Tom Kirkman

Natural gas is crushing wind and solar power

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(edited)

Hydrogen violates many of the laws of physics.

This is one of the arguments over hydrogen in the primordial universe going on at this time.

"If the scientists are correct in their hypothesis, their ideas could lead to a total rethinking of the law of conservation of energy.'

https://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/violations-of-a-basic-law-of-physics-could-have-created-dark-energy-propose-scientists

There are even bigger mysteries in regards to water. A liquid that should not exist on planet Earth at atmospheric pressure. Hydrogen embrittlement is another. Why are some things embrittled by it and not others?

Edited by dgowin

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(edited)

13 minutes ago, dgowin said:

And hydrogen does violate the laws of physics in many ways.

Not thermodynamically. There is nothing in our observable universe that disobeys the laws of thermodynamics. 

Don't go and fetch crap from astrophysics to try and argue against this. Disobeying the laws isn't something engineers can do. Even if we could, it wouldn't be practical for use. 

Edited by KeyboardWarrior
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1 minute ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

Not thermodynamically. There is nothing in our observable universe that disobeys the laws of thermodynamics. 

Don't go and fetch crap from astrophysics to try and argue against this. Disobeying the laws isn't something engineers can do. Even if we could, it wouldn't be practical for use. 

Good luck on that idea. They're re-writing the Laws of Thermal Dynamics as I write.

https://books.google.com/books?id=FhFxn_lUvz0C&pg=PA226&lpg=PA226&dq=hydrogen+violates+the+laws+of+physics&source=bl&ots=PHz2XMcmrr&sig=ACfU3U3lFOCKbO6Xn6TnXaiC3iWLOKvKUA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjhi6nMmvPnAhWCuZ4KHXT0CHUQ6AEwEXoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=hydrogen violates the laws of physics&f=false

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Just now, dgowin said:

This is not evidence for the fact that hydrogen can be split with less energy than we measure in a calorimeter. This is not an argument. I'm finished here, 

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(edited)

Strange that my internet connection is tanking at random after this discussion... If people on video games get mad enough to ddos me perhaps somebody on an oil forum would too. 

Jokes of course. The idea is pretty absurd. 

Edited by KeyboardWarrior

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On 2/22/2020 at 2:58 PM, Tom Kirkman said:

 

 

In this case, financing "green" alternatives are more expensive than hydrocarbons.

Perhaps you can build a natural gas pipeline through the middle of the African rain forests, through various corrupt tinpot dictatorships and warring tribes. Hoping of course, that no one taps into to it for a free sniff.

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2 hours ago, dgowin said:

I'm sorry I'm just a stupid engineer. I only put to work the inventions of the brilliant people.

Good, as a stupid engineer, maybe you can learn the difference between MW and MWh when reading your spec sheets.

Your pamphlet brochure 10MW runs for 24 HOURS to achieve 4000kg H2.  😉

$30/MWh *10MW*24hours = $7200/4000kg H2 or ~$1.8/kg H2

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4 minutes ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Good, as a stupid engineer, maybe you can learn the difference between MW and MWh when reading your spec sheets.

Your pamphlet brochure 10MW runs for 24 HOURS to achieve 4000kg H2.  😉

$30/MWh *10MW*24hours = $7200/4000kg H2 or ~$1.8/kg H2

I'm going to calculate that efficiency. The best I've seen on the market is 80%, so I'm interested in what this system brings, 

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(edited)

Alright so if you do the math that's 60 MWh per ton of  H2 gas... as in, 20 MWh more than the calorific standard. 

Edited by KeyboardWarrior
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8 hours ago, dgowin said:

No arguments on any of this. Hydrogen's biggest detractor has been its volume-metric storage.

Which is why I think its a dead end as far as transport fuels go. 

However I do think there is potential to produce hydrogen from surplus electricity and pump into gas mains or use for chemical / fertilizer production. 

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It may be true that in absolute terms the increase in NG generation in the US since 2015 (+250 TWh) Source EIA electricity monthly, has risen faster than wind and solar (175 TWh) but NG has only risen by 18% over that period and wind and solar have risen by 75%. As new wind and solar capacity added over the last year has been double the new gas capacity, the rate of increase in wind and solar will continue faster than that of gas so NG's brief bloom is starting to fade.

In Europe and China, even laggard Australia, new wind and solar production has whipped gas output increases. For example in the UK gas output has actually fallen from 124 TWh in 2016 to  104 TWh in the 12 months to date while wind and solar have risen from 32 TWh to 48 TWh in the same period.  In Germany in 2016 NG provided 46 TWh which rose to 53 TWh last year, but wind and solar rose from 118 TWh to 174 TWh and this year so far in both the UK and Germany the gap between renewables and gas is widening

If gas was booming why have all the major gas turbine manufacturers been slashing costs and retrenching staff 

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I agree that the market should determine the most reliable, and affordable energy sources, but the market price should reflect the full cost of the source, not just the cost to the producer.  For example, to assess the relative societal costs of natural gas vs wind and solar, we need to price in more than the amount charged the energy company per kilowatt of energy generated.  The price must reflect the societal cost of the methane and carbon released into the atmosphere in the course of extraction, the carbon footprint necessary to extract and deliver the natural gas to the energy company, and the carbon released at the energy company.  There are ways to reduce all such societal costs, but in order to incentivize all those involved in chain of production to take appropriate steps, we need to identify, price in, and allocate all such costs so that all societal costs are reflected in the relative price charged for alternative sources of energy.

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11 hours ago, Mark Potochnik said:

Tesla “big battery” in Australia is becoming a bigger nightmare for fossil fuel power generators

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-big-battery-hornsdale-australia-cost-savings/

Mark - almost all the figures are unsourced. There is talk of a report about half way down but I couldn't find anything recent. And what does it mean "saving consumers". How would they know? Maybe you could take another look. That said, batteries can provide FCAS services and are useful if green lunatics insist that most of the state's power has to be renewable, so it could be making money. However, a diesel plant might do the same thing as a fraction of the cost.. 

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Where are all these randoms coming from? 

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(edited)

As far as hydrogen production goes, nuclear has a unique advantage that some don't know about when it comes to renewables. If you make hydrogen from electricity, you suffer from energy loss by generation source and then the cell efficiency. If you make hydrogen from thermal energy, you can bypass one, or even two steps and suffer less loss.

Here's the point

A 1000 MWe nuclear plant is nearly a 3000 MWt plant. If your thermochemical process is more efficient than the brayton cycle, you can effectively make greater use of the reactor's actual output by producing hydrogen. Imagine we carry out the sulfur idodine process at 70% efficiency. That's notably better than the 50% we MIGHT achieve with high temperature gas reactors. As far as other reactors, the difference becomes 30% rather than 20%, because we can't have all of our lovely Gen IV setups be VHTGR now can we. 

Edited by KeyboardWarrior

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3 hours ago, WaytoPeace said:

I agree that the market should determine the most reliable, and affordable energy sources, but the market price should reflect the full cost of the source, not just the cost to the producer.  For example, to assess the relative societal costs of natural gas vs wind and solar, we need to price in more than the amount charged the energy company per kilowatt of energy generated.  The price must reflect the societal cost of the methane and carbon released into the atmosphere in the course of extraction, the carbon footprint necessary to extract and deliver the natural gas to the energy company, and the carbon released at the energy company.  There are ways to reduce all such societal costs, but in order to incentivize all those involved in chain of production to take appropriate steps, we need to identify, price in, and allocate all such costs so that all societal costs are reflected in the relative price charged for alternative sources of energy.

First off, we need to determine if anthropological climate change is actually fact or fiction before making policy or business decisions which will cost trillions.

Until this determination can be made, on facts alone, you are making uninformed decisions based on fear.

...and don’t come back with I am denying anything unless you can support your assumption with INDISPUTABLE facts. Otherwise it is simply a ‘he said, she said’ bun fight.

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On 2/28/2020 at 3:37 AM, pfarley@bigpond.net.au said:

It may be true that in absolute terms the increase in NG generation in the US since 2015 (+250 TWh) Source EIA electricity monthly, has risen faster than wind and solar (175 TWh) but NG has only risen by 18% over that period and wind and solar have risen by 75%. As new wind and solar capacity added over the last year has been double the new gas capacity, the rate of increase in wind and solar will continue faster than that of gas so NG's brief bloom is starting to fade.

In Europe and China, even laggard Australia, new wind and solar production has whipped gas output increases. For example in the UK gas output has actually fallen from 124 TWh in 2016 to  104 TWh in the 12 months to date while wind and solar have risen from 32 TWh to 48 TWh in the same period.  In Germany in 2016 NG provided 46 TWh which rose to 53 TWh last year, but wind and solar rose from 118 TWh to 174 TWh and this year so far in both the UK and Germany the gap between renewables and gas is widening

If gas was booming why have all the major gas turbine manufacturers been slashing costs and retrenching staff 

  1. If you go back ~20 years, we were all predicting that there would be massive layoffs in the gas turbine/CGCT business.  Why? 
  2. Turbines have gotten MUCH bigger, so fewer being installed/manufactured/most of the world is developed now and making their own or so far down are stuck on diesel generators
  3. Efficiency 50% UP over the older models, if not more which means FEWER installed
  4. Length of life MORE THAN doubled and
  5. Maintenance dropped drastically as old models went ~6 months between cleanings, bearing checks, erosion checks, and now the FIRST check is not for upwards of 5 years in the newest turbines case with a ~80% duty cycle...

Hope this makes sense. 

As for first part of statement, if you do not have sunshine, uranium, gas, oil, coal, but do have wind...  Europe's quest for "green" has nothing to do with environment, but rather geopolitics/reality.

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23 hours ago, WaytoPeace said:

I agree that the market should determine the most reliable, and affordable energy sources, but the market price should reflect the full cost of the source, not just the cost to the producer.  For example, to assess the relative societal costs of natural gas vs wind and solar, we need to price in more than the amount charged the energy company per kilowatt of energy generated.  The price must reflect the societal cost of the methane and carbon released into the atmosphere in the course of extraction, the carbon footprint necessary to extract and deliver the natural gas to the energy company, and the carbon released at the energy company.  There are ways to reduce all such societal costs, but in order to incentivize all those involved in chain of production to take appropriate steps, we need to identify, price in, and allocate all such costs so that all societal costs are reflected in the relative price charged for alternative sources of energy.

That is not a social or societal cost. So far there is not established quantitative relationship between greenhouse gasses and any climate variation it MIGHT cause and the associated damage. So you are talking empty numbers, The rough estimates are mainly science fiction drivel from both sides of the CO2 driven climate change debate. Thus you are left only with your emotional conviction as to where on the scale of possible range outcomes you put your faith. 

Instead, you can just say that you want to rely less on depleting resources and swap to renewables where the economics at least give you a breakeven. That at least gives you a rational basis for your policy and decision making. Hysteria vs. denial are not going to give you any information as to how to proceed. 

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3 hours ago, Guillaume Albasini said:

Here is REAL evidence:

NASA et al: Beginning of CO2 warming hoopla.... Said rate of T increase highest in tropics at mid altitudes.... was proven wrong via basic weather balloons, should have STOPPED the insanity in its tracks immediately, but... politics

Greenland, Antartica ice cores, CO2 lags Temperature rise, proves CO2 forcing as wrong

History of Little ice age(not man made), Midevil warming period(not man made) which both happened world wide yet NOT ONE model can predict the past ... yet claim they can predict the future......

Found out Cloud formation formation caused by sunspots/solarwind/cosmic rays which regulate temperature of earth.  How/Why/When sun does its thing... no one knows.  

NASA When predicting temperature of planets, atmospheric density/depth everyone uses Black body radiation.  Works for Exo-planets, Titan, Venus, yet we are led to believe it does not work for earth....🤣.....  Yea...

Number of stations being used for earth temperature calibration keeps dropping and "model data" keeps being inserted for saying how warm the planet is.  Now almost to 50% "model" temperatures. 

Sea buoy data was arbitrarily increased(whole data set) even after calibration of buoy's were all checked/validated for some still unfathomable reason.  Yet NO ONE on the AGW side says one word about this abject obvious FRAUD.

Homogenization between real stations and "estimated" has now reached astronomically absurd distances of 2000km even though the old stations which were thrown out of data sets are STILL reporting!!!  Guess their already insane homogenization of 1000km used since the late 1990's wasn't large enough for them...  Spread that land warming out over those oceans... oh yea... gee, I wonder why it is warming up north... hrmmm

City data is kept, even though everyone knows Heat Island effect utterly destroys any credibility from said stations.  Pristine stations purposefully setup in the 90s is shunted aside, or mixed with city data to hide it.

Final nail in the AGW coffin?  Daily HIGH temperatures in ALL data sets AROUND THE WORLD, have all been dropping since 1990, yet daily LOW Temps have dramatically increased creating a warming trend in the data, yet 50% of all manmade CO2 has been injected into atmosphere since then....  Maybe... just maybe because nearly everyone has Heating, cars, electricity, paved roads, and Air conditioning now and they are keeping the utterly biased city data....  What a thought.  Applied logic, how quaint. 

I don't know about you, but from applied logic perspective from an engineer I can only presume someone has to be a drooling idiot, ignorant, gullible, lazy or a fanatic to believe CO2 is forcing the climate. 

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