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 […]
Author: spitfireresearch
Ammonia- “Ship of Fuels”? or Fuel of Fools?
image credit: Microsoft Create TL&DR: ammonia is a toxic and corrosive gas, and using it as a fuel aboard ships fails the 1st principle of safety in design. It is an insane idea, and those pushing this toxic idea should give their heads a serious shaking. I am a chemical engineer with many decades of […]
Where Does Green Hydrogen Fit?
Image credit: Google Gemini If you know my writing even a little, you’ll know where I stand on this issue. It’s as simple as my meme, but my many articles (especially this one) explain why, in detail. Those articles come with analysis and references and the comments of many experts in the field as an […]
Yes, Virginia, Solar Really is THAT Cheap!
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 […]
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 January 15, 2026 and 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 […]
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. […]