If we’re going to be truly fossil fuel free it’ll have to be something along those lines, or a synthetic fuel grown from yeast or plants or pulled from atmospheric CO2...El Pollo Diablo wrote: ↑Sat Sep 19, 2020 7:26 amIs there any future to a combination of technologies? Wind, solar, hydro all on board at once?
The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Unlike dirigibles there has been a lot of sports development of sailing technology so it’s not the same as pre-Victorian sailing ships. I think there have been a couple of rich people mega yachts with modern sailing tech too. When Ellen MacArthur sailed solo around the world in 2005 she relied on computer control of the sails, so the tech is all there. I presume it’s just cheaper to keep burning the bunker fuel than to clean the ships up, but a ban on high sulphur ship fuels would solve that.Woodchopper wrote: ↑Sat Sep 19, 2020 7:50 amMy problem with sail powered merchant ships is that I’ve been reading articles like that since the 70s. They seem to be like dirigibles in that it’s the cool technology that never gets beyond a small niche.Grumble wrote: ↑Sat Sep 19, 2020 7:23 amYou simply aren’t going to make a battery big enough to sail trans-Atlantic with a cargo ship. It looks implausible that you can do it just with hydrogen either. I think sail could come back though, as the Swedes are trying to prove
(https://jalopnik.com/swedish-company-un ... 1845027646).
This one might work though.
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Those are all still filling a niche though.Grumble wrote: ↑Sat Sep 19, 2020 8:01 amUnlike dirigibles there has been a lot of sports development of sailing technology so it’s not the same as pre-Victorian sailing ships. I think there have been a couple of rich people mega yachts with modern sailing tech too. When Ellen MacArthur sailed solo around the world in 2005 she relied on computer control of the sails, so the tech is all there. I presume it’s just cheaper to keep burning the bunker fuel than to clean the ships up, but a ban on high sulphur ship fuels would solve that.Woodchopper wrote: ↑Sat Sep 19, 2020 7:50 amMy problem with sail powered merchant ships is that I’ve been reading articles like that since the 70s. They seem to be like dirigibles in that it’s the cool technology that never gets beyond a small niche.Grumble wrote: ↑Sat Sep 19, 2020 7:23 am
You simply aren’t going to make a battery big enough to sail trans-Atlantic with a cargo ship. It looks implausible that you can do it just with hydrogen either. I think sail could come back though, as the Swedes are trying to prove
(https://jalopnik.com/swedish-company-un ... 1845027646).
This one might work though.
As far as I know the issue with wind isn’t so much cost as reliability. Supply chains need the products to arrive on time, and the wind is fickle. Wind powered merchant ships will be at a disadvantage for as long as they are less predictable.
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Is it fair to describe sail power as a cool tech that "never gets beyond a niche", when it was actually the dominant technology for centuries? Granted it might be tricky on the size of the Maersk monsters we have now.Woodchopper wrote: ↑Sat Sep 19, 2020 7:50 am
My problem with sail powered merchant ships is that I’ve been reading articles like that since the 70s. They seem to be like dirigibles in that it’s the cool technology that never gets beyond a small niche.
This one might work though.
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
It’s within the context of sail replacing diesel engines.AMS wrote: ↑Sat Sep 19, 2020 8:27 amIs it fair to describe sail power as a cool tech that "never gets beyond a niche", when it was actually the dominant technology for centuries? Granted it might be tricky on the size of the Maersk monsters we have now.Woodchopper wrote: ↑Sat Sep 19, 2020 7:50 am
My problem with sail powered merchant ships is that I’ve been reading articles like that since the 70s. They seem to be like dirigibles in that it’s the cool technology that never gets beyond a small niche.
This one might work though.
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
It'd need to be yeast or algae. Otherwise the scale of land needed to supply the fuel would outstrip usage for things like food... I can remember a talk (I've got the slides somewhere archived away) from an A-level teachers' CPD course we used to run for the Goldsmiths Company (Not the uni) on sustainable energy, if you wanted to run all UK transport off plant-based biofuels, with current technology it would require planting almost an identical land area to the UK itself. Algal biofuels alone would get you down to an area the size of East Anglia. NB. That's an assumption for complete replacement and was from 2008(ish) so prior to electric vehicles becoming a) any good and b) so widespread.Grumble wrote: ↑Sat Sep 19, 2020 7:53 amIf we’re going to be truly fossil fuel free it’ll have to be something along those lines, or a synthetic fuel grown from yeast or plants or pulled from atmospheric CO2...El Pollo Diablo wrote: ↑Sat Sep 19, 2020 7:26 amIs there any future to a combination of technologies? Wind, solar, hydro all on board at once?
All that doesn't mean that biofuels don't or shouldn't play a role. For instance, biofuels could be used for ocean-going craft allowing them to be carbon-neutral or very nearly so.
I'm very much thinking that the future needs to be a more mixed landscape, as it were; and in that I don't completely rule out hydrogen.
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Dirigibles have a problem of air resistance. Already with a car at even say 80kph, you're probably spending most of your power overcoming drag as opposed to other losses.Woodchopper wrote: ↑Sat Sep 19, 2020 7:50 am
My problem with sail powered merchant ships is that I’ve been reading articles like that since the 70s. They seem to be like dirigibles in that it’s the cool technology that never gets beyond a small niche.
This one might work though.
With something like an airship, it will be even worse.
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Peeps are experimenting with synthesising hydrocarbons from CO2, for example these folks at stanford. You need to capture your CO2 first and then do the synthesise, all you need is lots of energy and capital. The plus point is that it wouldn’t compete with food production. Hopefully it will become viable at some point, but it’s just a hope.
There is also synthesis of hydrocarbons from a carbon feedstock. The C could come from a range of organics that don’t necessarily have to compete with food production, eg: timber and crop waste.
Digging out some figures, I was horrified by how much aviation fuel the U.K. consumes, according to the ONS (excel file), it’s more than the nation’s consumption of petrol. In 2018 we consumed 13Mtoe* of petrol, 27Mtoe of diesel, but 16Mtoe of aviation fuel. Egads, I had not idea it was so much.
*One of my least favourite units of energy, a toe is “tonne of oil equivalent”.
There is also synthesis of hydrocarbons from a carbon feedstock. The C could come from a range of organics that don’t necessarily have to compete with food production, eg: timber and crop waste.
Digging out some figures, I was horrified by how much aviation fuel the U.K. consumes, according to the ONS (excel file), it’s more than the nation’s consumption of petrol. In 2018 we consumed 13Mtoe* of petrol, 27Mtoe of diesel, but 16Mtoe of aviation fuel. Egads, I had not idea it was so much.
*One of my least favourite units of energy, a toe is “tonne of oil equivalent”.
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Certainly.jimbob wrote: ↑Sat Sep 19, 2020 7:30 pmDirigibles have a problem of air resistance. Already with a car at even say 80kph, you're probably spending most of your power overcoming drag as opposed to other losses.Woodchopper wrote: ↑Sat Sep 19, 2020 7:50 am
My problem with sail powered merchant ships is that I’ve been reading articles like that since the 70s. They seem to be like dirigibles in that it’s the cool technology that never gets beyond a small niche.
This one might work though.
With something like an airship, it will be even worse.
There’s also a fundamental problem with sails on contemporary merchant ships. They are a complex piece of machinery which cost money to install and maintain. That wouldn’t be an insurmountable problem if they could consistently deliver significant fuel savings. But wind direction and strength are fickle. Despite decades of work they haven’t been shown to consistently deliver savings which exceed the increased costs.
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
NASA has a ton of tech for moving liquid hydrogen around at moderate pressures. Some of those are almost certainly suitable with minimal changes. Whether they can hold enough hydrogen to make it worth while needs some calculation though.
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
In a talk I did on how we didn't get to the Moon, I included a slide that indicated the volume of fuel needed for the first stage of the Saturn V rocket if they'd used Liquid Hydrogen rather than RP1.
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Yes, energy density's a big problem. Both mass and volume.
I do wonder if methanol or ethanol would be better I know you can get methanol fuel cells
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Increased costs compared with cheap but very dirty bunker fuel. If more countries took a stand against the absolute shite that ships burn then the costs of wind might start to become a saving.Woodchopper wrote: ↑Sat Sep 19, 2020 8:19 pmCertainly.jimbob wrote: ↑Sat Sep 19, 2020 7:30 pmDirigibles have a problem of air resistance. Already with a car at even say 80kph, you're probably spending most of your power overcoming drag as opposed to other losses.Woodchopper wrote: ↑Sat Sep 19, 2020 7:50 am
My problem with sail powered merchant ships is that I’ve been reading articles like that since the 70s. They seem to be like dirigibles in that it’s the cool technology that never gets beyond a small niche.
This one might work though.
With something like an airship, it will be even worse.
There’s also a fundamental problem with sails on contemporary merchant ships. They are a complex piece of machinery which cost money to install and maintain. That wouldn’t be an insurmountable problem if they could consistently deliver significant fuel savings. But wind direction and strength are fickle. Despite decades of work they haven’t been shown to consistently deliver savings which exceed the increased costs.
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Certainly, governments could change the incentives with a carbon tax on fuel.Grumble wrote: ↑Sat Sep 19, 2020 9:28 pmIncreased costs compared with cheap but very dirty bunker fuel. If more countries took a stand against the absolute shite that ships burn then the costs of wind might start to become a saving.Woodchopper wrote: ↑Sat Sep 19, 2020 8:19 pmCertainly.
There’s also a fundamental problem with sails on contemporary merchant ships. They are a complex piece of machinery which cost money to install and maintain. That wouldn’t be an insurmountable problem if they could consistently deliver significant fuel savings. But wind direction and strength are fickle. Despite decades of work they haven’t been shown to consistently deliver savings which exceed the increased costs.
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Well I dunno about ships but this report takes seriously the idea of hydrogen as an aviation fuel.
There's undoubtedly an element of WTWSTWT about the report sponsors, but one assumes the likes of Airbus wouldn't want their names on it if it was complete hogwash...
There's undoubtedly an element of WTWSTWT about the report sponsors, but one assumes the likes of Airbus wouldn't want their names on it if it was complete hogwash...
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Shell reportedly to slash oil and gas production costs to focus more on renewables
Royal Dutch Shell is looking to slash up to 40 per cent off the cost of producing oil and gas in a major drive to save cash so it can overhaul its business and focus more on renewable energy and power markets, sources told Reuters.
Shell's new cost-cutting review, known internally as Project Reshape and expected to be completed this year, will affect its three main divisions and any savings will come on top of a $4 billion US target set in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.
Reducing costs is vital for Shell's plans to move into the power sector and renewables where margins are relatively low. Competition is also likely to intensify with utilities and rival oil firms including BP and Total all battling for market share as economies around the world go green.
"We had a great model but is it right for the future? There will be differences, this is not just about structure but culture and about the type of company we want to be," said a senior Shell source, who declined to be named.
We have the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment.
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
I've skimmed it, the biggest thing that sticks out for me is that it assumes a massive green H2 economy producing radically cheaper H2 of which aviation is around 10-25% of total demand. That itself is based on a report from the Hydrogen Council, which posits that demand mainly coming from ground transportation, along with other markets like short term energy smoothing, chemical feedstock, and so on. A bunch of those markets are DOA for H2 already, so I can't see the economy of scale required happening.nekomatic wrote: ↑Tue Sep 22, 2020 12:08 pmWell I dunno about ships but this report takes seriously the idea of hydrogen as an aviation fuel.
There's undoubtedly an element of WTWSTWT about the report sponsors, but one assumes the likes of Airbus wouldn't want their names on it if it was complete hogwash...
Even then, it says long range aircraft will need to run on hydrocarbons, and that ticket prices will be significantly higher in all their scenarios. Assuming that their numbers would work, significant government regulation would be needed to make the whole thing viable. I'm not against the second, but Michael O'Leary and friends will kick up a huge stink.
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Some interesting information on carbon emissions and electric vehicles.
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/indu ... -emissions
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/indu ... -emissions
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
It’s good information, I think it tallies quite well with other things I’ve read. The Polestar 2 is very much a luxury/sporty car and isn’t necessarily the most efficient in electron use (although I’ve not seen any real world range tests yet).Woodchopper wrote: ↑Mon Sep 28, 2020 8:31 pmSome interesting information on carbon emissions and electric vehicles.
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/indu ... -emissions
where once I used to scintillate
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
It’s not exactly been kept a secret that manufacturing a current BEV emits more CO2 than making an ICE, but it’s nice to see transparency from a car maker. It’s still early days in knowing how to make batteries at scale, loads of efficiencies are still to be had. For example, the dry battery making process Tesla acquired from Maxwell Technologies drops energy demand in the battery factory by 90%. Tesla aren’t the only ones breaking their brains to improve efficiencies. I can’t see an ICE maker get the same magnitude if gains after over 100 years of R&D into their processes and supply chains.Woodchopper wrote: ↑Mon Sep 28, 2020 8:31 pmSome interesting information on carbon emissions and electric vehicles.
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/indu ... -emissions
ETA: For clarification, the dry process is still in the development stage, it works, but no quite well enough to roll out today.
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
The Dogger Bank windfarm is progressing apace. GE just signed the contracts to supply 190 13MW turbines, they have 220m rotors! That just for the first 2 of 3 phases, and will supply 2.5GW peak by 2026. Will Hinkley C even be finished by then?
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
"One spin of the Haliade-X 13 MW can generate enough electricity to power a UK household for more than two days."bjn wrote: ↑Tue Sep 29, 2020 9:07 amThe Dogger Bank windfarm is progressing apace. GE just signed the contracts to supply 190 13MW turbines, they have 220m rotors! That just for the first 2 of 3 phases, and will supply 2.5GW peak by 2026. Will Hinkley C even be finished by then?
My avatar was a scientific result that was later found to be 'mistaken' - I rarely claim to be 100% correct
ETA 5/8/20: I've been advised that the result was correct, it was the initial interpretation that needed to be withdrawn
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ETA 5/8/20: I've been advised that the result was correct, it was the initial interpretation that needed to be withdrawn
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
I'm trying to find the capacity factor for Dogger Bank, but my DuckDuckGo-Fu is weak. Closer in shore North Sea farms like Dudgeon have factors over 45%, and HyWind in Scotland has 55%. Nice table of UK windfarm capacity factors here. Pulling numbers out of my arse, probably over 50%.
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
It won’t have one till it starts operating will it? I guess Hornsea One isn’t there because it doesn’t have a full year of operation yetbjn wrote: ↑Tue Sep 29, 2020 10:08 amI'm trying to find the capacity factor for Dogger Bank, but my DuckDuckGo-Fu is weak. Closer in shore North Sea farms like Dudgeon have factors over 45%, and HyWind in Scotland has 55%. Nice table of UK windfarm capacity factors here. Pulling numbers out of my arse, probably over 50%.
where once I used to scintillate
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Actually, GE estimate a 63% capacity factor for the farm. Higher swept area and windy location. Hopefully gets near that in reality.