“The search for geologic hydrogen today is where the search for oil was back in the 19th century—we’re just starting to understand how this works,” said Frédéric-Victor Donzé, a geologist at Université Grenoble Alpes. Donzé is part of a team of geoscientists studying a site at Bulqizë in Albania where miners at one of the world’s largest chromite mines may have accidentally drilled into a hydrogen reservoir.

The question Donzé and his team want to tackle is whether hydrogen has a parallel geological system with huge subsurface reservoirs that could be extracted the way we extract oil. //

It turned out that over 200 tons of hydrogen was released from the Bulqizë mine each year. Donzé’s team went there to figure out where all this hydrogen was coming from.

The rocks did not contain enough hydrogen to reach that sort of flow rate. One possible explanation is the hydrogen being released as a product of an ongoing geological process called serpentinization. “But for this to happen, the temperature in the mine would need to reach 200–300 degrees Celsius, and even then, it would not produce 200 tons per year,” said Donzé. “So the most probable was the third option—that we have a reservoir,” he added. //

Bulqizë was entirely different. The gas pushed out of the Bulqizë mine is 84 percent hydrogen, one of the highest concentrations on record. Moreover, the hydrogen was not dissolved in water—it bubbled through Bulqizë’s underground pools, making them look like a jacuzzi. //

So Donzé’s team got busy looking for such places, and they found one. “There is a mine in Ural, central Russia, that has the exact same geological configuration as Bulqizë: harzburgite, dunite, and chromite,” said Donzé. “And guess what. They have a problem with explosions.”

Zion Lights @ziontree
One of the reasons I like nuclear energy is its small land footprint.

This video shows the amount of land required by the Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power plant in Finland compared with wind power.

Data visualisation by @Klimavenner

The Hydrogen Ladder is my attempt to synthesise all the information known to me about all the factors driving technology uptake across all sectors of the economy in all countries of the world. Not ambitious at all!

What the Hydrogen Ladder is designed to do is to show how likely it is that any proposed use case ends up being a significant user of hydrogen (perhaps via one of its derivatives) in a decade or so, say 2035. That doesn't mean it's game over, the transition has happened, it just means it is absolutely clear by then that hydrogen is either the answer, or a major answer, to decarbonizing that use case.

In other words, it looks forward to a time after the current firehose of subsidies has subsided to affordable proportions, after there has been enough time for a bit more tweaking of technologies, after the emergence of supply chains, after a bit of familiarity has grown in the project finance sector, and so on.
As for what the rows mean, here's how I think about them:

• A - no alternative (though this does not mean the use case is growing)
• B - decent market share highly likely
• C - some market share likely
• D - small market share plausible
• E - niche market share possible
• F - niche market share in some geographies possible
• G - the Row of Doom

The Hydrogen Ladder is not all about efficiency, as its detractors claim. It does not include information about market size. It does not include information about speed of adoption. It does not include information about relative emissions reduction per kg of hydrogen or kWh of electricity. I leave it to others to add that information to the discussion.

Conversely, it does take into account cost, safety, convenience, critical mineral availability, co-benefits, externalities like air pollution, geopolitics, human behaviour and - underlying it all - thermodynamics, physics, chemistry, other sciences and economics.

The booming sound you may be hearing right now -- especially if you live in San Francisco or Washington, D.C -- could be resulting from liberal heads exploding as they read about what Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda said during a conference this month. Electric vehicles will only ever make up 30 percent of the market or less, he argued, and politicians should get out of the way and let the markets decide which cars are preferable to consumers. //

No matter how much progress BEVs [Battery Electric Vehicles] make, I think they will still only have a 30 % market share . Then, the remaining 70 % will be HEVs , FCEVs , and hydrogen engines. And I think engine cars will definitely remain.

I think this is something that customers and the market will decide, not regulatory values or political power. [Bolding and underlining theirs.]

That's why Toyota Motor Corporation, which is competing all over the world, has a full lineup of multi-pathway products.

mopani
4 days ago edited

Hydrogen molecules are the smallest in the universe, making it very difficult to make effective seals. First strike.

Hydrogen has an extremely wide flammability range, 4% to 76% of air. Strike two.

While the molar energy density (per molecule) and energy density by weight of hydrogen are exceptional, its volumetric energy density is extremely low, even in liquid form. Compare the size of hydrogen tank to the size of the oxygen tank in the space shuttle. That's one of the primary reasons the SpaceX Super Heavy and Starship rockets use methane instead of hydrogen, because the volumetric energy density is orders of magnitude greater. Strike three.

The Hydrogen energy economy is just another government boondoggle like Solyndra. Attractive on the surface, and sounds intelligent, but ultimately impractical and wasteful.

It's funny actually, if not ironic, that the volumetric energy density of hydrogen is so poor, but as soon as you combine it with some other element, say carbon, its volumetric energy density and practical usability go off the charts! I'm sure some commercial enterprise will discover this and exploit it real soon, and I'm willing to wager that it won't take any government money to build an absolutely booming economy out of it either!!

Just skip the hydrogen! If you're not going to exploit the most efficient energy store in the universe by using a hydrogen compound (hydrocarbons), why do you want to use only half of it, the hydrogen alone?

One should not too quickly dismiss what several generations of the most brilliant minds have already developed and streamlined into an efficient system with sophomoric thinking that somehow believes is an overlooked insight into the fundamentals of the universe.

What is being overlooked is the fantastic energy available from fissioning atoms. The most powerful chemical reaction generates 9 electron volts of energy per molecule. The energy from the fission of one atom (of which there are at minimum three in any chemical reaction) is almost 2 million electron volts. We know how to safely harness an energy source that is six orders of magnitude more powerful than any other, and yet it is rejected. You have to ask why.

"What about the nuclear waste?" It's not waste, it is used fuel, and it can be reused, except that Jimmy Carter, who calls himself a "nuclear engineer" although he never completed the Navy nuclear school, decreed that reusing spent fuel was too dangerous.

Consider too, that nuclear power plants are the only source of energy that completely contain all of their waste/byproducts. The used fuel from all of the nuclear power plants in 70 years of operation in the United States would not fill one single Walmart store.

Annual fuel use for one reactor is 35 tons of uranium fuel -- one semi truck load, although it would only fill a couple of milk crates. The same size coal power plant requires 100 coal cars per day.

Much Hoon, Very Flerp -> mopani
3 days ago

Mo, if you don’t mind my asking, what is it you do for a living? That’s probably the best short form explanation of the issue I’ve ever heard or read. Thank you.

mopani -> Much Hoon, Very Flerp
a day ago edited

Thank you for the compliment. I'm a missionary radio engineer that manages diesel generators and some solar plants because of poor energy supply in Africa.

I've been reading about and studying "renewables" and energy most of my life; I've come to the conclusion that most of the world's leaders are at the energy sophomore phase I was at in high school. Will they ever grow up? Doubtful, to be honest.

If you want a really well-rounded perspective on the whole energy and environment picture and not just the hot takes, read Michael Shellenberger's Apocalypse Never. Fantastic book, and hard to put down! His website is http://environmentalprogres... and is the only thing I've ever seen come out of Berserkely that I could whole-heartedly support. =)

[Edit: I should also give a shout-out to David MacKay's Sustainable Energy -- Without the Hot Air, available on Amazon and online at http://www.withouthotair.com. There is not a better "whole picture" view of energy use out there. ]

One of the best nuclear reactor designs was the Molten Salt Reactor, built and tested at Oak Ridge National Labs from 1965-1969. Thorcon Power wants to mass produce this proven design on a ship-yard assembly line. If CO2 emissions are an existential threat, then we need to be building one hundred 1GW nuclear power plants per year.

A molten salt reactor doesn't need to exchange fuel when the fission product isotopes start to poison the reaction, because the worst poisons ("neutron eaters") are noble gases, and if your fuel is liquid, they can easily be removed instead of being trapped in a solid fuel pellet. So instead of 35 tons of fuel per year, it would only need 1 ton of nuclear fuel per year, and it would extract at least 30% of the potential energy instead of 1%, like the typical Pressurized Water Reactors (Boiling Water Reactors are similar efficiency).

Besides Thorcon's website, visit http://www.daretothink.org to learn more about Molten Salt Reactors; I recommend starting with the "Numbers" page. //

mopani > C. S. P. Schofield
2 days ago
"Hydrogen has its own problems"

Yes, yes it does. It may have the highest energy per molecule, but it is also the smallest molecule, making it very difficult to seal. It also has the worst volumetric energy because of its low density. It's funny how combining it with a couple of carbon atoms fixes that! I wrote a long comment about this the other day on Ward Clark's article about hydrogen.

What would really be interesting, and I think is being ignored for obvious reasons, is hydrocarbon fuel cells, combining the simplicity of the electric drive train with the efficient energy storage of hydrocarbons. It also makes it very easy to make it a hybrid, and if we're wanting to improve efficiency and lower emissions, every vehicle should be a hybrid to recover braking and downhill energy. But hybrids with internal combustion engines add significant complexity.

Fossil fuels are the dirtiest and most dangerous energy sources, while nuclear and modern renewable energy sources are vastly safer and cleaner.

“The elevated costs associated with EVs persisted. Efforts to wrestle it down proved to be more challenging.” //

Because of low demand and high repair costs, Hertz Global Holdings Inc. will sell 20,000 electric vehicles (EV), one-third of its EV fleet. //

Hertz and everyone else had to know this would not work. You mean you couldn’t tell no one wanted to rent EVs?

Go woke, and you waste a ton of money:

Hertz will record a non-cash charge in its fourth-quarter results of about $245 million related to incremental net depreciation expense. //

Corky M | January 13, 2024 at 9:50 am
Recent article by younger fellow discussed how after 7 years his Tesla S had lost 32 percent of it’s range. What was more amazing to me was that he said he would still purchase another one.

Oh, and a 7 year old internal combustion engine vehicle is likely to get the same miles per gallon today as it did when new.

The long-term damage to the economy demanded by the “must go all electric” crowd will just increase. Electrification of everything to save the planet is a canard for being able to completely control humanity.

Nada mas.

Gopher 5 hours ago

The easy answer... There is NOT enough electric generation (or power grid capacity) available to replace the power used by gasoline vehicles.

1 gallon of gas = 33.7kWh of power.

The US uses 134,830,000,000 (yes, 134 Billion) gallons of gasoline/year.

4,543,770,000,000. 4.543 Trillion kWh of electricity.

In 2018 we used 3,900,875,000,000 or 3.900 Trillion kWh of electricity.

In other words we need the ability to generate well over TWICE as much electricity (8.4 Trillion kwh) as we currently generate just to stay even.

Add the range and power of semi's and locomotives and ships fueled by diesel and we are WAY, WAY short on our electric generation needs.

The president of the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) seems like an odd man for the job of creating more climate hysteria and trying to end our use of fossil fuels before we have fully developed the technologies to replace them.

His name is Sultan Al Jaber, and he’s the chief executive of the United Arab Emirates’ state oil company, Adnoc, which “many observers see as a serious conflict of interest.” You think? //

Al Jaber responded to badgering questions from an interviewer :

I accepted to come to this meeting to have a sober and mature conversation. I’m not in any way signing up to any discussion that is alarmist. There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5C…

Please help me, show me the roadmap for a phase-out of fossil fuel that will allow for sustainable socioeconomic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves. //

I don’t think [you] will be able to help solve the climate problem by pointing fingers or contributing to the polarisation and the divide that is already happening in the world. Show me the solutions. Stop the pointing of fingers. Stop it. //

A phase-down and a phase-out of fossil fuel in my view is inevitable. That is essential. But we need to be real serious and pragmatic about it. //

Blue State Deplorable
a month ago

As much as it may upset many people, my message is the planet is not in peril. This is good news. I believe there is no climate crisis. The alleged atmospheric CO2 and methane have a negligible effect on the climate.

• Dr. John Clauser, 2022 Nobel Laureate for Physics //

Mackey
a month ago
Climate alarmists say we must stop using fossil fuels and adopt 100% wind and solar today or the world as we know it will cease to exist in 10 years.

If we adopt 100% renewable energy today and phase out fossil fuels the world as we know it will cease to exist in 5 years. //

Random Commenter
a month ago
I got a good laugh out of this.

For a very interesting and somewhat new take on global warming, I suggest doing an internet search on:

Paper by William Wijngaarden (York University, Toronto) and William Happer (Princeton); Carbon dioxide saturation effect
A world-class radiation physicist (Happer) finds that the possible effects of H2O and CO2 are saturated, in other words, adding more of them won't heat the planet. //

NuScale is the second major U.S. reactor company to cut jobs in recent months. //

Many in the atomic energy industry are betting that small modular reactors ― shrunken down, lower-power units with a uniform design ― can make it cheaper and easier to build new nuclear plants through assembly-line repetition.

The U.S. government is banking on that strategy to meet its climate goals. The Biden administration spearheaded a pledge to triple atomic energy production worldwide in the next three decades at the United Nations’ climate summit in Dubai last month, enlisting dozens of partner nations in Europe, Asia and Africa.

The two infrastructure-spending laws that President Joe Biden signed in recent years earmark billions in spending to develop new reactors and keep existing plants open. And new bills in Congress to speed up U.S. nuclear deployments and sell more American reactors abroad are virtually all bipartisan, with progressives and right-wing Republicans alike expressing support for atomic energy.

The most common argument is that wind and solar power are the cheapest clean energy sources and that nuclear power plants are the most expensive. Taken at face value, it is true that a single solar photovoltaic (PV) panel is cheap, and that a single wind turbine is cheap, while on the other hand, a single nuclear power plant costs billions of pounds. Technically, measured one-on-one, it is correct that wind and solar are cheaper. But is it useful to compare them in this way? //

To understand why people argue that wind and solar power are cheaper, we need to examine the basic economic metric for assessing a generating power plant: the Levelised Cost of Energy (LCOE). This metric provides what is essentially a banker’s number that covers the total amount of power over the lifetime of an energy source, divided by the lifecycle costs over the lifetime of the same energy source.

But there’s a problem: LCOE is a terrible metric for assessing cost-effectiveness because it doesn’t include several crucial factors. For example, it ignores costs and benefits at an energy system level, such as price reductions due to low-carbon generation and higher system costs when extra interconnection, storage, or backup power is needed due to the variable output of wind and solar power.

Crucially, LCOE ignores the value of the plant’s output to the grid. For example, solar plants have a much more attractive production profile relative to wind farms because society needs most of the energy during the day when the sun is shining. So, even though the LCOE of solar power is higher than wind energy, it provides electricity that is more economically valuable. A paper found that ‘An LCOE comparison ignores the temporal heterogeneity of electricity and in particular the variability of VRE [Variable Renewable Energy]’. Therefore, the true economics of power generation can be very different to the ones predicted by the LCOE numbers.

Another issue LCOE ignores relates to different lifespans of technologies. Typically, a 20- or 30-year recovery period is accounted for, but what about when competing technologies last half a century or more? Then the comparison is faulty, as nuclear power plants can generate power for 60 to 80 years, sometimes longer.

Other factors that aren’t considered by the LCOE include:

• Cost of the land required
• Cost to the consumer
• Dispatchability, i.e. the ability of a generating system to come online, go offline, or ramp up or down, quickly as demand swings
• Indirect costs of generation, which can include environmental externalities or grid upgrade requirements
• Additional cost of integrating non-dispatchable energy sources into the grid
• Cost of disposal, which is usually built into the price of nuclear energy but excluded from the price of solar and wind power
• Subsidies and externality costs, such as the costs of carbon emissions
• The cost of backup or baseload power

Intermittent power sources like wind and solar usually incur extra costs associated with needing to have storage or backup generation available. LCOE ignores the cost of this unreliability, which can be as simple as keeping coal-fired power stations running in case they are needed to fire up and meet electricity demand when it becomes less windy or sunny. //

South Korea is our second example. In the mid-1980s the Korean nuclear industry decided to standardise the design of nuclear plants and to gain independence in building them. The country imported proven US, French, and Canadian reactor designs in the 1970s and learned from other countries' experiences before developing its own domestic reactors in 1989. It developed stable regulations, had a single utility overseeing construction, and built reactors in pairs at single sites.

The results were remarkable: between 1971 and 2008, South Korea built a total of 28 reactors. Due to the developments they made in 1989, their overnight construction cost fell by 50%. //

With nuclear energy, waste disposal and decommissioning costs are usually fully included in the operating costs, but they are not accounted for in wind and solar costs. Yes, a single solar panel is cheap. But what about disposing of it? Sadly, they often end up in landfill sites in poor countries abroad, where they leach toxic chemicals. Batteries are currently not recycled, and therefore this is another missing cost. Wind turbine blades face similar issues. And none of these elements will last more than thirty years before they need replacing. What will that cost? //

Oil and gas companies celebrate wind and solar power because they keep fossil fuels in business. Today, wind and solar are backed 1:1 by oil-and-gas-based generators, to fill the gaps when it isn’t windy or sunny, thus keeping the oil and gas industries in demand. In the future, solar purists propose mega storage, which means more batteries, and overbuilding (extra panels) as the solution. These extra costs aren't factored into LCOE. //

What I have tried to do here is trigger a thought experiment by illustrating how complicated these assessments are, that it is not a case of comparing one panel to one plant, and that the LCOE fails on all counts. Ultimately, the full cost of nuclear energy is an upfront investment for a long-lasting, reliable form of energy, which is not the cost people consider when arguing that solar panels and wind turbines are cheaper. Nuclear energy can get cheaper, or it can get more expensive, depending on how it is approached. //

I am of the opinion that we should build everything we need to bring down greenhouse gas emissions and reduce deaths from air pollution. Yet it is clean energy advocates who only like wind and solar power who argue against nuclear energy based on the myth that the latter is too expensive. //

Every time a nuclear power plant is replaced with fossil fuel generation, people die from the resulting air pollution, and more fossil fuel waste is stored in the Earth’s atmosphere. Every time a grid is made to support more wind and solar power without the baseload power to support them, fossil fuels win as they have to fill the gap. Every time a nuclear power plant isn’t built on the supposed basis of cost, the environment is further harmed and human progress takes a step backwards. Every time someone quotes the LCOE, they are either being misled, misleading others, or both.

Last February, the independent Public Advocates Office of the state Public Utilities Commission reported that residential electricity rates in California had risen between 77% and 105% since 2014 and are far above the national average. “The majority of bill increases are associated with long-standing state priorities,” the report explained.

Yet for all the money Californians pay for those “priorities,” the state doesn’t really run on solar and wind energy.

It’s powered mostly by natural gas, hydroelectric, nuclear energy and, when all else fails, electricity generated in other states and imported on transmission lines. //

While California’s need for electricity can rise as high as 50,000 megawatts in the summer with air conditioning, solar energy produces about 15,000 megawatts at its peak, declining to zero after sunset.

The gap is filled by – you guessed it – natural gas, nuclear, hydroelectric and imports.

In pursuit of “100% clean electricity,” the state’s gas-fired plants were scheduled to be closed this week and its one nuclear plant to be shuttered in 2025.

The Center For Alternative Technologies in the UK delves into embedded carbon in residential storage batteries. It says the carbon footprint of current lithium ion batteries is around 100 kg of carbon dioxide per KWH of battery capacity when manufactured in factories that use fossil fuels. When renewable energy is used for the manufacturing, this is reduced to about 60 kg of CO2 per kWh.

What is the replacement plan for plastic, rubber, cement, steel, and the millions of products they create?

Wind and solar make electricity — albeit inefficient, unreliable, intermittent, and expensive. But fossil fuels do so much more, and the Biden administration and environmental leftists pretend to ignore it. For example, the Biden administration passed the so-called Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which threw over a trillion tax dollars at, among other things, “rebuild[ing] crumbling road [sic] and bridges.” But at the same time, a government agency, the Environmental Protection Agency, is restricting the very oil, gas, and coal needed to accomplish this. //

Every call to eliminate fossil fuels is a call to slowly, incrementally raise the price of all these products making them cost-prohibitive for the masses. Yes, cement and steel are vital to our economy and our quality of life, but so are the millions of affordable, daily-life products like laundry detergent and aspirin.

I always carry a handkerchief (because my dad did), but most people prefer disposable tissues. When fossil fuels are gone, tissues are gone. Disposable diapers are gone. Yoga mats and plastic water bottles are gone. Do climate change activist suburban moms know that? Do you think Starbucks can survive without fossil fuels? What about that salad from Whole Foods in a plastic container or even the plastic packaging for meat and produce? Cologne, deodorant, perfume, bathroom cleansers, Swiffer pads, paper towels — sure, that mom may think disposable products are “bad for the Earth,” but a lack of hygiene is far worse for her and her family. //

What is at stake is much deeper: human dignity — a dignity that elevates us above the harshness of nature and cruelty of illness or allows us to cleanse ourselves from the sweat of labor.

We do not talk about the “then what” after fossil fuels are eliminated. But I assure you, life as we know it would be absolutely, categorically impossible without them.

LeedCo points to the long delays and legal challenges it faced while specifically calling out “a project killing condition by the Ohio Power Siting Board which significantly impeded the project.” The company was involved in an extended battle with regulators and legal appeals after the Ohio Power Sitting Board initially ruled that the wind farm would have to cease operations in the evening to protect birds. //

But the stake driven into the heart of this project came from genuine environmental concerns about the bird life in the region.

They got their thumbs up, but it came in a mitten. Sure they could put their turbines out in the lake, the new chair of the OPSB [Ohio Power Siting Board], Sam Randazzo said, but the blades had to be “feathered” – or stopped – at night for nine months out of the year to protect waterfowl, raptors, and bats. LEEDCO went ballistic, calling it a “poison pill.” //

But, as this is the Christmas season, I would like to end on a positive note for our friends in Ohio. A more reliable and efficient energy project is being planned for the state.

A California company has signed an agreement to open two new cutting-edge nuclear power plants by the end of the decade on the site of a long-shuttered Southern Ohio facility built to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

Oklo Inc., announced this week it intends to build two small, advanced nuclear power plants on part of a 3,700-acre site south of Piketon that once was home to the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. They would be the first nuclear power plants built in Ohio in decades. //

MattMusson in reply to gonzotx. | December 24, 2023 at 9:48 pm
The three largest wind turbine manufacturers have admitted that their products won’t actually last the 20 year lifespan they were sold as having. At 20 years, only subsidies and low interest rates made them possible. With a 12 year life, high interest rates and falling subsidies they are not close to practical.

U.S. Special Envoy John Kerry announced that America was joining the Powering Past Coal Alliance, which means the Biden Administration commits to building no new coal plants and phasing out existing plants. No date was given for when the existing plants would have to go, but other Biden regulatory actions and international commitments already in the works had meant no coal by 2035.

Daniel Turner @DanielTurnerPTF
·
John Kerry demands the end of coal plants.

Here's what Kerry won't tell you:

• Coal is inexpensive, abundant, and reliable
• Solar manufacturing plants run on coal
• Wind manufacturing plants run on coal
• EV battery factories are powered by coal

Facts matter.

9:33 AM · Dec 4, 2023 //

But it gets worse, as Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) point out. While the Biden team is pushing for this radical agenda that would limit and harm the U.S., Kerry gave China a pass by locking them into the status of a "developing country" according to the Paris Agreement, which Kerry helped to negotiate.

“China is bent on global domination. It is the world’s second largest economy and largest emitter of greenhouse gases. It is America’s chief economic and geopolitical rival. It exploits forced labor. It manipulates global markets. It steals our technology. It is building hypersonic missiles and a blue-water navy,” the senators wrote. “It should not get special treatment in international climate agreements. There should be no more free rides for China. That should be non-negotiable.”

China permitted more coal power plants last year than any time in the last seven years, according to a new report released this week. It's the equivalent of about two new coal power plants per week. The report by energy data organizations Global Energy Monitor and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air finds the country quadrupled the amount of new coal power approvals in 2022 compared to 2021. //

China is the world's biggest emitter of fossil fuels and has pledged for its emissions to peak by 2030. But there are questions over how high that peak will get and how soon that peak will come, says Champenois.

For the first time ever, a commercial plane flew across the Atlantic Ocean without using fossil fuels.

Virgin Atlantic said the test flight Tuesday from London to New York was powered only by sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF, a broad category of jet fuel that creates fewer carbon emissions than standard kerosene blends. The fuel on this flight was made from waste fats and plant sugars and emits 70% less carbon than petroleum-based jet fuel, according to a press release. //

Sustainable aviation fuels are a broad category that includes biofuels made from raw materials such as corn, animal fat, algae, municipal trash and sewage. By definition, they must emit at least 50% less carbon than petroleum-based jet fuel, according to federal guidelines.

But all of these fuels still produce some emissions. SAF, on its own, will not get the airline industry to zero carbon emissions.

To do that, the industry will have to develop new technologies that will allow planes to run on electric batteries, liquid hydrogen or some other as-yet-unproven fuel source. ///

Novel, but not very sustainable -- imagine how much "stuff" (sugar and fat) that takes to manufacture, compared to the equivalent volume of petroleum/crude oil...

Just because you can doesn't mean you should! I don't think it will scale well. Another case of diverting food for fuel. Humans can't eat petroleum, even though engines can be made to consume both.

As the green energy dominoes continue to fall, one of the major climate cult propaganda machines falls with them. //

As we enter the year’s final phase, I am becoming more hopeful that 2023 may be remembered as an essential point in human civilization as the threat to critical and efficient energy supplies begins to recede.

Sweden’s government has ditched plans to go all-in on “green energy,” green-lighting the construction of new nuclear power plants. Fossil fuel giant Shell announced it was scaling back its energy transition plans to focus on . . . gas and oil! Specific wind farm projects began to topple due to strong economic headwinds because the cost of generating electricity was deemed too high.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced his decision to open the North Sea to more oil and gas drilling. French President Emmanuel Macron is surrendering to reality and asked for a “regulatory pause.”. More recently, the US and the United Kingdom have committed to expanding nuclear energy, and offshore windfarm projects are going kaput.

Now comes intriguing confirmation that there may be an end to the mindless and unscientific promotion of green energy sooner rather than later. One of the climate crisis propaganda machines is closing its climate desk. //

Neo | November 24, 2023 at 7:57 pm
The dam on Climate Change hysteria seem to break after ExxonMobil broke ranks saying that to reach NetZero 2050 would require sacrifices that society would not accept. //

broomhandle | November 24, 2023 at 8:14 pm
How much advanced nuclear technology could have been developed with all the resources wasted on green energy follies? Maybe that was the point all along.