Environment & Energy

Citing a post from a hydrogen bot here is unimpressive, at least to me. (I have that particular bot in question on my ignore list, but the link circumvented it apparently.)

I haven't said that there aren't Potemkin quantities of hydrogen produced with electricity, although the use thereof is incredibly stupid from a thermodynamic sense. The issue is one of scale, and in particular, given the exergy destruction that generating hydrogen involves, it causes the use of more fossil fuel energy than it creates.

I have, once again, made a referenced effort to discuss the scale of the exergy destruction involved:

A Giant Climate Lie: When they're selling hydrogen, what they're really selling is fossil fuels. Given that electricity is, by its nature, thermodynamically degraded, with prodigious exergy destruction, the quantities produced using electricity are not worth even a mote of consideration. As a fuel - as opposed to a captive intermediate - it's more filthy than the fossil fuels whose exergy is destroyed in generating it.

Now...

Somehow, I think the data from the IEA's annual "World Energy Outlook," which always has optimistic "scenarios" about the outbreak of a "renewable energy" paradise that never arrives, is better than the bot's post claiming to speak for VP Harris, who all of us enthusiastically support, me especially because of the Biden administration's outstanding efforts to promote nuclear energy.

I have issues of the WEO in my files going back to 1995. Thirty or so years later, the scenarios from back then would be amusing, were the realities of the situation not so dire, so tragic.

I post the latest data tables often, year after year, usually in November, when the annual addition is released.

The numbers are here: 2023 World Energy Outlook published by the International Energy Agency (IEA), Table A.1a on Page 264.



The 2024 Edition should come out soon and when it does, I'll be posting from its tables. Having followed these for decades, I'm not expecting any qualitative difference with the last 20 or so editions, the Covid era notwithstanding. Without a Covid or similar outbreak, I'm confident that the use of dangerous fossil fuels will rise again.

About the numbers in the table, at least those that are not soothsaying, but represent collected data:

I'm generally under the impression that 144 is bigger than 115, and that 187 is bigger than 173, and 170 is bigger than 153, the numbers corresponding to the primary energy produced by the three very dangerous fossil fuels. The unit of (primary) energy in these tables is the Exajoule. The entire solar industry, after trillions upon trillions of squandered money, is at 7 Exajoules, less than the growth of dangerous natural gas alone, less than the growth of coal as well. Note that hydrogen and batteries are not listed, as they shouldn't be, on the grounds that they are not primary energy. They waste energy. (It's called the 2nd law of thermodynamics.) The period of growth to which I refer is ten years, all during the often advertised growth of the magic "renewable energy" nirvana that has had no effect on the accelerating growth of concentrations of carbon dioxide, which can also be delineated by numbers, like these:

Week beginning on September 22, 2024: 421.71 ppm
Weekly value from 1 year ago: 418.28 ppm
Weekly value from 10 years ago: 395.47 ppm
Last updated: October 01, 2024

Weekly average CO2 at Mauna Loa

I don't know though, let me know, producing some credible evidence: Are these numbers lies?

If they aren't lies, may I note that when I joined DU in November of 2022, they were 49.03 ppm lower as of this writing? Should this reality fill me with joy and optimism?

Note the numbers here, fossil fuel waste concentrations in the atmosphere and energy consumption using dangerous fossil fuels have taken place in a time of endless crowing about the coming so called "renewable energy" nirvana, and the expenditure of trillion dollar sums on it.

But let's not kid ourselves. Any representation that the reactionary impulse to return to the early 19th century's dependence on the weather for energy supplies had nothing to do with addressing the extreme global heating now being observed. Recent claims to the contrary, that the trillion dollar useless solar and wind industry have something to do with climate change, are an afterthought. They were always about attacking nuclear energy, and as such, they worked to cause the growth of fossil fuels, as recorded in the numbers. Extreme global heating was not prevented. It is now a reality, one that didn't have to take place, but did, in my opinion because of appeals to fear and ignorance, coupled with rich dollops of wishful thinking and delusion.

The carbon intensity of antinuke Germany and nuclear powered France are available. Which numbers are higher? One can stick to an order of magnitude to describe the difference, unless, of course, one wishes to say the numbers are lies produced for an agenda.

I covered aspects of the rate of growth of concentrations of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide in many posts about the numbers at the observatory, particularly in 2024, which is shaping up to be the worst year ever, hydrogen, solar, wind, batteries, blah, blah, blah, year after year, decade after decade.

A recent example in this series of posts is here:

The Disastrous 2024 CO2 Data Recorded at Mauna Loa: Yet Another Update.

I compare these series posts to the tired clicking of a clock, as the numbers uniformly, without interruption, increase with time.

Or are these numbers lies for a political agenda as well? Really?

Now I suspect that you may be an energy engineer or involved in the power industry which doesn't make you infallible on the subject of power generation, just as my understanding of mass spectrometry make me infallible in interpreting the molecular biology evaluated with that tool. If you are such a person, can you tell me whether one lights a coal fire under a boiler that's been idled because the wind is blowing, whether the turbine turns instantaneously as soon as the fire is lit, or does it take time (and energy) to bring the steam pressure up, time during which the pollutants are released for no benefit? Does a shut combined cycle plant reach maximum efficiency in a few minutes, or does it take time for the steam pressure on the Rankine cycle portion of the plant to come up? Suppose these devices are started twice a day, or three times a day, according to the weather, clouds, rain or snow, or wind or because of demand because air conditioners need to save lives from the extreme heat fossil fuel waste is causing. Does this increase energy efficiency or does it cost it? What is the economic and material cost of keeping the O&M systems up to speed when they are not available for revenue generation because the wind is blowing on a sunny day?

Where on this planet has there been sustained so called "renewable energy" excesses that persisted long enough to make the thermodynamic nightmare of electrolysis economically or environmentally profitable?

I'd like to believe that I'm less credulous than people may wish to represent, although I'm unafraid to claim that credulity is hardly unknown here. Mostly, speaking only for myself, I attribute this disaster - and extreme global heating is nothing if not a disaster - to credulity, denial, and an unhealthy dose of wishful thinking.