LENR vs Solar/Wind, and emerging Green Technologies.

This will never ever be economical. It’s a dead end.

Quote from Daniel_G

This will never ever be economical. It’s a dead end.

You know that this is only happening because of the political focus on the Net Zero CO2 emissions. It will eventually be forced to be economical by taxing (or banning) the alternatives.

That said, Please don’t start an argument about this, everyone has an opinion about the need to reduce CO2 emissions, but we do not encourage that discussion here because is a highly divisive issue.

Very competent industry professionals without ulterior agendas have looked at this issue in detail. Most laymen don’t realize how difficult a problem intermittency is and the cost required both in economic and carbon terms just don’t work out. As a LENR developer of course we all want the same thing. Wind and solar simply are not a viable energy source for a vibrant civilization. Hence the push to find better alternatives.

Quote from Daniel_G

Very competent industry professionals without ulterior agendas have looked at this issue in detail. Most laymen don’t realize how difficult a problem intermittency is and the cost required both in economic and carbon terms just don’t work out. As a LENR developer of course we all want the same thing. Wind and solar simply are not a viable energy source for a vibrant civilization. Hence the push to find better alternatives.

I do not disagree. The push for green hydrogen is entirely a political matter. In my country there’s hype because someone claims to have found a way to create a liquid fuel with the hydrogen produced with windmills and Porsche invested a few thousand euros on a pilot plant. I think is pure hype as it all requires more energy than it will ever be stored in the liquid fuel, but as no one sees the balance and as wind is “free”, everyone is happy about it.

Quote from Fm1

The world’s first offshore wind–green hydrogen pilot has just produced its first green hydrogen off the coast of France.

Hydrogen from current only makes in centralized places in conjunction with fuel cells that also produce process heat.

Electrolysis is going in direction of 90% efficiency (without cold fusion..) but fuel cells are still only around 50%. Any flow battery will give you a far better energy storage capability.

Green Hydrogen for other purposes is just faking the public as most gas networks are not built for hydrogen...

Quote from Wyttenbach

Hydrogen from current only makes in centralized places in conjunction with fuel cells that also produce process heat.

Electrolysis is going in direction of 90% efficiency (without cold fusion..) but fuel cells are still only around 50%. Any flow battery will give you a far better energy storage capability.

Green Hydrogen for other purposes is just faking the public as mots gas networks are not built for hydrogen...

Here’s the news from Porsche’s own website.

eFuels pilot plant in Chile officially opened

Porsche and international partners working with the Chilean operating company Highly Innovative Fuels (HIF) have started the industrial production of synthetic…

newsroom.porsche.com

This is on the other end of Chile, near the Magellan strait, there winds are so strong the challenge is to build something that won’t be blown away.

The HIF project comes with fancy video, too.

I agree it is possible, and has been technically possible since the end of XIXth century. Other entire matter is if we can sustain our current energy usage in this manner.

Quote from Curbina

Here’s the news from Porsche’s own website.

People that buy a "Porsch" usually swim in money and can also pay 5$/l for e-fuels. But the pollution by e-fuels remains the same as before. So it just rape with a preservative...

However I only swim in swimming pool currently

Quote from Wyttenbach

People that buy a "Porsch" usually swim in money and can also pay 5$/l for e-fuels. But the pollution by e-fuels remains the same as before. So it just rape with a preservative...

Quote from Curbina

I do not disagree. The push for green hydrogen is entirely a political matter. In my country there’s hype because someone claims to have found a way to create a liquid fuel with the hydrogen produced with windmills and Porsche invested a few thousand euros on a pilot plant. I think is pure hype as it all requires more energy than it will ever be stored in the liquid fuel, but as no one sees the balance and as wind is “free”, everyone is happy about it.

Curbina again the burden of intermittency rears its ugly head. In order to be economical the production of liquid fuel is a chemical engineering process. Chemical processes need to work near to capacity a majority of the time. You can build an economical plant that spends half its time idle and then works at double capacity the rest of the time. The people who suggest this is possible have never designed nor operated an actual chemical plant.

Quote from Daniel_G

Very competent industry professionals without ulterior agendas have looked at this issue in detail. Most laymen don’t realize how difficult a problem intermittency is and the cost required both in economic and carbon terms just don’t work out. As a LENR developer of course we all want the same thing. Wind and solar simply are not a viable energy source for a vibrant civilization. Hence the push to find better alternatives.

Here’s the contrary view. Jacobsen argues that there’s plenty of potential for solar and wind, and that the storage needed for intermittency is eminently achievable: https://www.theguardian.com/en…water-can-power-the-world

Quote from SearchMe

Jacobsen argues that there’s plenty of potential for solar and wind, and that the storage needed for intermittency is eminently achievable: https://www.theguardian.com/en…water-can-power-the-world

The guardian since ever was a free mason trumpet and thus supports big oil where it can. Bio fuel is about running the current motor etc. factories as long as possible. Its about mentally deranged people driving BMW,Porsche, Alpha Romeo just for the nice motor noise. There is no real need for bio fuel. We can make exceptions for old cars and agriculture but certainly not for ships, trains, planes - the large polluters.

Especially for planes it will be difficult to directly burn hydrogen. But aviation is only 3% of world wide carbon use. Cars are in the 20% region but electricity is 64% world wide!

Quote from Wyttenbach

The guardian since ever was a free mason trumpet and thus supports big oil where it can. Bio fuel is about running the current motor etc. factories as long as possible. Its about mentally deranged people driving BMW,Porsche, Alpha Romeo just for the nice motor noise. There is no real need for bio fuel. We can make exceptions for old cars and agriculture but certainly not for ships, trains, planes - the large polluters.

Especially for planes it will be difficult to directly burn hydrogen. But aviation is only 3% of world wide carbon use. Cars are in the 20% region but electricity is 64% world wide!

So you didn’t read even the first sentence of the article?

“Combustion is the problem – when you’re continuing to burn something, that’s not solving the problem,” says Prof Mark Jacobson.

The UK Guardian is a left-leaning liberal newspaper and a very vocal supporter of green policies. Look for articles by George Monbiot their eco-columnist if you don't believe me. Like this one.

The UK’s ‘green day’ has turned into a fossil fuel bonanza – dirty money powers the Sunak government | George Monbiot

In prioritising oil and gas over renewables, ministers are doing the bidding of the polluters, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

www.theguardian.com

Quote from SearchMe

Here’s the contrary view. Jacobsen argues that there’s plenty of potential for solar and wind, and that the storage needed for intermittency is eminently achievable: https://www.theguardian.com/en…water-can-power-the-world

I want some of what he is smoking. Not even worthy of a real answer. There are so many aspects of what he just hand waves over as “it’s all done” I don’t even know where to start. He calls for fossil fuel mining to halt but ignores the thousands of percent increases in mineral flows that would be required to create his dystopia. He ignores the actual economics of storage that currently would require 400% of gdp on average to power our existing energy needs.

Quote from Daniel_G

I want some of what he is smoking. Not even worthy of a real answer. There are so many aspects of what he just hand waves over as “it’s all done” I don’t even know where to start. He calls for fossil fuel mining to halt but ignores the thousands of percent increases in mineral flows that would be required to create his dystopia. He ignores the actual economics of storage that currently would require 400% of gdp on average to power our existing energy needs.

I got some of that, 220 an ounce guarantee to set your mind free from that ball of confusion. Not sure where your numbers come from. 400%? Very cheap ways to store energy

Gravity batteries: Abandoned mines could store enough energy to power ‘the entire earth’

https://www.euronews.com/green…s%20of%20energy%20storage.

Quote from Alan Smith

The UK Guardian is a left-leaning liberal newspaper

It's all about the mimicry of green behavior. If it comes to the real decision you will hear an other Guardian voice.

Supporting pet projects has nothing to do with green politics.

UK urgently need to isolate old houses or to reconstruct them including heat pumps. Any society not doing it will break down within 30 years due to exorbitant living costs. Isolation * heat pump gives you a factor 20..30 in energy gain.

Some nordic countries and Switzerland are miles ahead. Guess why we have the lowest inflation rate? Green current and good isolation with heat pumps.

Quote from Fm1

I got some of that, 220 an ounce guarantee to set your mind free from that ball of confusion. Not sure where your numbers come from. 400%? Very cheap ways to store energy

Gravity batteries: Abandoned mines could store enough energy to power ‘the entire earth’

https://www.euronews.com/green…s%20of%20energy%20storage.

Your proposal is some “professor” pleasuring himself with some fantasy. A proper load analysis shows that for the state of California only, the amount of storage needed to go full wind and solar is 30,000 GWh. Yet this clown is saying that they only need 70,000 globally. Uh. No. He hasn’t even bothered with an actual analysis. He’s just dreaming.

Also he doesn’t know much about electrical engineering because the vast majority of mining elevators are DC, not AC induction motors. They need rectifiers. A shit ton of rectifiers. Then inverters. The ropes are going to break from being stressed at maximum load. It’s a lazy man’s fantasy with zero connection in reality. He’s off by the storage need by 2-3 orders of magnitude.

If I spent more time on this I could likely find a few more intractable problems with his proposal but how can anyone take this dude seriously?

Daniel, you sound like a lobbyist

some “professor” pleasuring himself with some fantasy.

Well it looks like his fantasy has been taken up by some, no pun intended.

Not all innovators see the merits of a below-the-surface solution, however. In a valley in southern Switzerland, the striking steel and concrete prototype from Energy Vault, another leader in the gravity battery space, stands more than 20 stories tall. When green power supply exceeds demand, one of several AI-controlled cranes lifts a pair of 30-tonne blocks upwards. When demand outstrips supply, back down they go, generating enough energy for thousands of homes.

With its technology tried and tested – and having received some $402m (£325m) worth of investment – Energy Vault is ready to start a commercial rollout. For that, the company has designed something a little more aesthetically pleasing than the angular Swiss prototype: a modular building dubbed "EVx" that stores thousands of weights on a trolley system.

"Think of it as a warehouse of energy elevators," says Robert Piconi, Energy Vault's CEO. "When clean electricity is coming in, the blocks – made of recycled material – go up, and when the grid needs supply, they go back down. An EVx with a storage capacity of 100MWh can power around 25,000 homes for a day."

Just to put this in perspective 100MWh sounds like a lot. If it was in California, how many percent of the total need would it be?

That would be exactly ⅓ of 1/1000th of 1%.

Does it still sound like a lot?