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Would that not imply that all energy is renewable, given that you can make endless hydrogen by electrolyzing water with endless electricity? Then convert the h
by stevenjgarner 4y ago
Would that not imply that all energy is renewable, given that you can make endless hydrogen by electrolyzing water with endless electricity? Then convert the hydrogen into your hydrocarbon of choice using the Sabatier process, and again endless electricity? Maybe I am projecting my own bias onto this, but there's something about endless electricity that does not imply renewable.
- fastball 4y agoAre you being deliberately obtuse? If not, in common parlance "renewable" implies Solar / Wind / Hydro / Nuclear (this one depending on who you ask), while non-renewable = fossil fuels. If you have a drilling machine powered by diesel it is impossible for that machine to be "fully renewable" in terms of its power source. If you have a drilling machine that is powered entirely by electricity then it can be 100% powered by renewables, but yes as GP pointed out "can be" doesn't mean "is", but still if you care about such things you should obviously prefer the fully electric solution.
- stevenjgarner 4y agoYou're right. I was just stunned at the 1.38 gigawatts for a "stage 3" system (including "mother rig" + "father rig") for just a 10-m (33-ft) tunnel.
- preisschild 4y ago1.38GW is insane. The APR-1400 pressurized water reactor outputs 1.4GW, but at this point you would have a huge nuclear power plant to just power a single tunneling operation.
- Andys 4y agoYou could, but it isn't efficient enough to compete economically with the plain old electricity in more direct forms?