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 […]
Tag: decarbonization
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. […]
What Are the Energy Solutions?
What are the Energy Solutions? UPDATED 25/06/2024, because LinkedIn messed up the formatting, deleted every apostrophe etc. How the hell does that stuff happen? No idea…but I’ve cleaned up the mess, and added a lot of links to new articles on related topics. And I’ve also admitted that my predictions about Ontario’s tendency to re-kindle […]
Distilled Thoughts On Hydrogen
All my concerns about hydrogen #hopium, in one convenient place! Hydrogen is being sold as if it were the “Swiss Army knife” of the energy transition. Useful for every energy purpose under the sun. Sadly, hydrogen is rather like THIS Swiss Army knife, the Wenger 16999 Giant. It costs $1400, weighs 7 pounds, and is […]