Tuesday, October 12, 2021
Could a gas that leaks through steel be our new energy store?
Hydrogen is being touted as the solution to our energy woes. How did that happen, and why?
“It’s really been because of the global move toward decarbonisation,” Hydrogen Council CEO Dr Fiona Simon said.
“It’s time has really arrived because of the need for us as a global economy to move from the existing way that we use energy. Hydrogen has characteristics that we can value more than we could before.”
Australia’s CSIRO has been working on the industrial applications of hydrogen for at least a decade, but its big breakthrough came in 2017, when it developed a metal membrane that enabled the element to be separated from ammonia. This global first was critical because ammonia is much easier to transport than hydrogen.
The next year the CSIRO signed a deal with Fortescue Metals to help commercialise hydrogen technologies. Company chair Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest described hydrogen as “the low emission fuel of the future” and likened the moment to the beginning of an energy revolution.
Developments have come rapidly ever since.
The federal government co-funded one hydrogen export pilot project in its 2020 Budget, and added another four this year.
The CSIRO now lists 74 large-scale, demonstration and pilot projects using hydrogen across the country.
In May this year the organisation launched its Hydrogen Industry Mission, with a goal of driving the cost of production down to under $2 per kilogram.
Hydrogen sounds great. what’s the catch?
Cost. Hydrogen will not be competitive until it can be produced at under $2 per kilogram, with the Australian industry hoping to achieve that benchmark by 2030. As the element is highly flammable, and is so small it can even escape through steel, critics say retrofitting existing infrastructure for hydrogen is also likely to be extremely expensive. Others say the water needed to create green hydrogen needs to be of such high purity that will also be a massive cost hurdle.
Hydrogen holds a lot of promise, but it needs the right policy settings to encourage investment, Dr Simon said.
“Hydrogen is competing with an existing industry with existing economies of scale and existing subsidies,” she said. “So much of [hydrogen’s potential] relies on the right policy settings, that we don’t have.”
Some have suggested hydrogen will not live up to the hype, but Dr Simon said it will fulfil its potential: it’s just a question of how much.
“It’s gone past the point where it could fall over. Hydrogen is a thing, it’s real, the question is do we put enough gusto in to make it real, to see it meets its full potential. That’s an open question,” she said.
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Biden’s Plan: Slash US Fossil Fuels, Rely on China for Renewables
Obsessed with manmade climate change, the Biden administration claims natural forces no longer play any role and blames every temperature change, hurricane, tornado, flood, drought and wildfire on fossil fuel emissions. It ignores forest mismanagement, the vital roles fossil fuels play in our lives, and the enormous ecological impacts that any Green New Deal would inflict.
Team Biden is determined to eliminate oil, natural gas and coal in US energy – and mandate wind turbines, solar panels, electric vehicles and backup battery systems, while building no new nuclear power plants or allowing any US mining for the metals and minerals essential for those new technologies.
We only have to look in two directions to see where this will take us.
To the West, where China says it won’t be bullied into committing economic suicide by ending fossil fuel use. It won’t begin cutting fossil fuel consumption until 2030 or reach “net-zero” before 2060. It won’t even engage in further discussions unless the US stops complaining about Honk Kong, Taiwan, Uighur slave labor and lax environmental rules.
In fact, China already emits 27 percent of all global greenhouse gases. It is 85 percent reliant on fossil fuels and just announced plans to build 43 new coal-fired power plants and 18 new coal-fired blast furnaces. It recently said it would stop financing and building poor country coal-fired power plants, and support only wind and solar projects, though that new policy could well sunset after the COP-26 climate confab.
China’s “peak carbon” plan is to install as much fossil fuel power as possible by 2030 – and use that cheap, reliable energy to manufacture wind, solar and battery technologies for sale to the USA, Europe, Australia and Canada, bankrupting Western industries in the process. Its “green energy” plan is to rake in as many greenbacks as possible from these sales.
China also intends to dominate global mining and processing for lithium, cobalt, rare earths and other raw materials required for “renewable” energy, defense, aerospace, communication and other high-tech applications. Ongoing discussions with the Taliban could soon give it access to the Bagram airfield and trillions of dollars in critical mineral deposits beneath Afghanistan’s rugged mountains.
President Biden seems content with this, just as he was with approving the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, giving Russia domination over European energy, while blocking the US-Canada Keystone XL pipeline and saying OPEC needs to sell us more oil.
Then look East, where Vladimir Putin is already squeezing Europe’s supplies, sending wholesale gas prices up 280 percent so far this year. Citigroup says EU gas prices could hit $100 per mcf (million Btu) if this winter is particularly cold and more Gulf of Mexico hurricanes disrupt supplies.
That’s 25 times this July’s Henry Hub US price ($4.07) and seven times the highest ever US price ($13.42 in Oct 2005, before fracking). It’s equal to $580 per barrel for oil! EU electricity is four to 10 times more expensive than the 13-cent US average.
Countless British and European companies and families face bankruptcy and mass layoffs. Tens of thousands of elderly face death from hypothermia because they cannot afford adequate heat. Recent headlines underscore the looming disasters.
- “Putin’s iron grip on energy leaves Europe increasingly vulnerable.”
- “Vestas closes wind turbine factories in Europe, as manufacturing moves to Asia.”
- “Energy companies supplying six million UK homes face collapse.”
- “UK energy minister admits ‘very difficult winter’ ahead, amid fear of blackouts and food shortages, as gas prices soar.”
- “Elder care homes warn crippling energy bills could force closures.”
- “This energy crisis is a mere harbinger of the candle-lit future that awaits us.”
- “Green energy transition will cost debt-ridden Italy €650 billion” [$760 billion].
- “If Boris thinks Brits are going to pay through the nose for green boilers and electric cars, while the Chinese are burning coal like there's no tomorrow, he’s signing his own death warrant.”
- “Why is Britain facing an energy crisis when we’re sitting on a gold mine [of natural gas that we refuse to frack]?”
This is what the United States faces if it continues down the “green energy” primrose path. Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are playing a brilliant chess game, while Joe Biden, Boris Johnson and other Western leaders play doddering checkers, with the West’s energy, economic and national security at stake.
Where are Republicans who say they want America to remain energy independent, competitive and free? Or Democrats who claim they care deeply about poor, minority and elderly families?
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Chilling truth about the Insulate Britain founder who said I will be 'hanged for climate crimes'
Some of those Insulate Britain climate-change protesters, whose motorway sit-downs are as infuriating as they are pointless, have been exposed as hypocrites.
One, Liam Norton, admitted he had failed to insulate his own flat in London and stormed out of a radio interview when tested on this point.
Another, Cameron Ford, who spent his 31st birthday in a police cell after being dragged off the M25 by police officers, was embarrassed when it emerged that in 2020 he had toured across Europe in a diesel van (he had unwisely posted lots of pictures of his travels).
But at least these hypocrites had also put themselves in the line of fire. However inconsiderate their actions, it takes a certain courage to glue yourself to a motorway and face the fury of road users, some of the more muscular of whom (to general public rejoicing) have wrenched the demonstrators off the road.
Callous
Yet the actual founder of Insulate Britain has not put himself out in this way. This is Roger Hallam, who has been telling his acolytes what to do either from his partner's South London flat or from his ten-acre farm in Wales.
He gravitates between these two places, though how these frequent trips are made, in terms of road or rail use, is not known. (Five diesel-powered vehicles have been seen parked on his farm, but he insists none is his.)
The 55-year-old did once spend time in prison on remand: we can take it he did not find it such a pleasant experience that he wished to repeat it.
He has, however, been willing to enter the broadcasting studios to defend the blocking of motorways, notably after one woman was filmed pleading with Insulate Britain protesters to move because she was desperate to see her mother, who had been taken by ambulance to hospital.
Asked about that incident and whether he would have refused to move if there was someone dying in an ambulance, Hallam replied simply: 'Yes.'
So you see, while he claims to be acting in the interests of suffering humanity, Mr Hallam is a callous man, and one who seems to obtain satisfaction in the contemplation of violence (performed by others, not himself, naturally).
A year ago, he was recorded telling his followers that the 'people who run society, run big business' whom he judged 'culpable … for the climate catastrophe …maybe you should put a bullet through their head'.
One woman was filmed pleading with Insulate Britain to move from the Blackwall Tunnel because she was desperate to see her mother, who had been taken by ambulance to hospital
One woman was filmed pleading with Insulate Britain to move from the Blackwall Tunnel because she was desperate to see her mother, who had been taken by ambulance to hospital
I am on his list of those apparently destined for execution. In July, after I wrote a column referring to him as 'just a nasty piece of work', he put up a film on YouTube under the title 'Dominic Lawson will be Hanged for Climate Crimes'.
The film amounted to his case for the prosecution. Having some idea of criminal law in terms of incitement to violence, Hallam carefully added the words that he was merely predicting my execution, not advocating it.
He was less careful in the past. Two years ago, he was dumped by his German publishers after he told an interviewer for Die Zeit that the Holocaust was 'just another f***ery in human history', and by not recognising this, Germans were somehow prevented from correctly appreciating what he considered the much more significant threat to human lives from climate change.
He argued that, in this context, the Holocaust (in which two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population were deliberately exterminated by the then German government) was 'almost a normal event'.
As a result of this interview, Hallam was largely disowned — and financially cut off — by Extinction Rebellion (which he had co-founded). Insulate Britain is his attempt to regain his leadership of the climate-change protest movement.
Insulate Britain protestors are dragged off the road by drivers at Wandsworth Bridge
Insulate Britain protestors are dragged off the road by drivers at Wandsworth Bridge
If you look at the material it puts out to justify its behaviour (probably written by Hallam), you will see that Insulate Britain claims its disruption to people's lives is in the tradition of the U.S. civil rights movement, Gandhi in India and those, such as the Suffragettes, who demanded the vote in this country before the universal franchise.
Contempt
This is, in its own way, offensive. We are not like pre-independence India. Not only do we have a democratically elected parliament, it is one that has legislated for a faster move to 'net-zero emissions' than any other large, developed nation.
The truth is Hallam has a contempt for the democracy that the Suffragettes campaigned for, or at least argues that elected politicians should be forced to agree to his own agenda. Insulate Britain says it won't stop blocking the roads until that happens.
When Hallam has tried his hand at democratic means, the result has been abject failure. Standing in the 2019 European Parliament election in the London constituency, he won 924 of the 2,241,681 votes cast — 0.04 per cent of the total.
Since then, he has set up a political party called Burning Pink. In the 2021 London mayoralty election, its candidate came 20th out of 20. Even Count Binface (of the Count Binface party) won five times as many votes.
The effect of Hallam's latest venture will be to render him and his ideas still more risible to the British voter.
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Australia won't tighten carbon emissions targets for polluters
Australia's energy minister on Monday rejected a call from the lobby group for the country's biggest companies to set stricter emissions limits on polluters but gave no indication what targets the government may announce ahead of UN climate talks this month.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison is working on securing support from the Liberal party's rural partner, the Nationals, to back a target of net zero by 2050 and possibly a more ambitious target for 2030 than Australia's existing pledge to cut emissions by 26-28% from 2005 levels, ahead of the UN climate conference in Glasgow.
Yet, the Business Council of Australia - which represents the country's biggest companies including miners, gas and power producers - said over the weekend that emissions reductions of up to 50% below 2005 levels by 2030 could be achieved with big benefits for the economy.
Addressing an energy and climate conference on Monday, Energy Minister Angus Taylor swiftly shot down the council's recommendation that the government beef up its "Safeguard Mechanism" by requiring businesses that emit more than 25 million tonnes a year to buy carbon offsets, compared with the current threshold of 100 million tonnes a year.
The Safeguard Mechanism and the carbon offset market sets Australia's carbon price, which last week rocketed to a record high, but was still less than one-third the carbon price in the European Union, which has much stricter emission limits.
"A substantial tightening of the Safeguard Mechanism is a backdoor carbon tax consumers will ultimately have to pay for, and that's not acceptable," Taylor said at conference organised by the Australian Financial Review.
Australia is the world's fourth largest energy exporter, and Taylor said the government's main goal was to protect key industries, including gas, coal, heavy manufacturing and agriculture, while also promoting hydrogen, carbon capture and storage and soil carbon to cut emissions.
The government would stick to providing incentives to cut emissions rather than punishing polluters, he said.
"That means avoiding explicit carbon taxes or backdoor pathways to a carbon tax - sneaky carbon taxes."
Taylor's speech came the same day that Australian billionaire Twiggy Forrest, an outspoken critic of the government's energy policies, announced he would build the world's biggest electrolyser factory in Australia to further his ambition to produce green hydrogen.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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