There is a popular myth in the marketplace of ideas at the moment: the notion that hydrogen will become a way to export renewable electricity in a decarbonized future, from places with an excess of renewable electricity, to places with a shortage of supply and a large energy demand. It seems that the hydrogen #hopium […]
Category: Energy and Decarbonization
Blackish Blue Bruise Coloured Hydrogen Part 2: the Ghost of Blue Hydrogen’s Future
Blackish-Blue Bruise Coloured Hydrogen Part 2: The Ghost of Blue Hydrogen’s Future As we found in Part 1, conventional hydrogen production from natural gas using steam methane reforming (SMR) coupled with carbon capture and storage (CCS) is easily written off as a waste of everyone’s time and money. It’s fooling nobody. Because nearly half the […]
Blackish-Blue Bruise Coloured Hydrogen
My readers will know that I have never liked the “colours of hydrogen” that has been spread, as a meme, by the hydrogen-as-a-fuel lobby. There is only really one kind of hydrogen in the world right now. Hydrogen- 98.7% of it by generous estimate- is made from fossils, without meaningful carbon capture. It is barest […]
Waste to Energy/Waste to Fuels: the Great Greenwashing Machine
Most of us find waste to be viscerally repugnant. The smell and even the appearance of garbage revolts us. And yet we all generate it, in seemingly endless quantity. In “developed” (rich) nations, we therefore have built extensive systems to get this repugnant material out of sight, and hence out of our minds, as quickly […]
Global Warming Risk Arises From Three Facts
Anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is a real risk for future generations including my own children. It’s a risk I’ve personally taken seriously, and have taken personal action against, since the late 1980s when I was in university. And while we’ve seen some extremely positive developments in the past 30 years such as the creation of new industries […]
What Are the Energy Solutions?
Oh Paul, you’re so critical! You just crap on other people’s “green solutions”, telling us why they won’t work in your opinion! Where are YOUR solutions? Put up or shut up! First Premises First, what are we trying to solve, exactly? Anthropogenic global warming https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/global-warming-risk-arises-from-three-facts-paul-martin/ (Any denialist posts to this article will be deleted. Want to argue […]
Home Heating-Electrification?
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 if we want to be able to […]