3 ms·

I said we mist roll it out at scale, didn't I? The tech is there, and it works, now we have to build it. You know, like Musk did with EVs and charging networks

by hef19898 3y ago

I said we mist roll it out at scale, didn't I? The tech is there, and it works, now we have to build it. You know, like Musk did with EVs and charging networks.

Manuel_D 3y ago
And as per the article, it's 25 times more expensive than existing hydrogen sources. By comparison, the economics nuclear powered ships are not that much worse than conventional propulsion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah#Economics_of_nuclear_propulsion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah#Economics_of_nucle...
- hef19898 3y ago
  Of course not. The right mix is important. But honestly, I reached the point where I claim the same "just build it" approach the pro-nuclear crowd is using regardless of data and facta. Especially since I know from a project I was involved in before COVID hit, that green hydrogen produced PV is absolutely feasible and commercially viable. To do so at tue scale needed requires political action and subsidies, and the tech has still a lot of room for improvement. I say this is good news.
  - Manuel_D 3y ago
    > Especially since I know from a project I was involved in before COVID hit, that green hydrogen produced PV is absolutely feasible and commercially viable. It'd be really great to link to that project and actually demonstrate this claim of commercial viability. We have at least one demonstration of a nuclear powered merchant ship operating over the span of a decade. Can we say the same for a green-fuel powered vessel?
    - hef19898 3y ago
      Regarding a ship running on LNG: https://www.ship-technology.com/projects/viking-energy-cargo-vessel/?cf-view https://www.ship-technology.com/projects/viking-energy-cargo... The same vessel will be launched early next year with an ammonia fuel cell. LNG can be produced using green energy, the actual engine doesn't care how the fuel was produced. Regarding the green hydrogen project: it was a proposed pilot production site to produce green hydrogen. And the business case was actually positive. No idea where that project is now, tuey needed EU funding and that was hard to come by during Covid. And after, I stopped being a freelance consultant.
      - Manuel_D 3y ago
        Ships running off natural gas are nothing new. LNG carriers have been propelled by natural gas for decades. The real challenge is producing carbon-neutral natural gas, which your link says nothing about. Synthetic natural gas has all the same problems as green hydrogen, with the added challenge of sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. It's only been cheaply produced using byproduct CO2 from industrial processes. Which isn't actually carbon-neutral, it's just using CO2 that would have been released into the atmosphere anyway.
        hef19898 3y ago
        There you go: https://www.valves-community.com/en/cryogenic-air-gases/synthetic-lng/ https://www.valves-community.com/en/cryogenic-air-gases/synt... But honestly, why am I doing your internet searches for you? And why don't you know any of this already?
        Manuel_D 3y ago
        That plant is not sequestering atmospheric carbon dioxide. It's using waste carbon dioxide from a nearby biomass plant. This is far less challenging than removing CO2 from the atmosphere. But unfortunately this method does not scale. The amount of fuel produced would be limited by the amount of carbon sequestered by plants. You'd be cutting down forests faster than they replenish if you tried to fuel cargo ships with this method. > And why don't you know any of this already? I do, and unlike you I understand how existing power to gas prototypes are using biomass or industrial byproduct CO2 rather than direct atmospheric sequesteration. This is sidestepping the most challenging part of producing synthetic hydrocarbons on a large scale. Prometheus Fuels are the main player in attempting to solve direct atmospheric sequesteration of carbon dioxide. But they've still not delivered on that objective.
        hef19898 3y ago
        And the last small scale nuclear reactor project, NuScale, was completely cancelled. So the amount of power produced by this reactor type seems rather limited, trending to zero even. And guess what, we need snall reactors to power ships, reactors we don't have (no, those half dozen Russian ones don't count). See how this game can be olqyed in both directions? Difference being, all the real money, and industry, is going for green fuels and not nuclear power when it comes to ships. I tend to believe those people.

I said we mist roll it out at scale, didn't I? The tech is there, and it works, now we have to build it. You know, like Musk did with EVs and charging networks.

Manuel_D 3y ago

And as per the article, it's 25 times more expensive than existing hydrogen sources. By comparison, the economics nuclear powered ships are not that much worse than conventional propulsion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah#Economics_of_nuclear_propulsion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah#Economics_of_nucle...

hef19898 3y ago
Of course not. The right mix is important. But honestly, I reached the point where I claim the same "just build it" approach the pro-nuclear crowd is using regardless of data and facta. Especially since I know from a project I was involved in before COVID hit, that green hydrogen produced PV is absolutely feasible and commercially viable. To do so at tue scale needed requires political action and subsidies, and the tech has still a lot of room for improvement. I say this is good news.
- Manuel_D 3y ago
  > Especially since I know from a project I was involved in before COVID hit, that green hydrogen produced PV is absolutely feasible and commercially viable. It'd be really great to link to that project and actually demonstrate this claim of commercial viability. We have at least one demonstration of a nuclear powered merchant ship operating over the span of a decade. Can we say the same for a green-fuel powered vessel?
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Regarding a ship running on LNG: https://www.ship-technology.com/projects/viking-energy-cargo-vessel/?cf-view https://www.ship-technology.com/projects/viking-energy-cargo... The same vessel will be launched early next year with an ammonia fuel cell. LNG can be produced using green energy, the actual engine doesn't care how the fuel was produced. Regarding the green hydrogen project: it was a proposed pilot production site to produce green hydrogen. And the business case was actually positive. No idea where that project is now, tuey needed EU funding and that was hard to come by during Covid. And after, I stopped being a freelance consultant.
    - Manuel_D 3y ago
      Ships running off natural gas are nothing new. LNG carriers have been propelled by natural gas for decades. The real challenge is producing carbon-neutral natural gas, which your link says nothing about. Synthetic natural gas has all the same problems as green hydrogen, with the added challenge of sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. It's only been cheaply produced using byproduct CO2 from industrial processes. Which isn't actually carbon-neutral, it's just using CO2 that would have been released into the atmosphere anyway.
      - hef19898 3y ago
        There you go: https://www.valves-community.com/en/cryogenic-air-gases/synthetic-lng/ https://www.valves-community.com/en/cryogenic-air-gases/synt... But honestly, why am I doing your internet searches for you? And why don't you know any of this already?
        Manuel_D 3y ago
        That plant is not sequestering atmospheric carbon dioxide. It's using waste carbon dioxide from a nearby biomass plant. This is far less challenging than removing CO2 from the atmosphere. But unfortunately this method does not scale. The amount of fuel produced would be limited by the amount of carbon sequestered by plants. You'd be cutting down forests faster than they replenish if you tried to fuel cargo ships with this method. > And why don't you know any of this already? I do, and unlike you I understand how existing power to gas prototypes are using biomass or industrial byproduct CO2 rather than direct atmospheric sequesteration. This is sidestepping the most challenging part of producing synthetic hydrocarbons on a large scale. Prometheus Fuels are the main player in attempting to solve direct atmospheric sequesteration of carbon dioxide. But they've still not delivered on that objective.
        hef19898 3y ago
        And the last small scale nuclear reactor project, NuScale, was completely cancelled. So the amount of power produced by this reactor type seems rather limited, trending to zero even. And guess what, we need snall reactors to power ships, reactors we don't have (no, those half dozen Russian ones don't count). See how this game can be olqyed in both directions? Difference being, all the real money, and industry, is going for green fuels and not nuclear power when it comes to ships. I tend to believe those people.