Wind and Solar vs Coal, Gasoline, Nuclear

Greening the chemical industry by replacing the petroleum carbon feedstock with carbon captured from the air would require 18 peta-watt hours. Current global electricity production is 26 PWh.

Australia is identifed as a good place for such a green chemical plant as renewable electricity resources available are 50 times greater than demand.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/05/does-it-help-to-make-industrial-chemicals-with-captured-co2-sometimes/

Imagine that: Australia's economy booming due leverage it's renewable energy resources to become a leader in 21st century chemical production...
 
So you want to take processes that currently require 10% of total electricity, and increase their electrical demand to 70% of the current total. When we are only able to make a small portion of electricity from rebuildables now. Because Australia has 50 times the land area needed to make it's electricity demand from solar and wind if it were completely covered. That article is 50 times wishful thinking. Typical Arstechnica/ Cleantechnica nonsense.
 
Its a paper published in PNAS and the point was to quantify how much energy it would take to "green" one of the more difficult sectors to decarbonise (alongside farming, aviation and mining).

There may be less energy intense routes than direct capture of carbon from the air that are viable, but if that route were chosen Australia is one of the few places it could be made to work.

It's an example of not only highlighting the vastness of a problem but also offering a potentially viable solution. Try it. :thumb:
 
Punx0r said:
potentially viable solution.

Complete nonsense when practical scale of materials and land use is considered. Similar to discussions of Dyson Spheres, harvesting Tritium from Moon dust for fusion, and conveyors to the asteroid we brought back to stationary orbit.
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But thanks for posting so that I can post this as a comment on the Arstechnica site in order to show them that some people are not that gullible and help steer them back to this Universe.
 
sendler2112 said:
Complete nonsense when practical scale of materials and land use is considered. Similar to discussions of Dyson Spheres, harvesting Tritium from Moon dust for fusion, and conveyors to the asteroid we brought back to stationary orbit.

"...The steel industry is one of the highest CO2-emitting industries, accounting for 7% of CO2 emissions globally. A growing global population and an expanding urbanization are expected to trigger a rise in global steel demand by 2050. The carbon footprint in the steel industry is thus a challenge for Europe and the rest of the world.

This is why, in 2016, SSAB, LKAB (Europe’s largest iron ore producer) and Vattenfall (one of Europe’s largest electricity producers) joined forces to create HYBRIT, an initiative that endeavors to revolutionize steel making. HYBRIT aims to replace coking coal, traditionally needed for ore-based steel making, with hydrogen. The result will be the world’s first fossil-free steel-making technology, with virtually no carbon footprint..."


https://www.ssab.com/company/sustainability/sustainable-operations/hybrit

Why in Sweden?

Because they have a Carbon tax since 1991. This makes it possible to develop and use technologies of the 21st century, while other nations still believe technologies of the 19th century are the future.
 
Cephalotus said:
This is why, in 2016, SSAB, LKAB (Europe’s largest iron ore producer) and Vattenfall (one of Europe’s largest electricity producers) joined forces to create HYBRIT, an initiative that endeavors to revolutionize steel making. HYBRIT aims to replace coking coal, traditionally needed for ore-based steel making, with hydrogen. The result will be the world’s first fossil-free steel-making technology, with virtually no carbon footprint..."[/i]
They can "aim" all they want. Let us know when they "do".
 
sendler2112 said:
Some people want to "aim" for terraforming Mars.

How are your Dyson sphere pilot projects doing?

....If the project is successful, it has the potential to reduce Sweden’s total carbon dioxide emissions by 10 percent, and Finland’s by seven percent.

Mårten Görnerup, CEO of the joint venture company, explains the project timeline: “A pre-feasibility study began in 2016 and now we are building the pilot plant and will run tests between 2020 and 2024.

“By 2028, we will scale up to a demonstration plant which will run as an industrial facility operating 24/7 for months. All being well, the goal is to have an industrial process in place by 2035...”


worldsteel-HYBRIT-groundbreaking-HR.jpg


https://stories.worldsteel.org/innovation/sustainability-fossil-free-steel-factory/

As always, you talk a lot and you know nothing at all. Everyday another bullshit story. Do you get paid for such FUD? It starts to get very boring.
 
Clearly comparable projects :roll:

How much money has been unvested to terraform Mars, exactly?

Has it occured to you that these kind of commercial ventures are subject to feasibility analysis before the bean counters will sign a cheque?

You're as bad as Hillhater: everyone else is an idiot and their ideas are stupid. Only you know how it really is, but somehow you haven't a single idea to contribute.
 
Cephalotus said:
As always, you talk a lot and you know nothing at all. Everyday another bullshit story.

I feel this applies to you also. You know nothing of the scale of the current human civilization's demands for throughput.
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But I will say that whatever small fraction of steel manufacturing we can still be doing 100 years from now and beyond will be invaluable for hand tools, ect and be much better than nothing. Along with whatever small fraction of energy we can hang on to.
 
Punx0r said:
but somehow you haven't a single idea to contribute.

I've posted several personal essays and dozens of lectures, book recommendations, and web links over the last two years. It is just that the truth of scale and the ramifications of our one time energy pulse tipping over the top soon are far too dissonant to the "green rhetoric", or the "there are no limits to growth" rhetoric, for most people that have never thought about it to accept. So no-one will even read them.
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Things will be much smaller and simpler again after oil. Whenever that will eventually be. We will need a whole new way. The debt/ growth based capitalistic free market system we have employed for the last 30 years will cease to function. Continued "Green growth" is a myth. The sooner we accept this, the more time we have to work toward adopting a wiser system and the softer the transition.
 
sendler2112 said:
Things will be much smaller and simpler again after oil...

Ah, doomsday porn, now I understand....

When our oil (coal and gas) has ben burned most of the planet will not be habitable for humans.

Just to show you the scale of the problem and why humankind has to leave fossil fuels before they leave us:

nature14016-f1.jpg


Your very stupid "advice" would lead humankind into global scale genocide. You are a dangerous person. For just a few dollars you are advocating to destroy the future of our (and many other) species. This is not acceptable.

sendler2112 said:
...I've posted several personal essays and dozens of lectures, book recommendations, and web links over the last two years...

So much work to destroy humankind. Why not contribute something positive?

Btw, the green hydrogen - steel project alone will cut Swedens CO2 emissions by 10% when finished in 2035 (and that steel costs only 30% more than todays coal based steel). Sweden, a highly industrialized country with low population density and large distances to travel and a cold climate does emit 4.5t CO2 per person and year today. Why not learn from them how to do it right instead of spreading your FUD and keep promoting to burn fossil fuels?
 
Cephalotus said:
Why in Sweden?
Because they have a Carbon tax since 1991. This makes it possible to develop and use technologies of the 21st century, ......
So Swedish government are funding new technologies/processes ?
No chance of anybody creating hopeless projects just to access development funding then ??
 
billvon said:
H+ ions make water more acidic. .....
Thanks for the chemistry distraction, but i have learned to ignor your attempts to deviate from the point.
The oceans are ALKALINE and will remain so.
I know you would like to make us all think that they are becoming acidic, as part of your alarmist agenda to scare folk into joining your cult of carbon crusaders,..but its not working.! :wink:
 
Hillhater said:
The oceans are ALKALINE and will remain so.
I know you would like to make us all think that they are becoming acidic, as part of your alarmist agenda to scare folk into joining your cult of carbon crusaders,..but its not working.! :wink:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification

I'm not sure if you're trolling or if this is the worst case of denial I've ever seen. Are you completely oblivious to the science, or maybe you have a virus that is redirecting your browser? "OCEAN ACIDIFICATION", it's plain as day. :shock:

Second line-
"Seawater is slightly basic (meaning pH > 7), and ocean acidification involves a shift towards pH-neutral conditions rather than a transition to acidic conditions (pH < 7)"
 
Cephalotus said:
sendler2112 said:
Complete nonsense when practical scale of materials and land use is considered. Similar to discussions of Dyson Spheres, harvesting Tritium from Moon dust for fusion, and conveyors to the asteroid we brought back to stationary orbit.

"...The steel industry is one of the highest CO2-emitting industries, accounting for 7% of CO2 emissions globally. A growing global population and an expanding urbanization are expected to trigger a rise in global steel demand by 2050. The carbon footprint in the steel industry is thus a challenge for Europe and the rest of the world.

This is why, in 2016, SSAB, LKAB (Europe’s largest iron ore producer) and Vattenfall (one of Europe’s largest electricity producers) joined forces to create HYBRIT, an initiative that endeavors to revolutionize steel making. HYBRIT aims to replace coking coal, traditionally needed for ore-based steel making, with hydrogen. The result will be the world’s first fossil-free steel-making technology, with virtually no carbon footprint..."


https://www.ssab.com/company/sustainability/sustainable-operations/hybrit

Why in Sweden?

Because they have a Carbon tax since 1991. This makes it possible to develop and use technologies of the 21st century, while other nations still believe technologies of the 19th century are the future.

A slightly interesting fact- You may wonder why they are talking about transitioning to zero emission steel and not aluminum. You can't make aluminum without pitch, which is a coal tar by-product. Processed pitch is a tar that hardens below a couple hundred degrees into a black glassy solid, similar in appearance to obsidian. It's need to coat the electrodes in aluminum smelting.

A lot of chemicals are derived from fossil fuels. CO2 is the bigger issue, but burning all of our fossil fuels is going to make other areas much more difficult to operate as well.
 
sendler2112 said:
Some people want to "aim" for terraforming Mars.
Yep. And some people want to "aim" for landing rockets on their tails like Buck Rogers did. And some people want to "aim" to get California's grid to use mostly renewable power. And some people want to "aim" to give billions of people a supercomputer/communicator/universal translator you can put in your pocket like in Star Trek.

Fortunate that people are aiming for such things, eh?
 
sendler2112 said:
I've posted several personal essays and dozens of lectures, book recommendations, and web links over the last two years.

"Ideas" means answers, suggestions, concepts to make things better. Not complaints about everything that's wrong with society and how the impending apocalypse is unavoidable.
 
furcifer said:
I'm not sure if you're trolling

His posts might seem like trolling to the point of parody but as far as anyone has been able to determine over the years he is completely serious. I'd suggest it's simply the Dunning Kruger effect in full force.
 
It looks like carbon-free alternatives for aluminium smelting electrodes are already being developed:

https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/news/new-aluminium-smelting-process-will-cut-carbon-emissions/
 
Punx0r said:
It looks like carbon-free alternatives for aluminium smelting electrodes are already being developed:

https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/news/new-aluminium-smelting-process-will-cut-carbon-emissions/

The technology has been in development for years so I would hope it's just a matter of time. It's been around for 20 years but the free market, and the lack of a carbon tax stagnated the technology.

I'm a Canadian tax payer and I'm putting money towards the technology in the form of grants. I really don't mind and think it's something we should be doing. Most of the aluminum we produce here in Canada is sold to the US. Trump actually went and put a tariff on the import last year.

So we're getting taxed to death up here and we're emitting CO2 in the process and I don't think things are being accounted for properly.
 
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