TL&DR Summary: yes, it really is that cheap. It’s not bullshit. It’s real. And it’s going to power the world. Well, not the whole world- but a very significant part of the world. Those of you who read my articles will know that I have a small farm east of Toronto. We’ve built a couple […]
Author: spitfireresearch
How Green is Green Hydrogen on a Lifecycle Basis?
Image source: Google Gemini. Gemini won’t draw people, i.e. sketchy looking men in business suits, so I asked it to draw “a robot similar to Bender from Futurama”, and that did the trick. Worried about copyright? Suggest you talk to Google. TL&DR summary: a recent paper published by Dutch researchers in the journal Nature Energy […]
The Refinery of the Future
photo credit: Google Gemini TL&DR: we will continue to refine petroleum to make the chemicals and materials we need in a decarbonized future. We’ll just do it without the burning. It will be complex, expensive, and will take a new kind of refinery which looks quite different than today’s refinery. You’ve no doubt heard the […]
The Primary Energy Fallacy
The Primary Energy Fallacy- or, Committest Thou NOT the 2nd Sin of Thermodynamics! TL&DR Summary: if anybody starts talking to you about “primary energy” in a discussion about decarbonization, please punch them in the mouth. Energy is like currency- there’s an exchange rate between heat (chemical energy) and work (electricity)- they are not worth the […]
The Case Against Hydrogen Trucks
This article is a companion to my recent article about why I think battery electric trucks are the future of freight: Electric Trucks- the Future of Freight TL&DR: hydrogen trucks are largely just a retreat position for people who previously thought hydrogen cars were going to be a thing. They won’t be. There is no […]
Why Direct Air Capture (DAC) Sucks- and Not in a Good Way!
UPDATED August 8, 2023 You’ve likely heard the sales pitch before: What am I talking about? Direct air capture- the act of using active mechanical/chemical equipment and vast quantities of renewable energy, in a totally pointless fight against entropy, to try to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere for either durable burial or “use”. You’ve […]
E-Methane: Exergy Destroyer, On Steroids
TL&DR: grinding up electricity to make heating fuel is just a way to waste energy and capital, by destroying exergy (the potential to do thermodynamic work). It’s obviously worse than just making hydrogen. It is wasteful, and wasteful means expensive. It also means higher emissions than if you did something sensible, like feeding a heatpump. […]
Breakthrough in Electrolyzer Efficiency!
“FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE This isn’t just a step forward; it’s a colossal leap towards a future brimming with sustainable energy! Our team of wizard-like scientists and technical magicians have unlocked the secrets of hydrogen electrolysis, achieving unprecedented levels of energy efficiency that were previously considered the stuff of dreams. The newly discovered process, affectionately dubbed […]
Scaling Example #2: Water Electrolysis
Scaling Object Lesson #2: Water Electrolyzers For Hydrogen Production We learned about vertical scaling in the 1st article in this series: …and about horizontal scaling or “numbering up” in the 2nd: Now we’ll use these tools to examine the scaling future of an extremely important decarbonization technology: electrolyzers for producing hydrogen from renewable electricity. My readers will […]
Scaling Example #1: Small Modular Nuclear Reactors
Now, let’s used the tools we’ve learned, to took at some examples from the effort to decarbonize our economy. The first example to take a swing at with our new understanding of vertical and horizontal scaling is the small modular nuclear reactor, or SMNR for short. SMR means something else to me- steam methane reformer- […]