Wind and Solar vs Coal, Gasoline, Nuclear

[Hillhater]

^^^^ So how does that help in any way towards the “climate crisis” ?
Using brown coal to produce Hydrogen.....huge waste of energy ....and huge production of CO2, just so japan doesnt have to burn coal/oil, leaving Oz to take the CO2 rap !
The words profit and greed spring to mind .
( and they did not even bother to fuel the ship with hydrogen )

 

[BobBob]

^^^^ So how does that help in any way towards the “climate crisis” ?
Using brown coal to produce Hydrogen.....huge waste of energy ....and huge production of CO2, just so japan doesnt have to burn coal/oil, leaving Oz to take the CO2 rap !
The words profit and greed spring to mind .
( and they did not even bother to fuel the ship with hydrogen )

I'm on the fence on this one, they say "If the partners eventually scale the project up to 225,000 tonnes a year, they plan to make carbon-neutral hydrogen by burying the carbon dioxide released in the process under the seabed offshore Victoria."

Most of the CO2 which is "buried under the seabed" tends to be injected into oil fields to produce more oil, so has tenuous environmental credibility but there are plans to pipe it into under sea lakes (it sinks below 3km down) or in the rock under the sea (safer probably)

A hydrogen economy existing seems a good idea but getting it from coal is a risk, unfortunately Oz has a lot of coal and convincing them to stop using it will be a battle

It may however be a bridge to a bridge, in so far as by developing the industry and infrastructure we maybe enable wind powered offshore hydrogen generation to fuel the next step.

 

[CONSIDERABLE SHOUTING]

Bridge-to-bridge is probably why. There's other small factors too, like how you're only gonna produce what hydrogen you need (since it all leaks out eventually) and lack of carbon buildup improves your overall efficiency and maintence. I could see it being a good thing even if they keep getting the hydrogen through "cracking" natural gas; there's just a scale and size of vehicle that could only be ran on serious diesels and nuclear.

 

[TheBeastie]

World's First Hydrogen Tanker to Ship Test Cargo from Australia to Japan

^^^^ So how does that help in any way towards the “climate crisis” ?
Using brown coal to produce Hydrogen.....huge waste of energy ....and huge production of CO2, just so japan doesnt have to burn coal/oil, leaving Oz to take the CO2 rap !
The words profit and greed spring to mind .
( and they did not even bother to fuel the ship with hydrogen )

I'm on the fence on this one, they say "If the partners eventually scale the project up to 225,000 tonnes a year, they plan to make carbon-neutral hydrogen by burying the carbon dioxide released in the process under the seabed offshore Victoria."

I don't see hydrogen production this way much different than all the CO2 being pumped out by China to refine nickel, lithium, copper, cobalt, steel, manganese etc for battery cell production. The biggest reason why these metals are expensive is because of the amount of energy it takes to refine them aside from abundance.

The upside of producing Hydrogen this way vs burning fossil fuel via combustion vehicles is you aren't creating other harmful gases like carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx) , hydrocarbons, particles, volatile organic compounds and sulfur dioxide etc, and having them pumped around in concentration in city areas.

I visited Traralgon about 10 years ago where all of Victoria's major coal mines/power-stations are and it's a lovely town, everything seems quite brand new even though the town has been around for a long time. The shopping district area seemed like it was brand new, I thought it would be a great place to bring up a family.
I went there during the summer and I couldn't smell anything, it all seemed clean and green even though you could see at least one massive coal-power plant in the distance if you stood in the right spot.

When they had the sudden announcement of Hazelwood power-station shutdown I felt bad for the people that lived there at the thought a part of the town would die.

The story of the Hazelwood power-station being suddenly shut down (the power-station owners gave 6months notice) gave a special window into how clueless and crazy state governments are.
The Vic state government were desperate for more money so they came up with a "genius" idea to just triple the royalties tax to mine coal in the area that fed the power-station, they just assumed the power-stations would just blindly accept it.

The gov was so clueless as to what was about trouble they were going to cause there is a seeing Daniel Andrews gov give a tough words threat speech on the TV news saying "if the Hazelwood coal-power station even thinks of raising electricity prices then we will come down on them like a ton of bricks! Don't even think about it!"
Victoria's own mining tax to triple as treasurer gouges brown coal for revenue
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/victorias-own-mining-tax-to-triple-as-treasurer-gouges-brown-coal-for-revenue-20160422-gocymk.html

It was only about 1 month after the announcement to triple the coal royalties tax did the Hazelwood coal-power-station announce they would shutdown FOREVER in 6 months time.
Hazelwood owner 'driven out of town' by Daniel Andrews: Frydenberg
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/hazelwood-owner-driven-out-of-town-by-daniel-andrews-frydenberg-20161104-gsicnq.html

Every time I hear a greeny leftist say "coal gets way more subsidies that green renewable energy" I think about the Hazelwood story where they were literally taxed out of being a viable business, if it wasn't for the sudden tripling of the taxes to mine the coal then they wouldn't have shut down like they did, where are these magical coal subsidies we keep hearing about?

There are a bunch of charts whole sale electricity costs by state like this one below on the web, as soon as the announcement about the shutdown of Hazelwood announced, the cost of wholesale electricity basically doubled, you can see that only mostly wind-powered South Australia were on another level with crazy expensive electricity prices, but after Victoria's Hazelwood shutdown the whole eastern side electricity grid instantly caught up to their dumb price level.
It was clear to me that Hazelwood was largely only really running as a somewhat favor to Victoria and the local towns keeping all those jobs and industry that relied on a lot of electricity going, but the Daniel Andrews government could not have been more clueless about the situation, I think Daniel Andrews government believed their newly installed ~1000MW of wind farms was going to out do the need for Hazelwood, they were so clueless that there are no real words to describe it.

^Before Hazelwood shutdown about $40MW/h AUD in wholesale electricity market and then very abruptly over $100MW/h AFTER Hazelwood shutdown. Simple "supply and demand law" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqeRnxSuLFI people need electricity but not enough supply.

And this is the reason why no one is willing to invest and build any more fossil fuel power-stations in Australia, as it only takes one stupid crazy person in government who gets all their knowledge of the world via ABC broadcast TV to say "hey, lets just triple the tax on coal that feeds the power-stations, it will fix everything".

This is one of the major reasons why the coal-to-hydrogen pilot plant was subsequently created, to save more jobs and towns in the area.

 

[Hillhater]

The whole Hydrogen export project is a political sham to passify and win votes from the “coal town” and “green “ movement whilst fooling others into thinking we are doing something significant about reducing world emissions.
It relies on CCS technologies which do not currently exist in practice, and is HUGELY wasteful in energy terms.
Nothing we do in Australia will make any significant impact on world CO2 levels, even if we shut down all coal use and production. Those countries that currently buy our (low emissions) coal, will simply switch to other sources of coal which have more emissions...so a backwards move in terms of the intended result. ,!
The sooner a bunch of deluded green evangelists, and corrupt scientists, wake up and realise the truth about CO2 , then we can all get back to a sensible technology base, dump all this pathetic wind and solar farce, and use reliable generation sources again.

 

[calab]

We can have all expensive solar and windmills on our 1800sqft home, while the neighbors 3400sqft home is burning coal and dumping toxins down the waste pipe all costing pennies.

 

[Hillhater]

We can have all expensive solar and windmills on our 1800sqft home, while the neighbors 3400sqft home is burning coal and dumping toxins down the waste pipe all costing pennies.

“ Toxins “,.. are very undesireable....but CO2 is ESSENTIAL for life .!

 

[calab]

Any embargoes on those neighbors near or far?
No aid to india unless they clean up a bit.
A little pain changes things or would that be to mean

“ Toxins “,.. are very undesireable....but CO2 is ESSENTIAL for life .!

 

[ZeroEm]

Any one playing with hydrogen?

 

[calab]

I would play with propane if the r.o.i. was better or fuel mileage much better per mile cost.
They used to be popular, probably when propane was so cheap.
Install a dual fuel, easier on carb then first gen efi, problem is I think one needs a higher compression ratio then the other.
Propane is cleaner on the engine.
Woodgas if I was out in the country and I had a source of free wood.
Jay Leno rolls around in Steam.
There were people selling hydrogen kits, seems like a scam. I did look into once, probably better to have hydrogen tank at home but its all very costly upfront, certified installers, and cert tanks but there are companies out there doing conversions.

Buying a used ev or hybrid is the best way to go. I saw some Tesla with 10k on it for $60k, those are sure nice rides. I'd just hate to be stranded forced to stop and recharge even if its occasional road trip for ev's in the 250m.+ club

 

[nicobie]

Back in the food distributing days my next door neighbor, a Culligan soft water guy who ran converted propane trucks said it was way cheaper to run propane than gas and that the motors lasted longer than gas ones did. He said it was because they ran cleaner. I don't know about that. It might be true. But maybe that was because it turned them into gutless wonders. Even though his trucks were hauling half the weight than mine were, his ran like fat pigs. Way slower up the hills than my similar sized gasoline powered ones.

For my trucks, switching to diesel was by far the best way to go.

 

[Hillhater]

Dual fuel ..petrol/lpg were common ex factory options on both some Ford, Mitsubishi, and Holden (GM) sedans here up to the stop of local manufacture (2018/19) they became very efficient with less than 10% power drop from petrol when running LPG and much cheaper to run.
There was also a government rebate incentive to encourage aftermarket LPG conversions on existing models.
Most taxis were LPG (Ford Falcon) in major cities until the Camry Hybrid hit the market with low fuel use around towns.
There are also “Tri fuel” ..petrol ,LPG, Electric, Toyota Camry Hybrids in taxi use that have the lowest running cost of all .!
https://premium.goauto.com.au/lpg-hybrid-camrys-can-save-6000-a-year/
The ultimate hybrid i think would be a CNG fueled hybrid, refueling at home from your own domestic gas supply ....
...or maybe a CNG/Diesel/electric tri fuel hybrid ??

 

[Ianhill]

Im no pro on this one but i've come across my fair share of lpg cars thats melted something internal with ruff running and its on like 90000 miles while ive got a 1.6 diesel thats had half the love a lpg needs and is happily singing away at 140000 miles loads of life in her just changed its starting battery after 10 years of service.

A simple shape of a ford focus at a steady 55mph motorway drive ive got it upto 82mpg over the whole tank not just a downhill section, then theres audi a2 that smashes thats to bits specially with a passat gearbox 100mpg can be obtained with old tech.

In reality same can be done to the electric cars they already use high capacity cells but they dont sip from that pack the cars acceleration is not needed and the infotainment weight and random bollocks on the cars makes it a shit stead in my eyes to expensive not any good for carrying actual real cargo fancy bling for the modern influancers but when shit gets real its been designed all wrong and the infrastructure around it is not just too immature its not fit for purpose and that makes ev drivers come back to fossil even with the political push and insentive schemes we see.

People don't like going backwards and ive said it before but how do you best a system thats not sustainable to begin with unless theres a dramtic shift in techinal understanding overnight we simply can not enjoy an easier cleaner lifestyle its not real, we have been eating cooked dinners but slowly money vs time is bringing us back to bread and water.

 

[CONSIDERABLE SHOUTING]

Back in the food distributing days my next door neighbor, a Culligan soft water guy who ran converted propane trucks said it was way cheaper to run propane than gas and that the motors lasted longer than gas ones did. He said it was because they ran cleaner. I don't know about that. It might be true. But maybe that was because it turned them into gutless wonders. Even though his trucks were hauling half the weight than mine were, his ran like fat pigs. Way slower up the hills than my similar sized gasoline powered ones.

For my trucks, switching to diesel was by far the best way to go.

Switching to propane/natural gas is interesting; totally doable on production-line gas engines (though MAYBE not current direct injection) with octane ratings above 110, less carbon buildup because the fuel itself just doesn't have the sheer degree of additives. I think the reason it might have *less* power than gasoline is just because a modern engine isn't built to take advantage of it? Either way, Propane and LPG burn FAR cleaner and have way less carbon buildup, because it's easier to make something burn at perfect stoich when there's only one liquid you're concerned about. We could have far more vehicles running LPG had OEMs put their money where their mouth was, like with Tesla and the supercharger network.

Real reason they didn't measure up is because they were gas engines, and yours was a diesel. Diesels are MADE to haul and for torque, which is why you rarely see them race against an equivalent gasoline engine.

In reality same can be done to the electric cars they already use high capacity cells but they dont sip from that pack the cars acceleration is not needed and the infotainment weight and random bollocks on the cars makes it a shit stead in my eyes to expensive not any good for carrying actual real cargo fancy bling for the modern influancers but when shit gets real its been designed all wrong and the infrastructure around it is not just too immature its not fit for purpose and that makes ev drivers come back to fossil even with the political push and insentive schemes we see.

People don't like going backwards and ive said it before but how do you best a system thats not sustainable to begin with unless theres a dramtic shift in techinal understanding overnight we simply can not enjoy an easier cleaner lifestyle its not real, we have been eating cooked dinners but slowly money vs time is bringing us back to bread and water.

Because for EV to succeed over gas, it has to be better. We've tried to sell cars on "efficiency", it doesn't work unless you had lines for fuel and shut down stations like in the energy crisis of the 70s. Nobody EVER wants a penalty box- we want Spotify and heated seats and the safety to run into a brick wall at 60MPH without a scratch. Free market son.

 

[Hillhater]

Modern LPG fuel conversion systems are available in multiple different formats to suit all engine fuel systems including Direct injection.
Liquid phase Direct Injection LPG is the most advanced system for use on modern DI petrol engines.
https://landirenzo.com/au/omegas-direct-injection-lpg-system

 

[Ianhill]

Mazda been at that game for over a decade but they required a bailout of over 4 billion during covid one of the worst hit car manufacturers but thats a drop in the ocean to zuckerburgs latest crash.

The stock market insecurity comes from the fact its driven by AI that takes news feeds into consideration to predict human behaviour and when goverments meddle in said media to promote propaganda truths then the economy feels it in more ways than one the algorithm says bum deal but it gets an ignore request and it forgets quicker than a fish when prompted.

Meddling everywhere theres greed involved everything all the way down to the soup kitchen in the street its either time we take our spine back and hold our ground before everything as we know it is gone with kids running round not knowing what they are let alone who they are.

 

[Hillhater]

Mazda been at that game for over a decade .....

??..LPG.?
Im sure most manufacturers have investigated LPG and CNG,.. but i dont recall any commercial offerings from Mazda.
Maybe in Japan or Asia ?
Mazda are one of a few campanies holding back on EV and Hybrid powertrains.

 

[Ianhill]

Mazda been at that game for over a decade .....

??..LPG.?
Im sure most manufacturers have investigated LPG and CNG,.. but i dont recall any commercial offerings from Mazda.
Maybe in Japan or Asia ?
Mazda are one of a few campanies holding back on EV and Hybrid powertrains.

Most advanced combustion engine was the comment i was answering clearly.
Mazda is pretty much the only big player left developing the combustion engine over the past decade i agree mazda has released alot of Di engines and alike, they developed the wankel i never mentioned mazda and lpg i just said lpg is crap

 

[calab]

Rotary engines (wankel) leaked didnt they, and if they worked well they were pretty good or what?

 

[ZeroEm]

Used crew trucks in the late 70's and early 80's that was dual fuel. Chev 454 on propane has enough power. The engines lasted a long time the oil was clean and spark plugs last two to three times longer. Not sure about natural gas it's not processed as much as Propane. Read about them adding hydrogen to the natural gas to boost or clean it up more.

 

[Ianhill]

Im confused we had lpg vans in my works started in petrol then warmed up switch to lpg and needed to be run on petrol again before shutdown or they get hot, theres little charge cool effect from lpg compared to gasoline so when ever they get pushed hard they overheat least the 1.6 petrol equivalent vans from peugeot and alike did thats the only experience with it i had.

The spark plugs lasting longer just never happened it was getting to hot in the cyclinder and melting the electrode that vapourised metal will stick somewhere likely the rings as theres cool oil behind them they wear faster and compression would falls to pieces too differing across the block.

Im thinking now did the us and aus get something better maybe the larger dispalcment engines didnt need the thrashing the euro boxes do and never got to the melt point of plugs etc.

 

[CONSIDERABLE SHOUTING]

Im thinking now did the us and aus get something better maybe the larger dispalcment engines didnt need the thrashing the euro boxes do and never got to the melt point of plugs etc.

Probably- Europoors never took to the might of By My Deeds, I Honor Him- Our Lord, V8, where torque is merely the answer to all of life's questions. We just don't stress the engines nearly as much.

Most advanced combustion engine was the comment i was answering clearly.
Mazda is pretty much the only big player left developing the combustion engine over the past decade i agree mazda has released alot of Di engines and alike, they developed the wankel i never mentioned mazda and lpg i just said lpg is crap

To be fair to Mazda- they don't have the production space and SkyActiv is pretty damned good. Subaru is actually in a similar boat, but they had to turn to a partnership with Toyota to keep innovating at all.

Rotary engines (wankel) leaked didnt they, and if they worked well they were pretty good or what?

Pretty much. Aside from their problem of needing lubrication at the rotary seals to work properly, Wankels also have all of their combustion on one "side" of the housing, so they always warp in that one area. If one works, it tends to work no problem. You can't use diesel because that needs compression, and rotaries like to burn hot and fast which makes NOx. Mazda WAS making a rotary Electric range extender, but suddenly last year they said it's on hold and didn't explain why.

EDIT: NVM Motortrend says it's back: https://www.motortrend.com/news/2022-mazda-mx-30-phev-rotary-range-extender-official/

I hope it's a hit to be honest. Batteries are expensive, Mazda lacks the industrial capacity, and they are honestly my favorite carmaker.

 

[calab]

Mazda's are not spacious not like the Toyotas if your going for import, I know Kia was doing good and Hyundai but I havent been keeping tabs on them but of course we all know Toyota is #1 is import reliability but you pay for that and its resale is high.

 

[calab]

With the way utility costs are going up its a great time to invest in them and to use less energy, I started air drying but it would be nice to know how much the dryer uses per load at the cost of electricity. I put a plug in meter watt thing on a small fridge I use in the living room, when its on it says it uses 60w so a light bulb, it also counts total wh used so I have been keeping notes. Seriously though if I lived out in the country, I would just convert to woodgas using a generator if there was free wood around which there always is in small bundles or find a big pile and ask. Maybe one could get away with it in the city with neighbors if the smell of a campfire is not constant and do some sound insulation around the generator. Its old technology from way back that is very very dirty to the environment. Air drying just takes to long in the age of I want it now.

I have a gas stove, and 2 gas fireplaces, the furnace runs on gas and thats it for gas.
Big users of electricity is obviously the dryer and microwave but thats only on for a minute, the kitchen fridge would be interesting to see its electricity usage. I know an old girlfriend who had parents living out in the country would buy propane to fill their big tank with.

 

[Ianhill]

A fridge uses little energy to stay in limbo just its insulation losses to the enviroment around it and mechanical from pump engagement etc.

If you opened that fridge filled it with water bottles it would take more energy to get all that mass down to the fridge operating temp so water takes alot of energy to cool it down per degree, but fill it with like pink wafers or something and it wont use half the energy to cool it down much faster results.

Water takes alot of energy to cool it same to warm it but the fridge has a trick compared to the kettle, the kettle is purly resistive heating but the fridge uses a compressor and works as a heat pump in reverse dumping temp into the enviroment around the fridge so the home is warmed, typical home fridge is around 400watt pump energy i believe not sure how that translates into cooling capacity.

Fast freeze must ramp the pump up and increase that 400w to more but allowing the radiator on the rear to loss more heat to the room its in, so never put a fridge too near a heat source it reduce the temp diff across the rad making the pump engage more for the same amount of work ideally that rad would sit in Antarctica and the fridge be cool for free but we live in warm places open the door and stare into the wonders if food in our supermarkets with open chillers pumping away allday long so the customer can see what they are buying