Comments not related to oil and/or natural gas production in this thread, please. Thanks.
150 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, July 31, 2021,”
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Comments not related to oil and/or natural gas production in this thread, please. Thanks.
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From ArsTechnica,
Electric cars have much lower life cycle emissions, new study confirms
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/07/electric-cars-have-much-lower-life-cycle-emissions-new-study-confirms/?comments=1
If you want to see what the mile by mile shift that is happening with energy and carbon then follow the utilities- they are collectively making the moves that add up to big changes. for example-
Xcel plans to roll out 10,000 MW of renewable energy in Minnesota, Colorado by 2030 –
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/xcel-pushes-plans-to-roll-out-10000-mw-of-renewables-minnesota-colorado-ben-fowke/604191/
It a good website for this kind of news. https://www.utilitydive.com/
Hickory,
On the utilitydive.com link you provided, i particularly liked the
Form Energy’s $20/kWh, 100-hour iron-air battery could be a ‘substantial breakthrough’
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/form-energys-20kwh-100-hour-iron-air-battery-could-be-a-substantial-br/603877/
yes indeed- would be good news to enable the transition further away from coal.
The article is 8 months old, but interesting nevertheless.
The World’s Top Green Hydrogen Projects That Could Change the World
https://interestingengineering.com/the-worlds-top-green-hydrogen-projects#:~:text=The%20first%20green%20hydrogen%20project%20in%20the%20region,create%20124%2C000%20tons%20of%20compressed%20hydrogen%20every%20year.
Hydrogen? Really?
Yeah, surprised me a bit too!
Hydrogen is a terrible idea. Period. The efforts being put into the horribly inefficient and dangerous boondoggle that is the green hydrogen economy, would be better spent going into batteries.
They’d peddling hydrogen over here in the UK because, obviously, the gas suppliers don’t want to lose their pipeline infrastructure. We’ll ignore all the insanity that goes into trying to make this a thing for home boilers, rather than switch to heat pumps. And hydrogen cars and planes? Yeah, no.
Exactly Kleiber. Turning natural gas into hydrogen loses over half the energy in the gas. But generating hydrogen by electrolysis from water loses about 80% of the original energy in the electricity. That is the actual power to the axel of the vehicle that you would get if you just used electricity.
The Hydrogen Hoax
Good document, I did have another I could have posted, but my eye was distracted today by seeing my father reading The Sunday Times and seeing a review by Clarkson of the new Toyota Mirai. That Toyota are still pushing this car in a redesigned, and somewhat cheaper form, is annoying when they have actually useful EV and PHEVs they can push instead.
This is plainly false.
Current electrolysis has an effiency of 70-80%
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water#Industrial_output
Here a look at hydrogen vs. battery – I won’t take the numbers as exact, but they give a rough estimate. With hydrogen, the chain is long and ther compression steps take a lot of energy. The stuff has to be transported hypercooled or extreme compressed.
https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news/stories/2019/08/hydrogen-or-battery–that-is-the-question.html
The hydrogen car still is much more efficient then creating E-fuel from electricity and drive a gas car.
Hydrogen can get important in the future when generated it in giant desert solar farms or geothermal hotspots in big quantities. It then can be transported like LNG to every harbour on the world. But it’s still not decided if you fill cars with it, or just generate electricity from it to power everything.
Current electrolysis has an effiency of 70-80%
No, that is clearly wrong. Your Wiki page is talking about just converting electricity to hydrogen, nothing more. That hydrogen would still have to be compressed, shipped, stored, pumped into an automobile, then converted back into electricity. Electricity to electricity, you lose about 80% of the electricity in the process.
This is fuel cell cars using hydrogen produced from water, not natural gas.
I think that the rich, and the military, will find a way to justify (and pay for) the poor efficiency of the hydrogen energy storage mechanism so they can still fly.
And plenty of other niche applications.
Also imagine that you are a utility managing 800 13 MW ocean based wind turbines.
(That is roughly the equivalent output of 4 nuclear reactors). There may be many times when the electricity produced exceeds the grid demand. Currently at such times electricity producing facilities are often taken offline- so-called ‘curtailment’. There will be a strong incentive to harvest that energy for later, and one mechanism will be as hydrogen. This will type of application will likely be a big industry, regardless of whether we here are ‘sold on it’ or not.
Here is a little more of what the industry doing in this regard-
https://www.fchea.org/in-transition/2019/7/22/unlocking-the-potential-of-hydrogen-energy-storage
Ron, don’t mix up things.
The electrolysis HAS 70-80% effiency. You can store the gas low pressure in a cavern, and then just burn it for heat later, distributed over the pipes from the former natural gas utility company. It’s not all about cars.
The most extreme case is using it in a fuel cell car, where you have to compress or hypercool it 2 times, once for transporting it to the gas station and one time to fuel the car. Plus mobile technology is less efficient than stationary one. That’s why many companies don’t think fuel cell cars have a future. I’ve posted a link from such a company in this thread.
The most important part for hydrogen storage will be storing the unreliable wind and solar energy for later use – here you will use low pressure storage and stationary power plants.
Or to create hydrogen in a country with abundant energy (like the Australian or Saudi desert) to transport it to another place to sell it.
Here the losses are not the most important thing – the general cost is it. You can take 30% more losses compared to a local plant, when you have 100% more solar radiation for example.
The main problem is: All your batteries and pumped storage can only be a stopgap to bridge a few hours – not days and weeks like in the big texan blackout this winter. A pumped hydro plant has normally a capacity of 6-8 hours full power output, a Tesla giant battery of 1 hour.
Here you need filled caverns. In Europe there are periods in Winter up to 3 weeks of almost no solar and wind. Cold foggy calm weather – I hate this. So you need deep storage or a second plant infrastructure on fossile coal and gas basis.
To get a feeling how much storage is needed you can play around with the energy mix in Germany:
https://energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&interval=month&month=07
Even when increasing the alternative energies by a lot you’ll have big holes – and wind can’t be increased without limit – the good sites are already occupied. And you’ll get shadowing when overbuilding.
A special problem has been in May / 21: You can see a lot of coal and not much gas. That’s because the gas caverns have been emptied too much in the cold winter this year. You’ll have the same problems with hydrogen – and no other technology has this storage volume.
Or you build completely nuclear / fusion – but that’s impossible because of the green party and media.
You can store the gas low pressure in a cavern, and then just burn it for heat later, distributed over the pipes from the former natural gas utility company. It’s not all about cars.
I have never heard of burning hydrogen for heat, or cooking, or just burning it for whatever. There must be a reason that this is not practical, else you could just burn it in cars instead of using a fuel cell.
And I don’t think you could store it in caverns either. At low pressure you could not store very much and at high pressure nature’s tinyest atom would escape.
Efficiency Compared: Battery-Electric 73%, Hydrogen 22%, ICE 13%
https://insideevs.com/news/332584/efficiency-compared-battery-electric-73-hydrogen-22-ice-13/
Thanks Gerry.
This is the basic reason why hydrogen for routine transport will never compete with battery electric vehicle on cost or efficiency.
Its use will likelyprimarily be for industrial and other commercial applications, such as cargo ships.
They’re peddling hydrogen because they’ve realised heat pumps wont work in the context of uk housing stock. Too cramped (no space for buffer tanks etc) too poorly insulated.
Hydrogen will work even less well than heat pumps due to storage problems. They to will come to this conclusion, in time.
Heavy woollen garments including underwear is where this will end in the uk, for the vast majority. But hey, not for another 15 years at a minimum i’d say.
Cars in the context of the uk are also not really viable at scale, i’d say the vast majority will be replaced with electrically assisted pedal cars or eScooters, eventually again 15 – 20 years. That will be a quick switch as bikes and cars are not going to share the road.
Planes synjetfuel or biojetfuel. And obviously at vastly reduced scale.
The EV problem is already a huge hurdle. Just trying to get infrastructure available to charge, let alone the dealing with the cars being produced affordably and the tax implications, are things no MP has bothered to look at. They just casually say we’re going to be all driving EVs with no bumps along the way by 2030 or so. The same guys who pushed everyone to diesel not that long ago before telling everyone it was a terrible idea and charging them through the teeth for the privilege.
No one has the balls to actually tell it how it is. Everyone is fixated on BAU being enabled by just swapping ICE for EVs and a methane boiler for H2 or heat pumps. It’s fucking insane.
We have probably got to the point where the EV technocopians are now more dangerous than the climate deniers. Except for the most moronic or cognitively dissonanced individuals (many of whom still post in the comments section of the Times for some reason, though I think many are from outside the UK, Australia and USA being the remaining hotspots) the deniers have mostly slunk away. But the technocopians remain and promote the lie that everything can be fixed without any sacrifice at all. All we have to do is listen and do exactly what they say, all hale their superior knowledge and acuity. And if we don’t then obviously it’s our own fault that we can’t fix the problems. It means that the real horror of the situation can never be properly put across. People will just turn away from the reality to the comforting pabulum fed by EV crowd. Nothing to see here they say, nothing difficult for me to do, no need to feel guilt about what we’ve done to the next generations, no need to think about anything except the ‘obviously’ minor issue of climate change. Nothing has a chance to get done by hiding the truth, even if it were otherwise what right have we to decide what other people should know. You could argue the bad news needs to be balanced with the goOd, the trouble is there isn’t much good –it’s like the 97% climate realists versus 3% flakes case, there shouldn’t be a balance of one for one, because the 3% are spouting cobblers. Even Mike Pollyanna Mann seems to be changing his view on this.
Any place too cramped for heat pumps is probably ideal for district heating.
JP, I am a UK watcher with a pipeline to the ethnic Indian community . UK will be the first country in Europe to go down . Why ? It is an island nation which imports 80% of its energy and 60 % of its food . It’s biggest export is cars unfortunately that party is over because of Brexit and now add the semiconductor shortage . Second biggest business is financial engineering (racketeering ) . That has shifted to Frankfurt , Geneva etc . My advice is import some cycle rickshaws from India / Bangladesh for that is what you will be able to afford . Don’t believe , read the links . If businesses cannot even afford to contribute 20 % of the wages , what happens when it is 100 % . You are correct about woolen garments but many pensioners are already there and more will join as energy poverty hits . You are forward looking since you are aware of what is coming down the line , only your timing is incorrect . Take care .
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/furlough-jobs-business-employment-covid-b1894585.html
Sorry to spoil your party . Tainter should be taught in all island nations .
https://motortransport.co.uk/blog/2021/07/27/uk-supply-chain-faces-collapse-in-two-to-three-weeks-rha-warns-government/
UK energy import dependency
Energy dependency reached its peak in 2013, at nearly 48 percent. Thanks in large part to growing capacity additions of wind power and a decline in primary energy consumption, the dependency rate had fallen to some 35 percent since. This is notably lower than the European Union average.
https://www.statista.com/topics/4938/energy-imports-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/
HinH-
if you base country stability purely on energy self sufficiency then Belgium is in a very unstable position, with net energy imports at just over 80% of total (as of 2015).
Ouch.
https://www.multpl.com/belgium-net-energy-imports
I have looked for country rankings on this, and 2014 is latest good data I could find. Interesting to see.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.IMP.CONS.ZS?most_recent_value_desc=true
George Kaplan,
Check your email please.
Thanks.
Hydrogen has three other major issues apart from the efficiency: 1) it leaks a lot, standard steel won’t keep it in; 2) if it’s compressed it gets hot (it is diatomic so this is physics not engineering) and the heat has to be removed, this adds to the complexity and the inefficiency of handling it; 3) it blows up more easily and with greater devistation than pretty much anything else. All these can be handled in labs or small scale demo plants but they are all impediments to scaling up.
There is a hydrogen pipeline here, 150 miles long and still in work after 80 years now and counting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_pipeline_transport
Hydrogen is used for several industrial processes – these are no alternative energy pipelines, it’s industry gas. It’s used in huge quantities here, Germany produces 20 billion m^3 hydrogen a year – mostly from natural gas or during other chemical processes.
So handling of huge quantities of this stuff is common technology.
There are many problems with hydrogen.
But transporting hydrogen with pipelines is a mature technic.
Hickory , I am not giving a free pass to Belgium . As a matter of fact energy poverty is baked in the cake for Europe . It has zero oil resources ,coal , natural gas and it is shutting down its nuclear plants . Till date France with it’s nuclear has been filling in the gaps , but their reactors are past ” expiry date ” . Let us see how long can this last . On the last oil thread i have commented that by 2025 10mbpd of oil will vanish from the world’s exportable pool . Whose ships will be diverted ? Europe’s ? Why not ? Only in a world with unlimited resources can men live as brothers . Sad .
I cars, hydrogen fuels cells have two other issues that require them to have supplemental batteries.
First, EVs use regenerative braking to capture braking energy a big bonus in traffic and in hilly areas. You can’t run a fuel cell backwards. Regen braking is estimated to save 15-20% of energy costs, which is why they use it in Formula 1.
Second, fuel cell output of hydrogen cars isn’t good enough for rapid acceleration, so hydrogen cars supplement their output with batteries. Battery output is much more flexible. Obviously you could use a bigger fuel cell, but it would be idle most of the time, so batteries are the preferred solution.
“Hydrogen is a terrible idea. ”
I’m sure you have it figured out more than than all the companies/countries who are working on implementing hydrogen as a portable energy storage mechanism [sarc].
We’ll see how they do over time.
The fact that hydrogen is being dabbled with shows us how inexpensive solar and wind have become, and conversely how the oil depletion story and global warming is firmly in the global energy planning consciousness. Countries that have a huge energy vulnerability, such as Japan, are eagerly working the technologies involved.
Imagine places where is it sunny as hell or windy as heck, but far from the grid. These areas of ‘stranded’ energy reserve will lightly provide enough energy at good price to make hydrogen a viable energy carrier, even considering the costs and inefficiencies.
Recall that we have tolerated severe inefficiencies and cost penalty in the whole petrol energy conversion mechanism- most of the energy being wasted as the liquid is combusted.
It is an option that will be explored at large scale, since the 8 billion don’t have any great or magical alternative to the energy of the black liquid century.
post- it may be that hydrogen will be the liquid fuel choice of the rich. Allowing them to use energy as if there is no shortage, and still claim to be ‘green’.
The rich and the military. The big rockets that went into space recently were hydrogen fuel based engines, I think.
Nonetheless, this sector of the energy industry does have legs.
I’m sure you have it figured out more than than all the companies/countries who are working on implementing hydrogen as a portable energy storage mechanism [sarc].
We’ll see how they do over time.
Like cold fusion? I remember that didn’t pan out too well either, despite all the investment and PR. Hot fusion too, for that matter. Flying cars, anyone? Aaaany year now, you’ll see.
The fact that hydrogen is being dabbled with shows us how inexpensive solar and wind have become, and conversely how the oil depletion story and global warming is firmly in the global energy planning consciousness. Countries that have a huge energy vulnerability, such as Japan, are eagerly working the technologies involved.
Beg to differ. First of all, there is no green hydrogen economy. At all. It’s mostly grey or blue, if you’re lucky (and we all know CCS is another pipe dream). This shows how desperate people are to find something, ANYTHING, that allows things to continue. You’ll note that reducing consumption and conserving aren’t floated. No, ideas are based on allowing the gas companies to keep using their pipelines (convenient) and the car companies (all two of them, if Toyota and Hyundai want to die on this particular hill with Nikola) to try and beat Tesla at a game they already won.
Energy storage? How about CAES and flow batteries before we go into who can build the biggest leaky tank of hideously explosive gas available.
There’s no infrastructure for this. It’s horribly energy inefficient. And it’s ridiculously expensive and doesn’t offer anything we already have in a much better form. And yes, we may have been frittering away fossil fuels by burning them, but they were a) already available at no cost beyond extraction, b) MASSIVELY more energy dense and convenient. They are nothing at all like hydrogen, which is a great way to piss up the wall any excess energy we may get in the future (we won’t be getting much of that at all given how things have been going).
The hydrogen economy is when the heroin addict is trying to get off on methadone instead, rather than actually going clean.
No, of course not as you suggest.
I really doubt big players in the industry, such as Siemens, would be spending so much money on hydrogen related projects if they didn’t see a role for it.
Here is a writeup on Japans plans for hydrogen-
https://www.s-ge.com/en/article/global-opportunities/20201-c5-japan-hydrogen-market
Note- i am not a proponent of hydrogen, just an observer who is surprised how much momentum the industry has rapidly come up with in past 2 years.
I get that there are limited roles where it would make sense. The using it as a gas to burn in situ is better than putting it in FCEVs and wasting much of the valuable and limited surplus renewables we’d have on hand. I just have heard a lot of this before, and like 3D movies, it does the rounds now and then before falling flat.
We have, nay, have had EVs for over a century and have new better technologies for long term, high density power storage such as CAES. I’d put more into those scalable, safer and more efficient systems now than the white elephant of hydrogen that has been ever on the horizon since the late 19th century.
The history of corporate capitalism is full of major players who made bad bets.
Hi Hickory,
I believe you are right, that hydrogen is going to be a BIG THING in the not so far distant future, and that you’re right because it’s not about energy efficiency, it’s about COSTS.
These are two entirely different concepts.
Some people can’t get their heads around low efficiency at low costs being practical and profitable when higher efficiency at higher costs won’t pencil out.
OK, having BEEN a teacher, I know just how hard it can be to get ANYTHING thru to people who don’t want to hear it, who want to stick with their preconceived ideas.
So.. here’s a literal example.
Suppose you build a solar farm that’s ten percent efficient at converting sunlight, but it costs only a third as much to build and operate it as one that converts at fifteen percent efficiency.
So….. you get two thirds as much electricity…….. but at only one third of the actual dollars and cents COST of that electricity………
When you have an actual or literal more or less inexhaustible supply of raw energy, which we have in wind and sun, efficiency is irrelevant, in terms of BUSINESS.
Total or overall cost of operation is everything.
Suitable space and suitable climate are of course in short supply in many places, but the people putting big money into hydrogen know that……. and they know about how much it will cost to build transmission lines and pipelines to move electricity and or hydrogen from places with lots of land and ideal wind and sun to places where that electricity and or hydrogen can be sold.
Of course you get it, and the people running large companies spending money on hydrogen get it as well.
Maybe this reply will help some of the doubters get it.
Thank you OFM for saying all that in coherent and simple terms.
Perfect, and your rationale is straight down the lane as always.
Very few people have digested the idea that the energy reserves of solar and wind are truly massive, and harvesting [and storing] a small percentage will be huge.
We’ll see what techniques end up being affordable.
Yea, well said, OFM.
Most people don’t realize that grids are massively over built right now: the US uses an average of 450 GW, and peak generation capacity is 2.5x as large. When you over build wind/solar like that there will be an enormous supply of surplus, dirt cheap power.
Perfect for creating hydrogen stored dirt cheaply underground (just like nat gas now), and used in cost effective 50% efficient turbines (again just like nat gas, vs expensive fuel cells).
Nick G on the electric grid- “Most people don’t realize that grids are massively over built right now:..”
That is not what I read. I see many reports about the very long queue for solar and wind grid interconnection.
Getting that interconnection is a major roadblock for any project developer. Its a catch 22- without getting the interconnection approval it is hard to get project funding, to get permits , and to secure the equipment purchases and to line up the contractors.
The grid is the major constraint for implementing new projects.
Some of the backlog and sluggishness is just suboptimal grid policies and management, but a big chunk is also due to out of date physical infrastructure of the grid, including many weak links.
Examples of the news on this-
“Surging demand for renewables has led to a sharp rise in solar projects in grid interconnection queues in PJM, the largest electricity market in the US. The PJM network spans 13 states in central and eastern US and falling solar and wind costs are creating new opportunities for developers. Across the US, a lack of transmission capacity and slow approval processes are hampering projects.”
https://www.reutersevents.com/renewables/solar-pv/solar-builders-call-faster-pjm-reforms-grid-queues-soar
https://sustainableferc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/SFP-MISO-Queue-Map-Update-2-pager-11-9-20.pdf
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/report-renewables-are-suffering-from-broken-u.s-transmission-policy
Hickory,
The fact that the grid is overbuilt doesn’t mean that it has more capacity than it needs. It means that it has more capacity than is needed for average consumption.
Overbuilding is a specific strategy for handling backup and variability issues. It’s very old, and well understood – it’s not new to handling renewable intermittency.
All generation requires backup strategies: it’s a myth (propagated by opponents of renewables) that renewables are unique in this regard. Nuclear, coal, gas, hydro: they all have their own reliability and intermittency issues.
Similarly, consumer demand has both random and recurring variability, which the grid has to provide (aka “load following”).
So, peak generation capacity is going to be much larger than average demand, by design.
One key difference for renewables vs fossils is that fossils have a fuel cost. That incremental/marginal cost means that one only wants to produce as much power as is needed. But…renewables don’t have a fuel cost, so (like nuclear) one wants to maximize production if possible. Which leads to dirt cheap surplus power.
Renewables are relatively small, so the periods of dirt cheap surplus power are relatively short, but they will grow….
You lost me Nick.
But please know that I don’t want any breadcrumbs.
Lets move on.
Uhm, you lost me too.
I met a cnc machinist with a full time gig working on cold fusion in Vancouver BC. Apparently he is being moved to Germany to continue the company’s work. There are still investors spending money on it thus they limp along.
Here is a straightforward write up on the the role of hydrogen in energy storage-
‘Hydrogen technology faces efficiency disadvantage in power storage race -‘
“The technology to convert power to hydrogen and back to power has a round-trip efficiency of 18%-46%, according to data that Flora presented from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and scientific journal Nature Energy. In comparison, two mature long-duration technologies, pumped-storage hydropower and compressed air energy storage, boast round-trip efficiencies of 70%-85% and 42%-67%, respectively. Flow batteries, a rechargeable fuel cell technology that is less mature, have a round-trip efficiency of 60%-80%.”
“The idea is to “store” renewable electricity as hydrogen during periods when the electricity is not needed, rather than curtailing generation.”
https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/hydrogen-technology-faces-efficiency-disadvantage-in-power-storage-race-65162028
Which is why LAES and CAES, pumped hydro or gravity blocks or literally any other system is better than hydrogen. If hydrogen was less explosive, less difficult to store and didn’t have the other conversion losses, then it’d be fine. But there are so many other better, safer ways to store excess renewable power without squandering what we do get and need to store.
Hydrogen is about scaling.
You can take an underground cavern and store lot’s of hydrogen, as now with nat gas.
You’ll never build as big pumped hydro. This has limits in the Ghw range – as batteries struggle to reach the single Gwh for a single installation.
A cavern can hold hydrogen energy in the Twh range, just depending on the size. And this size you need to plug demand holes.
Look at the nat gas storage now, to bridge the winter demand. We’ll need even bigger storages to even out the year’s demand with wind and solar. Or use some kind on nuclear / fusion / geothermal.
on the bright side, the existing nat gas distribution infrastructure can be converted to hydrogen over the time – there are liners that reduce diffution. The gas companies here already have this conversion possitilities in mind.
You can take an underground cavern and store lot’s of hydrogen, as now with nat gas.
I would seriously doubt that statement. Hydrogen is nature’s smallest atom. The methane molecule is composed of one carbon 12 atom and 4 hydrogen 1 atoms. That makes it 16 times larger than 1 hydrogen 1 atom. Well, it is 16 times the weight of the hydrogen atom. I don’t know if the actual size would be 16 times larger, but at any rate nature’s smallest atom would easily seep through the walls of even a salt cavern. Remember, to store very much hydrogen, the pressure in the salt cavern would have to be very high. High enough to push that tiny atom right out.
“Large quantities of gaseous hydrogen have been stored in caverns by ICI for many years without any difficulties.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_storage#Porous_or_layered_carbon
It’s already common technology.
Another thing – the “town gas” of the beginning 20th centory was up to 50% pure hydrogen. This mix was created by heating coal. You can handle this stuff by a pipe infrastructure.
It’s already common technology.
Another thing – the “town gas” of the beginning 20th centory was up to 50% pure hydrogen. This mix was created by heating coal. You can handle this stuff by a pipe infrastructure.
So you know, there are concerns over the cost and safety in retrofitting the infrastructure that carries methane now to a pure hydrogen network. The costs of just changing the nation’s boilers to run off H2 (which we still need to produce en masse somehow), are in the tens of billions of pounds alone, to say nothing of the added safety tech for monitoring the system as all H2 sites have needed. None of this is really being addressed outside of the usual handwaving of “we’ll be green by 20XX and use hydrogen and electric cars”, as if willing it would make it so. You absolutely cannot use the National Grid’s gas network as it is for hydrogen, and it is a far cry from what existed when town gas was still in use in the 1960s. It’d be like saying we can upgrade all computers in the UK for Cray super computers by using total computer ownership and usage of 1965 against what we have in 2021. Totally different world.
Hell, the rail network issue is all you need to see how monumentally boned we are. The total lack of investment and improvement and atomised nature of private entities running such infrastructure, as is the case with our energy now which it wasn’t in the mid-20th C, is enough to grind this whole thing down with bureaucracy alone. Just having the odd road dug up, as is happening near me, for the installation of a bit more piping to connect some new housing, is enough to massively upset the local road system and cause delays for weeks at a time. You’re talking about upgrading ALL housing in the UK. To explosive hydrogen for heating and power. By the 2030s. Yeah, that’s not happening. One could call it a pipe dream (pun very much intended). I’ve seen how Cadent work. By 2130, maybe.
I don’t know which is more outlandish: switching to CHPs or H2 boilers and generation. Neither are going to be cheap or rolled out quickly. The CHP programmes with new builds has shown what a kludge the whole thing is with no real clear vision (well over half the ones built near me are with boilers, barely any with CHP as was supposed to be universal for all new houses now).
@Kleiber
Converting the gas grid gradual to hydrogen is already in work in Germany. They are setting up increasing the percentate of possible hydrogen mixture in the gas pipes, and even separating them again with membranes when you need only one part.
The utility companies know what’s coming from the government and are preparing. There are tests running already.
Changing to hydrogen will be not a big bang, but a slow switch from natural gas. There will be bio gas on the gas network, too.
They say up to 5% hydrogen is not a problem even now, and they will increase this as it is provided. There never will be 2 infrastructures, one for hydrogen and one for natural gas. It will blend over.
And yes, at some point people will have to buy a new boiler and perhaps a gas leak sensor – as happened before. In the “0” years most houses hat to change their boiler already at least once because the old ones haven’t been efficient enough – and this is controlled every year. If you can go 15 years with a boiler, you are lucky to have chosen a good model.
And yes, it will cost billions after billions. The green energy infrastructure in Germany costed already more than 100 billion € – and much more to come. I expect a few 100 more the next decade, with a green government looming.
From today news: The green party wants to install a climate super secretary with a veto right! for every other secretary or bill when they win. So expect really crazy stuff the next years…
Hydrogen is indeed capable of exploding…… if it’s mixed with air, lol.
But it’s actually MUCH safer than natural gas in this respect…… which is quite capable of exploding with equal force, or greater force, for a couple of very simple reasons.
First off, neither natural gas nor hydrogen a explode except in the presence of oxygen in suitable proportions.
Hydrogen disperses into the atmosphere very quickly indeed, in the event of a leak.
Natural gas disperses, but far more slowly…….. meaning a large enough quantity to result in a serious explosion or fire is MUCH more likely to occur with a natural gas leak than a hydrogen leak.
A tiny little spark is enough to set off either one.
A lot of that is wrong. The range of concentration (i.e. ratio of gas to air) for which hydrogen can explode is much wider than the relativelt narrow range for natural gas, hydrogen will detonate at lower temperatures, because it is light it can collect and pocket under roofs and ceilings, and the overpressure for a hydrogen explosion is much higher than for nat gas so it is much more destructive.
Natural dispersion rates don’t play a big role, enclosed spacies with potential for natural gas leaks (e.g. offshore) have to be designed with 12 air changes per hour yet they can still blow up.
I’ve worked with electrolytic hydrogen generators for many years. These are small ones that generate 40 cf/hour for use in scientific work, with the product stored in high pressure storage tanks.
We have electrolysers with liquid electrolyte and passive room ventilation, and also have units with proton exchange membranes and forced ventilation.
The technology is well developed, safety systems and sensors are robust.
The explosive limits for hydrogen are 4% to 74%, and that is a wide range and is second only to acetylene (2.5%-100%). People work with acetylene every day.
Propane has explosive limits of 2%-10%, but it has the added hazard of being heavier than air.
I’ve worked with hydrogen every day for decades, and it’s easy and safe to work with if you maintain the safety and equipment standards.
We generate our own hydrogen, but there are labs in every university or technical/scientific operation that have hydrogen in cylinders, with these cylinders being transported in cities every day.
Yes, there are hazards, but they’re obviously controllable.
I’d rather work around hydrogen than around propane any day.
Even though I’m well familiar with hydrogen, I still have some skepticism towards the hydrogen economy but for me it’s the energy economics rather than the safety issues .
Caelan MacIntyre just made the following quote which I deleted:
“Apparently, too, there are now more deaths by the CV-19 vaccines than by CV-19.”
I started this blog was started 8 years ago. In that time there has never been a more stupid, ignorant, and dangerous statement than the one written by Mr. Macintyre quoted above. Only a goddamn imbecile could have written such nonsense. This shit really pisses me off and I don’t care who knows it.
Anti-vaxxers cause deaths. Anti-vaxxers cause children, mothers, fathers, and grandparents to die. Though I do not run this blog anymore I will goddammit not stand to have something I created to be used as an instrument of death. Calen, shut your goddam anti-vaxxer mouth.
Thank you, Ron.
I have two good friends who refuse vaccinations for various unconvincing reasons, such as, “I have Lyme disease.”
Rather, they have conspiratorial mindsets (and in one case, possible mental illness) and have been taken in by internet hoaxers. It just burns my ass.
One is a Type 2 diabetic and amputee with chronic heart failure. If he gets delta, he’s dead.
But he won’t listen to us.
Rather, congestive heart failure.
Deleting, decontextualizing and misrepresenting me and/or my comment(s) seems to betray less of an interest in truth, or at least its investigation and inquiry, and more in a forced narrative or echo-chamber. This sort of approach seems more religious or authoritarian/despotic, than rational or scientific. But that’s what some people can go for sometimes, even if they believe they don’t and promote themselves accordingly.
I see your corruption as plain as day, and will now remove myself permanently from this site.
My best wishes. Thank you for a good run hereon.
I don’t even know what your point is. What, exactly, is your beef with the vaccines and what would be your suggested course of action instead?
Doesn’t matter, Kleiber.
End of discussion when communications become selectively deleted, tampered with and/or otherwise distorted/misinterpreted to advance a particular story.
A society, if you can call it that, sufficiently based on that sort of thing, incidentally, ultimately has no future.
I would argue we have no real bright future without the virus either way, but fair.
Hand-Feeding Edible Deceptions
Father Patterson exorcised much more of my blasphemy regarding the collapsing Church than the conveniently-decontextualized bit he kept and appears to be relying on for the scripture to work, to hand-feed (otherwise, they might insist on seeing what was exorcised for example) the congregation with, like a holy cracker.
While the Good Father, incidentally, seems to like to be periodically seen as enrobed in the robe of science, what with its spirit of free inquiry and whatnot, it’s clearly a bit of a ruse.
Kleiber, it may be that because of the destruction of the environment we are headed for hell in a handbasket. But that will play out rather slowly with some nations failing faster than others. Some are already failed states.
But this virus that is raging through our population is happening right now. And this new Delta virus is killing much younger people than the earlier version. And in states with a high vaccination rate, like Florida, it is raging out of control. Even some vaccinated people are getting the virus. But in they usually show little or no symptoms.
Nationwide, about 97 percent of people hospitalized with Covid-19 are unvaccinated, according to data from the C.D.C.
We could wipe this virus out in a couple of months if people would only get vaccinated. But now even children are dying. And those idiots who claim the virus is dangerous are directly responsible for those deaths. The anti-vaxxers are merchants of death. Some of them are so goddamn stupid that they claim the vaccine itself is killing people. This damn lie is being spread by Facebook, Twitter, and other irresponsible blogs. And the people who run these social media outlets, like Mark Zuckerberg, are just as responsible for these deaths as the idiots who post these stupid lies.
So Kleiber, I hope I have it clear that just because the world is headed for destruction in the next few decades, there is no need to start the slaughter, today, in this country.
Hear hear, Ron.
Thank you Ron!
It’s way past time.
Thank you Ron.
That guy lives in a tiny bubble where there are no other villagers,
or he would have been exiled from there a long ago.
Thanks Ron!
You first. Spreading your doom and gloom bullshit for 20 years.
Spreading your doom and gloom bullshit for 20 years.
That is not even a complete sentence. Listen, Troll, if you have anything constructive to add to the subject, then let’s hear it. Otherwise, keep your little pie hole shut.
Thank you and thank you.
We are at 82% one dose and 68% fully vaccinated in the Province where I live. Population 5.5 million. Not one death from the vaccine. In my immediate area (Vancouver Island) the rate of new infection (all Delta) is .3 of one person per 100K population.
Vaccines work. The day I got mine I was pretty emotional about it.
Indeed.
I keep reminding myself how lucky are all those who have had a chance to get the vaccine- still many countries are very early in their access.
And just how fortunate we are to have a robust international science community that was able to come up with a handful of strong vaccination solutions.
That was extremely fast, and it could have been an exercise in futility. The world economy would still be on a big downdraft.
Much more to come from the mRNA focused industry.
Cases in Point:
Country – 1 dose – (FV – Fully Vaccinated)
Jamaica – 6.1% – 4.1%
Haiti – 0.1% – 0.0%
Mexico – 38.6 – 20.8%
Guatemala – 12.2% – 2.1%
Lebanon – 16.8% – 13.1%
India – 28.2% – 8.0%
South Africa – 11.2% – 5.7%
Zimbabwe – 11.9% – 5.9%
Namibia – 6.8% – 2.1%
Nigeria – 1.3% – 0.7%
DRC – 0.1% – 0.0%
Thailand – 21.2% – 6.0%
Indonesia – 18.0% – 8.2%
Philippines – 11.3% – 9.5%
Vietnam – 7.5% – 0.9%
Myanmar – 3.4% – 2.8%
Does anybody else see the gross inequity in the distribution of vaccines? The picture below is a screenshot from the web site of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (https://covid19criticalcare.com/about/the-flccc-physicians/). These physicians have been pushing for early treatment from as early as April last year. They have spent a considerable amount of time researching promising treatments and have developed a set of protocols for reducing the chances of getting infected, reducing the likelihood of severe outcomes with this disease and reducing the “long haul syndrome” effects. I invite readers to peruse their web site and examine the science. There are three other founding members on the linked web page that are not in the screenshot below that are professors of medicine. Not likely to be a bunch that do not embrace sound science.
Does anybody else see the gross inequity in the distribution of vaccines?
Of course, we see it, but who is responsible for this gross inequity? Is anyone responsible? That is, is it just a brute fact of nature?
Vaccinations didn’t just materialize. Countries had to decide whether to fund the production and manufacture. Some did that with aggressive spending, and some did not or could not.
Take Japan for example- vaccination rate up until a month ago was on par with Myanmar because Japan did not help fund any of the successful versions of vaccination- “was betting on domestic drugmakers to come up with a homegrown vaccine. When none materialized, Tokyo joined the long line of other nations competing to source vaccines from outside suppliers.”
Funding vaccination manufacturing in a situation like pandemic this is a risky game. There was no guarantee for success. Over 4 billion vaccinations have been dispensed. By next summer the effort should be near complete globally. Unless new variants emerge.
The ‘inequality’ of vaccination distribution is similar to the inequality in food. energy, and all the other things that money buys. No surprise here.
Hickory, great answer. I agree 100%.
Or a country like Canada that booked, prepaid, then was denied their supply for almost 6 extra weeks. When vaccines finally arrived, vaccinations began in earnest to where Canada is now one of the leaders. My province is just over 70% fully vaccinated with almost 82% at 1st dose. Surveys indicate we will be at or close to 90% by Labour Day at the current rate.
This was yesterday’s stats: https://globalnews.ca/news/7583050/covid-19-vaccine-tracker-coronavirus-canada/
We have walk in Wednesdays clinics, pop up clinics, and regular mass vaccination clinics Many if not most folks wear their masks in crowded settings. The infection rates are really quite low, with the exception of the party going cohort in the BC interior. Where I live (we know almost everyone) there are some religious holdouts and some ignorant young. Lucky for them new infections are almost non existent.
A few bright spots about this GD pandemic are also being developed here. One, we will never have to rely on other countries again as 4 new vaccine production facilities are well underway. We used to export vaccines, and even gave up the insulin patent for free, but over the last few decades production shifted outside. And, long term seniors care is being revamped across the country. In BC the wages have all been increased to level them, full time employment is mandated, and workers cannot work at more than one facility.
We are all heartily sick of this pandemic but have mostly accepted the only way out is through vaccination. Masks are not political, in fact I washed my cloth mask this morning to be ready for a town run next week. My brother uses two masks as his wife is 70 and immune compromised.
With the exception of Jamaica, most of the countries on the list have participated in WHO sponsored programs for the elimination of parasitic diseases (Onchocerciasis also known as River Blindness and Lymphatic Filariasis, commonly known as elephantiasis) primarily through the use of a particular drug. In the case of Lebanon, this same drug was adopted as the standard of care for individuals infected with this disease. I challenge you all to look at the covid stats for the countries listed (search for “covid cases” country) and explain the relatively low numbers. Is it plausible that all of these folks outside of the developed world just cant count?
Data analyst Juan Chamie has an interesting comparison between Lebanon and Israel at his Twitter page. He has looked at many countries, regions and covid stats in relation to vaccination rates etc. Something does not add up. My contention is that there is obviously a strategy out there that beats back this virus faster and more conclusively than the route defined by the current dogma. I guess no one’s interested! We are truly living through the best PR campaign money can buy! Question everything!
Medical experts in Washington DC today were asked if it is time to ease the COVID lockdowns.
Allergists were in favor of scratching it, but dermatologists advised not to make any rash moves. Gastroenterologists had a sort of a gut feeling about it, but neurologists thought the government had a lot of nerve. Obstetricians felt certain everyone was laboring under a misconception, while optometrists considered the idea short-sighted.
Many pathologists yelled, “Over my dead body!” while pediatricians said, “Oh, grow up!”
Psychiatrists thought the whole idea was madness, while radiologists could see right through it.
Surgeons decided to wash their hands of the whole thing and pharmacists claimed it would be a bitter pill to swallow.
Plastic surgeons opined that this proposal would “put a whole new face on the matter.”
Podiatrists thought it was a step forward, but urologists were pissed off by the whole idea.
Anesthetists thought the whole idea was a gas, and cardiologists didn’t have the heart to say no.
I enjoyed that, thanks, Long’.
Less than 0.001% of fully vaccinated Americans died after a Covid-19 breakthrough case, CDC data shows
(CNN)Less than 0.004% of people fully vaccinated against Covid-19 experienced a breakthrough case resulting in hospitalization and less than 0.001% died from the disease, according to the latest data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The data highlights what leading health experts across the country have highlighted for months: Covid-19 vaccines are very effective at preventing serious illness and death from Covid-19 and are the country’s best shot at slowing the pandemic down and avoiding further suffering.
You can actually get the truth from the internet if the article is from a source dedicated to the truth instead of lies. Right now, about half of Fox News commentators have changed their tune and are now promoting the vaccine. Not so much for Fox News light, OANN or Newsmax. But unfortunately, the majority of anti-vaxxers get their news from Facebook.
Read this:
How the corona virus infects cells
then read this:
“You will not wear masks in this church!”
and marvel at how Homo sapiens can be so brilliant, and yet so goddamn stupid at the same time.
Enjoy the show!
Cassandra is Dead. Long Live Cassandra!
Anarchy- a state of disorder due to the absence or nonrecogition of authority
Who would have guessed the in-house self proclaimed anarchist is behaving like a 6 year old. Having a tempertantom complaining about not having freedom of speech “big government” grants himself in public places. But this is not a public form, it’s Dennis blog and we are guests. In the world of anarchy, freedom of speech can or will be granted by the local overlord. The fact the anarchist confuses his public government entitled freedoms in a private setting is a testament to the hospitality of the host and a sign of ignorance in his values.
Freedom is not free. It comes with responsibility.
It’s amazing that you waste so much time posting here because most of us don’t buy your shit.
By the way: Orlov is a fruitcake.
I thought you had left?
Caelan MacIntyre
08/01/2021 at 2:08 am
I see your corruption as plain as day, and will now remove myself permanently from this site.
My best wishes. Thank you for a good run hereon.
Something for the coal use deniers to get their knickers-in-a-knot over.
COAL DEMAND IS SPIKING IN 2021
“Amid all the talk of global warming, climate change-induced catastrophes, decarbonization and green finance, the global trade in “dirty” coal is enjoying an ironic renaissance. Bulk ships are busy transporting coal to Asia — and to eco-conscious Europe — boosting freight income for some of the very shipowners who publicly tout their environmental bona fides to investors…
The Financial Times recently pointed out that coal commodity pricing is outpacing both real estate and financial stock returns this year. The price of high-grade Australian thermal coal (used for power generation) had risen to $151 per ton as of Friday, more than triple its price last September, according to Argus. The price of semi-soft Australian coking coal (or metallurgical coal, used for steel production) was $127 per ton, up almost 80% year to date. And, year-to-date thermal coal exports from the U.S. Gulf Coast, where exports tend to be very price- and demand-sensitive, are up 194%.”
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Coal/Coal-Demand-Is-Spiking-In-2021.html
OUR BIGGEST ENEMY IS NO LONGER CLIMATE DENIAL BUT CLIMATE DELAY
“The actions we take defy the normal rhythm of political cycles. What we do in the next few years will have effects for hundreds of years to come. Unless the world cuts emissions in half in this decade, we will probably lose the chance to avoid warming of significantly more than the 1.5C set out in the 2015 Paris accord.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/30/climate-denial-delay-inaction-british-government
” Unless the world cuts emissions in half in this decade,…”
Well, sorry to reaffirm this, but its not going to happen.
Not even close.
Global fossil fuel emissions will stay very high until fossil fuel depletion results in very high prices for fuel, or until there is a lasting catastrophic economic tragedy for others reason.
I did not mention population decline since that won’t happen until after fossil fuel depletion is in full bloom.
And I didn’t mention implementation of renewable energy since in my estimation the limp global effort is far too little too late. Make no mistake however- whatever renewable deployment happens in your region will help sustain your local economy once fossils start to deplete in earnest.
Get used to climate disruption. We are just starting to see the early stage. A very inconvenient truth.
HICKORY —
You are probably right: From depressing article in Forbes this morning.
FORGET ABOUT PEAK OIL – WE HAVEN’T EVEN REACHED PEAK COAL YET
“Despite all the heavy dissemination of narratives and talking points about a “climate emergency” and the “energy transition” during 2021, the ongoing economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic proves that the world still heavily relies on fossil fuels to provide its constantly growing energy needs. Indeed, as the pushers of Peak Oil demand theory try in vain to revive their own always-wrong narrative, it now appears that the world has yet to even meet the peak of demand for the least environmentally friendly fuel of all, coal.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidblackmon/2021/08/02/forget-about-peak-oilwe-havent-even-reached-peak-coal-yet/?sh=722745232a9b
And even if we are close to peak in coal and oil the after peak consumption will be huge, for the next two decades anyway. No opinion worth a darn beyond that.
In a reply to a comment of mine expressing amazement at the lack of curiosity about the case numbers in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India, HB wrtote:
The comment he was responding to had a picture attached of a newspaper notice including instructions on “How to use the medicines given in corona infected patients in home isolation kit”. The third and fourth line of the notice read, “Ivermectin Tablet for Mass Chemoprophylaxis” (Chemoprophylaxis definition is – the prevention of infectious disease by the use of chemical agents. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chemoprophylaxis). It’s not me saying this. This is an official notice posted in the newspaper by the state health authorities. They are the ones stating that ivermectin is to be used for the prevention of this disease. In this case the notice is from the state government of Uttarakhand but, the strategy of that state is virtually identical to that of Uttar Pradesh.
Below is a screenshot of the Google search results for “covid cases uttar pradesh”. The population of Uttar Pradesh is about 230 million, about two thirds of the US population. if the US had the same amount of new cases per capita on August 2 the number of new cases would have been 36. The actual number was 135,811. That is 3,773 as many new cases per capita as Uttar Pradesh! Let that sink in!
If and when Uttar Pradesh experiences a new spike I will STFU!
In a reply to a comment of mine expressing amazement at the lack of curiosity about the case numbers in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India, HB wrtote:
The comment he was responding to had a picture attached of a newspaper notice including instructions on “How to use the medicines given in corona infected patients in home isolation kit”. The third and fourth line of the notice read, “Ivermectin Tablet for Mass Chemoprophylaxis” (Chemoprophylaxis definition is – the prevention of infectious disease by the use of chemical agents – Merriam-Webster). It’s not me saying this. This is an official notice posted in the newspaper by the state health authorities. They are the ones stating that ivermectin is to be used for the prevention of this disease. In this case the notice is from the state government of Uttarakhand but, the strategy of that state is virtually identical to that of Uttar Pradesh.
Below is a screenshot of the Google search results for “covid cases uttar pradesh”. The population of Uttar Pradesh is about 230 million, about two thirds of the US population. if the US had the same amount of new cases per capita on August 2 the number of new cases would have been 36. The actual number was 135,811. That is 3,773 as many new cases per capita as Uttar Pradesh! Let that sink in!
If and when Uttar Pradesh experiences a new spike I will STFU!
In a reply to a comment of mine expressing amazement at the lack of curiosity about the case numbers in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India, HB wrtote:
The comment he was responding to had a picture attached of a newspaper notice including instructions on “How to use the medicines given in corona infected patients in home isolation kit”. The third and fourth line of the notice read, “Ivermectin Tablet for Mass Chemoprophylaxis” (Chemoprophylaxis definition is – the prevention of infectious disease by the use of chemical agents – Merriam-Webster). It’s not me saying this. This is an official notice posted in the newspaper by the state health authorities. They are the ones stating that ivermectin is to be used for the prevention of this disease. In this case the notice is from the state government of Uttarakhand but, the strategy of that state is virtually identical to that of Uttar Pradesh.
If you do a Google search for “covid cases uttar pradesh” you will get the latest statistics accompanied by a graph of new cases. The population of Uttar Pradesh is about 230 million, about two thirds of the US population. if the US had the same amount of new cases per capita on August 2 the number of new cases would have been 36. The actual number was 135,811. That is 3,773 as many new cases per capita as Uttar Pradesh! Let that sink in!
If and when Uttar Pradesh experiences a new spike I will STFU!
STFU about ivermectin:
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/ivermectin-is-the-new-hydroxychloroquine-take-4-bret-weinstein-misrepresents-meta-analyses/
I’m sure the stats are absolutely complete. Kind of curious not duplicated anywhere else. Oh, except for Florida last year.
My first sentence was sarcasm.
In a reply to a comment of mine expressing amazement at the lack of curiosity about the case numbers in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India, HB wrtote:
If you do a Google search for “covid cases uttar pradesh” you will get the latest statistics accompanied by a graph of new cases. The population of Uttar Pradesh is about 230 million, about two thirds of the US population. if the US had the same amount of new cases per capita on August 2 the number of new cases would have been 36. The actual number was 135,811. That is 3,773 as many new cases per capita as Uttar Pradesh! Let that sink in!
If and when Uttar Pradesh experiences a new spike I will STFU!
If you do a search for “—– cases uttar pradesh” you will get the latest statistics accompanied by a graph of new cases. The population of Uttar Pradesh is about 230 million, about two thirds of the US population. if the US had the same amount of new cases per capita on August 2 the number of new cases would have been 36. The actual number was 135,811. That is 3,773 as many new cases per capita as Uttar Pradesh! Let that sink in!
If and when Uttar Pradesh experiences a new spike I will STFU!
If you do a search for “covid cases” for the most populous state in India you will get the latest statistics accompanied by a graph of new cases. The population of that particular state is about 230 million, about two thirds of the US population. if the US had the same amount of new cases per capita on August 2 the number of new cases would have been 36. The actual number was 135,811. That is 3,773 as many new cases per capita as the most populous state in India! Let that sink in!
If and when that state experiences a new spike I will STFU!
I wanted to post something in response to something HB wrote in a previous thread but, it keeps getting labelled as spam. Is comparison of statistics from various regions with different pandemic control strategies not being allowed? I was just highlighting the statistics of one region in the world in comparison to the US!
George-
Above you vented against the ” the EV technocopians are now more dangerous than the climate deniers. Except for the most moronic or cognitively dissonanced individuals …the deniers have mostly slunk away. But the technocopians remain and promote the lie that everything can be fixed without any sacrifice at all.”
George try to separate a faulty message from the underlying reality.
“everything can be fixed without any sacrifice at all”-
News Headline- there is no path that doesn’t involve the sacrifice and pain of downsizing the world economy.
EV’s will not ‘save the world’- meaning that there is no cure for severe population overshoot that was based on 80 years of fossil fuel engorgement.
There is no path going onward without extensive and severe changes (sacrifices primarily) in the ways of human living.
Nonetheless- EV’s are a much better mode of transport than ICE’s in some very important ways, economically and environmentally.
Imagine a country, like England, who just sticks with ICE vehicles. Project out 15 years and see a country in severe collapse due to severe shortage of fuel for vehicles. Imagine a country, like England with 50% plug in vehicles in 15 years,- maybe collapse less severe.
For those who are still young- that divergence in choice/policy can make a world of difference.
Maybe you should try to separate “people who think EVs are a good idea”, against whom I said nothing, and “people who think EVs are a cure for all known human malady”, against whom I was commenting.
Understood George.
Thank you for the clarification.
I have noticed so many people, perhaps most, are pretty desperate to avoid acknowledging the seriousness of predicaments the world faces.
Everyone wants a short and simple answer, and then get back to the party.
Hi Hickory and George.
I find myself far more on the EV’s won’t solve our problems side of this question.
While more EV’s are better than more ICE’s, the implication is that this is a binary choice.
EV’s are a symptom of the rich getting richer: of people pretending to make sacrifices. Changes that will make a difference to climate change involve sacrifice from those at the top of the economy: smaller dwellings (and only one per family), and a massive reduction in non-human-powered transport of any kind. This is the low-hanging fruit, and wars will be fought over it. People in the third world will die so that the west can have private cars, cruises, and things like vacations at “eco-resorts” requiring plane flights. Eventually, there will be a reckoning.
If you approach it honestly, and from a position of fairness for every human on the planet, the real cost of fighting climate change is a shorter, harder life for people in the west.
And that is a tough sell.
P.S.: I almost forgot: even if we do all these things, billions of people having reduced lifespans is baked in. So even if we did the best possible job starting 15 minutes from now, we’re still fucked.
LLOYD —
But EV babble is such a great distraction, sort of like “bread and circuses”. Maybe we’ve progressed — to EVs, beer and professional sports”? 😉
Lloyd – agreed, I’m pretty neutral on EVs on their own, at least as most people understand them – i.e. as one for one replacements for (oversized?) cars, it’s the snake oil salesmen who promote them as a universal panacea that I dislike. I like trams a lot; where I live they are very convenient and advertised as fully powered by renewables, how true that really is I haven’t found out yet. When I was a boy we had trolley buses (i.e. using standard roads but with overhead catenary, also excellent, and exciting when they became unhooked. I’ve experience the light transport in Brussels, Oslo, Houston and they are all preferable to endless traffic jams (you can travel and read for one thing – and drink between journeys for a second thing). Whether there will be enough time in the coming descent to get any of these accepted and expanded I have some doubts though.
“EV’s are a symptom of the rich getting richer: of people pretending to make sacrifices. ”
Well folks, then I’ll have to come clean-
I am hoping to remain rich enough to have use of an EV rather than a horse cart in 2029, when I will be going over the hill into the next valley to pickup some merchandise for my family and neighbors each week. That way our good field can be used for other purposes than just horse grazing.
And the electric cargo bike is so useful for smaller local trips.
So selfish, I know,
“If you approach it honestly, and from a position of fairness for every human on the planet, the real cost of fighting climate change is a shorter, harder life for people in the west.”
Some people will feel implored to drag their goods on an old pallet over the hill, out of a sense of fairness. Not that many.
Seriously… I can guarantee you that all people [whether in Tulsa, Toronto or Tianjin] will be fighting to keep access to effective transport, and when petrol becomes unaffordable for that purpose then EV’s will be what the common person (not just wealthy) will be using. Small scale, large scale, and everything in between.
Time to get used to the idea.
On the bright side it will be nice to see some refineries closed down, and to see a sky without jets.
Especially the jets.
One bright spot of 9/11 was no jets, clean sky and environment.
I didn’t even know it happened, until someone called and could not get across the Golden Gate.
But it put in motion the disaster that has emerged.
Lloyd.
Agree with your sentiments, but none of that downsizing of the human footprint, whether in Moscow or Johannesburg is going to be a voluntary act based on a global spiritual awakening. Hell, in the US we are in a struggle just to keep a poorly working democracy happening.
Rather, those changes will come only when forced by poverty, or perhaps some form of authoritarianism.
George, do you agree that society should work aggressively to reduce green house gas emissions from fossil fuels?
Always interesting thoughts from Tim Morgan-
“To be clear about this, we must make every effort to develop renewable energy supply, but we shouldn’t delude ourselves into the belief that REs can replicate the economic characteristics of fossil fuels. Well-managed, a transition to REs can contribute to stability. What REs cannot do is deliver a return to growth. ”
Well said. Although I would add the idea that certain geographic areas and certain sectors will grow briskly despite global stagnation/decline.
#206 July 25
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/
I want to take this opportunity to apologize for the multiple comments this morning. It all started when my first comment just didn’t show up when I posted it at 4:35. I used the account that I use to submit my EPM posts to check and discovered that the comment was not in the “spam” folder but, in the “trash” folder. My account does not have the privileges required to retrieve comments from the trash so, I tried submitting again without the link to the Merriam-Webster definition but it still ended up in the trash. I kept on trying to submit by removing the attached picture, then words that I thought might be triggering a filter, winding up with a comment that finally posted at 5:43.
I contacted Dennis and Ron about it and all the comments were restored but, by the time that was done I was not online and since I’ve come back online I haven’t been able to delete any of the extra comments. Dennis, please fell free to delete all my comments posted after the initial (4:35) comment up until the 5:43 one.
I was hoping Hole in head would chime in with an explanation for what is happening in India/
Island Boy , the battle between IVM and vaccines is only being skimmed by me . I am more interested in the economic aspects of the damage that Covid is doing to society . So I will pass on this . As to the damage it is doing , well here is a piece for you .
https://www.news24.com/fin24/Opinion/opinion-sa-unrest-shows-that-a-new-age-of-anger-awaits-india-and-brazil-20210803
Just a warning , all data issued by UttarPradesh and Uttarkhand governments should be taken with not a pinch but a fistful of salt . There are ” live or die ” elections coming up in 6 months time and the ruling party’s propaganda machine is working overtime , lies ,over exaggeration galore . The Chief Minister of UttarPradesh is a nut case , he makes Pat Robertson and louis Farrakhan as angels
Despite the warnings about the quality of the data out of certain states, I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around the indication that the US had 3,773 times as many new cases per capita as Uttar Pradesh on August 2. That is a huge number. I notice that the state of Maharashtra is still reporting new case counts in the region of six thousand a day. What is the explanation for that significant disparity (Uttar Pradesh 7 day average is 48)?
Island Boy , sorry I don’t have any answers . Unable to assist on this .
One new thing not discussed here for the EV market.
This could change things faster than thought – an explosive transition to EV ist now possible from the raw material an money side:
https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2021/08/02/sodium-ion-batteries-a-commercial-reality-claims-catl/
CATL has cracked the Sodium battery code – it’s not the usual lab thing, they are starting mass production for 2023, building up logistic chains. The new battery can be produced on the common lithium battery machines (important!) and is really cheap:
Projected cost is round about 35$ / Kwh for the cells – they only need sodium and Iron, and only aluminium and not copper for the bonding. All abundand raw materials.
The first generation is somewhat more heavy then LiFePOs, but can work at low temperature, is thermal stable and can charge fast (15 minutes for 80%).
So ca 1500$ cell cost for the usual 50 Kwh electric car – now simple electric cars will be not more expensive than gas cars. For the top end still cobalt based lithium ion is the choice – but the taxi in Singapur and Nairobi can be build cheaper as an electric car than a gas one now.
For preppers this is good news, too – a solar roof and a solid battery backup will get cheaper.
Despite the absence of these new lower cost batteries:
Europe: Plug-Ins Take 18.5% Of The Market In June 2021
There is a graphic in the article that shows a 3% market share for plug-ins in 2019. If market share growth continues at anything close to the current pace, it looks like the infernal combustion engine will largely be relegated to the dustbin of history long before 2030. I see that a a good thing!
Plug ins are often a kind of tax evasion solution here in Germany. When given as incentive as company car, you pay less taxes than for a normal ICE car. Many of these plugins are never charged, so they use even more gas than a normal efficient diesel car.
The sodium battery is a possility to crank up conversion speed by a lot. No more critical raw materials for the battery – so no new mines needed.
On the other hand, many people with PHEV’s rarely go to the gas station.
They didn’t purchase it for a tax advantage, rather as a mechanism to spend less on fuel and avoid
some of their reliance on the petrol industry.
This is the way that make sense – kind of.
The other problem is – the models you get here are mostly bigger SUVs with strong ICE engines. And their combined Diesel / Electro aggregates make them to gas hogs.
30 Kwh / 100 km (48 Kwh / 100 miles) is an often heard consumption. In the winter they hardly reach 20 miles on a battery charge. This is about 50% more than a true EV, even a bigger one. The bosses of my brother drive such cars. At least they charge whenever they can.
There may be better ones – but my opinion at the moment is the one or the other. Either a full EV, or an efficient ICE car with no whistles and bells and an efficient engine.
My current car goes on 46 mpg on Diesel – and it won’t help to have an extra 200 Kg of additional aggregates on board. I don’t brake that often for recuperation making this worth – knowing your route helps a lot.
I think my next car will be an EV.
I’ve always thought we would be way ahead to promote light weight fuel efficient cars without all the bling nonsense, and throw on some extra fuel taxes to subsidise expanded transit.
7 air bags, extra steel in the door panels, tv screens in the head rests? Come on…..
The ratio of BEVs to PHEVs in the article looks like about five to four. That would make the market share for BEVs greater than 10%. BEVs have no other power source so the battery must be charged. Hybrids have the disadvantage of being even more complicated than regular ICE driven cars and the only reason they sell at all is that many people are still not comfortable with the idea of electric cars. Once there are enough clearly visible public fast charging options the perception will change.
At some point fuel sales will decline to the point that gas stations will have a hard time justifying staying in business and will switch over to being convenience stores only. With fewer and fewer gas stations the question won’t be “Where are yoo going to charge that?” It will become “Where are you gonna get gas for that?” The latest I envision for that is the latter half of this decade. The speed of this disruption is going to surprise many!
Ron, you said above you can’t burn hydrogen in an ICE or someone would have done it. Well, it can be done, BMW proved it. But not economically it seems…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_Hydrogen_7
Thanks, John. From your link, bold mine:
The difference in fuel consumption is largely due to the different energy density with gasoline (petrol) yielding 34.6 MJ/L and liquid hydrogen yielding 10.1 MJ/L. Based on these energy density figures, one would expect 47.6 L/100 km for hydrogen based on 13.9 L/100 km for gasoline (petrol); which is very close to the stated 50.0 L/100 km. Using hydrogen in an internal combustion engine as a source of energy is far less efficient than fuel cell technologies; however, this is a system that is in production (albeit limited) now.
Nonetheless, hydrogen fuel (whether converted to energy in fuel cells or burned in an internal combustion engines) is not as green as it may seem; particularly so when you also consider that producing liquid hydrogen requires vast amounts of energy.[4] It will also be more expensive than its sister the 760Li (no retail price has been announced), which is BMW’s biggest and most expensive sedan, with a base price tag of over $118,000, thus further diminishing its widespread appeal. As of November, 2006, there were only five filling stations in the entire world that supported BMW’s filling technology, furthering the obstacles to making this car usable.
And getting 4.7 miles per gallon doesn’t help a lot either. Now we know why it is not economical just to burn hydrogen.
In the calm of laboratories, scientists of NASA are working on Lattice confinement fusion. https://www1.grc.nasa.gov/space/science/lattice-confinement-fusion/
Great
It’s a redevelopment from the abandoned laser fusion reactor – now they use a more energetic gamma ray instead and fix the deuterium in the target instead of using a pellet.
No heavy containment needed, no giant magnets – looks like this can be rolled out big when it is finished.
We have been too focused on fossils the last 50 years – it’s time to leave them behind as the steam engine.
They are not using gamma rays but x rays to trigger fusion process. And about the origin, I think they also found inspiration in the cold fusion attempts. For these trials, people were using ytterbium saturated with deuterium. It is in the same electronic vicinity as the erbium. If it works, I think, nevertheless, that they will face a problem due to the scarceness of erbium.
The FAO Food Price Index fell again in July. But it’s still way higher than previous years…
Getting back to the potential ways we can use hydrogen in large quantities………
I’m not an engineer, but it’s well understood that hydrogen can be produced in large quantities using otherwise surplus wind and or solar electricity……. and it’s going to be possible to produce such hydrogen on a more or less fairly regular basis, if you consider AVERAGE daily production over a fairly large area.
It’s also well understood that hydrogen can be fed into gas turbines that ordinarily run on natural gas up a certain limited amount, without doing much if anything in the way of modifying the turbines.
It’s certainly possible to build gas turbines that will run mostly or even entirely on hydrogen.
So….. we’re going to be stuck with maintaining a HUGE fossil fuel generating industry for some decades into the future……… until we can solve the intermittency problem.
We won’t need really huge hydrogen storage capacity facilities to make DAMNED good use of any hydrogen we can make using wind and solar power for the next decade or two.
We can make it with solar power in the middle of the day, and burn it in existing gas fired turbines late in the afternoon and all night and in the early morning……. thereby avoiding the purchase of substantial amounts of natural gas, and avoiding the associated pollution issues.
And as capacity grows, in both production and storage….. we can start burning some stored hydrogen a day or two later, then two or three days later……. then a week later…… anytime it’s needed up to the limit of storage capacity.
The hydrogen can be burnt near where it’s produced, and the electricity delivered via transmission lines, or it could be pipe lined to existing gas generating plants.
It’s going to be possible to deliver hydrogen via pipeline, eventually…… even if some leaks out.
And unless I’m badly mistaken, it’s probably going to be possible to store it down hole in old oil wells. After a while, once the remaining oil is well saturated with hydrogen, it will disperse more and more slowly, meaning it will be possible to get most of it back out of the hole, especially if it’s put down and then withdrawn again on a fairly short time scale, on a long term basis.
Bottom line, I can easily envision hydrogen getting the job done as a defacto short term grid scale battery solution.
More and more industrial machinery can be built as time passes while being scaled DOWN as well as up.
There’s no reason a smallish generating plant can’t be built right at a large factory or hospital, etc, where the waste heat from the turbine can be used to heat water for the entire facility, and for space heat, if needed.
It’s possible that electrolysis plants and generating plants can be co located, if modular, and cheap enough, at some future time.
We can make it with solar power in the middle of the day, and burn it in existing gas fired turbines late in the afternoon and all night and in the early morning
That’s one solution for daily (aka diurnal) intermittency. It would work perfectly well, but it’s probably not optimal (aka competitive) compared to batteries.
I’d envision hydrogen as more useful for seasonal intermittency: create hydrogen in the summer from solar and whenever wind has surplus, and store it underground for weeks-long lulls in wind & solar generation, mostly in winter. Batteries are far too expensive for something where energy (kWhs) storage is far more important than power (kW production).
When hydrogen gets to 10% of market share, I will take it more seriously.
Hint:
I expressed this over 10 years ago.
Which market do you have in mind?
Well, most is for petroleum refining and ammonia production.
But as we all know, the big game is:
Fuel Cell Technologies
So far that has been a losing game.
But just you wait. The hydrogen economy will arrive… unless the second coming of Christ arrives first. 😉
Existing industrial natural gas turbines cannot run on 100% hydrogen, in fact I don’t think they could run on even a few percent hydrogen mixed with natural gas, and as far as I know there are no industrial turbine designs that can run using hydrogen as a fuel.
Yeah, I think you are correct George. Natural gas is something we have an abundance of. In fact, a lot is just flared just to get rid of it. But hydrogen is something totally different. Hydrogen must be generated, using massive amounts of electricity to generate it.
Gas turbine efficiency is 32 % to 38 %. The rest is just lost heat. Considering about 15 % to 20 % is lost in the electronics process, a gas turbine to burn hydrogen is a terrible way to spend stored electricity.
Hi George, Ron
I’m definitely not an expert in such matters, but I try to avoid any news source or website that doesn’t pass the smell test, and I’ve seen some comments and articles which indicate that at least some gas turbines can run on a mix of hydrogen and natural gas, and others that say turbines can be built to run on both hydrogen and natural gas if hydrogen were to be available in sufficient quantities at low enough cost.
The MARKET for the hydrogen is already there, for such purposes as manufacturing ammonia, which is used by the millions of tons.
So the issue is probably going to boil down to the actual price of hydrogen in bulk somewhere down the road.
It’s impossible to say how cheap surplus wind and solar power may be in the future, but my firm opinion is that both wind and solar power will be overbuilt to the tune of two or three times what’s necessary to run the this country when the wind and sun are cooperating, so as to have ENOUGH wind and solar juice when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing over large portions of the country.
This is going to be done not as a matter of choice but as a matter of necessity at some point, due to depletion of gas and oil, and due to climate issues. We will divert as much money and manpower and material as necessary to keep the lights on and cars and trucks moving from some other industries…… maybe even tobacco, alcohol and cosmetics, lol.
So as I see it, the juice to manufacture hydrogen is going to be there, and it’s going to be extremely cheap juice, unless some other ( new?) industry comes along to use that juice.
I foresee a hell of a lot of it being used to desalinate sea water.
I also think a lot of energy intensive industrial processes can be made to work on an intermittent basis once electricity is cheap enough a good bit of the time.
We’ll just have to wait and see… if we live long enough.
Some other countries that have good wind and solar resources but little or nothing in the way of domestic supplies of fossil fuels are very likely to overbuild to this same extent, and if they don’t need the some hydrogen as generator fuel, they will use it to manufacture industrial chemicals such as nitrate fertilizers which will be in ever greater demand for as far out as the eye can see……. right up to the time the world wide industrial economy collapses.
In 2010 I went on a tour of some West Texas wind farms as an optional add-on at the annual AWEA Wind Power conference and expo. At one point the tour bus stopped in the middle of nowhere and all we could see from horizon to horizon, in all directions, was wind turbines. When the tour guide was asked why some of the turbines were spinning slower than the rest or not at all, the response was that they were likely being curtailed because there was not enough transmission line capacity to take the power to the load centers in the major cities in Texas. That was back when wind was generating “only” 94.652 TWh. In 2020 wind generated 337.51 TWh. If they were curtailing at 94, how much are they curtailing at 337?
Granted the transmission capacity has been upgraded but unlike FF powered generators, you don’t save money when you reduce the power output of a renewable source like wind or solar. It’s the same when a hydroelectric dam is overflowing. Operating a hydroelectric plant at less than full capacity when the dam is overflowing means that you letting free energy go to waste. That’s the whole point really. For the owners of solar and wind farms, curtailed power is basically free energy going to waste. Any scheme that costs less than the energy wasted is a candidate for use and the greater the margin the better it’s chances. Not a very high bar IMO.
Commercial turbines certainly could be designed to run on Hydrogen. it would take years and cost hundreds of millions, and would not even be attempted unless there was an obvious market (i.e. already excess hydrogen) or some kind og government subsidy. Commercial design is a completely different process than producing (loss making) lab scale or one off demo units.
Hydrogen would leak out of every seal and weld in existing turbines and would probably cause some of the materials to fail in short order. Also the ignition and combustion characteristic is completely different from natural gas (at it’s most basic the ration of oxygen is 1 to 2 for hydrogen but 3 to 1 for methane, so the burner nozzles would be of a completely different design, and probably different materil as I think hydrogen burns really hot and would erodr a lot of stuff.
Sigh. I think George isn’t reading my comments, so he’s missing relevant info. Maybe someone should suggest that he take a look…
I must repeat that I’m not an engineer, but I know a few things about gases and working with them, being a once upon a time pro welder.
Hydrogen leaks right thru ordinary steel storage bottles, one, because the hydrogen molecule is extremely small, and two, because the only way to get a useful amount of hydrogen into a small container is to compress the hell out of it, at a hundred atmospheres, or even two hundred.
Leakage is pretty much proportional to the pressure.
I don’t see any need of feeding hydrogen into a turbine at more than a few atmospheres.
And while it makes steel brittle, this is not much of a concern for a long time, probably many years, and not a concern at low pressures…. the steel doesn’t turn to mush, it’s still pretty strong.
Leaks except when they’re safety issues are just one more operating expense. Leaks aren’t going to stop hydrogen from being used as combustion fuel, although they will raise the cost of doing so.
Where i work, our hydrogen storage tanks are 40 years old, with a product pressure of 100 psi. We have a decade or so experience with a new model storage tank with product pressures of 200 psi. And we have 40 years experience with our hydrogen storage cylinders at 2500 psi.
Hydrogen is used in every university lab, scientific lab, as well as industry.
Acetylene is arguably as dangerous, and it’s used in almost every garage in the world.
Natural gas and propane have similar hazards and are used everywhere.
There are hazards, but they’re easily controllable.
“ According to the latest McCoy Power Report, GE has more experience running gas turbines on hydrogen than any other OEM. In total, GE has 75 gas turbines supporting power generation with hydrogen and associated fuels around the world. GE has combustion technologies that are capable of operating on a wide range of hydrogen concentrations up to ~100% (by volume).”
75 units running on hydrogen and similar low BTU fuels
30 years of experience running gas turbines on hydrogen
Up to 100% H2 gas turbine capability
Over 6 million operating hours
50% efficiency
https://www.ge.com/gas-power/future-of-energy/hydrogen-fueled-gas-turbines
Thanks Nick, I was too lazy to look up these and similar links.
You’re welcome. Here’s a bit more:
“Underground hydrogen storage is the practice of hydrogen storage in caverns,[1][2] salt domes and depleted oil/gas fields.[3] Large quantities of gaseous hydrogen have been stored in caverns for many years.[4] The storage of large quantities of hydrogen underground in solution-mined salt domes,[5] aquifers,[6] excavated rock caverns, or mines can function as grid energy storage,[7] essential for the hydrogen economy.[8] By using a turboexpander the electricity needs for compressed storage on 200 bar amounts to 2.1% of the energy content.[9]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_hydrogen_storage
“Underground hydrogen storage is the practice of hydrogen storage in caverns,[1][2] salt domes and depleted oil/gas fields.
Salt domes I agree, that is possible. But depleted oil/gas fields, no, absolutely impossible. Nick, I don’t think you understand what a depleted oil or gas field is. It is just porous rock, sandstone, or limestone, filled with water. If you were to pump hydrogen into this rock, it would immediately be gone forever, or most of it would.
No, you cannot store hydrogen by just pumping it into the ground. That would be totally absurd.
I disagree, but I’m no oil expert. However, the pipes down to great depths, and it’s my understanding that in most cases there’s still a hell of a lot of oil down there, just not enough to get it out at a profit.
Dispersion would be a real problem at lesser quantities, but there’s the square versus cube law working in favor of pumping a lot down, especially if the plan is to get it back in a short time frame. You lose at the edges, or interface, and the greater the amount deposited, the smaller the amount lost, as percentage of the whole.
But you may be right, it might not work at all.
On the other hand……. it might mean bringing up more oil, and being separating the hydrogen for reuse in the well, or burning it, or whatever.
Mac, get real. If you pump hydrogen into a depleted oil field you are doing nothing but pumping it into the ground. Sure, there is a little oil left and a lot of water. But there is no empty space to put the hydrogen! You must push the water, and some oil, out of the way in order to push the hydrogen in. That would take a lot of energy. And the tiny hydrogen 2 molecules would just slip right the much larger molecules of water and carbon polymers of oil. So when you tried to pull it back out the hydrogen would stay in the tiny pores and you would get nothing but oil-stained brine, and damn little hydrogen.
NO, fuck no, depleted oil fields are not a storage area for anything, and especially hydrogen. So disagree with your heart’s desire but you are wrong. You cannot store anything but more water in a depleted oil field.
“The company’s revised Minnesota resource plan also calls for adding: …800 MW of new hydrogen-ready combustion-turbines (CTs)”
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/xcel-pushes-plans-to-roll-out-10000-mw-of-renewables-minnesota-colorado-ben-fowke/604191/
Further up Hickory posted a comment that began with the following paragraph
I read this comment again and I realized that the quoted opening paragraph is part of the problem.
In March 2015 following the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, Bill Gates gave a TED Talk in Vancouver, “The next outbreak? We’re not ready”, in which he outlined that there was no global health system dedicated to responding to pandemics. He then outlined his ideas about what a global pandemic response system should look like. The Gates Foundation had pledged US$ 750 million to set up the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) in 1999 leading to the founding in 2000 of what later became known as the GAVI Alliance. Gates has been almost obsessive about vaccines since the turn of the century and has not been shy about promoting his ideas. In fact as one of the wealthiest people on the planet for the better part of three decades (he first topped the Forbes list of the wealthiest Americans in 1992), he has actively been promoting vaccines as a public health strategy for two out of those three decades.
The result of the fixation on vaccines by the wealthiest man on earth is that as soon as this pandemic was declared vaccines became the preordained solution to the exclusion of everything else. The decision was taken to try and contain the virus as much as possible until vaccines were ready. The problem is that this virus is the most deadly since the Spanish Flu one hundred years ago and it was observed that it easily overwhelmed some people. The doctors pictured above were not on board with this strategy and had ideas about how they could attempt to save people who were at risk of dying.
These doctors first focused on immune system support with supplement known to be critical to immune system function. In late 2016 Marik had developed a protocol to treat sepsis, a condition that kills some 11 million people worldwide each year. He observed that intravenous administration of three substances resulted in remarkable improvement in his patients. The three substances he used were inexpensive remarkably safe and widely available so it was deemed too good to be true and became controversial, with the results of a study finding no benefit to his concoction being presented in January 2020. During his editorial presentation at the conference of critical care practitioners in Belfast where the results of the study were presented, he called on Pierre Kory as an example of a physician that had reproduced the results he was getting with his protocol, which by that time had become known as The Marik Protocol. Interestingly the chair of the management committee for the VITAMINS Trial went on to de research that culminated in the following story from the Australian Broadcasting Corp., COVID patient with sepsis makes ‘remarkable’ recovery. From the story Professor Rinaldo Bellomo, director of Intensive Care at Melbourne’s Austin Health, achieved this remarkable result using extreme doses of just one component of the Marik Protocol.
By the beginning of April Kory and Marik had joined up with Dr. Joseph Varon of Houston, Texas who eventually became the single most interviewed doctor by news media on the planet, giving over 1,500 interviews and becoming the subject of one of the most iconic images from this pandemic (picture below). They also had two other accomplished critical care doctors in their group. Over the ensuing months this group expanded and improved their protocols to the point that they were only loosing a very small portion of the critically ill patients that were turning up at their facilities. They were seeing recovery rates in the mid ninety percent range as compared to national or global average ranges from 70 to 80 percent.
On December 8, 2020, Kory testified at a hearing on early outpatient treatment, chaired by Senator Ron Johnson. This was his second appearance before a hearing chaired by Johnson and continued a political divide where those who were promoting treatment were bundled with anti-vaxxers and kooks. At the hearing they also heard from Dr. Jean-Jaques Rajter, a Florida based physcian that had seen information about some promising results of an in vitro trial performed in Australia and tried the drug in question with remarkable results.
There are other doctors and groups of doctors in the US and across the globe that refused to sit idly by and watch as thousands of people died. These doctors include Dr. Peter McCullough of Dallas, Texas, featured in the following article, There’s another way to end the pandemic. Doctors can knock covid out with treatment. All of these doctors and groups of doctors have been roundly ignored by the public health agencies, governments and the mainstream news media! For what? Just so that those who invested in the development of vaccines can be guaranteed a decent return on their investment? That is cold!
New posts up
https://peakoilbarrel.com/bakken-summary/
and
https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-august-7-2021/