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Also the production of hydrogen is far from being low-carbon. Yes there are some ways to produce hydrogen from electricity with electrolysis but at the moment

by revax 7y ago

Also the production of hydrogen is far from being low-carbon. Yes there are some ways to produce hydrogen from electricity with electrolysis but at the moment 90% of hydrogen use natural gas or other hydrocarbons and release enormous amount of CO2.

davedx 7y ago
You can say that about everything (except maybe nuclear) right now. This morning I had a discussion with someone on Twitter about windmills, and he said "yeah but they're still manufactured with carbon based processes, cement and steel are made using fossil sources". Hydrogen production can be clean though. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/hamburg-and-fukushima-cooperate-wind-power-and-hydrogen-production https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/hamburg-and-fukushima-c...
- revax 7y ago
  It can be, but it in fact not. And if it is, at what price? Don't misunderstand me, I want a low-carbon aviation, I'm all for it. But even if you cut the emissions by a factor 2 of each newer aircrafts, what's the point? The numbers of flights is expected to double in less than 20 years. Global emissions won't reduce at all. https://www.iata.org/pressroom/pr/Pages/2018-10-24-02.aspx https://www.iata.org/pressroom/pr/Pages/2018-10-24-02.aspx IMHO, we need more regulations (e.g. ban domestics flights if high-speed trains are a viable alternative) rather than technological solutions.
  - netcan 7y ago
    There needs to be some middle ground in these discussions. Yes, it's silly to ignore realities like "how was the electricity powering this car produced?" OTOH, since we're talking about potential future solutions to a hard problem (hard relative to cars, for now)... you kind of need to dismiss current issues if they're solvable to in theory. Price of electrolysis hydrogen now, when we're not using that much of it is not necessarily indicative of potential prices at scale. To me, I think we need to focus regulation that gets high potential technologies (eg electricity production and electric transport, atm) past the point on their learning curves where ordinary price economics and/or bans on carbontech can take over. The problem with marginal mitigation like discouraging flights or large ICE engines is that gains are one-off, and not en route to bigger solutions. I agree that commercial flight is a big problem. I'm just skeptical that carbon austerity can amount to more than a rounding error in the long term.

by revax 7y ago

davedx 7y ago

You can say that about everything (except maybe nuclear) right now. This morning I had a discussion with someone on Twitter about windmills, and he said "yeah but they're still manufactured with carbon based processes, cement and steel are made using fossil sources". Hydrogen production can be clean though. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/hamburg-and-fukushima-cooperate-wind-power-and-hydrogen-production https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/hamburg-and-fukushima-c...

revax 7y ago
It can be, but it in fact not. And if it is, at what price? Don't misunderstand me, I want a low-carbon aviation, I'm all for it. But even if you cut the emissions by a factor 2 of each newer aircrafts, what's the point? The numbers of flights is expected to double in less than 20 years. Global emissions won't reduce at all. https://www.iata.org/pressroom/pr/Pages/2018-10-24-02.aspx https://www.iata.org/pressroom/pr/Pages/2018-10-24-02.aspx IMHO, we need more regulations (e.g. ban domestics flights if high-speed trains are a viable alternative) rather than technological solutions.
- netcan 7y ago
  There needs to be some middle ground in these discussions. Yes, it's silly to ignore realities like "how was the electricity powering this car produced?" OTOH, since we're talking about potential future solutions to a hard problem (hard relative to cars, for now)... you kind of need to dismiss current issues if they're solvable to in theory. Price of electrolysis hydrogen now, when we're not using that much of it is not necessarily indicative of potential prices at scale. To me, I think we need to focus regulation that gets high potential technologies (eg electricity production and electric transport, atm) past the point on their learning curves where ordinary price economics and/or bans on carbontech can take over. The problem with marginal mitigation like discouraging flights or large ICE engines is that gains are one-off, and not en route to bigger solutions. I agree that commercial flight is a big problem. I'm just skeptical that carbon austerity can amount to more than a rounding error in the long term.