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End of the lull for the Atlantic (and hydrogen power station arrghh not that one again)

Helios

Whilst the hurricane season , is er seasonal , the last couple of weeks have seen an unusual lull , and some are worried , as it may be the jet stream is wobbling more , the polar and northern lands have had some high temperatures , and we may not be far off the no ice at the north pole scenario , but perhaps not this year. The lull is really puzzling , however things are being termed as primed , and we are seeing the tropical waves coming off the African west coast. My own view is that I think the season will be longer , however this may not mean the number of storms increases, I also think the Gulf of Mexico could really start to intensify even the lesser storms , as the sea is carrying heat (as in more heat due to local temps) in its circulation.  

Engineers are of course involved in post weather damage repairs , and the USA uses a pole system , and the linesmen and women are pretty good at getting things back up and running , which is interestingly why they chose a pole system for transmission, although customers are drilled for the regular outages , flashlight, generator etc etc 

In energy news , one energy company is saying we will have Hydrogen power stations ….. oh really … reading a little further the article changed to say co fuelled with Hydrogen . I dont know I have done some maths on it , and 1 250 mw Hydrogen gas turbine needs at least 2000Mw of water electrolysis , so i guess the hydrogen must be coming from errr somewhere else.

Unfortuantely some countries still hoping global heating theory , can be ignored , S Africa (which has a lot of coal)  has just opened a new super coal power station , and around 1400 new ones are still being planned , although quite a lot now are being given end of life notices , some before due date , as they are becoming so uneconomic , as they don't convert the fuel energy kj into electrical energy kw  at much greater than 36% and even the best designed can only manage 44% and there are a handful of these much more efficient coal plants , they also produce ash , which unless used as building material is a problem and in some cases a toxic problem/liability for coal power financiers.

A scottish distillery is using is mash waste to make bio gas to power its trucks , and new lng fueling terminals are popping up for HGVs , so i think we can say we are at least getting a win win arrangement for HGV and shipping fuel .

Not sure at all about everyone raving for SAF fuel for aircraft , it doesnt cure emission problems even with new engines , and ship transport may well offer much better emissions , than aircraft with the right technology , although one aircraft maker is claiming they have a 20 person twin engine electric aircraft , ready for market …. being as Nikola (who promised us world beating Hydrogen and electric power trucks) are in court over claims (they admitted the very amazing video for the hydrogen truck , filmed a truck going downhill , although you couldn't tel the way it was shot , and I quote at the press launch “the exciting technology to the truck being shown”  things in energy claims  , are getting a bit more carefull , for energy tech companies  who are playing things too much.

 

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    If we're going for more renewables, then there will be days when the generation exceeds the demand.  That sounds like a good time to turn the spare electricity into hydrogen, rather than shutting down the wind turbines.

    Other than that, hydrogen is a rather inefficient way to store energy.

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    this is what puzzles me government thinking , we know wind arrays are highly variable , i mean the technology has moved on from the photos of on fire gear boxes and broken towers , and the new turbines can make use of wind variations much better as , well as the super output ones , but still on average a wind array puts out around half its design specification , and even then its really dangerous when you start have mega scale storage of DC , when demands can be out of sync with generation , i mean imagine a peak winter demand of 50,000MW /hr , and your wind array has only been managing 3000MW for the past 48hrs , and the safety calc starts saying DC storage of at least 10 days at 50,000Mwh , to cover every ones butt and that means storing summer wind output , so the DC storage problems are literally massive , to keep a national electricity grid . 

    Hydrogen as store is expensive , but perhaps not as expensive as mega scale batteries , but first priority for Hydrogen is industrial chemicals, i think , so I think the synergy between offshore wind and hydrogen is the best use, which makes me also wonder why government thinking was obsessed with Hydrogen as a transport fuel , if industrial chemicals is the best place to use Hydrogen from water electrolysis . 

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    Here in Cheshire they are planning a  facility using plastic waste that cannot be recycled to generate hydrogen. Sounds wonderful but at what point will we stop producing plastics from oil?

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