People hate plastics, or at least often say they do. In fact they are happy to have their lives saved by single use medical plastics, and they reward the convenience of plastics at the cash register whenever they’re offered, unless somebody gets in the way with regulations, but they still claim to hate them. Why […]
Author: spitfireresearch
The Ocean Cleanup is as Dumb as DAC- and that’s saying something
photo credit: Ocean Cleanup UPDATED: 7 Aug 2025, to fix typos and to repeat myself about real solutions, because commenters simply will not click on the links to other articles where I deal with these solutions in depth To some, this one is a really sacred cow for some reason. And frankly I find the […]
Wrecking Stuff to Make Hydrogen
A Coke can that has been dissolved in sodium hydroxide, revealing its internal plastic liner (photo credit- YouTube) TL&DR: destroying reduced metals/metalloids like aluminum and silicon is a really, really dumb way to make hydrogen. It is energetic vandalism, and generates unnecessary toxic emissions to generate a low value product. A shorter, more perfunctory version […]
Green Hydrogen as a Fuel is a Zombie Meme Idea
TL&DR summary: hydrogen as a fuel is a zombie idea. Thermodynamics and the properties of the molecule ensure that it will never be alive in economic terms. Hydrogen’s dirty present hasn’t meaningfully changed over the last 20 years, and hydrogen as a fuel isn’t a real decarbonization idea. However, while it will never be alive, […]
Green Steel = Green Iron
Image credit: Google Gemini What is “green steel”? Simple. It’s a misnomer. Iron in nature is rarely found alone. We mine its oxides as iron ores. These oxides need to be chemically reduced (gaining electrons = reduction) to take the Fe+2 and Fe+3 ions in the iron oxides, to Fe metal. And the oxygen needs […]
Will Green Hydrogen Save the Cement Industry?
Image credit: Google Gemini TL&DR summary: hydrogen can be used in cement production as a natural gas replacement, but that doesn’t solve the entire CO2 emissions of cement production. There are other problems like the lack of hydrogen flame radiance, but the deal killer is the cost per tonne of CO2 emissions averted. Hydrogen may […]
The ER-6: An Electrifying Conversion
UPDATED: 05/12/24 Those of you new to my articles may not know the beautiful and sad story of my previous conversion, my beloved Triumph E-Fire. Its told here in detail, from prehistory to its sad end…https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/e-fire-triumph-spitfire-ev-paul-martin/ This is the story of a resurrection- an electrifying conversion! In spring of 2019 I bought a 1973 Triumph […]
Can You Put Hydrogen in Natural Gas Pipelines? Ya, but…
Ya-but the rabbit, courtesy of Google Gemini TL&DR Summary: sure, you can re-use an existing gas pipeline to carry some quantity of hydrogen at some pressure, and do so safely. How much pressure and under what circumstances and operating conditions, and how much energy can be delivered via that repurposed pipe, and whether or not […]
Electric Heating- the Future of Industrial Heat
This article is a summary of my series of posts about electric heating: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/paul-martin-195763b_for-the-next-while-im-going-to-make-periodic-activity-7230286694044852224-ntuR?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop https://www.linkedin.com/posts/paul-martin-195763b_post-2-about-electric-heating-residential-activity-7230648442459447299-wdnK?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop https://www.linkedin.com/posts/paul-martin-195763b_electric-heating-3distillation-somewhere-activity-7231015287548960769-5N6U?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop https://www.linkedin.com/posts/paul-martin-195763b_electric-heating-4medium-temperatures-activity-7232761271262015488-a7x6?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop https://www.linkedin.com/posts/paul-martin-195763b_electric-heating-4aimmersion-heaters-every-activity-7233844691836747776-osxJ?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop https://www.linkedin.com/posts/paul-martin-195763b_electric-heating-5very-high-temperatures-activity-7234187728098115584-VcsH?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop https://www.linkedin.com/posts/paul-martin-195763b_spitfire-research-activity-7234548501643190273-oDCe?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop https://www.linkedin.com/posts/paul-martin-195763b_electric-heating-6bmore-high-temperature-activity-7234947655750053888-Ocqt?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop https://www.linkedin.com/posts/paul-martin-195763b_electric-heatingfinal-thoughts-its-clear-activity-7236112474733735936-MXfw?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop Some people have it in their head that there’s no way to make heat other than via fire. The reality is more complex. The reason we use fire to make heat is that […]
Home Heating-Electrification?
UPDATE 17/08/2024: major updated costs and analysis Warning: this article contains a lot of numbers. Numbers that tell a story. If you don’t like numbers, stop reading and spare yourself arithmetic anxiety. It should not be news to you that people in Canada need to heat their homes. Some of us also need air conditioning […]