 6 months of energy consumption in the first place, given that there is more wind during winter, so why would we possibly want to use exclusively hydrogen (or methane or ammonia) from storage rather than wind energy directly from the generator withsomeenergy from storage and/or import to fill gaps in renewable generation?

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 09:50:15 pm
content: Quote from: zilp on July 12, 2024, 09:32:57 pmYou are forgetting one thing here: in general European countries can not meet their own energy demands using renewables. The required amount of land area simply is not there. For example: over 30% of homes have solar panels on the roof in the NL. And yet the generation capacity of those solar panels is like 12% of current required generation capacity (without taking into account future increase in electricity use due to phasing out fossil fuels as a whole). Import will be necessary to meet demand. So there is some kind of optimum between the amount of storage versus the re-supply cycle intervals and foreign production capacity. Given that seasonal effects last about 6 months AND possible supply chain disruptions (sabotage of gas & oil pipelines is real! and lets not forget geopolitical issues), it is not unreasonable to assume a 6 month storage period is a good starting point to aim for even though the amount of storage capacity will be huge in the end.

author: .RC.
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 09:55:31 pm
content: Quote from: Bicurico on July 12, 2024, 09:13:47 amTo be fair, a lot of advanced western countries have gone the same way. Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand etc etc (not including France or the US are they are both a bit "different") are now chock a block full of people who while "university educated" are not smart. Often you find their education is in the humanities, arts or communications sector. Not engineering or mathematics.You can not argue with them, they can not be reasoned with. In their eyes they are always right and they will never stop even after their beliefs destroy everything and we are back to living in caves.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 10:11:56 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 12, 2024, 08:07:00 pmWould have helped if every Nuclear Engineer didn't go "Real Sodium cooling has never been tried" for decades.Lead is to Sodium what Rust is to C :p It took a long long time for the industry to wake up from its delusions and it's a little late.

author: ejeffrey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 10:14:48 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 11, 2024, 11:22:10 pmCitation needed. Not a projection or estimate or pitch deck, but show me someone willing to sell a grid scale fuel cell storage system for a specified cost per MJ that can be compared to other technologies.Until such a number exists, it's not "long established" it's somewhere between "promising research direction" and "delusional thinking"QuoteThat certainly sounds like "common sense" but the actual facts don't support it.

author: ejeffrey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 10:24:03 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 12, 2024, 08:07:00 pmGreenpeace and the anti nuclear lobby is entirely not responsible for the failure 21st century nuclear plants in the US and Europe. The nuclear industry itself is 100% to blame. They simply cannot or will not design and build a functioning reactor in a sane time or budget despite huge subsidies.They previously had some success lobbying to shut down old plants which is not great but the failure of the new projects in the US suffered not significant schedule delays or cost increases due to anti nuclear lobbying.The main thing the anti nuclear lobby has succeeded in is stoping the construction of the long term storage fascillity. But that's really not a current problem. Nuclear plants are built to hold many decades of spent fuel. The waste is so little volume, on site storage is totally feasible for the entire operational life of a reactor site. Is that the best long term solution? Maybe not, but it isn't the thing stopping deployment.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 10:24:53 pm
content: Quote from: ejeffrey on July 12, 2024, 10:14:48 pmJust use Google; the numbers are easy to find and supported by the fact that large scale hydrogen storage in salt caverns is being build (and this technology isn't new either; it is in use in the UK and USA).

author: zilp
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 10:27:20 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 12, 2024, 09:50:15 pmIt's just ... I am not forgetting any of that?!But how does it follow that because we'll have to import some amount of energy, and that seasonal effects last 6 months, that therefore, we'd need to store 6 monthsof total consumption? Not 6 months of import throughput, 6 months of consumption! I.e., potentially sufficient to last one to two years when combined with local production!And that especially so given that the seasonal effect isn't that strong anyway.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2024, 11:19:50 pm
content: If you read carefully, you'll see I wrote that 6 months is a good number to start with. It all depends on how much risk a country wants to take to run out (or needing to buy energy at extremely high prices). These lessons are not coming from a very distant past. There is more than just consumption. Again: you'll need to replenish and store strategically or suffer the consequences. Your assumption doesn't include any strategic decission making. On top of that, local production will be far less than you seem to assume. I don't recall Germany has their own (significant) oil supply and yet the energy coming from that oil will need to be replaced by a different energy source at some point.

author: zilp
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2024, 12:22:24 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 12, 2024, 11:19:50 pmWell, for one I want to note that you are kinda changing the topic. The context that I was responding to above was tszaboo creating the impression that we would need to store enough energy to meet demand for 6 months from storage alone just so we don't suffer blackouts because there is supposedly close to no local renewable production during the winter. So, strategic reserves were not really the topic and would be on top of that.Also, while some strategic reserves certainly make sense, it should be noted that the problem we just experienced was a of lack of storage (because the largest storage facility in Germany had been sold to Russia, who, in preparation for the war, had let it run empty) combined with a lack of import capacity from sources other than Russia. Removing either factor should have considerably reduced the impact.Quote from: nctnico on July 12, 2024, 11:19:50 pmIt's just ... no, it doesn't. Much of the oil supply goes to mobility, cars in particular. ICEs in cars have an efficiency of around 20%, maybe 30% (depends on how the car is being used). Electric cars have an efficiency of ~ 65 to 80% (depending on which parts of the process you include, charging losses in particular). So, about two thirds of the energy that we import in the form of oil for the use in cars does not need to be replaced, because it is currently only used to heat the environment, and we can stop doing that. Equally, energy from oil that is used for heating homes can be substituted with roughly a third of that in the form of electricity that is used to drive heat pumps, which then extract the remaining 60 to 70% from the environment to create the same amount of heat. And with some insulation, you can potentially further reduce the amount of heat energy that you need in the first place.How much exactly we need to replace is ultimately an economic question (i.e., whether it is cheaper to insulate a home or to import hydrogen, or whatever), but we certainly don't need to replace anywhere near the energy content of the fossil fuels that we currently import with renewable sources.(Of course, you can then argue whether a heat pump reduces the energy demand or whether it should be considered a renewable power plant ... regardless, the point stands that you don't need to replace oil or natural gas used for heating with the equivalent amount of renewable electricity.)

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2024, 04:49:28 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 12, 2024, 01:26:00 pmBatteries, but the power use would be tiny compared to the compressor. So run the compressor from solar during the day, that's the whole point. It would require at least an order of magnitude less battery than running the compressor from the battery, a very substantial savings.

author: Haenk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2024, 06:45:17 am
content: Quote from: zilp on July 12, 2024, 05:04:56 pmThis has been greatly discussed in german media like a couple of weeks ago.Essentially, the ministry misquoted power companies statements of the future use of nuclear plants. The choice of words and leaving out parts (or even that selective choice of text) might turn a statement by 180 degrees.AFAIR their statement went from "due to the scheduled going dark process, revision work and recertification will be needed to keep the plants running" to a statement by the ministry like "the industry said it's not possible to keep the plants running".Which is IMHO a blatant lie.Nähere Informationen auf Deutsch:https://www.cicero.de/themen/atomausstieg(Nevertheless, I think the exit from nuclear power was the right idea, but the execution was the worst possible. And I would blame pretty much all parties for this - CDU/SPD for sabotaging regenerative energy production and now SPD/Grüne for making a crazy mess out of everything)

author: ksjh
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2024, 07:49:40 am
content: Quote from: Haenk on July 13, 2024, 06:45:17 amI would take all this information with a grain of salt. Cicero lost alawsuit, after which one would be basically allowed to say that they "added fictional information" in their articles after a web site published afact check:https://www.volksverpetzer.de/faktencheck/habeck-rechte-pseudo-skandal-akw-files/

author: zilp
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2024, 07:54:05 am
content: Quote from: Haenk on July 13, 2024, 06:45:17 amNo, it hasn't been. I am aware of the Cicero story, but forgery of documents was never even an accusation that was made in that context, so that can't be it.Quote from: Haenk on July 13, 2024, 06:45:17 amThat is not forgery of documents (Urkundenfälschung). Forgery of documents is a crime, specifically the crime of presenting a document as being authored or signed in the form presented by an entity that did not in fact author or sign that document as presented. Authoring a document and putting into it an incorrect or misleading quote of some other party's statement is not document forgery, and also not a crime in itself.Quote from: Haenk on July 13, 2024, 06:45:17 amFirst of all, this is all about contents of internal documents of the government, so it is kinda misleading to say "statement by the ministry". Mind you, Cicero had to sue to force the ministry to hand over the documents. Primarily, this is about documents prepared by the ministry for consumption by the minister. In this case, the document apparently was also shared with another ministry (authored in the Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Klimaschutz, shared with Bundesumweltministerium, because the latter is responsible for nuclear safety, both led by green ministers, with the documents being edited by people within the ministry who were essentially hired by the minister).And also, my understanding is that the changes that were made in the editing process that apparently were the basis for the accusation made by Cicero were completely trivial and in no way made the text misleading. Actually, it seems almost as if the whole basis for the accusation is a misunderstading of the original text by Cicero. With the "text" being changed also apparently being primarily a heading.Quote from: Haenk on July 13, 2024, 06:45:17 amI think this analysis of the case is worth a read:https://www.volksverpetzer.de/faktencheck/habeck-rechte-pseudo-skandal-akw-files/

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 13, 2024, 01:22:49 pm
content: Quote from: zilp on July 13, 2024, 07:54:05 amIt was. They either suppressed expert assessments or manipulated them by changing the conclusion that nuclear power plants can continue operating safely to the opposite.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2024, 01:33:24 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on July 11, 2024, 11:16:31 pmWhen the EU has done low level things, like sponsoring common standards across Europe for things like cellular and digital TV, they have a pretty good track record. When they do more public facing things the peacocks need to strut, and the efficacy of what they are strutting about is largely irrelevant. This is true everywhere, but the EU accentuates it by a greater level of disconnect from the discipline of elections.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2024, 01:50:21 pm
content: Quote from: BrianHG on July 12, 2024, 02:22:21 amAmmonia has a lot going for it, but to be clean you do need to use it in ways that don't result in a lot of nasty nitrogen based side products. I don't see enough written about that issue in texts about ammonia powered ICEs, fuel cells, etc. If its pretty much a non-issue for some modes of consuming ammonia I would expect their proponents to be shouting about it.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2024, 03:42:18 pm
content: For all the claimed dangers of hydrogen, getting into detonation range is pretty hard. Ammonia can kill a lot easier.

author: zilp
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2024, 04:58:20 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on July 13, 2024, 01:22:49 pmYou apparently accidentally stopped reading after one sentence, so let me help you by quoting what I wrote next:QuoteI can also recommend the rest ofmy postwhich explains in some detail how your description of the situation makes no sense at all.Also, I asked you a question above that you apparently accidentally skipped over:Quote from: zilp on July 12, 2024, 05:04:56 pmAs I have a bit more time now, let me help you with answering this:This text on the website of the European Parliament is a question that was asked by a member of the European Parliament to the European Commission. The answer is linked at the top right of the page.The specific MEP that asked this question isKosma Złotowskifrom Poland, who is a member of the parliamentary groupECR, as is noted on the page. More specifically, he is a member of the partyPiS.Also, there is some background information that he apparently isn't aware of, and given that you don't seem to be from Germany either, I suspect that you might not be either, so let me explain:TheHeinrich Böll foundationand theRosa Luxemburg foundationare what is called in GermanParteistiftungen, i.e. foundations associated with political parties. Except most of them aren't actually legally foundations, but that doesn't really matter here, and I'll go with calling them foundations as is customary. Specifically, the Heinrich Böll foundation is associated with the Greens (Bündnis '90/die Grünen) and the Rosa Luxemburg foundation is associaled with the Left (Die Linke).Now, it is technically correct that these foundations are funded primarily by the federal government. Because all of these party-associated foundations of parties that are represented in the Bundestag (federal parliament) receive federal tax funding, by law (sort of, it's a bit complicated, but the point is that the government is not free to just decide who gets money). The purpose of this funding is to enable all parties to do political work without being dependent on large donors, and thus in particular to avoid political influence of large donors. The important point here is that the federal government doesn't provide funding to further particular political goals, as is implied by Kosma Złotowski's question, but rather provides funding to all of the party-associated foundations, who then decide freely what they do with that money.Given the misleading presentation of this aspect, whether because he isn't aware of how the fundig of party-associated foundations in Germany works or because he is trying to intentionally mislead, I would be very skeptical that the rest of that question is any more factually reliable. At the same time, though, it's not exactly a scandal that political foundations do political work promoting their respective political views, including, I would suspect, PiS and associated organisations.Another piece of background information that might be helpful is that he quotes BILD in that question. BILD is a tabloid. While not everything they write is false, a lot of it is, as it tends to be with tabloids. So, it's a weird choice for a source to quote.I hope that helps with judging how to take the text of that question.

author: Stray Electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2024, 05:15:04 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on July 13, 2024, 03:42:18 pmWho said anything aboutdetonation? I don't think that's possible for Hydrogen to detonate but it will combust. It will even spontaneously combust in the presence of certain oxidizers or certain catalyst."Ammonia can kill a lot easier."If you're only talking about the direct affects of the ammonia or hydrogen by itself, that is probably true. But there are many other ways that either one can kill you either directly or indirectly. Suffocation alone is probably a bigger hazard than possible burns and is a possibility with just about anything that is gaseous at STP. And there are many other factors that have to be taken into account when deciding which is safer and/or more practical and/or more efficient.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 13, 2024, 05:15:17 pm
content: Quote from: zilp on July 13, 2024, 04:58:20 pmMaliciously altering expert assessment is a forgery by any reasonable means. If you say give altered expert assessment showing altered property value to a bank, you can be prosecuted for that. I don't see any difference of it's nature here.QuoteHow about you google the name of one who wrote it and actually check the links on the bottom.

author: zilp
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2024, 06:51:24 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on July 13, 2024, 05:15:17 pmWhatever you mean by "reasonable means", it certainly is not by the standards of the legal profession. And in particular it is not forgery of a document, as you claimed. You don't have to like that, but that still is how it is.Quote from: wraper on July 13, 2024, 05:15:17 pmI will take your word for it that you don't see any difference. But I will also tell you that the legal profession does, and so I think it makes sense to follow the experts here in order to not confuse things.First of all, if you take a signed document from an expert that assesses a property value and modify it, then that in fact is, as per the definition that I gave, document forgery, a crime. But that is not the accusation that was made. The accusation was at most that the expert was quoted incorrectly. Incorrectly quoting someone is not forgery of a document.So, to change your scenario to more accurately match the accusation that was made, let's say that you wrote a letter to your bank and in that letter you misquoted the property assessment of an expert. First of all, that is not document forgery. Also, it is not a crime by itself. However, it can be a part of a crime, such as fraud. If you were to intentionally misquote the expert's assessment with the goal of gaining an economical advantage, for example, then that would be fraud.However, as I wrote, the accused misquoting was part of internal documents of two Greens-led ministries. So, the accusation was that someone inside the ministry who was appointed by the minister and who was responsible for editing the document in question edited the document such that it misrepresented facts, which then supposedly would mislead the minister who appointed them.So, to modify your scenario further, it wouldn't beyoumisquoting the expert assessment, but rather the bank boss's secretary misquoting the expert assessment in a letter to their bossAlso, the minister himself, after the accusations were published, did not feel misled.So, to modify your scenario further, the boss of the bank, after the supposed deception was uncovered, stated that they had not been misled about the value of the property.Now, I obviously don't know how you feel about whether it should be a crime to "misquote" information in a way where the supposed victim says that they were not misinfomed, but what I can tell you is that in Germany, that is in fact not a crime, nor is it in most (all?) other countries.Also, if you can read German, I can highly recommend reading the analysis by the Volksverpetzer that ksjh an I linked to. You might come to the conclusion that it would be highly surprising if the minister had been misled by the editing that supposedly was intended to mislead him. In particular, no expert was misquoted anywhere, so all of the text above is actually completely irrelevant to the case, as no misquoting ever even happened.QuoteI have a pro tip for you: Sometimes, it can be helpful to read texts in full and not stop after the first sentence.In this case, the post that you are quoting from here, contained a lengthy explanation of both who the person who wrote it is, and how the text is misleading.For your convenience,here is a link to the post.Also, you seem to be under the mistaken impression that google could tell me why you think that they are a reliable source of information. That is in fact a question that only you can answer.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2024, 11:03:07 am
content: Quote from: Stray Electron on July 13, 2024, 05:15:04 pmMy issue with hydrogen is twofold.It's very difficult to store it as it will diffuse through a steel wall, breaking it in the process, called Hydrogen embrittlement.And if it's escaped, a tiny bit of energy is enough to set a hydrogen-oxygen mixture to explode. Energy stored in a 10uF capacitor, charged to 12V will explode it. It cannot be anywhere near electronics.CHG, LNG is much safer, we already use and store it, the infrastructure is there, and it's just one extra step to make it.

author: AVGresponding
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2024, 12:47:07 pm
content: Quote from: tszaboo on July 14, 2024, 11:03:07 amDon't forget the fact that the stoichiometric ratio at which this can occur is also averybroad range of values.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2024, 04:45:57 pm
content: Quote from: tszaboo on July 14, 2024, 11:03:07 amThen don't use a steel wall ... pay for aluminium, stainless, composite whatever.QuoteLikely at very lean mixtures do to its propensity to escape. As I said, it's hard to get it to detonate.Meanwhile a sprinkler system turns an ammonia leak into a low hanging poison cloud ... it's a sideways step at best.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2024, 05:02:08 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on July 14, 2024, 04:45:57 pmYup. Hydrogen is being used, stored and transported on a large scale already. Problems with doing that have been solved a very long time ago.QuoteAgreed. Hydrogen is very light / volatile so it will escape quickly. I recall my chemistry teacher needed quite a bit of effort to make hydrogen go 'bang' due to hydrogen escaping so quickly. The demonstration for making an explosion with natural gas was much easier to do OTOH.Ammonia is super nasty stuff; toxic and corrosive. You don't want to mess with that.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2024, 06:06:14 pm
content: A detailed technical article about hydrogen embrittlement of steels, including appropriate coatings where the steel is exposed to hydrogen gas.https://www.mdpi.com/2673-4141/4/2/22This problem has been worked on actively for years, to combine the strength of steel with impermeable coatings.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2024, 11:01:40 am
content: As always,Thermal storage of heat (when used as heat, which is large part of our energy needs)Pumped water (usable as electricity)Acceptance of fact that using a little bit of fossil fuels is not catastrophic, so no need to supply 100% of needs by storageHydrogen made out of excess solar/wind to replace existing needs for hydrogen in the industryIf, after all this, we have excess of solar and wind, low-efficiency storage in hydrogen is not completely stupid, just that people like nctnico making it the primary solution for energy issues is the error

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2024, 04:21:39 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on July 15, 2024, 11:01:40 amThe cost from status quo to net zero has an S shaped curve.It makes no sense to cheap out for a couple peanuts ... that's like Australia's NBN, spend nearly all the money any way but stop before the finish line.Unless your little bit is leaving multiple 10s of percent.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2024, 04:50:58 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on July 15, 2024, 04:21:39 pmIndeed. Having a power plant running at 50% capacity still requires 100% of the maintenance and investment costs but now spread over half the production quantity. Energy from fossil fuels gets really expensive that way. At some point it simply makes no commercial sense to use fossil fuels. Especially when only a little bit is needed.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2024, 05:10:04 pm
content: Looking at the cost of concrete composite LNG tanks, PWh scale storage is probably doable for liquid hydrogen. No need to go underground (which might not even be possible outside of limited salt caverns). Trillion per PWh range, but doable.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2024, 06:13:36 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 15, 2024, 04:50:58 pmIt's not a problem at all. While price goes up by the ratio, usage also goes down by the very same ratio. We can skip all this zero sum math theater and just calculate the total cost to the society as (cost of maintaining fossils + cost of maintaining renewables) / electricity used. Regardless of their ratios, the sum will be roughly the same.By "little bit of fossils", I'm referring to something like reducing the current amount to say, half on short term (decade or two), and maybe to 10-20% on longer term.Even though maintenance (fixed operating cost) is a large part, it's not everything, so it's not like cost per kWh increases by 10x if amount of production is decreased to 10%. Maybe it increases by 5x and that would not a problem at all, because you would use only one tenth of it. And even if you use very expensive electricity for a week, it doesn't matter, money averages out. If you are scared about market mechanisms, contracts where this volatility is hidden from you will obviously be available.Also remember that in current situation fossil fuels are somewhat scarce resource and because harvesting the resources is a political act (which includes stuff like war, which is expensive), the cost of the material itself probably reduces when less is used, and those who still produce it need to fight for customers to buy it.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2024, 11:03:44 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on July 14, 2024, 04:45:57 pmFor starters, you need 3x the tanks to store the same amount. 3x the ships, the tanks, the pipes.I know this country has this irrational hatred of natural gas, but I expect technical people to be more educated on these subjects. Also the green transition would be better if we wouldn't wreck our wallets in the process.As I said, we already have the infrastructure to use, store, drive around with, heat with methane we only need to make it renewable.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2024, 11:26:43 pm
content: Once CO2 stops being a byproduct of fossil fuels and becomes a resource to be acquired from the environment, it gets very expensive.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2024, 05:39:35 am
content: Quote from: tszaboo on July 15, 2024, 11:03:44 pmMore like love-hatred relationship: depend on it while talk otherwise.Anyway, for fossil fuels, as I said above, it's all about the amount. Natural gas is great, as long as you use the amount you can easily harvest (relatively) close-by, being self-sufficient, or buy from free market from those who play by the same free market rules, in a mutually beneficial arrangement.When it gets to the point that you have to build multiple pipelines thousands of kilometers long, to a terrorist country which then attacks their neighboring countries in order to secure more natural gas to sell it to you, so that you are now putting money to support the both sides of the war at the same time, you have lost; your "natural gas" has become moral, environmental,and economicaldisaster. If we look at actual total cost, it would have cost less to produce the same amount of energy using some freaking solar roadways or harvesting wind produced by unicorns flapping their wings.Then again, for example UK has their own natural gas resources relatively close to them and under their own political control. It would be unwise to just suddenly stop using them completely and let them go to waste.So real cost of fossils is not a constant. Use too much and the cost skyrockets because it's a scarce resource (part of the cost is hidden from the view, e.g. war is really expensive). Use less, and it's just an excellent way to completely sidestep the whole energy storage issue.Fossil fuels are great servants but bad masters,usingthem is absolutely fine butuncontrollable dependencyis not only horrible, it's expensive as hell.

author: zilp
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2024, 06:46:35 am
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on July 16, 2024, 05:39:35 amI mean, not stopping suddenly is one thing, because that would cause huge avoidable disruption.But leaving natural gas in the ground is "letting it go to waste" in about the same way that not drinking a bottle of cyanide solution is "letting it go to waste". If you include the externalities, the value gained by "not letting it go to waste" is negative.And fossil sources under your own political control are the only ones that you can actually prevent from being released into the atmosphere. So, it's actually preferable to buy the fuels you need elsewhere and keep your own stuff in the ground forever.Quote from: Siwastaja on July 16, 2024, 05:39:35 amExcept it obviously is not?! I mean, it is a useful temporary solution for filling the gaps in renewable generation, but it obviously increases the CO2 content of the atmosphere, so how can it possibly sidestep the storage issue?!

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2024, 07:57:12 am
content: Quote from: tszaboo on July 15, 2024, 11:03:44 pmThe problem with making methane are: 1) it costs energy and thus money to make 2) where are you going to get the carbon from? 3) When burning methane (compared to using hydrogen in a fuell cell) you get NOx emissions which are bad for health. If you factor these in, your cost picture is going to be entirely different. On top of that, hydrogen doesn't need to be liquified perse. It just depends on where the cost optimum is at. For underground storage in salt caverns, hydrogen is not liquified for example.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2024, 08:25:22 am
content: Quote from: zilp on July 16, 2024, 06:46:35 amLook at it realistically: it's not like you can just suddenly plug every hole. And some gas is co-produced with oil drilling. And we do need oil for chemical processes e.g. manufacturing plastics.QuoteAnd building storage systems can be done without any CO2 emissions at all? No, you need to evaluate the full environmental footprint of each alternative solution, and like most optimization problems, there would be some sweet spot somewhere; which would shift over time, but probably never reach absolute zero use of fossil fuels. CO2 impact of fossil fuels is indeed quite high per energy, but it's very easy to calculate and analyze. It makes little sense to use fossil fuels when better alternatives are available, but usingdifficult alternativescould easily release more CO2 if you do the full calculation of the alternative impacts. Which is convenient to ignore, because calculation is difficult.Right now I do believe we are still far from the sweet spot, but expecting absolute zero fossil fuel use will be much further in the future than you might guess because that would require basically redesigning everything totally from scratch, probably including significant changes to our living styles.But dropping the use to 10-20%? Well within reality, I say. This way, exploration of new oil/gas reservoirs could be ceased (which is super expensive, so that money would be better spent e.g. in development of renewable storage); politically unstable and thus expensive sources could be ignored; and CO2 released to atmosphere would drop by said ratio. Is it enough to "stop climate change" - I don't know, the subject is too complex, but I mean, this is basically what environmentalists are saying, that we overconsume by ratio of 3-4, or that with our current lifestyles, the planet "could handle" maybe 1-2 billion people. Assuming these environmentalists are right, then surely it sounds like dropping fossil fuel use to 10-20% should be sustainable.Now I think this is important to understand, because if we take unrealistic aim of zero fossil fuel use, that drives us to solve most difficult problems first, for which the solutions are expensive and probably not environmentally very good. Like forcing hydrogen or lithium ion battery based grid energy storage, while westillhaven't picked the low-hanging fruit of controlling existing implicit (parasitic) energy storage (HVAC systems, EVs).

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2024, 09:04:04 am
content: Nobody is saying the transition needs to be instant. But if you want to have an effect by 2050, you have to start building large infrastructure now regardless of 'low hanging fruit'.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2024, 01:22:16 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on July 15, 2024, 11:26:43 pmSure, so this is only going to be a solution for the next 30 years or so.Meanwhile the price of CO2 is practically negative, since you would need to pay for carbon credits.The issue is that we are trying to come up with absolutist solutions to these issues. While we could spend 20% of the effort and money, and reach 80% of the same result.Just stop oil. -> So no toothbrushes or roads from tomorrow.Ban on petrol cars. -> How about plug in hybrid, using 80% less fuel and 80% less batteries?No gas boilers. -> CHP plants, reducing waste heat by 80%I mean 30 years from now we might be talking about artificial plastics made with fusion power directly from air.

author: zilp
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2024, 01:35:44 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on July 16, 2024, 08:25:22 amYeah, I am looking at it realistically, which is why I wrote that "stopping suddenly" is not a good idea.But no, we do not need oil for chemical processes, including for manufacturing plastics. We do need itnow, because that's how manufacturing is currently set up, but there is no fundamental need to use oil.Quote from: Siwastaja on July 16, 2024, 08:25:22 amNet zero? Well, yes, it can, obviously? It's probably not a sensible short-term goal, but of course it can be done.Quote from: Siwastaja on July 16, 2024, 08:25:22 amExcept: Yes, that is exactly what needs to be done. I mean, really, the goal is not to reach zero by a certain point, but rather there is a limit on how much additional CO2 we can put into the atmosphere. If we decrease emissions fast, then it would be fine to stretch the remaining amount over a century or longer. But ultimately, however low the rate gets, the sum will at some point hit the limit, and that's when we we'll have to stop emissions.Of course, that means net emissions. So, in the long run, it's fine to burn wood, which causes CO2 emissions, if we grow new forests at the rate at which we are burning them. If we somehow manage to reduce the CO2 content of the atmosphere, we could potentially also keep burning fossil fuels, of course. But chances are that removing CO2 from the atmosphere will be more expensive than the benefit of burning fossil fuels, so it's maybe not that bright an idea.Quote from: Siwastaja on July 16, 2024, 08:25:22 amIt's just that where we need to go, it can't easily release more CO2, because we need to decarbonize everything.But of course, it is an important consideration during the transition that we don't build infrastructure that lets us save miniscule amounts of CO2 emissions where the construction of that infrastructure releases more than whatever ca be saved using that infrastructure.Quote from: Siwastaja on July 16, 2024, 08:25:22 amWell, as I wrote, that depends on how fast we act now. If we act decisively globally now, so that emissions drop drastically fast, then we indeed could stretch the remaining volume over a long time while we figure out how to cheaply decarbonize the rest.On the other hand, if we keep doing things at the current speed, chances are we'll just have to make significant changes to our lifestyle, because our lifestyle can be changed, the reality of the physics of atmospheric heating and the effects that that has on just about everything can not be changed, and if we don't change our lifestyle then, then physics will change it.Quote from: Siwastaja on July 16, 2024, 08:25:22 amI mean, I obviously don't know who specifically you are referring to here, but it's very likely that you are misunderstanding them here.The burning of fossil fules is not sustainable under any circumstances. Mind you, there is no process anymore that forms fossil fuels on earth. Fossil fuels were created because there were no microbes that would digest the organic material before it could undergo the processes that form fossil fuels. That isn't the case any more. Burning fossil fuels therefore unavoidably increases CO2 content of the atmosphere.What they presumably rather mean would be something like "if we switched to sustainable methods, then earth could support n billion people at our living standard". I.e. the resources would be sufficient, but you still have to handle them correctly.Quote from: Siwastaja on July 16, 2024, 08:25:22 amIt's just that we are running out of time, and doubly so if we want to have time left to hopefully solve the last 20% in a reasonably economical way.I mean, it's not completely wrong what you say, in that we obviously shouldn't waste CO2 emissions on stuff that never saves more CO2 than building it emits in the first place. But we absolutely must work on grid storage now, for example. Andalsoon controlling loads, of course. And also on better grid storage, of course. And I guess sodium batteries look kinda promising for grid storage in particular.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 16, 2024, 04:01:09 pm
content: Quote from: zilp on July 16, 2024, 01:35:44 pmIMHO it's rather EU is speedrunning self-destruction. If EU deindustrializes, there won't be less pollution, it would be whatever manufacturing or agriculture moving to countries that do not care about the environment at all.

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2024, 07:13:26 pm
content: There is a limited amount of oil and natural gas and the atmosphere can tolerate a limited amount of CO2. So one the very long run 10-20% of the current emissions is not sustainable. However if the really start to reduce the consumption now, we can gain quite some years with a reduced consumption.The longer we wait, the harder the cuts have to be. So all the delay tactics are a really bad idea. It would really help to start with quite some reducetion fast: e.g. reduce trafic and emissions from cars and planes. A fast and long overdue point would be adding taxes to aviation fuel.I am afraid energy will become more expensive, but keeping the old system as is is also not option.The changes may be inconvenient, but so are rising temperatures and sea level.The oceans can absorb quite some CO2 for several hundred years. So if the atmosphesre is our only point to looks at a reduction to 10-20% may be enough to halt the rise in athmospheric CO2 levels, at least for quite some time. Truely sustainable would be only what the higher CO2 levels add the plant growth and new deposition of carbon. That would be more like 0.1 % of the current emissions (use the 27 k years effective lifetime and some 27 years to double to concentration at current levels).Plastics don't absolutely need oil. They can as well use coal, gas and also biomass as starting material. The use for chemestry may still be one of the more effective ones - oil as fuel is to a large part easier to replace.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2024, 07:39:43 pm
content: The danger of making synthetic hydrocarbons in a non emission neutral way is that it's delaying an inevitable transition. Just continuing to make new lime based cement plants (as opposed to lime/silicate) or new coke based steel plants (as opposed to hydrogen reduction) so you can get CO2 to make synthetic hydrocarbons is going to end up needing CCS to become net zero down the line.If AI doesn't save us, the strength of human civilization is waning due to demographics. This is the best time to create a more sustainable industrial base, hydrogen has the greatest technological readiness.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2024, 08:27:48 pm
content: Quote from: Kleinstein on July 16, 2024, 07:13:26 pmUnfortunately worldwide CO2 emission keep rising in spite of reductions. I don't think we'll see a significant drop in use of fossil fuels any time soon on a global scale.One of the problems is that upcoming economies also want to have the level of luxury most people in the richer parts of the world enjoy. And they don't care about CO2 and other harmfull emissions at all. And they didn't make a mess of the world either even though the poorest are likely to get hit the hardest by changing climate and rising sea levels. This makes it double important to really focus on transitioning to renewables and forms of nuclear power fast and also help / incentivize upcoming economies to do the same.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2024, 09:43:55 pm
content: Quote from: Kleinstein on July 16, 2024, 07:13:26 pmYou cannot categorically say that. There is no evidence that reduced levels are not going to get balanced by other carbon sinks.There is actually evidence of the contrary, there is a global greening going on.If you look at the map, where wasn't a human effort of deforestation (I'm looking at you Brazil) there has been a very large scale increase of forest area just in the last 20-40 years.https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146296/global-green-up-slows-warming#:~:text=Scientists%20say%20that%20global%20greening,the%20surge%20in%20plant%20growth.Now it's obvious that it's bad idea to burn all fossil fuels at once at an accelerated rate. And that storing Carbon in the air is a bad idea. Meanwhile it's also obvious that plants need CO2 for food, and some of them have been near starvation levels. Why? You reduce the pre-industrial levels of CO2 just a bit, and plants just die.I can totally see a scenario where we burn all fossil fuels, and end up with similar global temperature, similar CO2 levels, and the Sahara desert covered with a paradise. That's why I totally believe net zero is not only a bad idea, it's an idea which is born out of incredibly narrow minded inspection of reality.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2024, 09:52:54 pm
content: You are overlooking one thing here: nature doesn't need humans medling with it! CO2 levels have been rising and falling all the time; the amount of carbon available at the earth's surface was enough for the natural ecosystem to work well before the industrialisation began. It has been enough for tens of millions of years.If you look at the projection up to the year 2100 on the website your linked to, you can see a very worrying trend: the permafrost tundras in the northen hemisphere will start to melt. These will emit huge amounts of CO2 and methane once they start to decompose.https://climate.mit.edu/explainers/permafrost

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2024, 11:11:16 pm
content: Apparently, there are those doing amateur ammonia conversions on their own vehicles here in Canada, and saving a ton on our petrol prices.See here:

author: zilp
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2024, 12:31:28 am
content: Quote from: wraper on July 16, 2024, 04:01:09 pmFor one: What is your basis for this opinion?And maybe more importantly: So, what solution do you suggest, and why do think that it would work better than the current direction? Or do you think that nothing bad will happen if we all become "countries that do not care about the environment at all"?

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 17, 2024, 01:05:03 am
content: Quote from: zilp on July 17, 2024, 12:31:28 amThat it's already happening in Germany due to your stupid governmenthttps://www.spiegel.de/international/business/wirtschaftsblunder-why-germany-s-economy-is-flailing-and-what-could-help-a-c5047bf2-0c66-4a8a-bf62-e52baaef0acdAnd EU crusade against farmers (because environment) is absolutely insane, especially during the Ukrainian war that heavily compromised worldwide food supply.QuoteMy solution is doing things that actually work and make economic sense, not play with some very questionable bullshit that only sounds good on promotional papers, and is not even that good if not more harmful to the environment in the grand scheme of things. Spending money on research of unproven things is fine, wasting money on implementing bullshit in real life is not. By shooting yourself in the foot and moving industries (as they become unprofitable to run here) and agriculture to places that do not care about environment, overall things will only will get worse for the environment.

author: zilp
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2024, 01:52:09 am
content: Quote from: tszaboo on July 16, 2024, 09:43:55 pmBut noone is "categorically saying that"!?And what relevance does it have that there is no evidence that reduced levels are not going to get balanced by other carbon sinks? Is your suggestion that we should ignore the predictions of current models until we have rejected with extremely high probability every imaginable potential carbon sink that could maybe turn out to balance emissions if we are really lucky? Do you think that that is a reliable approach to mitigating risks?Quote from: tszaboo on July 16, 2024, 09:43:55 pmI mean, what you are saying here is obviously true, but also pretty unsurprising, isn't it? If arctic regions thaw, you get more vegetation, who would have thought!? (Well, and more effects, but much of it pretty unsurprising.)But notice how nothing in that article says that that in any way contradicted existing climate models.It doesn't say "this leads to lower global warming than predicted". It just says "this leads to lower global warming than if this effect didn't happen".And given how obvious it seems to me that one effect of warming and higher CO2 concentrations would be an increase in vegetation, at least in some areas, and at least up to a certain degree of warming (obviously, at venus level temperatures, that does not hold anymore), I would think that it is extremely unlikely that this is something that people who build climate models hadn't thought of decades ago.Which is to say: What I read in that article is "as anyone whose job is the modeling of the earth's climate has known for decades, increases in vegetation due to warming and CO2 concentrations counteract global warming due to CO2 emissions to some degree, and here is the accumulating evidence that strengthens the confidence that we can have that our modeling of this effect is correct". Or alternatively maybe "... and here is the accumulating evidence that allows us to slightly narrow down some climate model parameters."What I absolutely don't see is that anyone is suggesting that this means that we can emit any significant amount of additional CO2 before we get serious problems vs. what scientists have been saying in the past.So ... what do you think the relevance of this is, and why?Quote from: tszaboo on July 16, 2024, 09:43:55 pmDo you have a source for that and that that is a relevant effect?I mean, I can imagine that there aresomeplants for which this is true, simply because there are all kinds of weird species that fill all kinds of weird niches on this planet, so, sure, probably that one exists, too.But generally, evolution isn't that fast, so it would seem rather surprising to me that somehow any significant part of our global ecosystem could have evolved within 200 years or so to a point where it couldn't survive with the CO2 levels of 200 years ago anymore!?edit: I just noticed that I got confused here. Whether slight reduction below pre-industrial CO2 levels would have such effects ... I have no idea. Also seems kinda unlikely to be a wide-spread phenomenon, but who knows?But ... what is the relevance of this? I mean, if we somehow stopped emissions from fossil sources today, we wouldn't reach pre-industrial levels of CO2 for millenia, so what relevance do the risks of below-pre-industrial levels have for the foreseeable future?!Quote from: tszaboo on July 16, 2024, 09:43:55 pmNow, I'll take your word for it that you can see that scenario. But do you have any evidence to back this up as an in any way likely outcome in reality, rather than just you being able to make up a story?Also, can you back up your belief that net zero is a bad idea that is born out of incredibly narrow minded inspection of reality? Like, have you read up on how scientists have inspected reality to come to their consensus position? Can you show where their inspection of reality is narrow minded and why you think that?Because, if I am being honest, this reads to me more like "I can easily make up some story where things turn out just fine, scientists disagree with that story, therefore, they must have inspected reality very narrow-mindedly". I.e., it seems to me like you have not actually done any work to find out how open-minded scientists are approaching the topic, how much of your ideas they have incorporated into their models, how many of your ideas they have rejected based on empirical evidence, and what that evidence is. I.e., it seems to me like you don't actually know whether they have never considered your ideas because they are too narrow-minded, or whether they have rejected your ideas out of hand because they are too narrow minded, or whether they maybe had the same idea you had, whether they maybe were hopeful that they were the ones who could once and for all prove that CO2 emissions are almost certainly a complete non-problem and we can finally ramp up coal power production as the sure-fire way to create prosperity for everyone, and so, they put in the hard work to test their hypothesis ... and failed.So, I'd be curious to know what you have done to figure out whether scientists are saying what they are saying because they are narrow-minded, or because they have done the work to check whether your ideas would work out, and found that they don't.edit: Also, if you are saying that rising CO2 levels could allow plants to grow in the Sahara ... how would that vegetation then stay alive once the CO2 levels are back down?!

author: zilp
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2024, 02:12:00 am
content: Quote from: wraper on July 17, 2024, 01:05:03 amI am sorry, but could you be a bit more specific? That is many pages of text, and skimming through it, I didn't see anything that was fundamentally new to me, so I'm not really sure it's worth reading it all, and especially I am not sure whether I'd be any wiser as to what specifically you mean, or how that text supports your opinion.Quote from: wraper on July 17, 2024, 01:05:03 amWhy do you think that it is insane? Like, do you understandwhythey are doing it? Can you explain why that's either a bad goal or why the approach that is chosen is not a good one? (And what I mean in particular iswhythey are doing it "for the environment", as I would think that that is not the fundamental motivation.)Quote from: wraper on July 17, 2024, 01:05:03 amDid you notice that you didn't actually say anything of substance?Like, if I were the king of the EU, and I for some reason were convinced that you know the way that we need to go, so I now want to command my underlings to do as you recommend ... I have no fucking clue what I should command.That's a bit of a problem if you want people to follow your arguments, isn't it?

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2024, 05:30:25 am
content: The EU policy on agriculture has nothing to do with hyrogen and little with the transition of energy supply. There is some part with bio-fuels, but that is likely the least problem for the farmers. The point is keeping a healthy environment, though it comes in difficult times.To make a new system work and get adapted also from the developing countries we have to make it work first. This worked reasonably well with PV, that is now used quite a lot also in developing countries because it also makes econominc sense. So they don't really have to go the coal way. To get PV from an expensive low volume high tech to high volume econimical needed quite some money via subesedies. A lot of this initial phase was payed by German electricity consumers and China. Just Germany killed the industry and China added some money there.In part the use of hydrogen for storage may need similar support to get it going and prices down for the systems, though here it also needs the extension of PV and wind, so that there is actually excess to be stored. To me it looks a bit that the support programs miss a bit the 2nd point - more storage only makes sense if there is supply.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2024, 06:53:42 am
content: I could see decentralised PV+hydrogen work in some third world countries soonish. For now PV + battery + hydrogen seasonal storage is around90 cents/kwhat small scale, very expensive obviously but that was using non commoditized components. There are some high volume markets coming online for fuel cells, membraneless electrolysers will be able to work without RO and concrete composite tanks could reduce tank costs too.In parts of Africa diesel generated electricity is >50c to begin with.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2024, 09:12:35 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 16, 2024, 07:57:12 am1) Same as hydrogen2) Fossil fuel plants. Even if we ban it, the rest of the world are still going to burn it anyway, so might as well import it from them. And we are still going use them in gas fired power plants to use up the CH4 during winter, just capture that.3) So does Hydrogen combustion. Most of the NOx emissions are significantly reduced in new power plants, because they set the burning temperature optimal. In fact we could reduce NOx emissions probably by a factor of 10 if we would convert coal with electricity to CH4 before we burn it.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2024, 10:22:49 am
content: The only substantial advantage of renewable methane relative to hydrogen 30 years from now, is that it can be stored in old gasfields, hydrogen perhaps not. Obviously right now there's a ton of natural gas infrastructure, but on a long enough timeline that can be repurposed and written off.Liquid methane is not substantially easier to deal with than liquid hydrogen.Need to convert to propane or even better methanol to really get something easy to work with.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 17, 2024, 11:23:03 am
content: Quote from: zilp on July 17, 2024, 02:12:00 amIf you just scroll through it, you'll notice infographics that German industrialization is down. Something in particular, for example:QuoteQuoteQuoteQuoteQuoteBecause surely unaffordable food prices and starvation of the poorest in the moment of crisis is more desirable than using a bit of fertilizer. And yet again, food production will move to places that do not care about pollution at all (because all people want to eat, doh) and be way less sustainable than what's currently in EU. Not to say importing food from thousands of kilometers away causes a lot of pollution by itself.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2024, 11:25:21 am
content: Quote from: Marco on July 17, 2024, 10:22:49 amEmpty gas fields are perfectly suitable to store hydrogen. And natural gas infrastructure is already suitable for hydrogen because the operators looked ahead for possible uses of the infrastructure in a non-fossil fuel future. Every coupling & pipe going into the ground, is suitable for hydrogen.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2024, 12:20:14 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on July 17, 2024, 10:22:49 amThey make about 50 LNG carrier ships per year. One made by Daewoo has the carry capacity of 80.000 Tons.In 2022 they completed the world's first H2 carrier ship. The total capacity of it is ~80 Tons.It's not even ballpark close.And then there are the inerting, filling, emptying procedures, don't even get started on that.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2024, 12:37:40 pm
content: The demand isn't there yet, everyone is making their own hydrogen from natural gas. Designs for much larger ships already exist and are not substantially larger than LNG ships of the same capacity.With the same insulation liquid hydrogen only gets 1.5x the heat than methane, it's not a fundamentally different problem.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2024, 12:48:39 pm
content: Quote from: tszaboo on July 17, 2024, 12:20:14 pmIn the late 1800s there where millions of horse + carriages and only a few cars in the world. People reasoned cars would never become popular as horse + carriage have been used succesfully for thousands of years already

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2024, 01:12:34 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 17, 2024, 12:48:39 pmThe first bicycle was invented in 1839 and it had two wheels with a seat between.The unicycle was invented in 1869 with just one wheel. It never really seen wide adaptation.Similarly methane with two hydrogen pairs with a carbon in-between has wide adaptation while Hydrogen without the seat is something that only wierdos want. See I can also make tonge in the cheek comments.

author: zilp
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2024, 01:17:47 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on July 17, 2024, 11:23:03 amThat doesn't support your claim that we're "speedrunning self-destruction". Even if we assume that industrialization is down, that on its own says nothing about how things will continue from here.If we just lost some extremely energy intensive industry, say, then it doesn't follow that therefore, most other industries will die. It might as well be that that's a handful of products that we'll buy elsewhere now, and nothing else changes.Also, it doesn't even follow that current policy is bad. It might just as well be that the current lack of Russian gas combined with the extreme dependence on Russian gas that was caused by the policies of past governments caused the loss of some industries, but current policies will reduce energy prices in the future and thus keep the remaining industry alive just fine.So, there is a lot more work for you to do to actually substantiate your claim.As for your example quotes:Quote from: wraper on July 17, 2024, 11:23:03 amSo, how do we know that these aren't just self-serving?I mean, it's not exactly unheard of that industry will threaten to relocate or will just make exaggerated claims of problems they are facing in order to get subsidies, whether those are actually needed or not, or will claim that some political decision is the reason why they are shutting down some factory that they are shutting down for entirely unrelated reasons, in order to shift blame away from themselves, or possibly even to make politicians look bad that they'd like to see voted out.Quote from: wraper on July 17, 2024, 11:23:03 amNow, this is an interesting one. Actually, this description is kinda missing the craziest part. The fundamental problem is that Germany has only a single electricity price zone. I.e., electricity, as traded on the exchange, costs the same, no matter where in Germany it is sourced and where it is delivered to. Now, when the grid capacity is insufficient to actually move the electricity, the source is throttled (as mentioned, often wind turbines in the north) but still paid for the electricity (because it's not their fault that the grid can't move the electricity that they've sold), and the electricity then is generated using power plants closer to the buyer, usually gas power plants. The (usually very high) costs of that generation then are paid via grid charges ("redispatch costs") that all electricity buyers have to pay. So, the buyer pays the cheap wind power price (sort of, it's actually the merit order price, but this usually happens when there is a lot of renewable generation, and thus the prices are low), but actually gets delivered gas power that's paid for with grid charges and that causes a lot of CO2 emissions. Also, it's not uncommon that pumped hydro storage plants in Austria are the buyers of this electricity, so, effectively, gas power from peaker plants is used to charge pumped hydro storage plants ... which makes no sense at all, really, as the gas peaker plants obviously could just supply power directly when the pumped hydro plants discharge later. If those plants were actually charged with wind power from the north, then that would actually be perfect, of course ... but that just doesn't work with the grid as it currently exists.However, none of this is in any significant way the fault of what you called our dumb government, by which you presumably meant our current federal government. The problem that our grid is insufficient to move electricity along the north-south axis isn't exactly new, and that this problem is getting worse and worse with increasing renewables build-out is also not exactly surprising. In fact, planning of the conection started some ten years ago because of the obivous needs. But for some reason, conservative politicians in particular had lots of objections, and Bavaria in particular (traditionally has a conservative government since forever) didn't want to have any of it within their borders, and so, planning took a long time. Now, under the current federal government, construction finally started.Also, the conservative government of Bavaria in particular has been hindering the construction of wind turbines with onerous requirements for a long time, which further worsens the problem, as there is little renewable power in the south when it's dark and windy. So, not only did they hinder the contstruction of the grid connection to deliver wind power from the north to the south, they also hindered construction of wind power in the south.Well, and also, it is largely a result of conservative politics that we only have a single price zone in Germany. I mean, the obvious market-based solution would be to simply split up Germany into multiple electricity price zones, then electricity would be cheap in the north and expensive in the south, so there would be some incentive to build grid connections and generation capacity in the south. Instead, currently, people (and businesses) in the areas with lots of generation capacities and good grid connections are forced to pay for the crazy scheme that I described above, where they subsidize in particular gas power generation in the south that is necessary because of lacking grid connections to the south.If there ever has been a federal government that is actively working on actually solving these problems rather than on sabotaging the build-out of renewables and grid infrastructure, it's the current one. While they are a bit of a shit-show, too, that's one of the things they are actually doing reasonably well, and certainly better than preceding ones.Quote from: wraper on July 17, 2024, 11:23:03 amThat doesn't answer my question, does it?

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 17, 2024, 01:35:43 pm
content: Quote from: zilp on July 17, 2024, 01:17:47 pmDo you want me to rationalize irrational bullshit pulled out of an ass by people who live in cities and have no idea about agriculture, or what? I answered why it's a bad idea, because it heavily compromises food supply with no large scale environmental benefit.

author: zilp
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2024, 01:50:29 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on July 17, 2024, 01:35:43 pmNo, I would like you to answer the question that I asked.

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2024, 01:55:10 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on July 17, 2024, 12:37:40 pmThe heat flow may be 1.5x time higher (the actual number can vary because quite some of the properties chance from 20 K to some 120 K). However it takes way less heat to voporize hydrogen and it is more tricky to produce the much lower temperature after it is 20 K instead of some 120 K, so only 1/6 the temperature. So the heat reaching the liquid hydrogen has more of an effect. The energy density per volume is also high with methane - so less volume needed and thus less area to insulate.There is a good reason the SpaceX use liquid methane and not liquid hydrogen for there rocket.Still the step from hydrogen to artificial methan looses additional energy. For some uses it can be worth it, for others probably not. This is especially for use in fuel cells to get electricity back - this works much better with hydrogen. Chances are we will need both.The production of nitorgen fertilizer uses quite some hydrogen. With currently much of that produced from natral gas the price for the fertizer went up quite a bit. Having hydrogen production from electricity instead could have reduced the price hike. Anyway there are alternatives to aritificial nitorgen fertilizer - some plants (e.g. beans or peanuts and even a rare corn type) can get around without and work with backteria to capture nitorgen from the air. There is also the point of how to use excess biomass: when used for bio-methan more of the contained nitrogen stays available than when it is burned. Reducing the use of fertilzer in Germany more helps the global food supply as more is available for the poor countries and in the EU much of the soil has plenty of nitorgen anyway. So a little less would not be that bad. If the good supply is a concern a big leverage is to eat less meat and more plants.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 17, 2024, 02:14:24 pm
content: Quote from: Kleinstein on July 17, 2024, 01:55:10 pmNitrogen fixating legumes are not nearly enough to replace nitrogen fertilizer.QuoteYou literally described killing own agriculture so others can take the niche instead. Do you think farmers overuse fertilizer? They use as needed because it costs quite a bit of money. Nitrogen in soil is a temporary thing, if you grow produce, nitrogen and other elements are taken out and most of European soils are quite poor actually. These dumbasses want to reduce cow numbers too, and guess what, if you don't want to use mineral fertilizers, you need cow dung instead. And BTW many of poor soils cannot even be reasonably used for anything other than for cattle grazing, of which they want to get rid of.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2024, 02:16:39 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on July 17, 2024, 02:14:24 pmMost of the agriculture in the EU needs subsidies anyways in order to be profitable. Either let real business people run the farms or shut the farms down.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 17, 2024, 02:32:29 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 17, 2024, 02:16:39 pmIronically Netherlands have the most advanced and sustainable agriculture in the world and your government tries to kill it real hard.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2024, 02:45:01 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on July 17, 2024, 02:32:29 pmMost advanced: yes, sustainable: not by a long shot! After the USA, the Netherlands is the second largest exporter of agricultural products in the world. It is sheer madness.

author: zilp
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2024, 03:05:15 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on July 17, 2024, 02:14:24 pmYes, they do, because, no, it doesn't.We do have problems with increased nitrate levels in ground water and over-fertilized bodies of surface water (leading to algae booms, which lead to lack of oxygen, which leads to aquatic life dying). Obviously, that is not the result of farmers only using as much fertilizers as their crops use up.The reason is in particular that they are fertilizing with manure. Which there is too much of. In fact, it gets exported from the Netherlands to Germany, because the use is restricted in the Netherlands due to similar problems there.So, yes, farmers do over-fertilize because that's how they get rid of manure.Now, maybe that is different in Latvia, I have no idea. But over-fertilization absolutely is a thing that exists.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2024, 03:20:22 pm
content: Quote from: zilp on July 17, 2024, 03:05:15 pmIts getting quite common to see fertilizer being spread in a selective manner under GPS control, based on an assessment of exactly where the crops were good or bad in the last planting cycle. Framers have known for decades that they need to get their fertilizer use down, while keeping the fertility high enough to get a good crop. Technology is now catching up to that need.As for fertilizer costs, the Ukraine war's effect on fertilizer costs has been a big shock to farming, so I don't think the costs are low. It is estimated that half the nitrogen atoms in your body have been through the Haber process. Synthetic fertilizers are a huge deal. They were a saviour to the farming industry in a number of countries, who were surviving on things like guano before that, and it was running out. You can't feed 8 billion people on food produced by manure alone.

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2024, 03:38:18 pm
content: In parts of Europe (e.g. Netherlands, northern Germany) there is just to many farm animals and thus excess manure. In these areas they really overdo it with fertilizer. The animals are to a large part feed with imported soy and similar. For these parts it absolutely makes sense to reduce the amount of cattle and pigs. The cows to a large parts are just feed inside, so no normal grazing. Those high volume milk producing cows can not even live on grass alone and they need higher energy feed.It is stupid to transport soy from Brazil to Germany to feed pigs and cows and than send the meat and cheese to China, especially with the thing economically only working because of added tax money to support the farmers.There is definitely some over-regulation effecting the farmers in the EU, but this has nothing to do with hydrogen economy.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2024, 03:40:48 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on July 17, 2024, 03:20:22 pmYou'd have to completely re-engineer the sewage system worldwide.Humans aren't very good at recycling.