Agelbert NOTE: The following
discussion took place over the last 4 days. These comments are after a negative story about Hydrogen Gas as a replacement for hydrocarbon fuel based energy by Michael Barnard (
Shrinking Hydrogen Demand & Hydrogen Decarbonization Will Have Major Climate Benefits . I am surprised Cleantechnica allowed him to post it.
That said, "
No Planet B" and "
TSW" did an excellent job of refuting Barnard's erroneous assumptions and projections, which you can read there if you like.
I have posted this
discussion here because it relates directly to the BIG picture in
Renewable Energy GROWTH, as well as informing readers of
who, exactly, is engaging 24/7 in
Predatory Delay, no matter how much we-the people
suffer from
Catastrophic Climate Change (
SEE: Mayfield, Kentucky TORNADO DISASTER December 11, 2021)
DUE to the continued use of hydrocarbons for fuel.
Those who forsake the law praise the wicked, but those who keep the law strive against them. -- Proverbs 28:4
Lee Jay We currently store and retrieve about 500,000 gigawatt hours worth of natural gas each year for seasonal storage. That's 10,000 years of gigafactory battery output. How are you going to replace that seasonal storage without natural gas or underground storage of hydrogen?
agelbert >
Lee Jay A hydrocarbon "benefit" numbers guy, eh?
Your numbers are patently false. No, I'm not saying you are a liar; I am saying you are extrapolating incorrectly from present hydrocarbon product use towards the future.
No, I do not expect to convince you that you are wrong. I will let experience teach you that in the next 5 years or so.
In the meantime, enjoy your "natural" (
even though the CH4 that comes out of living organisms, NOT the CH4 that comes out of Fracked hydrocarbon polluting wells, is the CH4 that is ACTUALLY NATURAL) gas "bridge" fuel.
Agelbert NOTE: 🦕 Lee Jay's "We are all gonna die without our beloved fossil fuels.
" baloney post repeated for clarity:
Lee Jay We currently store and retrieve about 500,000 gigawatt hours worth of natural gas each year for seasonal storage. That's 10,000 years of gigafactory battery output. How are you going to replace that seasonal storage without natural gas or underground storage of hydrogen?
Slobodan Brčin >
Lee Jay Solar (there is always some light during the 24 hours cycle).
Wind (usually wind is moving)
Geothermal (working 24/7)
Tidal power
Rivers hydro
Reverse hydro
Car,home and utility batteries to soak excess of electricity. Energy price balancing based on dynamic price.
Existing nuclear / bah at least it is not CO2 emitter.
UHVDC around the continent/world (sun is always shining and wind is always blowing somewhere).
So why do you think that we need seasonal storages?
Lee Jay >
Slobodan Brčin• 3 days ago
Why do you think we don't? We have it now to handle the differences in energy consumption between seasons that fossil fuel extraction can't adjust for (that's availableall the time too, you know). If you do it all with sources, you require huge curtailment. If you do it all with batteries, you require 10,000 years worth of batteries produced by a giga factory. Hydro isn't even 1% big enough. Pumped hydro is the biggest we have and it's less than 1% of what we need. Geographic distribution helps a lot with daily but very little with seasonal.
Slobodan Brčin >
Lee Jay • 3 days ago
Again I'm telling you that you do not need batteries or any storage that can store more then few hours of worth of energy just to solve spikes.
Sun is working 24/7 and it is always noon somewhere.
Same with seasons, you always have summer somewhere.
So just move electricity around the world where it is needed.
Lee Jay >
Slobodan Brčin • 3 days ago
Spikes is not the problem. The problem is producing, say, 30% less energy than you consume for, say, 4 months (winter).
Slobodan Brčin >
Lee Jay • 3 days ago
US 2020 electric energy consumed 3660 billion kWh.
Let us say 10 billion kWh per day.
Let us say that you have at least 5 sunny hours a day in average.
So you need to maintain average power production of 2 billion kW.
Solar panels are ~$0.20 per watt. Let us say that you can install them for $1.00 for easy calculation.
You need like $2 trillion dollars to add PV system capable of covering all existing electricity needs on top of existing production that you already have.
This does not sound much considering how much money is spent on other things and that this solve many problems for people in US and for planet.
So let us subsidize fossil fuel industry (renewably) to the eternity .....
Lee Jay >
Slobodan Brčin • 2 days ago • edited
Your overly simplistic analysis assumes solar output and demand are year around constants. They are not. Now do the math correctly assuming actual and seasonal variation in both load and source, add in ongoing efficiency improvements and transitions to new technologies (like heat pumps instead of furnaces) and then integrate to see how much difference there is in the integrated values of source and demand. Then figure out the most economic way to cover that integrated difference. Hint: It's not batteries and it's not over building sources and curtailing.
Slobodan Brčin >
Lee Jay • 2 days ago
Only thing that I'm overlooking intentionally since it is not tech problem is willingness to make world power web due to geopolitical crap as TSW mentioned above.
It is easier to peddle electricity around the globe then to move oil or NG.
Build panels/grid on both hemispheres and your seasonal problems are gone.
Build panels/grid around the world and your day/night problems are gone.
If you think small about US as whole world then this can't work.
Lee Jay >
Slobodan Brčin• 2 days ago
I'm sorry, but you don't know what you're talking about.
The hemispheres are not equal.
Building a global grid is unreasonably uneconomical. For underwater power lines, figure $2,000 per meter per gigawatt. Now do the math for being able to move terawatts of power around the planet to any of hundreds of terminals and see the error of your ways.
agelbert >
Lee Jay The only sorry one here is you. You are quite consistent in spouting a series of reasons why "we can't do this" and "we can't do that" in support of maintaning a horrendously polluting status quo. Slobodan Brčin, like everybody else out there who actually knows what they are talking about, which excludies you and your fossil fueler liar pals, accepts the fact that we cannot sustain the status quo. Your ad hominem attacks on him show your lack of objectivity in these matters as well as a totally uncalled for lack of respect. You obviously are quite comfortable with the current polluting energy status quo and feel threatened by the ease wih which we could stop burning ALL hydrocarbon fuels, so you resort to insults.
Your "support for Renewable Energy" is a mendacious pretense for the morally bankrupt purpose of convincing readers that Predatory Delay is a "rational" choice in the "real" world. The truth is that your agenda is to help the hydrocarbon fuel pushing crooks and liars further line their pockets with Profit over Planet money. Consequently, you cannot be reasoned with.
Slobodan Brčin >
Lee Jay • 2 days ago
I'm sorry for island called America, but to connect Europe,Asia,Africa should not require underwater cables.
Also sorry that you have to pay $2000 per meter, which would be $2 billion per 1000km per gigawatt.
Qinghai-Henan (running 1,500kms, 8GW capacity) $3.79 billion dollars.
Also you need to power deficit of other RE in parts of world that at given moment do not have enough production, and you are powering it from multiple sides and then you have/will have enough battery storage for daily need.
Lee Jay >
Slobodan Brčin• 2 days ago
Your math is off by a factor of 1,000. Try again.
Lee Jay >
agelbert If you knew me, you'd laugh at yourself. I've spent my entire career on renewable energy research, a career I decided on when I was 8 years old.
agelbert >
Lee Jay Talk is cheap, Predatory Delay is (Catastrophic Climate Change) expensive. It is a known fact that the hydrocarbon industry has, for about 4 decades now, paid many bean counters to study the EROEI of Renewables for the purpose of distorting the energy facts so that hydrocarbons appear to have a "higher" EROEI. From the gamed enthalpy numbers of hydrocarbons to the very deliberate exclusion of all the costs to the environment and the health of humans, it has been quite a disinformation ride for the fossil fuelers. Sure, they know energy math. They have to in order to spin it their way with lots of happy talk.
Maybe you are not one of those 🦖 energy 😈 "experts", but your comment was exactly the way they spin facts to support Predatory Delay for the sole purpose of slowing a full transition to a Renewable Energy powered Civilization.
We are out of time for the happy talk fun and games by the Profit Over Planet Hydrocarbon Worshippers.
📢
THE BROWNING OF THE EARTH IS NO JOKE!We need hydrocarbon fuels like dog needs ticks!Lee Jay >
agelbert Again, you're clueless.
Just figure out how to do seasonal energy storage without storing hydrogen underground for use in places other than returning the energy to the grid. Try to do it economically.
Good luck.
agelbert >
Lee Jay More Ad hominem, eh? You are quite consistent in spouting a series of reasons why "we can't do this" and "we can't do that" in support of maintaning a horrendously polluting status quo. Slobodan Brčin, like everybody else out there who actually knows what they are talking about, which excludes you and your fossil fueler liar pals, accepts the fact that we cannot sustain the status quo. Your ad hominem attacks on him, and now towards me, show your lack of objectivity in these matters as well as a totally uncalled for lack of respect. You obviously are quite comfortable with the current polluting energy status quo and feel threatened by the ease with which we could stop burning ALL hydrocarbon fuels, so you resort to insults.
Your "support for Renewable Energy" is a mendacious pretense for the morally bankrupt purpose of convincing readers that Predatory Delay is a "rational" choice in the "real" world. The truth is that your agenda is to help the hydrocarbon fuel pushing crooks and liars further line their pockets with Profit over Planet money. Consequently, you cannot be reasoned with.
But, I'll give you one thing. Your pals in the Oil and Gas Polluters 'R' US know how to corrupt government.
Lee Jay >
agelbert You're dumber than a sack of hammers, you know that?
I do renewable energy research for a living - for my whole career. I've contributed significantly to technology that produces billions of clean, renewable kWh per year. I've never worked a day in support of fossil fuel use.
Now, answer the questions I asked, because I've spent thousands of hours trying to answer them - without fossil fuel use.
agelbert >
Lee Jay Lee Jay said, "I've never worked a day in support of fossil fuel use.".
By repeatedlly stating that we "cannot" operate our civilization "economically" without horrendously polluting fracked well methane, you are working right now in support of CONTINUED hydrocarbon fuel use.
If that opinion by you is the result of your renewable energy research career, then you, in effect, do lies about Renewable Energy for a living.
Your definition of "economically viable" is so lacking in Social Cost of Carbon math as to border on insanity.
How's the "economics" of hydrocarbon fuel use CAUSED Catastrophic Climate Change working for
Mayfield, Kentucky, Mr. "Energy expert"? Oh, that is not part of your CH4 EROEI "math"? R-i-i-i-ight.
You are all about "fiduciary duty" to 🦕 corporate bottom lines. That is known as gaming (see:
mens rea) hydrocarbon EROEI numbers to exclude the costs you can "socialize" (i.e. stick we-the-people with the health and environmental downsides).
All that "Social cost of Carbon" biosphere math is not, uh, "relevant", eh? You live in the "real" world. You know, the one who's 🦖 CEOs, with a straight face, calmly state that those hydrocarbons now leaking into the drinking water in Honolulu are "not their problem". Do you know what drinking even a tiny PPM amount of hydrocarbons in previously potable water does to human health? Probably, but you refuse to admit that is part of the COST of a hydrocarbon fueled civilization.
Which brings us to the point of this discussion. Slobodan Brčin provided reasonable suggestions based on Renewable Energy Technologies to get us permanently off ALL hydrocarbon fuel use. You, basing your allegations on your cherry picked definition of "economical", scoffed and derided. I challenged you and you hardened your position with more Ad hominem and a claim to being an "authority" in Renewable Energy Research. I maintain that, as I said in so many words in my first reply to you, your pro-CH4 energy math is flawed, to put it mildly. I have explained why (cherry picked CH4 EROEI cost exclusions).
NOTE: I have absolutely no problem with ethanol as a fuel during the transition to 100% Renewable Energy.
ETHANOL, in an economically sane world not corrupted by hydrocabon government subsidy hand-outs, would be the ideal
BRIDGE FUEL, not fracked "natural" (lol!) gas. Spare me all the disinformation on ethanol "negative impacts" to the environment and farm "use for fuel instead of food" peddled by the hydrocarbon hellspawn. It's all baloney. Ethanol has some problems but they are insignificant compared with the problem resulting from methane gas production and use.
Ethanol is, in addition to being a reality based viable bridge fuel, a product with many uses in medicine. Yes, drinking it can eventually kill you, but human vices are not the subject of this discussion.
Lee Jay said,
"Now, answer the questions I asked, because I've spent thousands of hours trying to answer them - without fossil fuel use.".Now, if I finally have your attention,
I will explain, not just why, but how we certainly can replace ALL hydrocarbon based fuels with Renewable Energy Technologies. You state that hydrogen gas for fuel is "not economically viable" as compared to CH4 because hydrogen gas, a very difficult to store gas, must be stored for several months (at least) for use in winter, like methane is now stored for winter use. That is true only if hydrogen is in the form of a gas. That is not necessary due to other Renewable Energy Technology chemistries that can easily, safely and cheaply store stable chemical compounds (
I am NOT talking about the ridiculously energy wasteful negative EROEI CH4 process to get hydrogen that the fossil fuelers love.) that contain hydrogen (e.g. H2O, HHO+NaOH, etc.). The energy required to extract H2 on demand can come from water tanks, large battery banks, wind, solar, tide and geothermal sources. Of course a combination of these technologies must be working together for 24/7 on demand H2 generation. That is certainly not diffcult, though the fossil fuelers keep saying "it can't be done".
It can be done and Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute has, for at least TEN YEARS now, explained how that can be done and why the current system is terribly inefficient, from the coal and CH4 grid energy sources to the CH4 and fuel oil furnace uses.
THIS is a hydrocarbon powered grid: How can you claim with a straight face that THAT is "sustainable"?As to the "happy home furnaces" that the hydrocarbon cheerleaders claim are "more efficient" at heating your home than split system heat pumps or electrical resistance heaters/fans powered by electricty from a Renewable Energy powered grid, when you do most of the energy math, even BEFORE you do the biosphere COSTS math, LESS energy is used for this concentrated use of energy flowing through wires from exclusively Renewable Energy Sources.
Mr. Jay, do you know what it costs to maintain a furnace in maintenace costs for the life of said furnace? It's easily $200 a year (low balled estimate not including parts replacement). Now multiply that $200 by about 90% of 140 million homes (as of 2020). Is that in your EROEI CH4 math? NOPE! WHY!!? It SHOULD BE!
And NO, using ONLY electricity to heat and cool a home does NOT "add comparable maintenance costs" to heating and cooling, never mind the price gouging initial cost of a hydrocarbon powered furnace.
Furnaces aren't just inefficent, they malfunction. The malfunction is, granted, a low percentage overall, but the fact is that electrical resitance heating, while resulting annually in some fires that kill people who did not position said heaters properly, are insignificant compared to carbon monoxide and fire caused deaths from hydrocarbon fueled furnaces. Are those COSTS to human health and welfare included in your CH4 EROEI math? NOPE! WHY!!? They SHOULD BE!
I can go ON and ON about how other RE harvesting technology (e.g. wind, geothermal, tide wind, etc.) can be EASILY made available in base grid size amounts 24//7 by daisy chaining technologiy and computer controlled coordination. This is NOT rocket science. This is NOT that hard to do. The ONLY thing preventing a truly EFFICIENT energy powered civilization is the resistance of the hydrocarbon industry. If you ever decide to plug in to the CH4 EROEI formula all the actual enthalpy inefficiencies of the present use of hydrocarbons plus the Social Cost of using hydrocarbons for fuel, you will agree with the following statement I made several years ago.
"We do not need a 'new' business model for energy because we never had one. What we need, if we wish to avoid extinction, is to plug the environmental and equity costs of energy production and use into our planning and thinking. " -- A.G. Gelbert
J.R.R. Tokien knew what he was talking about...
"The most evil creation ever visited upon mankind is the internal combustion engine." -- Celebrated author of The Lord of the Rings J.R.R. Tokien
The Hydrocarbon Fuel Powered Civilzation "Business Model" is Obsolete, PERIOD!
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” - R. Buckminster Fuller