3 ms·

Small scale natural gas turbine plants are bad for local human air due to NOx emissions.

missedthecue 2mo ago
100% true yet even when you solve this (for example with clean hydro in the northwest), you make zero progress with the anti-datacenter people.
- masfuerte 2mo ago
  America is huge. Why do they need to be constructed next to people's homes?
  - dylan604 2mo ago
    That's where the resources are. You wouldn't expect some uber wealthy billion dollar company to have to provide power/water needs way out in the middle of nowhere would you?
    - lenerdenator 2mo ago
      Well, to a point. I honestly don't get why, for example, we're building anything that requires a lot of water in Arizona.
      - dylan604 2mo ago
        Why are we growing crops that depend on monsoon amounts of water in the desert? Because people with money and power have decided that's what they want to do.
        missedthecue 2mo ago
        The explanation has never made intuitive sense to me and the political power of almond and alfalfa farmers continues to elude me. Yes, almond farmers have money but Larry Ellison, Musk, and Sergey Brin have a shitload more. As do non-tech industries like Californian real estate developers. California has ~40 billionaires from real estate alone. That industry, and tech, and manufacturing, and everyone else is also competing for water supply. What makes almond farmers so good at procuring and maintaining political influence?
        quickthrowman 2mo ago
        I don’t even know if they need to maintain political influence, they own water rights which are worth a ridiculous amount of money which entitles them to a share of water based on when the water usage began. It’s complicated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior-appropriation_water_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior-appropriation_water_righ...
        Sabinus 1mo ago
        Because farming in a desert means you have as much sun as you could want, and can (with the aid of groundwater and water transport infrastructure) add as much water as you need, when you need it, and at no other times (harvest etc).
- ericd 2mo ago
  Right, as with almost everything with people, it's an emotional reaction (fear) with a thin layer of rationalization on top.
  - goatlover 2mo ago
    This applies to the billionaire class as well. Such as having to beat China in AI race the tech CEOs started.
criddell 2mo ago
Is there a better alternative for on-demand, on-location power generation?
- namibj 2mo ago
  You can use fuel cells; I'm sure external steam reforming based hydrogen (in protein exchange membrane fuel cells) works very well, but I'd not be surprised if some hydrocarbon or alcohol fuel cell beats it in TCO; also I'd expect liquid oxygen to be readily suited to be trucked-in with the fuel they feed these turbines and by the power of a simple dry heat exchanger exchanging between ambient air and combustion "air" they could use exhaust gas recirculation with pure (other than the exhaust gas diluting it so the flame doesn't melt the turbine blades) oxygen which would as a side-effect allow them to condense out water to obtain nearly pure CO2 exhaust. Liquid oxygen is around 100$/ton and you need 3.21 tons of it to burn one ton of methane. If you use kerosene instead you're at about 2.58 tons of oxygen per ton of fuel. Note that the absence of nitrogen otherwise plentiful in combustion air eliminates NOX formation. What they do for the oxygen production is they condense air and then distill it; IIRC it's mainly done for steel production where they use it to burn off carbon dissolved in molten iron. It's side product liquid nitrogen and argon are primarily produced from this but are mostly considered side-products of the "oxygen refining".
  - criddell 2mo ago
    Thanks for the information. I never knew about those kinds of fuel cells and they look like an excellent alternative. From what I've just read, the only real downsides other than initial cost are slow startup time (hours) and they are physically larger than gas turbines. In exchange for a higher upfront price, you get a more efficient and reliable power generator. Very cool.

100% true yet even when you solve this (for example with clean hydro in the northwest), you make zero progress with the anti-datacenter people.

masfuerte 2mo ago
America is huge. Why do they need to be constructed next to people's homes?
- dylan604 2mo ago
  That's where the resources are. You wouldn't expect some uber wealthy billion dollar company to have to provide power/water needs way out in the middle of nowhere would you?
  - lenerdenator 2mo ago
    Well, to a point. I honestly don't get why, for example, we're building anything that requires a lot of water in Arizona.
    - dylan604 2mo ago
      Why are we growing crops that depend on monsoon amounts of water in the desert? Because people with money and power have decided that's what they want to do.
      - missedthecue 2mo ago
        The explanation has never made intuitive sense to me and the political power of almond and alfalfa farmers continues to elude me. Yes, almond farmers have money but Larry Ellison, Musk, and Sergey Brin have a shitload more. As do non-tech industries like Californian real estate developers. California has ~40 billionaires from real estate alone. That industry, and tech, and manufacturing, and everyone else is also competing for water supply. What makes almond farmers so good at procuring and maintaining political influence?
        quickthrowman 2mo ago
        I don’t even know if they need to maintain political influence, they own water rights which are worth a ridiculous amount of money which entitles them to a share of water based on when the water usage began. It’s complicated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior-appropriation_water_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior-appropriation_water_righ...
      - Sabinus 1mo ago
        Because farming in a desert means you have as much sun as you could want, and can (with the aid of groundwater and water transport infrastructure) add as much water as you need, when you need it, and at no other times (harvest etc).
ericd 2mo ago
Right, as with almost everything with people, it's an emotional reaction (fear) with a thin layer of rationalization on top.
- goatlover 2mo ago
  This applies to the billionaire class as well. Such as having to beat China in AI race the tech CEOs started.

criddell 2mo ago

Is there a better alternative for on-demand, on-location power generation?

namibj 2mo ago
You can use fuel cells; I'm sure external steam reforming based hydrogen (in protein exchange membrane fuel cells) works very well, but I'd not be surprised if some hydrocarbon or alcohol fuel cell beats it in TCO; also I'd expect liquid oxygen to be readily suited to be trucked-in with the fuel they feed these turbines and by the power of a simple dry heat exchanger exchanging between ambient air and combustion "air" they could use exhaust gas recirculation with pure (other than the exhaust gas diluting it so the flame doesn't melt the turbine blades) oxygen which would as a side-effect allow them to condense out water to obtain nearly pure CO2 exhaust. Liquid oxygen is around 100$/ton and you need 3.21 tons of it to burn one ton of methane. If you use kerosene instead you're at about 2.58 tons of oxygen per ton of fuel. Note that the absence of nitrogen otherwise plentiful in combustion air eliminates NOX formation. What they do for the oxygen production is they condense air and then distill it; IIRC it's mainly done for steel production where they use it to burn off carbon dissolved in molten iron. It's side product liquid nitrogen and argon are primarily produced from this but are mostly considered side-products of the "oxygen refining".
- criddell 2mo ago
  Thanks for the information. I never knew about those kinds of fuel cells and they look like an excellent alternative. From what I've just read, the only real downsides other than initial cost are slow startup time (hours) and they are physically larger than gas turbines. In exchange for a higher upfront price, you get a more efficient and reliable power generator. Very cool.