Biden's hydrogen bombshell leaves Europe in the dust

[RandySF]

European leaders have devoted tens of billions of dollars toward encouraging production of hydrogen, a clean-burning fuel that advocates say will create jobs and help fight climate change.

But now, many of those jobs will be going to the United States instead.

The clean energy subsidies that undergird President Joe Biden’s climate agenda have just prompted one Norwegian manufacturer to choose Michigan, not Europe, as the site of a nearly $500 million factory that will produce the equipment needed to extract hydrogen from water. And other European-based companies are being tempted to follow suit, people involved in the continent’s hydrogen efforts say — making the universe’s most abundant substance the latest focus of the transatlantic trade battle on green energy.

The Norwegian firm, Nel, announced its decision in May, nine months after Congress approved Biden’s flagship climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act. The move takes 500 new jobs to the other side of the Atlantic, despite the European Union’s efforts to position itself as the obvious place for clean tech investment.



https://www.politico.com/news/2023/07/05/biden-hydrogen-europe-00104024

[MiHale]

1. You don't see many "My Governor is an Idiot" signs anymore...wonder why...

Luring Nel is a major early coup. The company is one of Europe’s largest manufacturers of electrolyzers for hydrogen production, and its Michigan gigafactory will be one of the largest in the world.

“Hydrogen is one of the fuels for the future,” Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat who has worked with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to bring in green investment, said in an interview. “We want to locate all kinds of different alternative technologies here.”

[Kaleva]

3. One local person took his "My Governor is an Idiot" sign down

[multigraincracker]

11. Haven't seen one of those signs in a year or so.

I’d put up a My Governor I’d a Genius sign if I could find one now.

[MiHale]

42. On one of the last holdouts sign...

,His neighbor crossed out idiot and painted genius.. they’re good friends it was all good. It was on M-65 heading north. This happened last summer. He kept the “corrected” sign up for a little.

[Kaleva]

53. It was a few weeks ago when I noticed he took his down.

[MiHale]

45. 👍👍

[Johnny2X2X]

10. She's bringing manufacturing back to this state at a pace that is truly incredible

Of course the village idiots in some places have fought it due to some of the comanies she's brought to the state having ties to China. There's a massive battery plant they want to build near Big Rapids that would create thousands of good paying permanent jobs, but the racists are up in arms over the fact that the Korean company who is going to build it has funding from China. It's their new red scare, as if we haven't been building Chinese owned factories in the US for decades.

This is a small city that needs good jobs more than anything, it's one of those Northern Michigan cities that has really suffered under Reagonomics and could really use the influx of cash and jobs. But the Xenophobes are stopping these new jobs from coming. It's maddening to watch people destroy their own futures, which they'll then blame Biden for.

[Tom Rinaldo]

12. A quick way to cripple our economy in favor of China's would be...

to allow China to dominate manufacturing of computer chips and hi tech batteries. Then they could cut off exports to the U.S. in an international crisis. The more batteries and chips we produce here the stronger our national security. In an emergency the federal government can take control of factories located on our soil to keep production rolling

[Johnny2X2X]

20. And like it or not

China providing direct investment into the US is good for both our economy and our relationship with China. And jobs are jobs, rural Michiganders have been decimated by Conservative economics and need good paying jobs to return to their small towns, Whitmer is helping that happen, but their Xenophobia is so strong they're literally protesting to not have jobs because their party has made "Jina" the next big thing to fear.

These people have spent decades whining about how, "they took er jerbs!!!" and now their jobs are coming back and a wave of a hand from Trump and the Far Right GOP and they're ready to say no to their own livlihoods returning. It's Stockholm syndrome or something, these people will take food out of their own cupboards and clothing off the backs of their own children in pursuit of hate.

[Beartracks]

18. Republicans will fight anything that would be good for Americans...

... if the credit for it would accrue to Democrats.

===============

[MiHale]

48. 👍

[jaxexpat]

2. Whatever, it's logical to manufacture pollution eliminating technology........

amidst the people who generate the most pollution per capita in the world.

[Lonestarblue]

4. I rarely use Facebook these days, but I just posted this article.

I know many people have quit Facebook, but in light of the mainstream media’s refusal to cover much of what the Biden administration has done, posting to the public on Facebook is one way we can publicize the information. For those still on Twitter or Mastodon (which I’m not), please consider sharing this article with a note about 500 new jobs in the US instead of Europe.

[PatSeg]

7. That's a good idea

[bucolic_frolic]

5. My sense is we'll solve the energy problem

but resource scarcity, cost, recycling will make batteries and storage the limiting factor in distribution.

[DFW]

6. Hydrogen, the ultimate fuel

There is no shortage of it, and it burns clean. But it isn‘t exactly „produced.“ Hydrogen is an element. It readily combines with other elements, such as oxygen, to form common compounds, such as H2O, or water. It‘s the separating and storing of the hydrogen that is the trick. It also burns fiercely if left to do so out of control. You probably know about The Hindenburg disaster of 1937 at Lakehurst, N.J., as a major example of that.

So, the technology to extract, store, and burn it under completely safe and reliable circumstances is the real trick. Lure pioneers in that technology to our shores, and you gain years of headstart in hydrogen-as-fuel technology. If it were easy, the price of gasoline would have fallen back to 75¢ a gallon by now. Think of taking green grass, and trying to separate it back to yellow and blue. You have to know what you‘re doing.

[NNadir]

16. It is a huge thermodynamic loser, a filthy fuel.

It is disastrous to invest money in energy storage when primary energy is increasingly dirty.

[Think. Again.]

23. Yes..

We must invest much more in non-CO2 energy generation as well as non-CO2 energy storage.

[jmowreader]

108. What they may be going for...

There are a lot of wind farms that have many of their turbines feathered because the power they could generate isn't needed right now. With electrolysis to generate hydrogen they can use all that idled capacity.

[NNadir]

113. Alternatively, they can let that wilderness destroying junk rot, as it does rather quickly...

...and build a nuclear plant that will last 80 years and will require no land and mass intensive redundancy but only offer reliability and predictability on a few acres of land.

[jmowreader]

121. I'd prefer that...

…but there are way too many people who have been trained to hate nuclear energy.

[Think. Again.]

21. There are a few...

...examples of other combustible materials combusting too.

After all, Hydrogen's flammabilty is one of the reasons it works as an alternative to fossil fuels.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

68. A minor nit: The Hindenburg was painted with rocket fuel.

Most of the burning was not from hydrogen.

[Hugin]

75. I recently watched a very good documentary...

On the disaster. They did acknowledge that fact.

According to the researchers, the critical piece wasn't the hydrogen, it was the light rain falling in NJ and on the ropes grounding the craft. It caused massive arcing all throughout the skin and superstructure. The new fact that I didn't know before was that the skin was electrically isolated from the superstructure using wood dowels. Granted, they weren't big enough gaps to prevent the sparks that were generated.

They did a demo in the show I simply couldn't argue with. The researcher set up a circuit using skin he'd made, a model of the superstructure underneath, and a wet rope connected to ground. Then he sprayed water on the skin and boom.

[orthoclad]

115. Yep. Writing

at the same time.
The burning H rose AWAY from the craft. The skin & coating burned WITH the craft.

[orthoclad]

114. Hindenburg...

The Hindenburg is burned into the US mind, due to the dramatic press coverage of its last flight. But think - it burned, not exploded, and settled to ground slowly enough for some passengers and crew to survive, even though the ship was poorly designed. How many airliner crashes can say that?

The flames in this famous photo are rapidly rising, AWAY from the airship. Hydrogen rises.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenburg_disaster

"Hydrogen fires are less destructive to immediate surroundings than gasoline explosions because of the buoyancy of diatomic hydrogen, which causes the heat of combustion to be released upwards more than circumferentially as the leaked mass ascends in the atmosphere; hydrogen fires are more survivable than fires of gasoline or wood.[28] The hydrogen in the Hindenburg burned out within about ninety seconds. "

The fabric of the skin, which was coated in a flammable resin, contributed to the fire, and may even have started the fire.

Anything which stores energy is hazardous. Maybe we should use less energy.

My point is that, Hindenburg bouyancy application notwithstanding, hydrogen is at least no more flame-hazardous than other common fuels we accept the risk for. Hydrogen is also WAY less toxic and polluting than fossil and nuclear, and as a means of storing energy, MUCH cleaner than batteries.

I'd love to see properly-designed hydrogen airships come back. I would trade jet travel gladly.

[James48]

8. please tell me they are not planning on using Michigan's Great Lakes water for this.

H20 in the ocean is fine- but using the fresh water of the Great Lakes is not a good idea. We have a limited amount of fresh water, and turning it all into fuel for export isn't sustainable for the long term.

[multigraincracker]

13. All the water in the Gtest Lakes

Eventually drains out to the ocean. Also lots of ground water in the state.

[roamer65]

29. +10000

Damn straight.

[Kaleva]

56. How much flows into the Atlantic and how much evaporates?

[caraher]

69. My read on the article was that it was about manufacturing the equipment

If you are going to waste electricity to split hydrogen from water, you would want to do it near the places you are using it. The plan is not to make a huge hydrogen production facility in Michigan.

And as others have noted, even if you did you're not going to drain the Great Lakes

[orthoclad]

116. They're building the equipment there, not

electrolyzing the H there.

In any case, a little water makes a lot of H, which turns back into water when oxidized in fuel cells or burned.

Think of the H as a non-polluting battery. It stores the energy used to make it from water, then turns back into water when used. It's not like mining out a seam of coal.

[Hugin]

9. I have long advocated for a hydrogen economy. n/t

[NNadir]

14. Hydrogen is not clean energy. It is overwhelmingly made from fossil fuels at a significant...

...thermodynamic loss.

This is the worst energy policy of a Democratic President since Jimmy Carter's coal to gasoline syn fuels program.

[Think. Again.]

17. Hydrogen does NOT have to be made using fossil fuels....

Hydrogen can be and IS made completely CO2-free.

The only reason we do use fossil fuels to make Hydrogen is because we have not yet built out enough solar, wind, nuclear, and other non-CO2 generation sources.

W need to build out much more of all non-CO2 energy sources as quickly as possible.

[NNadir]

28. Soothsaying does not substitute from reality. Hydrogen IS a dirty fuel.

I overwhelmingly it is made by steam reforming on gas, oil, and in China, coal.

[Think. Again.]

35. Yes...

..and building out more non-CO2 emitting energy sources to displace gas, oil, and coal will stop that.

[Trust_Reality]

71. "Hydrogen is a dirty fuel"???

Sounds like nonsense to me. Who do you work for?

[BannonsLiver]

73. They do their own research

[NNadir]

79. Which part of this picture is mysterious?

The caption:

Figure 1. Global current sources of H2 production (a), and H2 consumption sectors (b).

Progress on Catalyst Development for the Steam Reforming of Biomass and Waste Plastics Pyrolysis Volatiles: A Review Laura Santamaria, Gartzen Lopez, Enara Fernandez, Maria Cortazar, Aitor Arregi, Martin Olazar, and Javier Bilbao, Energy & Fuels 2021 35 (21), 17051-17084]
I referred to this graphic, and reproduced it, discussing a paper in the journal I discussed above here: The current sources and uses of hydrogen.

I have always included the laws of thermodynamics is the reality I trust, since these laws have proved inviolable pretty much since their discovery.

By the way, there is no evidence whatsoever that the 4% of hydrogen produced by electrolysis is provided by clean energy, since electricity is also made by burning fossil fuels and dumping the waste directly into the planetary atmosphere, despite lots of fantasies to the contrary.

I post this graphic all the time in response to the nonsense statement that hydrogen is "green."

[Think. Again.]

81. Hydrogen is only as dirty as the energy source used to make it.

"Green" Hydrogen is made from non-CO2 emitting energy sources.

[NNadir]

125. Yes, and it's made from dirty fossil fuels.

[Think. Again.]

130. No, not always...

...only where and when fossil fuels are used to make it.

Which is why we must build out much more non-CO2 energy generation sources like wind and solar.

[NNadir]

140. An honest person would not substitute reference to trivial...

...Potemkin unaudited hydrogen plants, marketed by "hydrogen will save us" salespeople here and elsewhere, for the reality of 99+% of hydrogen production on a burning planet.

The unit of mass is the metric ton. If one has data showing that even 1% of this otherwise filthy fuel is produced using the already useless solar and wind scam, that remains fossil fuel dependent, that would be interesting.

Experience teaches however that handwavers are notorious for being unable to support their assertions with numbers, data or references.

Blank assertions by contrast devoid of numbers, data and references are bullshit.

Facts can be quantified.

Facts matter. Bullshit is bullshit.

[Think. Again.]

141. An honest person...

...would not make a blanket statement such as "Hydrogen is not clean energy, it is made from dirty fossil fuels" about a process (the "making" of hydrogen) that can be carried out using any source of electricity at all, dirty or clean.

[NNadir]

142. Because I rely on numbers, references and data I have looked them up and have them.

I'll post them this evening in the E&E forum where chanting hydrogen sales people parade their indifference to environmental reality, climate change and human lives.

One of the publications I will cite has just been published in 2023, where planetary atmospheric CO2 concentration levels hit 424 ppm after 50 years of hydrogen soothsaying.

Of course the paper engages in soothsaying, but it also reports reality.

[Think. Again.]

143. please be sure to include...

...the planetary atmospheric CO2 concentration levels after 70 years of our use of nuclear power plants.

[NNadir]

144. Oh sure. I'll be happy to discuss how morons sabotaged...

Last edited Thu Jul 6, 2023, 02:10 PM - Edit history (1)

...a viable life saving industry that might saved hundreds of millions of lives but for the successful marketing of fear and ignorance, and oh yeah, thermodynamic nonsense claiming stupidly that hydrogen is primary energy stopped this vital industry in its tracks.

It would be untoward not to include how pernicious marketing and the willful destruction of clean infrastructure by dumb people left the world in flames for the 35 years since the United States built more than 100 nuclear reactors in 25 years while providing the cheapest electricity in the industrial world.

We wouldn't and shouldn't expect these mindless radiation paranoids who show no evidence of familiarity with the contents of the scientific literature to have the moral decency to apologize for their role in this willful destruction of life saving infrastructure, but as the results are in and the planet's in flames because of appeals to fear and ignorance, the story needs to be told, or in my case, repeated, because as I'm literate and am always willing to discuss why this matter.

I'm fully aware of what happened. The solar and wind fools spent all their time attacking nuclear energy while not giving a rat's ass, except for disingenuous lip service, to the vast destruction associated with fossil fuels.

They clearly do not now and never have given serious attention to air pollution or climate change, and still they prattle on.

Hence the cheering for that coal dependent hell Germany and that offshore oil and gas drilling hell Demark.

The planet's in flames because fear and ignorance won.

Congrats to those responsible.

[Think. Again.]

145. I agree...

...morons who try to sabotage efforts to build-out non-CO2 sources of energy should be called out and corrected at every opportunity.

[NNadir]

146. Many morons in my experience have no idea of what CO2 free energy is.

Usually they're of a type who have no knowledge of what data, numbers or references are.

They sold the world a bill of snake oil that caused climate change to accelerate.

[Think. Again.]

147. Or...

...the fossil fuel industry went all out to discourage any non-CO2 sources of energy at the same time that the global population doubled.

[Kid Berwyn]

19. So, it should go to new nuclear plants?

We only need about 15,000 new ones to power the planet.

Gee, that comes out to, what’s 15,000 times 10 billion dollars each? Don’t forget to carry the radiation disposal…

[getagrip_already]

24. That's pretty 1950s thinking right there.....

Nuclear tech has gotten much smaller, safer, and cleaner. Boring stuff. But most science is.

Scary and sensational is much more interesting.

[Kid Berwyn]

27. So, where do you store the spent fuel?

TEPCO stored Fukushima’s plutonium-oxide atop Reactor Three until it blew up.

Now they’re draining their overflowing tank farm into the Pacific.

Those are the facts.

[getagrip_already]

55. Fukushima is old tech..... it's 3 mile island tech...

But to answer your question with a question, where do you store spent carbon and other toxic byproducts of combustion?

Even solar panel construction and disposal has hazardous waste considerations.

Everything in engineering is a risk evaluation. Focusing on one scary element is not productive. You have to look at life cycles and systems.

Overall, nuclear power has been safe. The exceptions have been blatant examples of corporate stupidity and greed. But you can see that in the oil industry with greater impacts.

You could point to what russia is about to intentionally do at npp as an example of what could happen, but they could just as easily detonate dirty bombs over populated areas.

[reACTIONary]

89. +10 nt

[getagrip_already]

57. Here is one direction nuclear power is going...

Smaller, decentralized, safer.

[reACTIONary]

91. Storage of spent fuel is a....

..... political problem (NAMBY + FUD), not a technical problem.

[electric_blue68]

122. So how Is nuclear waste safely stored? Particularly Uranium 235 & 238

With half lives of millions of years.

You also do know that some Native American lands, as well as probably several State areas out south west have had toxic issues for decades bc of uranium tailings post mining improper, lazy storage methods.

[reACTIONary]

148. Here is a pretty detailed explination, along with...

... pictures and diagrams.

https://www.world-nuclear.org/our-association/publications/technical-positions/how-is-used-nuclear-fuel-managed.aspx

Here is a much lighter "fast facts" treatment:

https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-nuclear-fuel

[Tikki]

25. This..what Kid Berwyn said..

The Tikkis

[NNadir]

30. It would be wasteful to use clean nuclear plants to make hydrogen using...

...electrolysis.

One would need to open a science book to know that.

If we increase the exergy of nuclear plants by process intensification, it would take about ten thousand plants to provide around 700 Exajoules of energy a year, eliminating all forms of dirty energy, including the fossil fuels used for the hydrogen bait and switch scam.

About 70 million lives would be saved each decade.

Unfortunately fear and ignorance has won the day and left the planet in flames. People dying all over world gmfrom extreme heat because antinukes won their pernicious argument that Fikushima meant more that the destruction of the planetary atmosphere.

Congrats to all the fossil fuel aficionados and their successful marketing of the fossil fuel status quo.

[Kid Berwyn]

31. Only 10,000 plants needed?

That's a relief.

Don't mind being called ignorant, but fearful gets under my skin.

[NNadir]

34. Fear and ignorance are powerful and frankly deadly realities.

Fear of nuclear energy kills far more people than nuclear energy ever killed.

The commercial nuclear industry is 70 rears old. How many people have been killed by it, and how does this compare to the 7 million people who die each year from air pollution because fear and ignorance have prevailed over decency?

[Kid Berwyn]

44. We really don't have much data from independent investigators, do we?

Governments and industry agree, though: there isn't a problem.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26638017/

Except when there is. Then they lie.

[Think. Again.]

36. There is no question...

..that we need portable and stored energy sources such as Hydrogen.

[reACTIONary]

93. Hydrogen is not very portable or storable due to...

... its small atomic size. It leaks out of just about anything you might contain it in, especially since it isn't liquid and has to be stored as a pressurized gas.

[Think. Again.]

95. That is false.

Hydrogen is, and has always been, stored and transported in tanks that contain it without leakage.

[reACTIONary]

98. Hydrogen storage and distribution is, and always has been...

... a challenging engineering problem. It is one of the principle reasons that, despite the attention paid to the promise of the "hydrogen economy" over the decades since the 1940's, that promise has not been realized.

The chapter highlights two principal challenges in containing hydrogen gas using structural materials: hydrogen permeation through the structure and hydrogen-induced degradation of structural material properties. These challenges are ultimately linked to the relatively small atomic size of hydrogen compared with other gases, which gives hydrogen high mobility in materials, enabling both permeation and changes in mechanical properties of the material.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B978184569270450003X

Here is a survey article that gives a good overview of hydrogen storage and distribution.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360319919310195

[Think. Again.]

100. Here's a more recent article...

...on the advances being made now that there is market demand...

https://spectra.mhi.com/4-ways-of-storing-hydrogen-from-renewable-energy

From the article:

It’s clear that unleashing hydrogen’s potential for delivering truly decarbonized societies and economies will depend on identifying the most suitable storage method for each application. And it’s not only about the technical possibilities — any approach has to be economically viable.

But science does not stand still: scientists at Lancaster University in the UK have discovered a new material that can store four times more hydrogen in the same volume as current fuel cell technologies. It also doesn’t require external heating and cooling. While the research focus was on hydrogen-fueled cars, the implications of this discovery may ultimately go further to help open up a mass market for hydrogen.

[reACTIONary]

103. Its definetly a problem that needs solving, and I'm glad that...

... there are folks working on it and making progress.

[reACTIONary]

90. +10 nt

[NNadir]

43. What's the cost of climate change? We squandered over three trillion...

...dollars in this century on solar and wind garbage for no result other than the acceleration of climate change and a planet in flames and people dying all over the world from extreme heat.

[Think. Again.]

58. Climate Change is increasing...

...due to increased CO2 emissions from the increased use of fossil fuels, which is due to increased population and economic growth, and an insufficient supply of non-CO2 energy sources to displace the use of fossil fuels.

We must build out much more solar, wind, nuclear, and other non-CO2 energy sources to displace the use of fossil fuels, or reduce our energy consumption, to see a decrease in CO2 emmissions.

[NNadir]

77. The question was what is the cost of climate change?

It wasn't a question asking for specious unreferenced platitudes about the cause of climate change being the existence of impoverished people.

I note that contempt for realistic solutions has left the planet in flames and extreme temperatures killing people, particularly people who can't afford aitlr conditioners. I actually don't believe that the people are responsible for climate change, and I doubt killing them because they're "too expensive" will address the problem, but one can never account for the ethical purview of people who value their ethically bankrupt and intellectually bankrupt concern with pennies above human lives.

Suppose that we restored the nuclear manufacturing willfully desroyed infrastructure destroyed here in service to fear and ignorance to the level of the Chinese, who just completed a nuclear plant in Pakistan?

Would the United States then be able to do what it did in the 20th century, build more than 100 nuclear reactors in 25 years while providing the lowest electricity prices in the industrialized world?

After all as the climate scientist Jim Hansen showed in 2013 these reactors, many still working today saved close to 2 million lives.

If one wishes to evade this question by changing the subject, perhaps we can return to the other subject about which antinukes couldn't care less, climate change.

Let me state the question again, with a literal elaboration:

What is the cost of climate change, in part driven by specious wishful thinking, denial and fear mongering?

[Think. Again.]

82. The cost of climate change is incalculable.

[NNadir]

86. I was asking the antinuke who said 10,000 reactors at 10 billion dollars each was "too expensive."

I wasn't asking an antinuke who I already know doesn't know how to produce numbers to do so. Unsurprisingly the antinuke I do know can't produce a number, any more than the antinuke can't produce a number of people killed by radiation that the antinuke says is "dangerous."

10,000 times 10 billion is 100 trillion, about 30 times more than was squandered on solar and wind in this century with the result that climate change is accelerating, the planet is on fire, and people are dropping dead in the street from extreme temperatures.

There is, of course, no reason that reactors should cost 10 billion each other than the willful destruction in service to ignorance of nuclear manufacturing infrastructure, but the question is still valid, comparing 100 trillion with the destruction of the whole planet.

[Think. Again.]

88. You constantly use the cost of non-CO2 energy as a reason not to continue bulding it.

[NNadir]

92. There is one, and only one, form of CO2 minimized energy.

I have noted that there are very uneducated people flying around here who don't understand this.

I compared the cost of energy that has been proved to have been useless against climate change, no matter how many chanting sloganeers who can't understand or produce numbers, with the cost of building stuff that does work, despite whining and crying from people who can't show that the stuff that does work has a spectacular record of not killing people.

The solar and wind junk is ineffective against climate change, and the numbers show this.

Numbers don't lie but there is very little use in explaining as much to people who can't produce them.

The comparator is here, referring to the costs of the Vogtle Nuclear Plants about which a previous "I'm not an antinuke" antinuke whined, after spending a lot of time arguing that nuclear manufacturing infrastructure should be destroyed.

Where would we be with CO2 without our 3.063 trillion dollar solar and wind infrastructure?

Now, there is no reason that the Vogtle reactors should have cost 30 billion dollars other than the nuclear manufacturing infrastructure in this country was destroyed by chanting morons who claimed "nuclear waste" is deadly, although none of these chanting morons can show that the in 70 year history of storage of used nuclear fuel has killed as many people as will die in the next six hours from air pollution (never mind climate change), about 4500 people.

Now I certainly understand that there are people around here, some of whom have shown up relatively recently to sell hydrogen, who think that vast expenditures on solar and wind is about climate change, but this claim is an after the fact add on.

If one scratch the surface of any "I'm not an antinuke" antinuke here - they're a rather obvious and repetitious bunch saying the same shit over and over and over while the planet burns - you will see what really matters to them, attacks on nuclear energy.

The climate scientist Jim Hansen, famously calculated using numbers in March of 2013, about 70 million air pollution deaths ago, and about 25 ppm of new carbon dioxide ago, how much carbon dioxide nuclear energy has prevented from being dumped into the atmosphere despite being attacked by moral and intellectual Lilliputians.

Hansen calculated that nuclear power prevented about 64 Gigatons of carbon dioxide, about two years worth while we all wait for the solar and wind miracle that did not come, is not here, and will not come, because solar and wind depend intimately on access to dangerous fossil fuels, about which "I'm not an antinuke" antinukes couldn't care less.

Now you see the phrase "64 Gigatons?" That's a number.

So is this excerpt from the paper which none of the many "I'm not an antinuke" antinukes here have every demonstrated the interest in reading or the ability to read it:

We calculate that world nuclear power generation prevented an average of 64 gigatonnes of CO2-equivalent (GtCO2-eq), or 17 GtC-eq, cumulative emissions from 1971 to 2009 (Figure 3a; see full range therein), with an average of 2.6 GtCO2-eq/year prevented annual emissions from 2000 to 2009 (range 2.4–2.8 GtCO2/year). Regional results are also shown in Figure 3a. Our global results are 7–14% lower than previous estimates (8, 9) that, among other differences, assumed all historical nuclear power would have been replaced only by coal, and 34% higher than in another study (10) in which the methodology is not explained clearly enough to infer the basis for the differences. Given that cumulative and annual global fossil fuel CO2 emissions during the above periods were 840 GtCO2 and 27 GtCO2/year, respectively, (11) our mean estimate for cumulative prevented emissions may not appear substantial; however, it is instructive to look at other quantitative comparisons.

He also calculated, using numbers how many lives nuclear energy saved.

The trillions squandered on solar and wind, by contrast, has caused climate change to accelerate, not decelerate. The Germans didn't phase out coal; they embraced it along with the solar and wind lipstick on their pig. They banned nuclear energy and as a result, routinely show the second highest carbon dioxide intensity for electricity in Europe.

BASF shut a hydrogen (ammonia) plant because they couldn't get dangerous natural gas:

BASF closes ammonia production plant in Germany

That's a fact.

Facts matter. Bullshit is bullshit.

[Think. Again.]

94. That is patently false...

You write: "There is one, and only one, form of CO2 minimized energy."

That is an outright lie which could result in continued deaths from CO2 emissions.

[NNadir]

124. People lie, numbers don't.

[BannonsLiver]

106. Imagine being this pressed over hydrogen.

Do yourself a favor and go outside and touch grass for a few minutes.

[Celerity]

123. You are, as usual, 100 per cent correct in this thread. Science matters, not some ill-informed

anti-nuke 70s style FUD posturing and ridicule (some of it very nasty, shamefully so).

I am very pessimistic about the future for my generations (Millennials and Gen Z , I am a cusper Zillennial) and even more so for Gen Alpha (born 2013 to 2028) and subsequent ones.

The planetary climate change is going to devastate us in a myriad number of ways and the 'I watched China Syndrome 44 years ago so i have it all sussed' crowd is going to bear a part of the blame, along with the 'drill baby drillers' etc etc etc.




Greta: Germany making 'mistake' by ditching nuclear for coal

The Swedish climate activist said it would be a "bad idea" for Germany to focus on coal when nuclear power plants were already in place. German politicians looking to extend the running times pounced on the comments.

https://www.dw.com/en/greta-thunberg-germany-making-mistake-by-ditching-nuclear-power-for-coal/a-63406732

Climate activist Greta Thunberg told German public television on Tuesday that she would consider it a mistake to switch off existing nuclear power plants and to focus on coal instead to generate electricity.

"It depends. If you have them already running, I feel it's a mistake to close them and focus on coal," Thunberg said on the "Maischberger" talk show on ARD.

"I personally think it's a very bad idea to focus on coal when [nuclear power] is already in place," the climate activist said.

She acknowledged how sensitive the question was among climate activists, calling the issue "a very infected debate."

snip

[NNadir]

126. Thanks. n/t.

[Think. Again.]

132. Nnadir is 100% INCORRECT...

...when they state: "There is one, and only one, form of CO2 minimized energy."

Wind, solar, and hydro DO actually exist, they are real.

While we are still using fossil fuels for energy, even bulding nuclear plants will cause CO2 emissions.

Numbers don't lie, but people do use numbers to lie.

[Celerity]

135. Renewables aren't yet fully viable, especially in terms of EROI. NNadir's a scientist who has posted

a voluminous amount of scientific research and papers here over the years (they have over 2 decades now on DU) on these very subjects.

They know what they are talking about more than enough to warrant serious respect, even if you disagree with some of their points.

Check out their journal:

https://democraticunderground.com/~NNadir


cheers

[Think. Again.]

136. Respect is earned...

Nnadir manipulates research in attempts to justify their position that we not use any other form of non-CO2 energy generation other than nuclear.

This is an impossible proposition, we must also have portable forms of energy in addition to electricity to displace liquid and gaseous fossil fuels.

Nuclear can be a very valuable PART of our new energy economy, but we also have other technology that will serve specific purposes in safer, more economical, and more targeted and practical ways. Even fossil fuel energy is not a one-size-fits-all solution.

Nnadir's posts are written specifically to delay and discourage the implementation of the technology we will need to displace the burning of fossil fuels. This would lead to continued emissions of CO2 and that would result in continued deaths and the continued destruction of the ecosystems we rely on for our health and well-being.

I also have a post-graduate science education and I have a responsibility to correct falsehoods on important matters.

I am also a member of our shared society and I will not tolerate the personal abuse, psychological manipulation, and deceit that Nnadir employs to cover their deliberate misinformation.

Thank you for the civil and caring response, but I take the climate crisis that we're in very seriously, I realize how important public engagement is to the success of the energy transition we must make, and I see no point in witholding corrections to Nnadir's intentional and dishonest attempts to build negative public opinion about non-CO2 energy sources.

[Celerity]

137. well, you two should have an extended colloquy, and see who has the more persuasive evidence

[Think. Again.]

138. No need...

As Nnadir likes to project, facts are facts, they speak for themselves.

[NNadir]

139. Indeed.. I have zero respect for "I'm not an antinuke" antinukes.

As the term for this class of tiresome useless sloganeers implies, they're frauds.

They can't even be honest about their antinuke agenda, although they do drag out every unsupportable bit of specious objections to nuclear energy when prompted.

They as a class, always have complaints about me for producing numbers, data and references, but whining about the messenger doesn't change the numbers, the data or the references.

Fools supporting the unsupprtable always try to change the subject from their abysmal lack of knowledge to things like personality. They've been coming here for the 20 years I've been here, during which CO2 concentrations rose by more than 50 ppm, but since they have no serious interest in data, they come and go muttering and whining and soothsaying using the dogmatic language of their cult about me, but as a practical matter all their pernicious bullshit has left the planet in flames irrespective of anything related to how I present data, references and numbers.

I would be disappointed with myself if many or any in the class of people for whom I clearly have no respect liked or respected me. It would be something of an insult to be applauded by the preternaturally ignorant who are proud of their ignorance.

[Think. Again.]

134. The article you refer to...

https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/basf-closes-ammonia-production-plant-in-germany/

Clearly states that BASF is TEMPORARILY shutting down the natural gas plant specifically to transition it to non-CO2 energy sources such as wind and solar which will save costs and decrease CO2 emissions.

From the article:

"The company believes in the future of the Ludwigshafen site, which is now in its 158th year. “We remain committed to this site and have the courage to develop it further,” chair of the board of executive directors, Dr. Martin Brudermuller said.

-snip-

The reduced power and natural gas demand at the site will cut its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by around 0.9 million metric tonnes per year, leading to a 4% reduction in BASF’s global CO2 emissions.

BASF aims to secure greater supplies of renewable energy for the plant. “We want to develop Ludwigshafen into the leading low-emission chemical production site in Europe,” he said."

Facts matter. Bullshit is bullshit.

[DontBelieveEastisEas]

127. 100 trillion in wind or solar with todays technology and at scale.

By going all out on any idea, the scaling makes it less costly.

It's hard to look at 50 years of wind energy infrastructure and extrapolate it into what we could do today, due to advances.

A post I saw said something close to,
"By 2021, at a cost of 1.3913 trillion dollars,
wind energy was producing 7 Exajoules of energy
on a planet where 624 Exajoules of energy were being consumed.

And, "By 2021, at a cost of 1.6713 trillion dollars, solar energy was producing 5 Exajoules of energy"

So, if we increased that a hundred fold (wind = 7*100 = 700) it would cover the 625 Exajoules of energy being consumed.

Of course, it isn't windy or sunny everywhere.

But, doesn't it seem that 50 or 100 trillion in today's wind and solar technology, being produced at massive scale, could cover a majority of the energy needs?

[NNadir]

128. No, it doesn't "seem" so.

Solar and wind energy is not reliable and is dependent on fossil fuels and redundancy.

Right now the redundancy is the use of dangerous fossil fuels.

Worse it is dependent on material and land.

The lifetime of solar and wind facilities is about 20 to 25 years. 100 trillion dollars every 25 years, never mind hauling away all the waste is not reasonable.

[DontBelieveEastisEas]

129. Thanks for the acknowledgement and feedback /nt

[Think. Again.]

133. No, Solar and wind are NOT dependent on fossil fuels...

...and the redundancy can be achieved by hydrogen and other storage, not fossil fuels.

Also, the numbers you are using are reflective of the entire investment of research and development of those technologies, as well as construction costs.

Nuclear energy research and development and construction was and is also costly and also require ongoing investment in maintenance to expand their lifespan beyond 30-40 years.

And talk about hauling away (nuclear) waste...

[Happy Hoosier]

22. That's a little misleading.

Hydrogen is extracted from water with this equipment. Fossil fuels are only involved in the running the plant to extract the hydrogen (and presumably, at least for now, the plant to make the equipment). But that's a matter of replacing the existing electricity infrastructure with non-fossil fuel sources. Your argument seems to boil down to doing nothing because the first step isn't perfect.

Hydrogen fuel cells offer signficant advantage over battery technologies for applications like motorvehicles.

[NNadir]

32. Is this a simple matter, replacing all the production of electricity...

By fossil fuels with non carbon sources?

I think rather than hand waving, one should look at reality.

The reliance on fossil fuels for electricity is increasing, not decreasing, mostly because we're running out of rivers to kill.

[Think. Again.]

38. No...

...our increasing energy use is not due to a lack of running water.

[Happy Hoosier]

39. I notice you don';t propose a solution.

It's pretty easy to take pot-shots and offer no viable solution yourself. So... what do you suggest? Let's he

[NNadir]

47. My extensive journal on this website, referencing tens of thousands of...

...papers from the primary scientific literature is filled with solutions.

They're not popular necessarily because they involve work and knowledge rather than happy talk specious handwaving.

[Happy Hoosier]

50. Point to one.

I don't have hours to dig through a list of papers. Pick one, maybe two you think is worthy of consideration and I'll check it out. Since you are clearly so much smarter than the rest of us, help us morons out and point us in the right direction.

[NNadir]

54. How about you click on my name to open it.

There are thousands written over 20 years.

I'm not going to spoonfeed anyone who wishes to imply I'm a lazy know nothing fool without knowing a damned thing about how hard I've worked to understand energy and the environment only to be met with glib wishful thinking slogans that left our planet in flames.

[Happy Hoosier]

59. Yeah, I thought so...

You're more interested in looking down your nose at others than actually helping. Good day.

[NNadir]

60. OK. I believe the handwaving types do not now and never have cared to do any work.

They may define their laziness as being helpful, but I think laziness has left the planet in flames.

I work rather than whine.

[Think. Again.]

63. You use gaslighting as a debate technique.

[NNadir]

67. This is similar to the charge registered by an earlier...

..."I'm not an antinuke" antinuke who writes here who characterized my writings as "strawmen."

He, she or they didn't know anything about energy or the environment either, and thought, likewise that his, her or their personal attack would substitute for knowing something about energy and the environment or giving a shit about it.

It's ironic to be accused of being a gaslighter by a person who is promoting increasing the use of dangerous natural gas to make hydrogen, since the steam reforming of dangerous natural gas is the largest sorce of industrial hydrogen produced a a huge thermodyamic loss.

My journal here speaks for itself. It's filled with references, numbers, and data. If uneducated handwavers who do not avail themselves of any of these things don't like ithese things it's not my job to address their sloganeering and platitudes.

The term gaslighting usually applies to someone trying to convince a sane person .

If one is actually addressing insanity the term may not apply. I personally think the belief in "green hydrogen" promoted by hydrogen salespeople is insane.

I really don't care if anyone likes that opinion or not.

Hydrogen is overwhelmingly made from fossil fuels, trivial Potemkin plants in China promoted by salespeople notwithstanding. That's a fact.

Facts matter and bullshit is bullshit.

[Happy Hoosier]

65. OFFS.

You tell us there are thousands of papers that propose viable solutions, but you can;t point to ONE of them you think might be an executable solution? And you call ME lazy? You call ME a hand-waver? Do you honestly think this is aeffective straegy for your point of view? Spoiler: It isn't.

Here's the thing: I'm an engineer. I generally prefer to use the best solution to a problem when I can. But you're right that I have neither the time nor inclination to perform a literature search on every matter of interest. I've seen this kind of strategy before. It's a trap. If I pick a paper, read it, and then offer legitimate criticisms, the only thing I tend to get back is that I read the wrong paper. I've had this happen with Climate deniers, anti-vaxxers, even flat-earthers. So over the years I've learned to just ask people for their best argument. If they are unwilling to provide it, I do not consider them a serious interlocutor. It's a waste of time to argue with someone who won't actually state their position, as you have.

[NNadir]

80. Oh geeze... Very, very, very, cute, one of the cutest evasions I've seen, and I've seen them all.

My son is a master's level material scientist engineer seeking a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering, which happens to be the only viable solution to climate change there is.

The question one needs to ask any engineer is not whether one is an engineer who gives a shit, or one who assumes that other people who do give a shit don't.

We do after all have lazy engineers, incompetent engineers, and great engineers. This goes for scientists as well. I've met and interacted with thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of scientists at the Ph.D level in my career, some of whom were brilliant and some of whom one wonders, ever graduated from high school.

Many engineers I know, my son included, have taken courses in thermodynamics and many of them can understand the 2nd law and the difference between primary energy and derived energy.

Here, let me spoon feed a publication to you from my thousands of posts here, and see if it generates any interest in the 2nd law of thermodynamics of which one statement is, "If any form of energy is converted to any other form of energy, entropy increases, meaning that less energy is available from the second form.



The caption:

Figure 1. Global current sources of H2 production (a), and H2 consumption sectors (b).

Progress on Catalyst Development for the Steam Reforming of Biomass and Waste Plastics Pyrolysis Volatiles: A Review Laura Santamaria, Gartzen Lopez, Enara Fernandez, Maria Cortazar, Aitor Arregi, Martin Olazar, and Javier Bilbao, Energy & Fuels 2021 35 (21), 17051-17084]

I referred to this graphic, and reproduced it, discussing a paper in the journal I discussed above here: The current sources and uses of hydrogen.

Any of my critics are free to produce a paper showing that this one, which calls for the steam reforming of plastics, claiming it as a popular solution to the "problem" of making hydrogen, is a lie.

I of course, recognize that making steam itself costs energy, whether it reforms coal, gas, or petroleum. So, I think, do the authors.

It's just one paper among the tens of thousands, I've accessed and discussed in this space, most often about nuclear energy, and not wishful thinking bullshit from antinukes who, now that you mention it, strike me exactly in the same way antivaxxers strike me, although antinukes have killed far more people than antinukes ever did. Covid, after all, never killed 19,000 people a day, although air pollution does every day, has every day, and will every day until people stop doing mindless shit like confusing hydrogen with primary energy.

A reference and excerpt from a prominent medical journal about the death toll associated with handwaving nonsense:

It is here: Global burden of 87 risk factors in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019 (Lancet Volume 396, Issue 10258, 17–23 October 2020, Pages 1223-1249). This study is a huge undertaking and the list of authors from around the world is rather long. These studies are always open sourced; and I invite people who want to carry on about Fukushima to open it and search the word "radiation." It appears once. Radon, a side product brought to the surface by fracking while we all wait for the grand so called "renewable energy" nirvana that did not come, is not here and won't come, appears however: Household radon, from the decay of natural uranium, which has been cycling through the environment ever since oxygen appeared in the Earth's atmosphere.

Here is what it says about air pollution deaths in the 2019 Global Burden of Disease Survey, if one is too busy to open it oneself because one is too busy carrying on about Fukushima:

The top five risks for attributable deaths for females were high SBP (5·25 million [95% UI 4·49–6·00] deaths, or 20·3% [17·5–22·9] of all female deaths in 2019), dietary risks (3·48 million [2·78–4·37] deaths, or 13·5% [10·8–16·7] of all female deaths in 2019), high FPG (3·09 million [2·40–3·98] deaths, or 11·9% [9·4–15·3] of all female deaths in 2019), air pollution (2·92 million [2·53–3·33] deaths or 11·3% [10·0–12·6] of all female deaths in 2019), and high BMI (2·54 million [1·68–3·56] deaths or 9·8% [6·5–13·7] of all female deaths in 2019). For males, the top five risks differed slightly. In 2019, the leading Level 2 risk factor for attributable deaths globally in males was tobacco (smoked, second-hand, and chewing), which accounted for 6·56 million (95% UI 6·02–7·10) deaths (21·4% [20·5–22·3] of all male deaths in 2019), followed by high SBP, which accounted for 5·60 million (4·90–6·29) deaths (18·2% [16·2–20·1] of all male deaths in 2019). The third largest Level 2 risk factor for attributable deaths among males in 2019 was dietary risks (4·47 million [3·65–5·45] deaths, or 14·6% [12·0–17·6] of all male deaths in 2019) followed by air pollution (ambient particulate matter and ambient ozone pollution, accounting for 3·75 million [3·31–4·24] deaths (12·2% [11·0–13·4] of all male deaths in 2019), and then high FPG (3·14 million [2·70–4·34] deaths, or 11·1% [8·9–14·1] of all male deaths in 2019).

How antinukism kills people was discussed by the climate scientist Jim Hansen about 10 years ago. About 70 million people died from air pollution in the interlude.

Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power (Pushker A. Kharecha* and James E. Hansen Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 4889–4895)

I have accessed tens of thousands of papers and my journal here, unread by lazy critics, does include critical thinking about them.

Apparently, even though what I do and think is of disinterest to lazy handwaving types who fling criticisms of people they don't know without bothering to find out anything about said people, I am proud of my hard work and effort.

[Think. Again.]

83. You use gaslighting as a debate method.

[NNadir]

84. Antinukes use ignoring gas burning as an excuse for pretending their wind and solar junk is...

...reliable and, of course, chanting and repeating the same nonsense over and over...

This would be in lieu of opening a science book apparently.

[Happy Hoosier]

97. I have a Masters in Engineering as well.

So yeah… try another one. You have to be the rudest poster I’ve encountered here on DU… dismissive, derisive… absolutely sure of yourself… of course making steam costs energy. There is no free lunch is electricity generation or transforming a stored energy into kinetic energy. No process is 100% efficient. That’s not news….

And to be clear, I am 100% in favor of dramatically increasing our use of nuclear power. In fact, nuclear power could make the production of hydrogen all the better!

But none of what you posted there is an actual argument against hydrogen fuel cells as a power source for some applications. AFAIK, these efforts are not directed at producing power for the grid, but as a portable fuel source

[honest.abe]

105. He is indeed incredibly rude, dismissive and insulting.

I stopped responding to him months ago.

[Think. Again.]

49. I suggest...

...a concerted effort to reduce the amount of unnecessary energy we consume.

I've suggested that in many posts.

[Happy Hoosier]

51. Yeah, that's great. That hasn't worked. What's next?

There have been conservation campaigns for as long as I can remember. And while we have made some strides (LEDs are WAY more efficient than incanscents), the overall energy demand in the world is incresing. And will continue to do so. SO let's not be Pollyannaish about it and pretend like we'll be able to actually reduce energy consumption on a global scale. At least not anytime soon. U.S. Energy demand is declining slightly, but it will be a long time before that spreads globally. We need better ways to produce the energy we need.

[Think. Again.]

61. I absolutely agree with you...

...on ALL those points!

There really isn't much chance of taking away humanity's electronic toys, or even asking us to turn off the lights in unused rooms.

We DO need better ways to produce the energy w need, and even the additional energy we USE above our needs.

Luckily, we have those ways, unluckily, the right wing and fossil fuel profiteers are very good at stopping us from making that transition.

[Happy Hoosier]

62. Hear! Hear!

[reACTIONary]

96. One obvious and straight forward direction is ....

.... nuclear energy generation. Burning uranium does not generate CO2. And it is continuous and uninterrupted. Its a well understood and long standing power source that fits right into the existing electrical distribution infrastructure.

What's wrong with that? Seems like a very practical direction to go in. Especially considering the consequences of delay and indecision.

This, by the way, is the direction France is going in. Germany is going with a different strategy, shutting down nukes. Guess which one is further along in meeting its climate goals?

[Silent3]

52. For many applications, where using electric power directly isn't practical...

...there needs to be a form of fuel to replace fossil fuels. As long as the focus of new hydrogen projects is generating hydrogen from renewable energy sources -- and it is -- the way hydrogen has been produced in the past is a moot point. Hydrogen is certainly not an inherently dirty technology.

Hydrogen will never be as big a deal as many people imagined it in the past, like having hydrogen-powered cars, because battery technology has improved so much since the days people first started talking about a "hydrogen economy". But it still will be useful filing in some niches in a multi-faceted renewably-sourced energy system.

[Happy Hoosier]

66. I still have hope for Hydrogen fuel cell cars.

They have real advantages over battery tech. The ability to refuel quickly, on-the-go is one. The reduced weight is another. the fact that batteries require recycling and disposla and very expensive replacement is another. Those are problem sthat can potnetially overcome, of course, but no need to put all our eggs in one basket just yet, IMO.

[hunter]

101. I don't.

Aside from my belief that automobile culture ought to be dismantled by turning our cities into attractive affordable places where car ownership is unnecessary, I believe plug-in hybrids are a much better bet. Such cars already exist.

Most car trips are short. For these short trips plug-in hybrids run entirely on electricity from the grid. For longer trips such cars could be powered with carbon-neutral synthetic fuels that are easily handled within the existing transportation infrastructure.

Hydrogen is a wretched fuel. Aside from the basic insurmountable thermodynamic inefficiencies, hydrogen is very difficult to handle and contain.

Methane is a much easier fuel to contain than hydrogen yet in practice huge amounts are lost to leakage.

I've got to ask, in a world where people have trouble containing the motor oil in their vehicles, how much worse would hydrogen leaks be?

It's not a problem of putting "all our eggs in one basket," rather it's that most of the eggs in the basket are rotten and will only prolong our dependence on fossil fuels.

[Caribbeans]

102. So does China - in a BIG way

Guangzhou Sets Out Plan for USD 1.4 Billion Fuel Cell Vehicle Industry by 2025.

The city aims to establish itself as a leading domestic development and manufacturing hub for FCVs, covering the whole industry chain from core parts to vehicle assembly...more
https://www.yicaiglobal.com/news/guangzhou-sets-out-plan-for-usd14-billion-fuel-cell-vehicle-industry-by-2025

That is ONE province among many. The entire nation has a hydrogen strategy and they have become the leader in just 6-7 years. There are now more than 300 hydrogen stations and building more every single day.

Not much news about this in Western Media

[Think. Again.]

15. I'll never understand...

...why the mine and coal workers of West Virginia allowed Joe Manchin to completely ignore the golden opportunity W.V. had to become the leading state in non-CO2 jobs and industries.

He through the entire state under the bus to protect his own mom & pop scrap-coal business.

[getagrip_already]

26. Because the only way they were going to get a good paycheck

Was to work in a coal mine. And the only way to work in a coal mine was to elect the people who saw to it that the only good jobs were in coal mines.

Then they kept education in the stone ages and law enforcement focused on other folks.

And the water keeps circling.

[Think. Again.]

40. No...

They had an excellent chance to get good paychecks by creating a strong renewable energy economy as the coal industry died out.

I agree they were misled by their elected officials which is why I wonder why they keep electing them.

[getagrip_already]

70. My point is...

They never had that chance at building a strong renewable energy economy. It was crushed by the coal eco-political interests leaving only coal industry jobs.

So there only real time choices were coal or hope, and coal simply paid better better. When you are ignorant and poor, you will go with what your father had, rather than what could be.

[Think. Again.]

74. That's what I was trying to say...

... The coal eco-political interests -represented by Joe Manchin, screwed the citizens of W. V. over big time.

Joe Manchin has been in the driver seat for every one of Biden's attempts to strengthen the renewables industry.

Manchin could very easily have gotten a huge federal windfall for W. V. to become the numbe one state for renewable jobs and businesses to displace the failing W.V. coal industry. Numerous times.

[getagrip_already]

76. The real question is.....

Why didn't the coal monkeys realize they could have hoovered up billions in clean energy dollars by shifting focus and diversifying?

Manchin could have made it risk free through federal subsidies and training programs. The dems would have been behind him.

Instead they fight the unions. They fight the mines. They fight the epa. They fight no market for their shifty product. They fight the public.

They will die fighting dirt and nobody will miss them one bit.

[Trust_Reality]

72. I think Manchin had/has his own financial interests.

[orthoclad]

117. We should have installed renewable manufaturing plants

in all the areas where there are lots of fossil jobs. And given the people a future. WV, LA, TX, etc. Places with a skilled and willing workforce. This would have changed the political landscape a lot, before the redbrains took over.

[Fiendish Thingy]

33. Has anyone done a study on the impact of hydrogen tech on a mass scale?

How would mass scale use of hydrogen tech impact the world’s drinking water supply? Agriculture? Hydroelectric power?

I can see the hypothetical benefits, especially over rare metal mining for EV’s and fossil fuels, but when there are already predictions of future wars over access to fresh water, I’m not seeing a lot of discussion about the big picture.

[Think. Again.]

41. When converted to electricity...

...and when burned in a combustion engine, Hydrogen creates water as a by product.

Yes, you are right, the use of anything on mass scale is going to have implications that must be considered.

The implications of continuing to use fossil fuels instead of transitioning to non-CO2 energy sources is a good example of that.

[reACTIONary]

99. +10, water in, water out. NT

[Kaleva]

64. The byproduct of hydrogen is water and heat.

[orthoclad]

118. Industrial hydrogen use

will PRODUCE potable water as a byprouct.
Not worth capturing it in cars, but generating plants, trucks, busses, trains, could collect waste water.
From water, to water.

[Auggie]

37. Great news ... and great news to add hydrogen to the energy mix.

Hydrogen, solar, wind, geothermal, hydropower, tidal, biomass, nuclear and yes, even a little oil.

[Torchlight]

46. At least the idiocy of windmill cancer clusters has ended.

My curiosity as to the next absurd assertion to undercut alternatives and renewables will be met with timely assistance by the industry's raftt of sealions rather quickly, I'd guess.

[hunter]

78. This article is full of bullshit. What's good for Norway may not be so good for the rest of us.

Norway has decided it will be more profitable to turn their cheap hydroelectric power into nitrate fertilizers for export rather than acting as a storage battery supporting the rest of Europe's solar and wind energy follies.

Norway, specifically Nel ASA and Yara International, are building the tools required to do this in the U.S.A. for the same general reasons many U.S.A. corporations have their products made in China.

Sigh.

The renewable energy fantasies of the scientifically illiterate and functionally innumerate will only prolong our dependence on fossil fuels.

Most of the renewable fuels the so-called greens hype hype are extremely damaging to the natural environment, including corn to ethanol, palm oil to biodiesel, hydrogen, etc....

Making hydrogen from water by electroysis here in the U.S.A is an utterly horrible idea so long as most of our electricity is coming from fossil fuels. We simply don't have the vast per-capita hydroelectric resources Norway enjoys.

I'm not dissing Biden here. This will create jobs and the availability of "low carbon footprint" fertilizers, neither a bad thing.

But the fact remains most of the nitrate fertilizers in the world are produced chemically from fossil fuels without electrolysis. In China, the world's largest producer of nitrate fertilizers, they mostly use coal. Here in the U.S.A., the world's second largest producer of nitrate fertilizers, we use natural gas.

[Think. Again.]

85. You're correct....

You write: "Making hydrogen from water by electroysis here in the U.S.A is an utterly horrible idea so long as most of our electricity is coming from fossil fuels."

You ar correct, we must build out all forms of non-CO2 emitting electricity sources as quickly as possible which includes the facilities needed to use Hydrogen as energy storage.

(I believe the fertilizer discussion is down the hall.)

[Cha]

87. Hope all goes well! on so many levels! TY

[Takket]

107. yeah I have to agree this is a bad idea for Michigan

The car companies we're hot on using hydrogen 15-20 years ago and they've all given up on it because it isn't practical. They are all in on battery packs and there is significant infrastructure being built in the USA right now so we can manufacture these cells ourselves.

Nuclear is the safest, cleanest, power out there right now and we should be investing in that. Unfortunately we wasted a LONG time not building nuclear power and there is only so much money to build them so fast, so it isn't like we can just start on tomorrow because you need to fund these things a few at a time spread out over decades.

The real solution is to get Fusion to be commercially viable. That's, maybe, 50 years away? If we start NOW, building nuke plants over the next 20 years, by the time those plants start reaching the end of their lives, maybe, hopefully, we'll be ready for fusion?

[hunter]

112. Aside from the production of bombs in any size we like, fusion may never be a viable energy source.

We have to plan for that. We can't change the physics of this universe.

I'm not sure if the universe loves us, hates us, or is indifferent to our desires.

I tend to "indifferent to our desires."

On bad days I think the universe is mocking our desires.

We do know that fission power works.

[NickB79]

109. As I've pointed out a few times on the EE forum, hydrogen is one hell of a greenhouse gas itself

In fact, when hydrogen leaks from storage or pipelines, it is 12 times as strong as CO2.

https://phys.org/news/2023-06-global-potential-hydrogen.html

And hydrogen is the leakiest molecule known to man. We have issues currently with methane leaking from our natural gas network, and that's a far easier molecule to contain.

Strangely, proponents of hydrogen barely seem to care about this issue, despite it's seriousness. They just accept that the gas industry and the free market will fix the problem somehow.

[honest.abe]

110. So we can't figure out how to fix leaks given that it might mean the future survival of the planet??

[NickB79]

111. Maybe figure out how to fix the leaks BEFORE we invest trillions in an H2 economy?

Because if we don't get a handle on the leakage issue first, we could make the climate crisis WORSE, not better.

Like I said, 12X as bad as CO2. And that's on a 100-yr timescale. On shorter timescales (25 yr), it can be over 20X as bad.

What really chafes me is that every nation promoting hydrogen is testing mixing it into existing natural gas pipelines instead of using custom-made pipelines, because rebuilding the national gas network is impossible to do given the immense costs involved. Which leads me to believe they really aren't taking the leakage issues seriously.

And then there are people pushed hydrogen in cars, which present an even greater risk of leakage because of the billions of refills done monthly, each requiring a connect and disconnect.

Ideally, hydrogen would only be used like a battery backup to a grid run by wind, still lar and nuclear. Tanks onsite to fill during excess electricity production, with the hydrogen burned onsite or a short distance away when demand exceeds supply of electricity.

[Think. Again.]

131. Leak containment has come a long way...

...since market forces are making it worthwile to pursue.

Here's a recent article article on thatg

https://spectra.mhi.com/4-ways-of-storing-hydrogen-from-renewable-energy

[orthoclad]

120. We should think of hydrogen as storage for energy

more than as a fuel. Electrolysis of water need a lot of electricity. Fuel cells produce electricity and water. The means of moving the electrical energy from one place to another is the hydrogen.

This is a good way to capture and store energy from sunlight, wind, tide, any renewable source which isn't constant.

Electrolyzing water into H and O using solar cells repeats the eons-long process of plants capturing sunlight and storing the energy in fossil hydrocarbons - but much faster than geologic time.