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World's darkest and clearest skies at risk from industrial megaproject
101–110 of 170 posts
Re: World's darkest and clearest skies at risk from industrial megaproject
#102A cynic would read this as as "I can't believe our (AES) luck. There's a good chance we can squeeze the Europeans for lots of money. We'll gladly share some of the proceeds with the new US president's cronies for having them do the haggling."
You want a real conspiracy theory? How about this: some rich Thirty Meters Telescope patron saw the peril the project has been in and set out to sabotage the ELT! Of course, the ELT is proper funded, so the best he can do is making it useless by ruining it's sky for a decade with construction dust and light.
I like that conspiracy ! They should be careful about retribution if the TMT lands on the Canary Island, sombebody could conspire to put another industrial facility next to it
Re: World's darkest and clearest skies at risk from industrial megaproject
#103I'm noticing that the reporting on this, including the ESO press release, is vague on exactly what this "industrial megaproject" happens to be. Ordinarily, there is no hesitation to disclose this, unless it's a military matter. Or a sacred cow. A sacred cow, indeed. It's a green energy operation powered by both wind and solar to generate hydrogen, electricity and ammonia. Here[1] is the AES Andes press release about…
I doubt that "land use" is a big issue in one of the least densely populated countries on earth. Surely one could find a place for an industrial site that is not within 5 km of the world's prime telescope site. Using the existing infrastructure probably makes it slightly cheaper though.
> Surely one could find a place for an industrial site
Has anyone proposed one?
Re: World's darkest and clearest skies at risk from industrial megaproject
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everyone I know in environmental activism hates hydrogen and sees it as green-washing the petrochemical industry.
They may feel that way, but that seems emotional rather than rational. The choices for small-scale energy sources are: batteries with all their dirty mining, biofuels taking away lots of arable land from food/textile/etc production, or fuel cells which can still involve petrochemicals (but don't have to). There are no perfect options, and strapping enough solar panels or wind turbines to a vehicle (car, bus, train, a…
> choices for small-scale energy sources are: batteries with all their dirty mining, biofuels taking away lots of arable land from food/textile/etc production, or fuel cells
Storage also includes flywheels and pumped hydro. Hydrogen is mostly a farce.
Re: World's darkest and clearest skies at risk from industrial megaproject
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everyone I know in environmental activism hates hydrogen and sees it as green-washing the petrochemical industry.
They may feel that way, but that seems emotional rather than rational. The choices for small-scale energy sources are: batteries with all their dirty mining, biofuels taking away lots of arable land from food/textile/etc production, or fuel cells which can still involve petrochemicals (but don't have to). There are no perfect options, and strapping enough solar panels or wind turbines to a vehicle (car, bus, train, a…
The dirty mining and manufacturing of batteries is the dumbest red herring there is. It's like saying we need to get rid of toilet paper because it cuts down so many trees.
Hydrogen on the other hand clearly is pushed by fossil fuels since it leaves the door open for them to be a major player.
Re: World's darkest and clearest skies at risk from industrial megaproject
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
They may feel that way, but that seems emotional rather than rational. The choices for small-scale energy sources are: batteries with all their dirty mining, biofuels taking away lots of arable land from food/textile/etc production, or fuel cells which can still involve petrochemicals (but don't have to). There are no perfect options, and strapping enough solar panels or wind turbines to a vehicle (car, bus, train, a…
The dirty mining and manufacturing of batteries is the dumbest red herring there is. It's like saying we need to get rid of toilet paper because it cuts down so many trees. Hydrogen on the other hand clearly is pushed by fossil fuels since it leaves the door open for them to be a major player.
Hydrogen/syngas right now is the only way forward for long distance sea or plane travel, since batteries are too heavy.
Re: World's darkest and clearest skies at risk from industrial megaproject
#107I'm noticing that the reporting on this, including the ESO press release, is vague on exactly what this "industrial megaproject" happens to be. Ordinarily, there is no hesitation to disclose this, unless it's a military matter. Or a sacred cow. A sacred cow, indeed. It's a green energy operation powered by both wind and solar to generate hydrogen, electricity and ammonia. Here[1] is the AES Andes press release about…
I doubt that "land use" is a big issue in one of the least densely populated countries on earth. Surely one could find a place for an industrial site that is not within 5 km of the world's prime telescope site. Using the existing infrastructure probably makes it slightly cheaper though.
I thought space was the the world's prime telescope site.
Re: World's darkest and clearest skies at risk from industrial megaproject
#108I'm noticing that the reporting on this, including the ESO press release, is vague on exactly what this "industrial megaproject" happens to be. Ordinarily, there is no hesitation to disclose this, unless it's a military matter. Or a sacred cow. A sacred cow, indeed. It's a green energy operation powered by both wind and solar to generate hydrogen, electricity and ammonia. Here[1] is the AES Andes press release about…
Everyone I know in environmental activism hates hydrogen and sees it as green-washing the petrochemical industry.
There's two types of hydrogen: 1) ammonia for fertilizer production and perhaps other industrial decarbonization, and 2) fantasies of energy storage, fuel, etc.
Environmentalists know of the necessity of ammonia, but push back hard on the second.
Michael Liebreich's hydrogen ladder is fairly good at summarizing an honest assessment of where hydrogen will be useful:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hydrogen-ladder-version-50-mi...
And you'll see that it gets pushed in lots of very inappropriate places.
It's funny how much benefit of the doubt is given to really bad tech, like hydrogen and large nuclear reactors, despite decades of data showing that they always underperform expectations and that people who implement them always overpromise and underdeliver. It's a stark contrast to solar and wind and storage, which always seem to underpromise and overdeliver, and these technologies face huge amounts of undue skepticism not only from decision makers but also the press and the public. There's a lot of decision making in energy that is extremely disconnected from data and reality, and most of hydrogen decision making these days is disconnected from reality.
Re: World's darkest and clearest skies at risk from industrial megaproject
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
The dirty mining and manufacturing of batteries is the dumbest red herring there is. It's like saying we need to get rid of toilet paper because it cuts down so many trees. Hydrogen on the other hand clearly is pushed by fossil fuels since it leaves the door open for them to be a major player.
Hydrogen/syngas right now is the only way forward for long distance sea or plane travel, since batteries are too heavy.
We're going to get a 4x energy density improvement from lithium sulfur batteries, just as soon as production ramps up.
Re: World's darkest and clearest skies at risk from industrial megaproject
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everyone I know in environmental activism hates hydrogen and sees it as green-washing the petrochemical industry.
They may feel that way, but that seems emotional rather than rational. The choices for small-scale energy sources are: batteries with all their dirty mining, biofuels taking away lots of arable land from food/textile/etc production, or fuel cells which can still involve petrochemicals (but don't have to). There are no perfect options, and strapping enough solar panels or wind turbines to a vehicle (car, bus, train, a…
What dirty mining for batteries? Please be specific. This story was always a PR drive that focused on the "dirtiness" of batteries but never compares it to the dirtiness of all the other parts of competing technologies.
And talking about the "dirtiness" of batteries but not every other single part of our industry (steel for everything, all the nasty stuff for electrolyzers, etc.) is all part of prioritizing emotional over rational. Public discussion of our energy system is definitely more emotional than rational, and I would argue that the emotional side of things means that we do a lot more fossil fuels and dirty tech, whereas a more rational approach would have us on far more solar and storage than we currently are, or plan to do.