What a crock of sh!#. Yes because the need for electricity will increase some more pollution will be generated by them. However, by taking millions of polluting vehicles off the road you will decrease pollution by substantially more than the increase via the Elecrtic Generators. Also it’s a lot easier to control the amount of pollution generated from the few power plants than it is from the millions of vehicles out on the roads.
The grid needs an overhaul that is not going to disappear with the increase in EVs. This is a part of infrastructure, that same infrastructure that we have ignored for upkeep and upgrades many years now. There are also other technologies besides just fossil fuels and nuclear reactors for production of electricity. H. sapiens has a choice: to use their highly vaunted brains together or to go down the Darwinian tube together.
It actually is requiring a massive change on several fronts at once.
We must convert from an oil-based economy to one of renewable energy sources while, at the same time rebuilding our national energy grid, which currently consists of the East, the West, and Texas. To adequately rebuild the grid, we must include all three in a unified power grid (and yes, I’m talking about nationalizing power companies – quick grandma, pass the smelling salts!)
Such radical actions would not have been necessary had we started the conversion when the underlying problems were first pointed out, but politicians kept their heads up their butts rather than addressing the issues so now we come to this.
Now understand THIS. I’m in my 70s – just like Donnie John. And I’ve got some money – just like Donnie John. So short term, he and I both will be able to survive quite comfortably as the world continues to slide into disasterous calamity.
I’m getting tired of pointing out the absolute and utter stupidity of doing nothing, as America continues to devolve into anarchy and ruin.
If you want to join with the republicans in the argument on the placement of the Titanic deck chairs – be my guest; perhaps you’re waiting until it too late to do ANYTHING about ANY of the issues facing us – and that time is not that far off.
We are faced now with HARD CHOICES- but very soon we will be faced with NO CHOICE – your pick; your call.
Trump’s not going to save you, and neither is Biden – you’ve got to save yourself, and I see damned little effort on anybody’s part to do anything except whine, so far!
There are a number of excellent ideas for upgrading and replacing the existing power generating stations, including solar, wind, geo-thermal and tidal technologies. Used together they are an excellent way to go, but fossil fuel company executives are afraid of losing their lock on the economy and their income.
It is amusing that Saudi Arabia is heavily investing in solar and wind power for domestic use. They have abundant sunshine, and lots of empty land (a whole region known as the Empty Quarter), plus regular wind flow at night. They also are investing in hydrogen (fuel cells) and nuclear power.
The funny thing is that Texas also invested in solar and wind power. But they did not exercise good stewardship and good maintenance.
One of the problems with using hydrogen as a fuel has been that it is difficult to store, and not really portable, and sometimes dangerous (Hindenburg, anyone?) It now appears as if there will be a way around that, at least to some extent.
From The Economist
Toothpaste in your tankHydrogen goop could be a more convenient fuel than hydrogen gas
At least, the Fraunhofer Institute hopes so
ON PAPER, HYDROGEN looks like a dream fuel. Coal, oil and natural gas generate planet-warming carbon dioxide when burned. Hydrogen produces pure water. Hydrogen crams more energy into less space than batteries do (though, admittedly, less than petrol or diesel do). And an empty tank can be refilled with hydrogen much faster than an empty battery can be refilled with electricity.
In practice, things are trickier. Storing meaningful quantities of hydrogen gas requires compressing it several hundred-fold. Liquefying it is another option, but one that requires cooling the stuff to -253°C. Either process requires rugged tanks. Over time, hydrogen gas can infiltrate metals, weakening them and potentially causing cracks. Tanks must be built from special materials designed to resist this breakdown.
There may be a better way. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials in Germany, led by Marcus Vogt, think that supplying hydrogen as goop rather than gas offers a way around some of its limitations. They have been experimenting with a chemical compound that can be pumped into a cartridge and then persuaded to give up its hydrogen on demand.
Their invention, which they dub “Powerpaste”, bears a passing resemblance to toothpaste. Its main ingredient is magnesium hydride, a compound that, when introduced to water, reacts with it to form hydrogen and magnesium hydroxide (a substance more familiar as milk of magnesia, a stomach-settling antacid). The escaped hydrogen can then be diverted into a fuel cell, where it reacts with oxygen from the air to generate electric power. The magnesium hydroxide waste is emptied from the reactor automatically.
Dr Vogt’s scheme offers several advantages over batteries, petrol and more conventional ways of handling hydrogen. One is the storage of more energy per litre, and per kilogram, than either batteries or petrol can manage. A second is ease of refilling, which is simply a matter of swapping an empty cartridge of paste for a full one, and topping up the water, which is stored in a separate tank. A third advantage is that, unlike a battery, the paste does not gradually lose its stored energy if it is left on the shelf.
Moreover, the paste itself is non-toxic, as are the reaction’s by-products. But there are plenty of subtleties to work through. Left to its own devices, magnesium hydroxide reacts only slowly with water because the reaction forms a barrier on the material’s surface that inhibits further chemistry. To overcome this, Dr Vogt and his team have found a chemical additive that greatly accelerates the reaction. They have also found a way to ensure that the reaction can be controlled precisely enough to supply only as much hydrogen as is needed at any given moment.
The paste is unlikely to up-end the clean-car industry, where battery-powered vehicles have already established themselves as the dominant technology. But Dr Vogt nonetheless hopes that his invention may find niches. One early use could be in small vehicles such as scooters, or in flying drones where weight is at a premium. It is hard to scale down the sorts of heavy-duty tanks needed to store elemental hydrogen, he says. Powerpaste could thus enable longer ranges for scooters, and flight times for drones measured in hours rather than minutes. Miniature stoves aimed at campers are another idea.
A pilot plant in Brunswick, a city in Lower Saxony, will be able to produce four tonnes of the stuff per year when it is finished later this year. And heavier-duty uses are certainly possible, if that is what customers would like. Dr Vogt has already built a small demonstration unit for the German army.
end of article.
While this may not be able to be carried on freight or passenger transport, it might enable hydrogen powered transport by allowing the generation of hydrogen from the paste at multiple locations, on a on-demand basis, reducing costs for transport and storage of hydrogen. The fact that it is already more energy dense than batteries is a real plus.
If you can convert away from fossil fuels for power generation and transportation, you are still a long way from being free from fossil fuels. Two other areas which at present generate a lot of CO2 are steel production and and concrete production. Here is someone working on the steel problem. Again, from The Economist.
Green Steel
Plentiful renewable energy is opening up a new industrial frontier
Competitors are alarmedNORRLAND IS THE largest of Sweden’s three historical “lands”. It spans the top half of the country and is sparsely populated, the more so the farther north you go. The few people who live there have long relied for work on mining, the army and forestry. Most of Sweden’s industry is far to the south. But Norrland abounds in hydropower. Power that is cheap and—crucially—green, along with bargain land and proximity to iron ore, is sparking an improbable industrial revolution, based on hydrogen, “green” steel and batteries.
SSAB, a steelmaker, is poised to deliver its first consignment of “eco-steel” from a hydrogen-fuelled pilot plant in Lulea, a northern city. Volvo, an industrial-vehicle firm these days, will use the steel to build lorries. Of the six or seven tonnes that its typical lorry weighs, around five consist of steel. And for each tonne of steel produced using fossil fuels, around two tonnes of planet-cooking carbon dioxide get belched into the atmosphere.
To make steel, iron ore must be melted at high temperatures and reduced from iron oxide to iron, a process that typically involves burning fossil fuels, releasing huge amounts of carbon dioxide. Replacing them with hydrogen as a reducing agent eliminates more than 98% of the carbon dioxide normally released. The hydrogen is made by electrolysing water, using electricity produced by hydro-power. This approach involves almost no carbon-dioxide emissions at all.
I went to a real estate property management seminar by a broker who advocated: Buy a property, jack up the rents, do minimal maintenance, maximum tax benefits, suck all of the money out of the property, jack up the rents, sell the property. In some places, it seems that philosophy has been applied to our power grid ownership.
Scania, another automotive firm, is also hoping to exploit Norrland’s cheap hydro-power. It plans to make 15,000 battery-powered trucks a year by 2025, around 15% of its annual production. To that end it has invested in Northvolt, a new battery-making enterprise powered by Norrland’s hydro-electricity. Northvolt’s main facility is in Skelleftea, 130km south-west of Lulea. It is also building a battery-recycling plant there (see Science section). By the end of 2021 the company hopes to have churned out enough batteries to store 16 gigawatt-hours. Carl-Erik Lagercrantz, Northvolt’s chairman, wants to scale that up eventually to 150 gigawatt-hours a year. If he does so by 2030, he will be supplying a sizeable amount of the European Union’s expected annual demand of some 450 gigawatt-hours of electric-vehicle battery capacity by 2030.
Mr Lagercrantz also wants to get into the green-steel business. Taking inspiration from SSAB’s pilot project, he decided to have a go at hydrogen-based steelmaking too, and founded H2 Green Steel. Production will be based in Boden, an old army town 30km north-west of Lulea. The new plant will make 5m tonnes of flat steel a year by 2030, a small but meaningful percentage of the 90m tonnes that is currently consumed annually in the EU.
Northern Sweden’s steelmaking leaps are being emulated elsewhere in Europe, in response to similar environmental pressures which will only increase if, as looks very likely, Germany’s Greens enter government after the election in September. Europe produces a still significant 16% of the world’s steel. Big producers in Germany and Poland, where the industry is mostly coal-based and very dirty, are nervy. Even neighbouring Norway is in danger of losing out. It too has the gift of rich renewable-energy resources, but underinvestment means there may soon not be enough of this green electricity to meet the demands of both households and industry.
Meanwhile, all the green-tinged investments have knock-on effects for the rest of the economy of northern Sweden. Claes Nordmark, the mayor of Boden, says house prices are rising and contractors are queuing up to build apartment blocks in anticipation of H2 Green Steel’s new facility. Other companies are vying to supply the steelmaker, or to take advantage of its products. Expecting a jump in population, Mr Nordmark and his colleagues in the region are building schools and sporting facilities. Your correspondent encouraged him to abandon Swedish reticence and brag. “Those in the south think there is nothing here. But now we can offer the green jobs that people dream of—and an amazing lifestyle,” he beams.
And then there is this from Wired:
Outside Boston, in the industrial suburb of Woburn, one company is working to replace coal with electrons. Boston Metal, an outfit spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, uses electric currents to heat iron ore into a bright orange-white liquid, which converts into metal and cools as gray steel blocks. The process doesn’t create greenhouse gas emissions, and when powered with renewable electricity, can be completely emissions-free.
Concrete may not be so amenable, and carbon-capture may be required. But work continues…
Yup. Always supported nuclear as cleanest. No need to, now. On one hand, wind and solar power still cheaper and becoming more so, every day. On the other hand, the greedy bastards building nuclear power plants in the GOUSA still work like it’s 1964. Bump the price every other week and then discover new expenses. Send us the bill.
This is true only if the conservatives have their way to keep relying on fossil fuel. With wind, water, and solar in addition to nuclear, weaning off of oil and natural gas is doable.
Wuerker usually has interesting cartoons with a statement, but this is playing to the ignorance of those that don’t believe in alternative energy. This energy should be coming from solar and wind and not the coal-fired stacks he is displaying in this cartoon.
In a report published by Galaxy Digital and confirmed by International Energy Agency (IEA), the annual electricity consumption of the Bitcoin network stood at 113.89 terawatts per hour per year (TWh/year) whereas, the banking systems consume 263.72 TWh/yr while gold mining consumes around 240.61 TWh/yr of energy.
Each bit coin miner spews more electric based CO2 than 100 cars, per hour.
Electric vehicles aren’t really the solution – the solution is the production of energy without using fossil fuels. EV’s are merely a consumer of the non fossil fuel industry
The primary point is quite valid, that we are headed toward a significantly larger load on power distribution as EVs grow, and that the system is not in good shape. We need to remedy that.
The other point which many commenters have touched on is the source of the energy. First, EVs offer a significant improvement in overall energy efficiency, as a good generation facility is ~70% efficient, while the internal combustion engine is around 25%. Second, it allows for diverse energy sources, including solar, wind, and nuclear, as well as gas and other fossil fuels. I believe EVs also offer something that is really needed, which is storage capacity. With smart metering folks can charge during the part of the 24 hour cycle where availability is high. This capacity is currently one of the things that will limit the utilization of solar and wind. Of course nuclear does not have that problem…
Renewable energy is the fastest-growing energy source in the United States, increasing 100 percent from 2000 to 2018. Renewables made up more than 17 percent of net U.S. electricity generation in 2018, with the bulk coming from hydropower (7.0 percent) and wind power (6.6 percent). Eighteen percent of the energy consumed globally for heating, power, and transportation was from renewable sources in 2017 (see figure below). Nearly 60 percent came from modern renewables (i.e., biomass, geothermal, solar, hydro, wind, and biofuels) and the remainder from traditional biomass (used in residential heating and cooking in developing countries). Renewables made up 26.2 percent of global electricity generation in 2018. That’s expected to rise to 45 percent by 2040. Most of the increase will likely come from solar, wind, and hydropower.https://www.c2es.org/content/renewable-energy/
There have been several studies that have determined that electric cars still have lower carbon footprints than conventional cars – even if recharged only via highly polluting fossil fueled power plants. And that is worst-case scenario – the carbon footprint gap widens as green energy sources are employed.
Also, electric cars are not going to burn down the power grid unless we purposely allow them to – by refusing to expand the grid and by relying only upon grid charging. The grid is not set in stone – it can be beefed up, and in plenty of time considering the slow adoption of EVs by consumers. Most EV owners recharge at night, using power that would be wasted as heat in the wires and equipment since most power plants do not throttle down their outputs during lesser demand at night. People can also install their own solar panels to recharge without using the grid at all.
Typical Republican propaganda from a stupid Politico Republican shill. “The better alternative isn’t perfect, so do the worst thing.”If you have a fossil fuel car that’s all you have. You have to keep burning carbon. If you have an electric car you can power it with renewables. And even if you use fossil fuel to generate the electricity you burn less per mile than if you put it into gas tanks and start and stop an explosion a few times a second.
But by all means ignore the facts and enjoy the pat on the back from the oil companies.
Maybe some but very little. If charging at night or with solar power very little load issues for a utility. Also NO oil changes, No transmission oil changes.
Even if the hacking didn’t happen, electric vehicles are only a temporary solution. Because of the number of vehicles on the road, 284.5 million at this time, we will eventually require more electricity than a grid can create.
All the research and analyses I’ve seen so far say that while it’s best to get of this idea of individual means of transportation altogether (except bicycles perhaps), electric cars contribute far less to the overall destruction of the climate. One has to take into account all the aspects from manufacture of the vehicles to creation and transportation of the fuels used to power them. At each step of the process, electric vehicles still produce a smaller carbon footprint.
trimguy almost 3 years ago
There is some truth to this unless we go to nuclear power
Johnny on the Spot almost 3 years ago
What a crock of sh!#. Yes because the need for electricity will increase some more pollution will be generated by them. However, by taking millions of polluting vehicles off the road you will decrease pollution by substantially more than the increase via the Elecrtic Generators. Also it’s a lot easier to control the amount of pollution generated from the few power plants than it is from the millions of vehicles out on the roads.
Dave Wesely Premium Member almost 3 years ago
Typical troll strip.
William Schwaber Premium Member almost 3 years ago
There’s a solution to that. More renewables to power the grid. But that would require buy in from Big Energy and the government.
martens almost 3 years ago
The grid needs an overhaul that is not going to disappear with the increase in EVs. This is a part of infrastructure, that same infrastructure that we have ignored for upkeep and upgrades many years now. There are also other technologies besides just fossil fuels and nuclear reactors for production of electricity. H. sapiens has a choice: to use their highly vaunted brains together or to go down the Darwinian tube together.
StackableContainers almost 3 years ago
Invest in updating the power grid to latest technologies and problem solved.
wellis1947 Premium Member almost 3 years ago
It actually is requiring a massive change on several fronts at once.
We must convert from an oil-based economy to one of renewable energy sources while, at the same time rebuilding our national energy grid, which currently consists of the East, the West, and Texas. To adequately rebuild the grid, we must include all three in a unified power grid (and yes, I’m talking about nationalizing power companies – quick grandma, pass the smelling salts!)
Such radical actions would not have been necessary had we started the conversion when the underlying problems were first pointed out, but politicians kept their heads up their butts rather than addressing the issues so now we come to this.Now understand THIS. I’m in my 70s – just like Donnie John. And I’ve got some money – just like Donnie John. So short term, he and I both will be able to survive quite comfortably as the world continues to slide into disasterous calamity.
I’m getting tired of pointing out the absolute and utter stupidity of doing nothing, as America continues to devolve into anarchy and ruin.
If you want to join with the republicans in the argument on the placement of the Titanic deck chairs – be my guest; perhaps you’re waiting until it too late to do ANYTHING about ANY of the issues facing us – and that time is not that far off.
We are faced now with HARD CHOICES- but very soon we will be faced with NO CHOICE – your pick; your call.
Trump’s not going to save you, and neither is Biden – you’ve got to save yourself, and I see damned little effort on anybody’s part to do anything except whine, so far!
RAGs almost 3 years ago
There are a number of excellent ideas for upgrading and replacing the existing power generating stations, including solar, wind, geo-thermal and tidal technologies. Used together they are an excellent way to go, but fossil fuel company executives are afraid of losing their lock on the economy and their income.
Baslim the Beggar Premium Member almost 3 years ago
It is amusing that Saudi Arabia is heavily investing in solar and wind power for domestic use. They have abundant sunshine, and lots of empty land (a whole region known as the Empty Quarter), plus regular wind flow at night. They also are investing in hydrogen (fuel cells) and nuclear power.
The funny thing is that Texas also invested in solar and wind power. But they did not exercise good stewardship and good maintenance.
Baslim the Beggar Premium Member almost 3 years ago
One of the problems with using hydrogen as a fuel has been that it is difficult to store, and not really portable, and sometimes dangerous (Hindenburg, anyone?) It now appears as if there will be a way around that, at least to some extent.
From The Economist
Toothpaste in your tankHydrogen goop could be a more convenient fuel than hydrogen gas
At least, the Fraunhofer Institute hopes so
ON PAPER, HYDROGEN looks like a dream fuel. Coal, oil and natural gas generate planet-warming carbon dioxide when burned. Hydrogen produces pure water. Hydrogen crams more energy into less space than batteries do (though, admittedly, less than petrol or diesel do). And an empty tank can be refilled with hydrogen much faster than an empty battery can be refilled with electricity.
In practice, things are trickier. Storing meaningful quantities of hydrogen gas requires compressing it several hundred-fold. Liquefying it is another option, but one that requires cooling the stuff to -253°C. Either process requires rugged tanks. Over time, hydrogen gas can infiltrate metals, weakening them and potentially causing cracks. Tanks must be built from special materials designed to resist this breakdown.
There may be a better way. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials in Germany, led by Marcus Vogt, think that supplying hydrogen as goop rather than gas offers a way around some of its limitations. They have been experimenting with a chemical compound that can be pumped into a cartridge and then persuaded to give up its hydrogen on demand.
continued…
Baslim the Beggar Premium Member almost 3 years ago
Their invention, which they dub “Powerpaste”, bears a passing resemblance to toothpaste. Its main ingredient is magnesium hydride, a compound that, when introduced to water, reacts with it to form hydrogen and magnesium hydroxide (a substance more familiar as milk of magnesia, a stomach-settling antacid). The escaped hydrogen can then be diverted into a fuel cell, where it reacts with oxygen from the air to generate electric power. The magnesium hydroxide waste is emptied from the reactor automatically.
Dr Vogt’s scheme offers several advantages over batteries, petrol and more conventional ways of handling hydrogen. One is the storage of more energy per litre, and per kilogram, than either batteries or petrol can manage. A second is ease of refilling, which is simply a matter of swapping an empty cartridge of paste for a full one, and topping up the water, which is stored in a separate tank. A third advantage is that, unlike a battery, the paste does not gradually lose its stored energy if it is left on the shelf.
Moreover, the paste itself is non-toxic, as are the reaction’s by-products. But there are plenty of subtleties to work through. Left to its own devices, magnesium hydroxide reacts only slowly with water because the reaction forms a barrier on the material’s surface that inhibits further chemistry. To overcome this, Dr Vogt and his team have found a chemical additive that greatly accelerates the reaction. They have also found a way to ensure that the reaction can be controlled precisely enough to supply only as much hydrogen as is needed at any given moment.
continued….
Baslim the Beggar Premium Member almost 3 years ago
The paste is unlikely to up-end the clean-car industry, where battery-powered vehicles have already established themselves as the dominant technology. But Dr Vogt nonetheless hopes that his invention may find niches. One early use could be in small vehicles such as scooters, or in flying drones where weight is at a premium. It is hard to scale down the sorts of heavy-duty tanks needed to store elemental hydrogen, he says. Powerpaste could thus enable longer ranges for scooters, and flight times for drones measured in hours rather than minutes. Miniature stoves aimed at campers are another idea.
A pilot plant in Brunswick, a city in Lower Saxony, will be able to produce four tonnes of the stuff per year when it is finished later this year. And heavier-duty uses are certainly possible, if that is what customers would like. Dr Vogt has already built a small demonstration unit for the German army.
end of article.
While this may not be able to be carried on freight or passenger transport, it might enable hydrogen powered transport by allowing the generation of hydrogen from the paste at multiple locations, on a on-demand basis, reducing costs for transport and storage of hydrogen. The fact that it is already more energy dense than batteries is a real plus.
Baslim the Beggar Premium Member almost 3 years ago
If you can convert away from fossil fuels for power generation and transportation, you are still a long way from being free from fossil fuels. Two other areas which at present generate a lot of CO2 are steel production and and concrete production. Here is someone working on the steel problem. Again, from The Economist.
Green Steel
Plentiful renewable energy is opening up a new industrial frontier
Competitors are alarmedNORRLAND IS THE largest of Sweden’s three historical “lands”. It spans the top half of the country and is sparsely populated, the more so the farther north you go. The few people who live there have long relied for work on mining, the army and forestry. Most of Sweden’s industry is far to the south. But Norrland abounds in hydropower. Power that is cheap and—crucially—green, along with bargain land and proximity to iron ore, is sparking an improbable industrial revolution, based on hydrogen, “green” steel and batteries.
SSAB, a steelmaker, is poised to deliver its first consignment of “eco-steel” from a hydrogen-fuelled pilot plant in Lulea, a northern city. Volvo, an industrial-vehicle firm these days, will use the steel to build lorries. Of the six or seven tonnes that its typical lorry weighs, around five consist of steel. And for each tonne of steel produced using fossil fuels, around two tonnes of planet-cooking carbon dioxide get belched into the atmosphere.
To make steel, iron ore must be melted at high temperatures and reduced from iron oxide to iron, a process that typically involves burning fossil fuels, releasing huge amounts of carbon dioxide. Replacing them with hydrogen as a reducing agent eliminates more than 98% of the carbon dioxide normally released. The hydrogen is made by electrolysing water, using electricity produced by hydro-power. This approach involves almost no carbon-dioxide emissions at all.
continued…
Physicsfreak almost 3 years ago
I went to a real estate property management seminar by a broker who advocated: Buy a property, jack up the rents, do minimal maintenance, maximum tax benefits, suck all of the money out of the property, jack up the rents, sell the property. In some places, it seems that philosophy has been applied to our power grid ownership.
Baslim the Beggar Premium Member almost 3 years ago
Scania, another automotive firm, is also hoping to exploit Norrland’s cheap hydro-power. It plans to make 15,000 battery-powered trucks a year by 2025, around 15% of its annual production. To that end it has invested in Northvolt, a new battery-making enterprise powered by Norrland’s hydro-electricity. Northvolt’s main facility is in Skelleftea, 130km south-west of Lulea. It is also building a battery-recycling plant there (see Science section). By the end of 2021 the company hopes to have churned out enough batteries to store 16 gigawatt-hours. Carl-Erik Lagercrantz, Northvolt’s chairman, wants to scale that up eventually to 150 gigawatt-hours a year. If he does so by 2030, he will be supplying a sizeable amount of the European Union’s expected annual demand of some 450 gigawatt-hours of electric-vehicle battery capacity by 2030.
Mr Lagercrantz also wants to get into the green-steel business. Taking inspiration from SSAB’s pilot project, he decided to have a go at hydrogen-based steelmaking too, and founded H2 Green Steel. Production will be based in Boden, an old army town 30km north-west of Lulea. The new plant will make 5m tonnes of flat steel a year by 2030, a small but meaningful percentage of the 90m tonnes that is currently consumed annually in the EU.
Northern Sweden’s steelmaking leaps are being emulated elsewhere in Europe, in response to similar environmental pressures which will only increase if, as looks very likely, Germany’s Greens enter government after the election in September. Europe produces a still significant 16% of the world’s steel. Big producers in Germany and Poland, where the industry is mostly coal-based and very dirty, are nervy. Even neighbouring Norway is in danger of losing out. It too has the gift of rich renewable-energy resources, but underinvestment means there may soon not be enough of this green electricity to meet the demands of both households and industry.
continued…
Baslim the Beggar Premium Member almost 3 years ago
Meanwhile, all the green-tinged investments have knock-on effects for the rest of the economy of northern Sweden. Claes Nordmark, the mayor of Boden, says house prices are rising and contractors are queuing up to build apartment blocks in anticipation of H2 Green Steel’s new facility. Other companies are vying to supply the steelmaker, or to take advantage of its products. Expecting a jump in population, Mr Nordmark and his colleagues in the region are building schools and sporting facilities. Your correspondent encouraged him to abandon Swedish reticence and brag. “Those in the south think there is nothing here. But now we can offer the green jobs that people dream of—and an amazing lifestyle,” he beams.
And then there is this from Wired:
Outside Boston, in the industrial suburb of Woburn, one company is working to replace coal with electrons. Boston Metal, an outfit spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, uses electric currents to heat iron ore into a bright orange-white liquid, which converts into metal and cools as gray steel blocks. The process doesn’t create greenhouse gas emissions, and when powered with renewable electricity, can be completely emissions-free.
Concrete may not be so amenable, and carbon-capture may be required. But work continues…
RetVet24 almost 3 years ago
Yea Matt, where is all that infrastructure work (which should include the electric grid) that the GQP has promised for the last 4 years?
eideard almost 3 years ago
Yup. Always supported nuclear as cleanest. No need to, now. On one hand, wind and solar power still cheaper and becoming more so, every day. On the other hand, the greedy bastards building nuclear power plants in the GOUSA still work like it’s 1964. Bump the price every other week and then discover new expenses. Send us the bill.
Zev almost 3 years ago
This is true only if the conservatives have their way to keep relying on fossil fuel. With wind, water, and solar in addition to nuclear, weaning off of oil and natural gas is doable.
daryl-owens almost 3 years ago
Wuerker usually has interesting cartoons with a statement, but this is playing to the ignorance of those that don’t believe in alternative energy. This energy should be coming from solar and wind and not the coal-fired stacks he is displaying in this cartoon.
Treedodger almost 3 years ago
Nuclear Still just boils water. There are much better ways.
Radish the wordsmith almost 3 years ago
In a report published by Galaxy Digital and confirmed by International Energy Agency (IEA), the annual electricity consumption of the Bitcoin network stood at 113.89 terawatts per hour per year (TWh/year) whereas, the banking systems consume 263.72 TWh/yr while gold mining consumes around 240.61 TWh/yr of energy.
Each bit coin miner spews more electric based CO2 than 100 cars, per hour.
tauyen almost 3 years ago
Electric vehicles aren’t really the solution – the solution is the production of energy without using fossil fuels. EV’s are merely a consumer of the non fossil fuel industry
Archee63 Premium Member almost 3 years ago
if we had politicians with testicular fortitude we would be well on our way to renewable energy sources
gnorth22 Premium Member almost 3 years ago
The primary point is quite valid, that we are headed toward a significantly larger load on power distribution as EVs grow, and that the system is not in good shape. We need to remedy that.
The other point which many commenters have touched on is the source of the energy. First, EVs offer a significant improvement in overall energy efficiency, as a good generation facility is ~70% efficient, while the internal combustion engine is around 25%. Second, it allows for diverse energy sources, including solar, wind, and nuclear, as well as gas and other fossil fuels. I believe EVs also offer something that is really needed, which is storage capacity. With smart metering folks can charge during the part of the 24 hour cycle where availability is high. This capacity is currently one of the things that will limit the utilization of solar and wind. Of course nuclear does not have that problem…
grumpypophobart almost 3 years ago
Renewable energy is the fastest-growing energy source in the United States, increasing 100 percent from 2000 to 2018. Renewables made up more than 17 percent of net U.S. electricity generation in 2018, with the bulk coming from hydropower (7.0 percent) and wind power (6.6 percent). Eighteen percent of the energy consumed globally for heating, power, and transportation was from renewable sources in 2017 (see figure below). Nearly 60 percent came from modern renewables (i.e., biomass, geothermal, solar, hydro, wind, and biofuels) and the remainder from traditional biomass (used in residential heating and cooking in developing countries). Renewables made up 26.2 percent of global electricity generation in 2018. That’s expected to rise to 45 percent by 2040. Most of the increase will likely come from solar, wind, and hydropower.https://www.c2es.org/content/renewable-energy/
bakana almost 3 years ago
Nice shot of the Texas Power grid.
Their RepubliQan Legislature still isn’t doing anything to Fix it.
And RepubliQans in Congress are actively voting Against fixing Anything.
ikini Premium Member almost 3 years ago
Still waiting for Mr. Fusion (Back to the Future).
ferddo almost 3 years ago
There have been several studies that have determined that electric cars still have lower carbon footprints than conventional cars – even if recharged only via highly polluting fossil fueled power plants. And that is worst-case scenario – the carbon footprint gap widens as green energy sources are employed.
Also, electric cars are not going to burn down the power grid unless we purposely allow them to – by refusing to expand the grid and by relying only upon grid charging. The grid is not set in stone – it can be beefed up, and in plenty of time considering the slow adoption of EVs by consumers. Most EV owners recharge at night, using power that would be wasted as heat in the wires and equipment since most power plants do not throttle down their outputs during lesser demand at night. People can also install their own solar panels to recharge without using the grid at all.
Concretionist almost 3 years ago
Mmm. Time for some infrastructure maintenance?
basilisk Premium Member almost 3 years ago
Typical Republican propaganda from a stupid Politico Republican shill. “The better alternative isn’t perfect, so do the worst thing.”If you have a fossil fuel car that’s all you have. You have to keep burning carbon. If you have an electric car you can power it with renewables. And even if you use fossil fuel to generate the electricity you burn less per mile than if you put it into gas tanks and start and stop an explosion a few times a second.
But by all means ignore the facts and enjoy the pat on the back from the oil companies.
vgnewsom Premium Member almost 3 years ago
Maybe some but very little. If charging at night or with solar power very little load issues for a utility. Also NO oil changes, No transmission oil changes.
359mxn almost 3 years ago
Comes with solar if the oil conglomerates will allow it.
Bill LaRocque Premium Member almost 3 years ago
Brilliant Matt. Taking charge of a big issue that need exposure. OK, sorry…. Still.
banjoAhhh! almost 3 years ago
Even if the hacking didn’t happen, electric vehicles are only a temporary solution. Because of the number of vehicles on the road, 284.5 million at this time, we will eventually require more electricity than a grid can create.
cdward almost 3 years ago
All the research and analyses I’ve seen so far say that while it’s best to get of this idea of individual means of transportation altogether (except bicycles perhaps), electric cars contribute far less to the overall destruction of the climate. One has to take into account all the aspects from manufacture of the vehicles to creation and transportation of the fuels used to power them. At each step of the process, electric vehicles still produce a smaller carbon footprint.
57BelAir almost 3 years ago
Not to mention the pollution from battery manufacturing and disposal.
[Unnamed Reader - ae4371] almost 3 years ago
Looks like he’s condemning electricity in general. Perhaps we can go back to peat turf and whale oil?