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Why? Because Oil Companies are lobbying for inefficient hydrogen to delay a green revolution: https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/carbon-notes-5-green-hydrogen-th

by neves 2y ago

Why? Because Oil Companies are lobbying for inefficient hydrogen to delay a green revolution: https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/carbon-notes-5-green-hydrogen-the https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/carbon-notes-5-green-hydrog... > The members of the hydrogen coalition are all obviously incumbent fossil fuel and petrochemical interests looking for a bridge to the new era. If realized, their ambitious hydrogen projects may overload the available supply of green power, for little real benefit. By diverting badly needed clean power, green hydrogen vanity projects may even slow down the energy transition. And the subsidy regimes that are being put in place could become self-perpetuating. As Gernot Wagner and Danny Cullenward recently warned, “hydrogen could become the next corn ethanol”, a ruinously inefficient and environmentally damaging creature of subsidies that are too big to kill.

askvictor 2y ago
Not just to delay, but they're hope is that they'll be able to control it when it happens. Oil companies move fluids, using pipes and tankers. Hydrogen is a fluid. They want to keep doing what they've been doing. Electricity doesn't fit into their M.O.
- somat 2y ago
  I don't know what you are talking about, electricity is a fluid.
  - marshray 2y ago
    The only sense in which "electricity" could be said to be fluid is in its definition. There's no such physical quantity, it's just a vague term for a variety of phenomena.
    - kelipso 2y ago
      Maybe he was talking about aether theory of electricity lol.
    - somat 2y ago
      It flows, you use fluid equations to describe it's state. I will grant that it flows in a different medium than molecular fluids. but that does not prevent it from being a fluid. As for what is flowing, my understanding is that it is electrons in an em field. which if you think about it is almost the same thing that is flowing in a molecular fluid, only that has drag a bunch of protons around at the same time limiting performance.
      - marshray 2y ago
        What is "static electricity" then?
        baq 2y ago
        Potential difference without flow. A discharge is a dam breaking.
      - throwaway3572 2y ago
        The fluid analogy is ok for introducing the concept of electricity but it has some significant limitations, so one should grow out of it fairly quickly if you want a deeper understanding of the subject. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_analogy#Limits_to_the_analogy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_analogy#Limits_to_th...
- bawolff 2y ago
  I don't think its really viable to transport hydrogen via existing (oil) pipelines. Hydrogen leaks everywhere.
  - semi-extrinsic 2y ago
    Oil pipelines, no. Gas pipelines, yes. The effort to requalify existing gas pipelines for hydrogen use is well underway in Europe. There might be a need to run at lower pressure, depending on the type of steel, but leaks are not an issue.
    - alvah 2y ago
      Hydrogen embrittlement is a massive issue, I’d be interested to hear how this can be engineered around. My understanding is it requires more exotic materials than those used in any existing NG or oil pipelines. Everything I’ve seen claiming it’s viable to use existing infrastructure seems reasonable at first glance, but invariably contains a massive hand-wave or 2.
      - VBprogrammer 2y ago
        I think the obfuscation is that they are generally talking about stuffing small quantities of hydrogen into natural gas pipelines. Similar to alcohol in gasoline.
      - ajb 2y ago
        The existing infrastructure was originally built for town gas which is ~50% hydrogen, and run successfully for many decades as such. So this is mainly about checking out the more recently designed parts. My understanding is embrittlement is mainly a problem for storage tanks, which need to use high strength materials due to the enormous pressure -and ironically those materials are more susceptable.
        alvah 2y ago
        Existing infrastructure is designed for & can be used for hydrocarbons with varying levels of hydrogen in their molecular structure; I don't believe there's an issue there. Most of the H2 in town gas is in the form of hydrocarbons, which are less reactive than pure H2, even if there's a relatively high percentage of H2 in the mix (as the H2 is strongly bound to the carbon). Embrittlement is definitely an issue for more than just storage tanks.
pjscott 2y ago
Do you have actual knowledge of their motives? Or is this speculation, confidently stated as fact? Another possible motive, mentioned in the the paragraph you quote, is that the oil companies see an energy transition coming and are trying to get aboard the hydrogen train to diversify their future revenue sources. And that sounds like a reasonable motive; the sort of thing that people who don't see themselves as evil villains – i.e. the supermajority of people – could embrace.
- mixermachine 2y ago
  One can extract hydrogen from fossil fuels. So if a hydrogen break through is coming, they already have a cheap source for the material. Not really green though...
  - m463 2y ago
    not really cheap either. I remember natural gas vehicles (busses and cars, like the honda civic). You could actually fill up at home if you had natural gas, but the electricity just to compress the natural gas for the car cost as much or more than the compressed fuel in the car. For hydrogen, it is even harder. take a look at cars running compressed hydrogen. I remember $17 for the equivalent of a gallon of gasoline. I think it is even more expensive now. Easier to burn CH4 than use energy to split out the H2, then compres it, then store it. I actually think solar is better.
    - baq 2y ago
      Dollars are fake, or more accurately, a social construct, remember that. You can always tax the cheaper fuel and subsidize the more expensive one.
      - rocqua 2y ago
        Dollar costs of physical things (pre tax) quite accurately measure how much effort it takes to produce/acquire that thing. Hydrogen being more expensive than X quite stronly suggests that it is much more effort to get than X.
tonyhart7 2y ago
" Because Oil Companies are lobbying for inefficient hydrogen to delay a green revolution" well NO, contrary to popular belief. there is no such things because 1. Oil is scarce resource that not every country have 2. since not every country has, they must import it with expensive trade deficit meaning that Oil alternative or replacement is very much needed since country like china,south korea and japan that has massive economy dependant on oil for their survival, hydrogen tech would come out of necessity but they are not because its not feasible
- tonyhart7 2y ago
  that's why china is leading an EV revolution, government seeing that as very much important geopolitic and economic wise if hydrogen is feasible in mass scale, trust me someone in Asia would already make it
  - jimnotgym 2y ago
    > if hydrogen is feasible in mass scale, trust me someone in Asia would already make it That is a ridiculous proposition. Electric vehicles themselves were being pushed hard around the world before China saw the way the wind was blowing and overtook it.
    - tonyhart7 2y ago
      "That is a ridiculous proposition. Electric vehicles themselves were being pushed hard around the world before China" I never said they are first, I said they lead at the EV industry and usage, the amount of resource and how people use EV is gargantuan even compared to the west
  - xbmcuser 2y ago
    I think a lot of people miss the fact that China did not get to electric out of the blue it invested heavily in all these techs Hydrogen, Nuclear, Wind, Solar and batteries the cheapest and easiest to scale turned out to be Solar, Wind and then batteries. Even today China is still building more hydrogen and nuclear plants than most of the world combined but those technologies have not scaled or gotten cheaper at the same rate as solar, wind and batteries so are not growing where as solar and wind are. China is close to reaching the point where it could start replacing its coal electricity with solar, wind and battery as it is cheaper.
Smithalicious 2y ago
It seems to me like green fundamentalist see nothing but enemies and subterfuge everywhere. Hydrogen, biofuel, nuclear, switching from oil to natural gas where possible, the list goes on. I don't have enough of an opinion to comment on anyone of them individually, but I notice a really striking pattern where every time the idea of alternative energy sources are brought up that are not wind or solar, whoever brings it up is accused of sabotaging the energy transition in some way or another.
- progbits 2y ago
  Maybe because there is evidence of fossil companies doing exactly that since the sixties? Benefit of doubt has it's place but this is just naivety or outright trolling.
  - cbmuser 2y ago
    Fossil companies hugely profit from the anti-nuclear green movement that solely focuses on wind and solar. Because no matter how many wind and solar plants you build, they will never be able to provide baseload and hence you need fossil backup power plants.
- kelnos 2y ago
  I mean, read the current top sibling comment to yours. Someone who worked at an oil & gas company confirmed that this was their strategy. Now, I don't think these people are sitting in their carved-out mountain lair, scheming to destroy the world; I'm sure they don't see themselves as villains. But they are making deliberate decisions to protect their business models and bottom line by adopting -- and, importantly, lobbying for -- technology that is polluting and emits greenhouse gases.
  - cbmuser 2y ago
    Wind and solar power heavily depend on fossil backup plants which is why oil companies have long been proponents of the energy transition. The only technology that is actually able to get rid of fossil technology is nuclear power.
coldtea 2y ago
>to delay a green revolution There's no "green revolution". Just different compromises and tradeoffs, and practical considerations for roll-out times (including for solar, wind, and batteries - no free lunch.
paganel 2y ago
There's no "green revolution" coming, just the powers that be taxing us, normal citizens, to the hell and the back if we'd still want to hang on to our gasoline-powered cars, which taxing policies will for sure bring about the revolution of people choosing to not travel anymore, because too expensive. That's the revolution that they're now putting in place. Also, bonus points to the "liberals" (including many of the techies in here) helping bring forward guys like Musk, they did that by purchasing and aggressively marketing for his vehicles, they've actually empowered him and brought him into his actual position of power.
- kelnos 2y ago
  I think it's a bit weird to blame people who bought Teslas for the current situation with Musk. That's a huge, bad-faith stretch of an argument.
  - sieabahlpark 2y ago
    [dead]
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > it's a bit weird to blame people who bought Teslas for the current situation with Musk It’s implausible to blame them. But they absolutely bear responsibility for giving him wealth and power. (And politicians in Sacramento, who didn’t do a good enough job of forcing their subsidies to cause competition.)
dghughes 2y ago
My province has a hydrogen village powered by windmills no oil companies involved. https://frontierpowersystems.ca/hydrogen-village/ https://frontierpowersystems.ca/hydrogen-village/
- pier25 2y ago
  this is amazing
- happosai 2y ago
  Where are all the details? All the articles of project seem to be pre-build. How many MW of wind turbines? How big electrolyzer? How big energy storage? Investment cost? Running costs? Reliability?
  - sologoub 2y ago
    It’s a rather old project (2009), so many articles covering it are defunct. Found some of the info: “The purpose of the Prince Edward Island (PEI) Wind-Hydrogen Village is to use excess wind energy along with hydrogen technologies to offer sustainable energy. Excess electricity produced by wind turbines on the island is being used to power a 300kW uni-polar electrolyzer. A uni-polar electrolyzer uses alkaline liquids, rather than solid polymer, as its electrolyte. The electrolyzer can produce about 6kg of hydrogen per hour. The hydrogen is then stored as compressed gas in storage tanks that have a total capacity of about 500kg. The hydrogen is then used in the bi-fuel hydrogen/diesel genset to power the village when there is no wind.” Source: https://martinottaway.com/rhemmen/hydrogen-as-the-ultimate-fuel-part-2/ https://martinottaway.com/rhemmen/hydrogen-as-the-ultimate-f... I guess it’s no fun covering things that just work. News need drama…
- zamadatix 2y ago
  Are you sure the hydrogen storage is still active? That page does say "This project has been operating autonomously since 2009" but the projects page on the same site lists the hydrogen village as lasting from 2008-2010 https://frontierpowersystems.ca/projects/ https://frontierpowersystems.ca/projects/. Frontier Power Systems is also a "wind-diesel" provider - so they certainly aren't separated from oil companies (though this doesn't automatically mean their intentions aren't genuinely to reduce fossil fuel usage as GP was saying, they even seem to be doing battery storage systems now). Checking further into the projects list, the first project in Ramea for "wind-hydrogen-diesel" (first time I've seen that one) demonstration is listed as lasting longer but this article notes it hardly ever ran because "issues were experienced with the storage aspect of the project" i.e. the hydrogen storage https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/ramea-wind-power-project-at-standstill-1.4695679 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/ramea-w... I didn't exhaustively check the project list but, of the ones I did, I didn't see an active wind-hydrogen systems. Only active wind-battery or wind-diesel systems. WEICan also has active wind+battery systems running on Prince Edward Island https://www.weican.ca/ https://www.weican.ca/ (click view details for the specifics) but no hydrogen. Maybe all of that is in same way inaccurate and there are actually great details of the hydrogen storage success. Unfortunately I can't find any such details saying "that's the case and here is the data about how successful it has been for the last decade", just the above info saying it was tried for a short period, didn't work out, and other system types are currently in place.
idiotsecant 2y ago
Sure are lots of HN software developers that confidently know everything about everything in this thread. I enjoy HN a lot when the subject is software or software adjacent. I find myself avoiding the comments section in actual engineering topics, though. You'd never catch an electrical engineer claiming to be an expert on whatever the flavor of the month is in development but every developer is an expert when it comes to all things that are even tangentially related to electric fields.
- rnewme 2y ago
  To be fair a lot of us had a lot of education on the topic, and come from engineering backgrounds.
  - idiotsecant 2y ago
    That's the problem. I often tell engineering interns that school gives them just enough information to be dangerous. This is doubly true for software developers.
stainablesteel 2y ago
this is the best answer and it's not the only way they do it, they've become extremely sophisticated saboteurs of anything energy related through pure marketing alone
sonthonax 2y ago
Just not true. Lots of oil companies have a vested interest in renewables now. A lot of the infrastructure for offshore oil is being redeployed for offshore wind.
hulitu 2y ago
> delay a green revolution: Batteries are pretty messy for the environment. And carrying a ton (1000 kg) with your car, just to be able to move, is a bit too much.

by neves 2y ago

askvictor 2y ago

Not just to delay, but they're hope is that they'll be able to control it when it happens. Oil companies move fluids, using pipes and tankers. Hydrogen is a fluid. They want to keep doing what they've been doing. Electricity doesn't fit into their M.O.

somat 2y ago
I don't know what you are talking about, electricity is a fluid.
- marshray 2y ago
  The only sense in which "electricity" could be said to be fluid is in its definition. There's no such physical quantity, it's just a vague term for a variety of phenomena.
  - kelipso 2y ago
    Maybe he was talking about aether theory of electricity lol.
  - somat 2y ago
    It flows, you use fluid equations to describe it's state. I will grant that it flows in a different medium than molecular fluids. but that does not prevent it from being a fluid. As for what is flowing, my understanding is that it is electrons in an em field. which if you think about it is almost the same thing that is flowing in a molecular fluid, only that has drag a bunch of protons around at the same time limiting performance.
    - marshray 2y ago
      What is "static electricity" then?
      - baq 2y ago
        Potential difference without flow. A discharge is a dam breaking.
    - throwaway3572 2y ago
      The fluid analogy is ok for introducing the concept of electricity but it has some significant limitations, so one should grow out of it fairly quickly if you want a deeper understanding of the subject. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_analogy#Limits_to_the_analogy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_analogy#Limits_to_th...
bawolff 2y ago
I don't think its really viable to transport hydrogen via existing (oil) pipelines. Hydrogen leaks everywhere.
- semi-extrinsic 2y ago
  Oil pipelines, no. Gas pipelines, yes. The effort to requalify existing gas pipelines for hydrogen use is well underway in Europe. There might be a need to run at lower pressure, depending on the type of steel, but leaks are not an issue.
  - alvah 2y ago
    Hydrogen embrittlement is a massive issue, I’d be interested to hear how this can be engineered around. My understanding is it requires more exotic materials than those used in any existing NG or oil pipelines. Everything I’ve seen claiming it’s viable to use existing infrastructure seems reasonable at first glance, but invariably contains a massive hand-wave or 2.
    - VBprogrammer 2y ago
      I think the obfuscation is that they are generally talking about stuffing small quantities of hydrogen into natural gas pipelines. Similar to alcohol in gasoline.
    - ajb 2y ago
      The existing infrastructure was originally built for town gas which is ~50% hydrogen, and run successfully for many decades as such. So this is mainly about checking out the more recently designed parts. My understanding is embrittlement is mainly a problem for storage tanks, which need to use high strength materials due to the enormous pressure -and ironically those materials are more susceptable.
      - alvah 2y ago
        Existing infrastructure is designed for & can be used for hydrocarbons with varying levels of hydrogen in their molecular structure; I don't believe there's an issue there. Most of the H2 in town gas is in the form of hydrocarbons, which are less reactive than pure H2, even if there's a relatively high percentage of H2 in the mix (as the H2 is strongly bound to the carbon). Embrittlement is definitely an issue for more than just storage tanks.

pjscott 2y ago

Do you have actual knowledge of their motives? Or is this speculation, confidently stated as fact? Another possible motive, mentioned in the the paragraph you quote, is that the oil companies see an energy transition coming and are trying to get aboard the hydrogen train to diversify their future revenue sources. And that sounds like a reasonable motive; the sort of thing that people who don't see themselves as evil villains – i.e. the supermajority of people – could embrace.

mixermachine 2y ago
One can extract hydrogen from fossil fuels. So if a hydrogen break through is coming, they already have a cheap source for the material. Not really green though...
- m463 2y ago
  not really cheap either. I remember natural gas vehicles (busses and cars, like the honda civic). You could actually fill up at home if you had natural gas, but the electricity just to compress the natural gas for the car cost as much or more than the compressed fuel in the car. For hydrogen, it is even harder. take a look at cars running compressed hydrogen. I remember $17 for the equivalent of a gallon of gasoline. I think it is even more expensive now. Easier to burn CH4 than use energy to split out the H2, then compres it, then store it. I actually think solar is better.
  - baq 2y ago
    Dollars are fake, or more accurately, a social construct, remember that. You can always tax the cheaper fuel and subsidize the more expensive one.
    - rocqua 2y ago
      Dollar costs of physical things (pre tax) quite accurately measure how much effort it takes to produce/acquire that thing. Hydrogen being more expensive than X quite stronly suggests that it is much more effort to get than X.

tonyhart7 2y ago

" Because Oil Companies are lobbying for inefficient hydrogen to delay a green revolution" well NO, contrary to popular belief. there is no such things because 1. Oil is scarce resource that not every country have 2. since not every country has, they must import it with expensive trade deficit meaning that Oil alternative or replacement is very much needed since country like china,south korea and japan that has massive economy dependant on oil for their survival, hydrogen tech would come out of necessity but they are not because its not feasible

tonyhart7 2y ago
that's why china is leading an EV revolution, government seeing that as very much important geopolitic and economic wise if hydrogen is feasible in mass scale, trust me someone in Asia would already make it
- jimnotgym 2y ago
  > if hydrogen is feasible in mass scale, trust me someone in Asia would already make it That is a ridiculous proposition. Electric vehicles themselves were being pushed hard around the world before China saw the way the wind was blowing and overtook it.
  - tonyhart7 2y ago
    "That is a ridiculous proposition. Electric vehicles themselves were being pushed hard around the world before China" I never said they are first, I said they lead at the EV industry and usage, the amount of resource and how people use EV is gargantuan even compared to the west
- xbmcuser 2y ago
  I think a lot of people miss the fact that China did not get to electric out of the blue it invested heavily in all these techs Hydrogen, Nuclear, Wind, Solar and batteries the cheapest and easiest to scale turned out to be Solar, Wind and then batteries. Even today China is still building more hydrogen and nuclear plants than most of the world combined but those technologies have not scaled or gotten cheaper at the same rate as solar, wind and batteries so are not growing where as solar and wind are. China is close to reaching the point where it could start replacing its coal electricity with solar, wind and battery as it is cheaper.

Smithalicious 2y ago

It seems to me like green fundamentalist see nothing but enemies and subterfuge everywhere. Hydrogen, biofuel, nuclear, switching from oil to natural gas where possible, the list goes on. I don't have enough of an opinion to comment on anyone of them individually, but I notice a really striking pattern where every time the idea of alternative energy sources are brought up that are not wind or solar, whoever brings it up is accused of sabotaging the energy transition in some way or another.

progbits 2y ago
Maybe because there is evidence of fossil companies doing exactly that since the sixties? Benefit of doubt has it's place but this is just naivety or outright trolling.
- cbmuser 2y ago
  Fossil companies hugely profit from the anti-nuclear green movement that solely focuses on wind and solar. Because no matter how many wind and solar plants you build, they will never be able to provide baseload and hence you need fossil backup power plants.
kelnos 2y ago
I mean, read the current top sibling comment to yours. Someone who worked at an oil & gas company confirmed that this was their strategy. Now, I don't think these people are sitting in their carved-out mountain lair, scheming to destroy the world; I'm sure they don't see themselves as villains. But they are making deliberate decisions to protect their business models and bottom line by adopting -- and, importantly, lobbying for -- technology that is polluting and emits greenhouse gases.
- cbmuser 2y ago
  Wind and solar power heavily depend on fossil backup plants which is why oil companies have long been proponents of the energy transition. The only technology that is actually able to get rid of fossil technology is nuclear power.

coldtea 2y ago

>to delay a green revolution There's no "green revolution". Just different compromises and tradeoffs, and practical considerations for roll-out times (including for solar, wind, and batteries - no free lunch.

paganel 2y ago

There's no "green revolution" coming, just the powers that be taxing us, normal citizens, to the hell and the back if we'd still want to hang on to our gasoline-powered cars, which taxing policies will for sure bring about the revolution of people choosing to not travel anymore, because too expensive. That's the revolution that they're now putting in place. Also, bonus points to the "liberals" (including many of the techies in here) helping bring forward guys like Musk, they did that by purchasing and aggressively marketing for his vehicles, they've actually empowered him and brought him into his actual position of power.

kelnos 2y ago
I think it's a bit weird to blame people who bought Teslas for the current situation with Musk. That's a huge, bad-faith stretch of an argument.
- sieabahlpark 2y ago
  [dead]
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > it's a bit weird to blame people who bought Teslas for the current situation with Musk It’s implausible to blame them. But they absolutely bear responsibility for giving him wealth and power. (And politicians in Sacramento, who didn’t do a good enough job of forcing their subsidies to cause competition.)

dghughes 2y ago

My province has a hydrogen village powered by windmills no oil companies involved. https://frontierpowersystems.ca/hydrogen-village/ https://frontierpowersystems.ca/hydrogen-village/

pier25 2y ago
this is amazing
happosai 2y ago
Where are all the details? All the articles of project seem to be pre-build. How many MW of wind turbines? How big electrolyzer? How big energy storage? Investment cost? Running costs? Reliability?
- sologoub 2y ago
  It’s a rather old project (2009), so many articles covering it are defunct. Found some of the info: “The purpose of the Prince Edward Island (PEI) Wind-Hydrogen Village is to use excess wind energy along with hydrogen technologies to offer sustainable energy. Excess electricity produced by wind turbines on the island is being used to power a 300kW uni-polar electrolyzer. A uni-polar electrolyzer uses alkaline liquids, rather than solid polymer, as its electrolyte. The electrolyzer can produce about 6kg of hydrogen per hour. The hydrogen is then stored as compressed gas in storage tanks that have a total capacity of about 500kg. The hydrogen is then used in the bi-fuel hydrogen/diesel genset to power the village when there is no wind.” Source: https://martinottaway.com/rhemmen/hydrogen-as-the-ultimate-fuel-part-2/ https://martinottaway.com/rhemmen/hydrogen-as-the-ultimate-f... I guess it’s no fun covering things that just work. News need drama…
zamadatix 2y ago
Are you sure the hydrogen storage is still active? That page does say "This project has been operating autonomously since 2009" but the projects page on the same site lists the hydrogen village as lasting from 2008-2010 https://frontierpowersystems.ca/projects/ https://frontierpowersystems.ca/projects/. Frontier Power Systems is also a "wind-diesel" provider - so they certainly aren't separated from oil companies (though this doesn't automatically mean their intentions aren't genuinely to reduce fossil fuel usage as GP was saying, they even seem to be doing battery storage systems now). Checking further into the projects list, the first project in Ramea for "wind-hydrogen-diesel" (first time I've seen that one) demonstration is listed as lasting longer but this article notes it hardly ever ran because "issues were experienced with the storage aspect of the project" i.e. the hydrogen storage https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/ramea-wind-power-project-at-standstill-1.4695679 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/ramea-w... I didn't exhaustively check the project list but, of the ones I did, I didn't see an active wind-hydrogen systems. Only active wind-battery or wind-diesel systems. WEICan also has active wind+battery systems running on Prince Edward Island https://www.weican.ca/ https://www.weican.ca/ (click view details for the specifics) but no hydrogen. Maybe all of that is in same way inaccurate and there are actually great details of the hydrogen storage success. Unfortunately I can't find any such details saying "that's the case and here is the data about how successful it has been for the last decade", just the above info saying it was tried for a short period, didn't work out, and other system types are currently in place.

idiotsecant 2y ago

Sure are lots of HN software developers that confidently know everything about everything in this thread. I enjoy HN a lot when the subject is software or software adjacent. I find myself avoiding the comments section in actual engineering topics, though. You'd never catch an electrical engineer claiming to be an expert on whatever the flavor of the month is in development but every developer is an expert when it comes to all things that are even tangentially related to electric fields.

rnewme 2y ago
To be fair a lot of us had a lot of education on the topic, and come from engineering backgrounds.
- idiotsecant 2y ago
  That's the problem. I often tell engineering interns that school gives them just enough information to be dangerous. This is doubly true for software developers.

stainablesteel 2y ago

this is the best answer and it's not the only way they do it, they've become extremely sophisticated saboteurs of anything energy related through pure marketing alone

sonthonax 2y ago

Just not true. Lots of oil companies have a vested interest in renewables now. A lot of the infrastructure for offshore oil is being redeployed for offshore wind.

hulitu 2y ago

> delay a green revolution: Batteries are pretty messy for the environment. And carrying a ton (1000 kg) with your car, just to be able to move, is a bit too much.