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In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

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Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#641

Post by jijijijij »

Borg3 wrote: post #624
holowoodman wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most uses of fossil fuels are very inefficient. For instance, when you step on the accelerator in your car, only around 30% of the energy in the fuel you use actually is being used to propel you forward. The majority of the energy is wasted as heat. In a power plant that's more like 70% being captured and going towards the goal (electricity generation). Yes, but there are also future inefficient uses of renewables.…

Uh, can you provide any scientific papers that H2 can be used for Iron smelting? CO2 is very stable, even at high temperatures. Its hard to strip O2 from it (except photosintesis). Now, H2 itself is very violatile gas. When burn, it creates water. Water is not stable high temperatures. It become vapor and when temperature rise it can even break bond between H2 and O. So, papers or are you hallucinating?

Are you suggesting burning H2 will create water and enough energy to split the water in H2 and oxygen again, afterwards? That would be amazing news!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steelmaking#Hydrogen_direct_re...

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#642

Post by holowoodman »

Borg3 wrote: post #624
holowoodman wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most uses of fossil fuels are very inefficient. For instance, when you step on the accelerator in your car, only around 30% of the energy in the fuel you use actually is being used to propel you forward. The majority of the energy is wasted as heat. In a power plant that's more like 70% being captured and going towards the goal (electricity generation). Yes, but there are also future inefficient uses of renewables.…

Uh, can you provide any scientific papers that H2 can be used for Iron smelting? CO2 is very stable, even at high temperatures. Its hard to strip O2 from it (except photosintesis). Now, H2 itself is very violatile gas. When burn, it creates water. Water is not stable high temperatures. It become vapor and when temperature rise it can even break bond between H2 and O. So, papers or are you hallucinating?

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steelmaking#Hydrogen_direct_re... and linked sources.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#643

Post by fundatus »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #635
fundatus wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the reason for that? Fossil fuels. Cited from one of your articles: > “Our industry continues to face difficult market dynamics and challenging energy costs, with European gas prices around three times higher than the US,” Arnaud Valenduc, business director for Ineos Inovyn, the Ineos business that makes chloromethane, says in the press release.

Well you need fossil fuels for feedstock in the chemical industry. It's one place they can't be replaced. The real reason is because Europe cut itself off from cheaper Russian gas.

It was Putin that cut off gas supply to Europe almost completely in autumn 2021 in preparation of the invasion and then completely shut it off during 2022. That was before the pipelines were blown up.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#644

Post by holowoodman »

jijijijij wrote: post #641
Borg3 wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, can you provide any scientific papers that H2 can be used for Iron smelting? CO2 is very stable, even at high temperatures. Its hard to strip O2 from it (except photosintesis). Now, H2 itself is very violatile gas. When burn, it creates water. Water is not stable high temperatures. It become vapor and when temperature rise it can even break bond between H2 and O. So, papers or are you hallucinating?

Are you suggesting burning H2 will create water and enough energy to split the water in H2 and oxygen again, afterwards? That would be amazing news! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steelmaking#Hydrogen_direct_re...

No, not at all. Coke or hydrogen always only provide additional heat, they are never the main source of heat. The main heat source can either be coal or an electric arc furnace. The coke or hydrogen are just necessary for the chemical reaction, and providing some heat is a side-effect.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#645

Post by Moldoteck »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #606
Moldoteck wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to read precisely what's happening. Ontario wants to front finance all refurbs and SMRs instead of spreading the financing over years like it's usually done. BWRX is expensive for sure. It'll cost more per GW than the failed french FLA3 or Vogtle. To me this seems a mistake considering Canada had Candus, an own authentic design that doesn't rely on enriched fuel and they did some very serious refurbs recentl…

> The question is rather why they want front financing. But I have some clues considering who is their current head of govt I assumed it was, like the UK, because it let them avoid committing to a specific price like all the other competing technologies so they could raise the price later once the project was too far along to cancel.

Maybe for smr, but for refurbs it doesn't make sense - all recent refurbs were either on time or ahead of planned timeline and on budget. Heck, even if refurbs would suddenly triple in price it would still be dort cheap vs any alternative for 1GW of firm power.

And they kinda committed to a price with Hitachi, that's why we can say it'll be worse even than recent failed big projects.

UK has other problems to tackle, mostly heavy overregulation. UK's HPC and french FLA3 are very different in many aspects, ranging from more concrete &steel use, up to a parallel analog system on top of a parallel digital system because UK regulation is 'special'. Maybe things will change, we'll see

To me this front financing looks like a cash grab from political entities since nobody guarantees money will be used in this direction, especially with current Ontario's 'governor', that dude is local trump equivalent but maybe a bit more tempered. Another possible reason is political - this frontload means project can't be easily cancelled if relationship with US gets even worse, since Hitachi GE is an US company. So who knows. Either way, IMO bwrx decision wasn't smart and front loading isn't smart too. But this has nothing to do with refurbs cost which are dirt cheap

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#646

Post by aitchnyu »

IshKebab wrote: post #620
kilroy123 wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just over build the solar. Build out solar so demand in winter is met. Use the excess power in summer for some kind of industrial use.

You would have to overbuild by a factor of 20 at least. Not at all practical or economical.

Citation? We get 25 units in the sun and 5 in heavy rains.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#647

Post by cm2187 »

fundatus wrote: post #614
clarionbell wrote: post #600

Meanwhile European chemical manufacturing is collapsing under weight of record energy costs.[1][2] Most of other manufacturing is somehow tied to chemicals, you can't build things without material after all. So this will feed ongoing industrial collapse, which now affects even Germany.[3] Meanwhile, low income households are running into financial issues if they want to turn up the heat.[4] The whole process has been…

And the reason for that? Fossil fuels. Cited from one of your articles: > “Our industry continues to face difficult market dynamics and challenging energy costs, with European gas prices around three times higher than the US,” Arnaud Valenduc, business director for Ineos Inovyn, the Ineos business that makes chloromethane, says in the press release.

Not sure about that. If you plot energy cost and % of wind power by country, it is highly correlated.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#648

Post by anovikov »

etiennebausson wrote: post #629
anovikov wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overall renewables (including the "bad" ones like biogas, and the finite ones like hydro) are at around 27% of TFC in EU today (25.2% in 2024 and growing at around 1% per year). Not bad. But far from replacement. Renewables plus nuclear is now at around 70% of all energy (by final consumption) that is produced in EU though, it's just that the rest is imported.

And nuclear fuel is also imported (but refined locally), so not sure it should be counted as 'local' in this case.

Nuclear fuel is around 2-3% of electricity cost, and there is too much worldwide supply for it to be of any concern, so it doesn't really matter where it comes from. For energy balance calculations it is accepted that nuclear energy is counted as produced where the reactor itself is.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#649

Post by zejn »

nehal3m wrote: post #167
eitally wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a fairly arid place (Bay Area) where it rains in winter but gets quite dry and dusty in the summer. I've had rooftop solar since 2016 and have noticed that generation decreases by as much as 8-10% when the panels are covered in summer dust.

I wonder if it's worth setting up a sort of sprinkler system so you can easily clean it by opening a valve. Maybe add a pipe with some holes in it to the top of the panel, and some flexible hose to hook it up to the next one.

Just spraying dust with water will not remove it. Detergent helps, but most of the cleaning effect is done by mechanical agitation, eg. wiping the glass.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#650

Post by jijijijij »

holowoodman wrote: post #644
jijijijij wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting burning H2 will create water and enough energy to split the water in H2 and oxygen again, afterwards? That would be amazing news! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steelmaking#Hydrogen_direct_re...

No, not at all. Coke or hydrogen always only provide additional heat, they are never the main source of heat. The main heat source can either be coal or an electric arc furnace. The coke or hydrogen are just necessary for the chemical reaction, and providing some heat is a side-effect.

Sorry, in face of OP’s tone I allowed myself some sarcasm. Obviously there needs to be additional energy. You’d have some equilibrium with those reactions and OP didn’t make any argument why that can’t be controlled in favor of reducing Fe2O3.

It’s also borderline unbelievable OP never heard of hydrogen in future steelmaking, if they are at all invested in the topic. You’d need a special kind of ignorance to think people are hugely throwing money at this, when the basic chemistry is infeasible.

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