Tech Won't Save Us

[K-Dog]

Since deaths from exploding tanks will only double or triple what we have now, hydrogen is a viable TRANSPORT  MECHANISM.  All you need is an unlimited supply of cheap energy to make the hydrogen with.

That should be a lot easier to find than places on the planet to sequester CO2.

 

Quantum ta-da!

Time to retire the Diner for a few centuries.  All our problems are solved.

[RE]

Time to retire the Diner for a few centuries.  All our problems are solved.

Sadly, even under the unlikely event enough cheap, clean energy sources could be built AND all the infrastructure for producing, storing and delivering the H put into place AND carz and planes running on ICE and Jet engines could be produced at affordable prices, transportation is only ONE of the multitude of problems faced by Industrial Civilization.  Population Overshoot, Aquifer and Topsoil depletion, Desertification and Sea Level rise are still going to cause huge problems, and our economic system has reached the end of the duck tape and crazy glue to keep it patched together.  So no rest for the weary Doomers of the Diner, we'll still have plenty of Doom to Discuss before we can put the Diner out to pasture.

Collapse is the Gift that keeps on Giving.  No end in sight.

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[RE]

Now, back to our regularly scheduled delusions.

Hydrogen now comes in a variety of Colors, Green, Blue, Gray and the latest entry, TURQUOISE!    These colors meant to signify their source and whether the H gets produced with or without producing CO₂ emissions in the process.

The feedstock for turquoise H is methane (CH₄), aka Natural Gas (NG), and you get the H from a process called Pyrolysis, where you cook the methane at 700F to split it into its constituent elements Carbon & Hydrogen.  This supposedly is great because you can now sequester the carbon and take it out of the whole RedOx cycle and build stuff with it.  you could use it to make Diamonds!  Diamonds will be so cheap we can make them the size of bricks and build affordable housing with them!  The hardest substance known to man, we can build Diamond Skyscrapers that will stand until the Sun goes Red Giant!  OK, the Diamond stuff is my own hype, but you get the picture I hope.

OK, now why as opposed to Blue Hydrogen you get through Hydrolysis of Water which I consider a good and worthwhile means of making H for use as a transportation fuel (despite perhaps vaporizing the occasional planeload of vacationers bound for Hawaii) do I think pyrolysis of methane is a stupid idea?

First of all, while there is plenty of water available at sea level over 75% of the earth surface in the oceans, to get the much more limited supply of methane you have to drill for it.  Next, while water is completely oxidized and so useless as a fuel,  Methane has tons of energy and pyrolysis actually reduces the amount of energy usable once converted to H & C, besides the fact that like Hydrolysis you need to INPUT a lot of energy from renewable, carbon free sources to do Pyrolysis.  Nobody will do this at scale when they can simply sell the NG right out of the ground.  Third, we already have a chemical process to turn Methane into something useful, the Haber process uses Nitrogen to convert it to ammonia for use in Fertilizers which we need to keep feeding 8B Useless Eaters.  That process has CO₂ as a byproduct which is a downside, but at least until we have a substantial dieoff, we need the fertilizer.

Even the idea that we can build enough renewable energy sources to produce the Gigatons of Hydrogen we'll need every day for all the carz, trucks, planes, container ships and tankers is a pretty big stretch into the world of Hopium addiction, adding still MOAR renewable energy to pyrolyze all the methane is a leap of faith I am unable to make without a half dozen hits of Sandoz Acid. lol.

https://www.ecoticias.com/en/turquoise-hydrogen-fuel/1286/

This turquoise fuel is the end of hydrogen: it is obtained from clouds and metal

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[RE]

Are you suffering from Technosolution Burnout yet?  Today's offering, Liquid Nitrogen, which you don't burn at all, just allow it to expand into a gas as it warms up, drawing heat from the surrounding environment.

I give this one very low chances of getting off the drawing board.

https://www.ecoticias.com/en/liquid-nitrogen-engine/1382/

The first liquid nitrogen engine: was science fiction, and something could go wrong

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[RE]

OK, not quite yet.  It still takes a Homo Sap to push the button and start WWIII.  So you can feel safe. 

https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/robots/a60606512/claude-3-self-aware/

A Stunning New AI Has Supposedly Achieved Sentience

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[RE]

Actual price on Green H claimed to be far higher than prior pro-H articles I have read recently, which is not at all surprising.  Also the timeline for building enough Green H production capacity to provide fuel for the transportation market is a lot longer than the proponents claim.

The truth probably lies somewhere in between these claims, but I think you can safely say there will not be anything more than a few prototype H ICE cars running on the roads by 2035.  This is probably pretty close to the limit of keeping the FF fleet of carz & trucks rolling at full scale, without rationing and a much larger share of EV cars on the road.

Bottom line, rumours of the Collapse being cancelled by being saved by the Hydrogen Cavalry riding to the rescue in the nick of time have been greatly exaggerated.  We can return now to our regularly scheduled Doom Programs.

https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/production/eu-hydrogen-targets-are-impossible-as-green-h2-costs-eight-times-as-much-as-grey-h2-today-total-ceo/2-1-1634747

EU hydrogen targets are 'impossible' as green H2 costs eight times as much as grey H2 today: Total CEO

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[RE]

Spoiler alert!  It DOES run on electricity.  Just uses an H fuel cell instead of a battery to provide the juice.

The first motorcycle engine without gasoline or electricity: it runs on something better

https://www.ecoticias.com/en/first-motorcycle-engine/1549/

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[RE]

We've discussed compressed air before as an energy storage method, but not this design which is very creative in its use of geology and equipment used for oil drilling.  Sounds as though it's price competitive with batt storage, again using simple tech without need for mining and rare eart metals.

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02052024/inside-clean-energy-long-duration-energy-storage-technology/

A Major Technology for Long-Duration Energy Storage Is Approaching Its Moment of Truth

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[K-Dog]

Just uses an H fuel cell instead of a battery to provide the juice.

And juice was used to make the H fuel?

[RE]

Just uses an H fuel cell instead of a battery to provide the juice.

And juice was used to make the H fuel?

They don't say, but probably not.  Probably made from methane, as most is currently.

In the future, theoretically it comes from renewable electricity turned to chemical energy stored in the H, then back to electrical when converted by the fuel cell.  Same as batteries work, electricity is stored as chemical energy in the Li-H salts then converted back to electricity when discharged.  All batteries store energy in some chemical compound or salt.

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[RE]

I wonder how they charge it up?  Obviously, they have a means to charge or swap out batts on the Chinese end, but what about at the delivery port?  Otherwise it has to have enough juice to do a round trip wherever it goes.  Maybe it has a backup generator to charge it, but that would obviously run on diesel.

Now, IF all shipping was converted tomorrow to batt power, how much additional load would that put on the grid supporting all the ports that had charging stations?  How long do the ships need to stay plugged in at port to fully charge for a trip from shanghai-seattle?

Technologically speaking, this is about the easiest transition to make since there isn't much constraint on size or weight for the batts.  To make it really GREEN though, all the charging has to come from renewables, which I doubt the Chinese are doing with just this 1 ship, much less trying to convert all the COSCO fleet to electric.  For now this is just a greenwashing gimmick for propaganda purposes.

https://electrek.co/2024/05/02/fully-electric-10000-ton-container-ship-begun-service50000-kwh-batteries/

A fully-electric 10,000 ton container ship has begun service equipped with over 50,000 kWh in batteries

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[RE]

Just when you think the possible sources of Infinite Energy to allow Infinite Miles of Happy Motoring and Infinitely large Data Centers exchanging an infinite amount of information about the infinitely large population have been exhausted, the folks at the Dept of Energy Hopium Technology have come up with another doozy.

According to this article Helium-3, an isotope of the inert gas that features an extra proton in the nucleus is available in so much quantity on the Moon that it is "infinite".  Since the Moon is finite in size that's obviously untrue, but let's go with "infinite" meaning for this propaganda writer, "so much that for all practical purposes we won't run short of energy for 1000 years".

Now, what they have NOT explained is HOW, even if you could economically mine the moon for He-3 and ship it back to earth, do they intend to get this not infinite but at least very large amount of energy from the HE-3?  Are they talking a Fission of the He-3 into 2 Hydrogen atoms, or a Fusion of 2 of them into an atom of Beryllium?  The first seems more likely, since we still can't fuse Hydrogen to make Helium, and fusing Helium to make Beryllium takes more energy than that.

Can you start and control a He-3 chain reaction in a fission reactor and how efficiently do you capture this energy?  I don't know of any designs for using He-3 as fissionable fuel for reactors, but I suppose it's possible to build them.  Is He-3 on the moon there in so much quantity that it beats out Uranium and Thorium here on earth, not to mention Plutonium you can make in Breeder reactors and use for fuel too?

Finally, WTF do TPTB feel it necessary to bombard us literally on a daily basis with outrageous new claims of infinite energy sources ready for harvesting?  Is their terror of running out of jet fuel really that great?  I'm even more curious to know if Bezos or Musk will actually try sending rockets to the Moon to go mine this stuff?  Will somebody convince Goldman to underwrite some corporate bonds for say $100B at 10% interest to finance mining He-3 from the Moon?  Will Hedge Fund Managers and Pension funds buy these bonds as part of a balanced portfolio?

https://www.ecoticias.com/en/energy-moon-helium-3/1466/

The ultimate and infinite energy, finally found: 400 000 kilometers away and will be extracted

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[K-Dog]

Is their terror of running out of jet fuel really that great?

Yes

[K-Dog]

This is a long assed-video.  But two minutes in I realize I have an obligation to watch this one.  Like it was part of a job.

Dana is a Diner who does not know it.  Only because she does not know who we are.  Nineteen minutes in Dana says 'research shows' fossil fuel buys votes.  Twenty-six minutes Dana says we need to lean into activism.  I agree.  I say very hard.  The reason is the 'deciders' will not do anything.  I agree, nothing will happen without pressure.

Power concedes nothing without a demand.

Forty minutes in Dana is being a bit unrealistic.  She thinks evaluating ever activity in terms of carbon emissions is important.  How much CO2 does a peace march release?  I'm feeling disappointment.  Dana is the sociologist who understands that resource depletion (global heating is included in that) is a social issue not a technical issue.  I would pay attention to her CO2 calculations, but nobody else would.  Nerds are a minority.

Dana points out online organization is inadequate.  If people do not meet in person efforts are worthless.  My words not hers, but she makes the point.  At the Diner we agree.  People making connections is what is important.  COVID was a huge setback.

Dana is coming from a 'Bowling Alone' perspective.  Climate issues will not be addressed until people start coming together.  That won't happen until climate shocks are severe.  Very severe considering the new age of ubiquitous censorship I think.

Dana sees moments of opportunity after climate shocks.  People in and after a shock become socially oriented for a short period of time.  How to lengthen the time?

An hour in Dana says this summer is going to be climate hell.  Place your bets.

Dana kept the discussion 'in the matrix', and I think she did this deliberately.  Why? because she wants converts not enemies.

Do doomers serve a function.  We do if we engender anger at the system.  Before there can be a social change in consciousness overall attitude has to get MORE apocalyptic.

The earth is not dying, it is being killed. And the people who are killing it have names and addresses.

My words, not originally, but they are now.

One hour and sixteen minutes in Dana describes clean vs  conventional energy consumption.  The actual situation.  If she knows what it is, she should mention Jevon's Paradox and how to deal with it.  Dealing with it is not hard but you have to know what it is.  So you do not do exactly the wrong thing.  As most Green New People think to do. 

(Looks like she does not know about Jevon's.)

Appropriate advice at the end.

[RE]

"The engines, Captain!  The ENGINES!"

Forget the hydrogen.  Put your money on Di-Lithium Crystals.

https://www.space.com/warp-drive-possibilities-positive-energy

'Warp drives' may actually be possible someday, new study suggests

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