Are current renewable energy strategies worth it?

[aleCcowaN]

Ethics and Aesthetics are inseparable siblings. And a commercial failure could jeopardize the expansion of these technologies.

Driving that model I'm pretty sure I'd run over the umpteenth guy who may shout at me "Hey! Check the hood. It seems to be open" in a mocking tone. You don't know how people are here. They're mean whether they are in-ternet or out-ternet!

 

[macdoc]

I somehow don't think your fellow countrymen are a major target for the vehicle or a major carbon problem like say LA

Weh fuel spikes tho and city tax imposition on ICE vehicles like Copenhagen has...looks won't play much of a role.

The $499 a month including all the fuel is a very good approach.

I think a commuter low carbon needs to be $10 a day - so $299 a month. Extended range can go for more.

 

[aleCcowaN]

I somehow don't think your fellow countrymen are a major target for the vehicle or a major carbon problem like say LA

Well, certainly the Toyota Prius is sold here with prices starting at 61,000 usd, so, there are a few hundreds. There are a lot of Smarts -price starting at 19,900 usd- but I can't tell how much of them are electric -and obviously much more expensive-.

With such prices and zero tax incentives don't expect much a buoyant market.

A lease, and 499 usd a month, fuel included .... where do I sign? (I took it on myself to change the front end and make it into a float) Renting a parking space in downtown cost that much. These first-world dudes; they have such an easy life.

 

[macdoc]

Da -

This is timely....

A new discovery by scientists at the UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), offers a viable solution to the challenges of storage and cost by using ammonia as a clean and secure hydrogen-containing energy source to produce hydrogen on-demand in situ.
Hydrogen is considered by many to be the best alternative fuel for automotive purposes but there are complications with its safe and efficient storage and very significant concerns surrounding the costs of a hydrogen infrastructure for transportation. This new discovery may well have found the answers to both these challenges.

When the components of ammonia are separated (a technique known as cracking) they form one part nitrogen and three parts hydrogen. Many catalysts can effectively crack ammonia to release the hydrogen, but the best ones are very expensive precious metals. This new method is different and involves two simultaneous chemical processes rather than using a catalyst, and can achieve the same result at a fraction of the cost.

Ammonia can be stored on-board in vehicles at low pressures in conformable plastic tanks. Meanwhile on the forecourts, the infrastructure technology for ammonia is as straightforward as that for liquid petroleum gas (LPG).

Professor Bill David, who led the STFC research team at the ISIS Neutron Source, said "Our approach is as effective as the best current catalysts but the active material, sodium amide, costs pennies to produce. We can produce hydrogen from ammonia 'on demand' effectively and affordably.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-06-hydrogen-breakthrough-game-changer-future-car.html#jCp

That's a "wow" claim.!!!

 

[GlennB]

When the components of ammonia are separated (a technique known as cracking) they form one part nitrogen and three parts hydrogen.

By mass it's 7:3 rather than 1:3

Hange loose macdoc. Stay calm.

 

[macdoc]

Implication being useful energy density prior to cracking would be low compared to hydrocarbon.

 

[GlennB]

It depends on the source, I suppose. How easy is it to manufacture NH3 vs. CH4 for example? The manufacturing process has its energy cost too, then there's ease of storage and by-products to consider.

Meanwhile CH4, C2H6 etc are immediately combustible and need no 'cracking'.

 

[jimbob]

By mass it's 7:3 rather than 1:3

Hange loose macdoc. Stay calm.

I thought it was 14:3, it also isn't a very nice substance.

H2 has one advantage over a lot of other gases. It will rise and not be a suffocating hazard or a poisoning hazard. It also means that a leak might dissipate. Of course, if you have a Zeppelin-sized volume this is still a problem.

 

[aleCcowaN]

The problem is density. A litre of gasoline contains more hydrogen than a litre of deep-frozen liquid hydrogen: one bucket of this weighs about one pound and it takes a lot of energy to bring it to such state. Ammonia, unpleasant and dangerous as it is, may be a useful substitute for storage.

What is not clear in that weblink is how much energy -is it thermal?- is needed to that dissociation. Catalysts are not magic gods performing miracles at no cost. They only make things possible. I suppose part of the hydrogen is burned so how much does one get from it. As always, these "way less than popular mechanics" weblinks fail to provide such details.

 

[macdoc]

Tho at least its a uni based release.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Not much, nowadays. The link to the supporting information -which should include that info- doesn't work.

EDIT: Wait, experiments "undertaken at 475°C" and "These calculations indicate that ammonia-based transportation is achievable."

 

[Trakar]

I thought it was 14:3, it also isn't a very nice substance...

Quite right!

Atomic Mass of
Nitrogen = 14.0067 ± 0.0001 u
Hydrogen = 1.00794 ± 0.00001 u

roughly a 14:3 mass ratio

Good catch!

 

[jimbob]

Energy density per unit volume is important, but so is energy density per unit mass. There is a reason why gasoline is popular, which you alluded to, aleCcowaN.

There is also methanol - which also has problems, but I'd think that on balance, they are less than those for ammonia.

 

[GlennB]

I thought it was 14:3, it also isn't a very nice substance.

Yep. I spotted the atomic number. D'uh. makes the ratio even worse though.

 

[The Don]

Report publicised on the BBC website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-28041525

The government may have failed to protect the interests of bill payers when awarding green energy contracts, says the National Audit Office (NAO).

Eight long-term deals worth £16.6bn were signed earlier this year to secure projects at risk of cancellation.

The NAO says too much money was awarded to these renewable sources "without price competition" and is concerned this could ultimately increase costs.

This is the unfortunate consequence when government policy end up painting them into the corner. Can't blame the suppliers for securing the best deal possible

 

[macdoc]

This is an ongoing issue - more so in solar where the drop in costs has broken even the existing power supply business. Spain is a mess with too much solar and busted model - Germany is coping but not easily.

At this point I'd prefer to see both solar and wind to not have price guarantees but long term low cost funding. Ontario screwed up as well with flawed price guarantees and inability to provide enough hookups for approved small projects.

We have an overly fat traditional nuclear, gas and hydro ( coal is gone ) structure and then overly expensive renewables with guaranteed rates.
On top of this Hydro Quebec is bringing a huge facility online which will be cost effective for Ontario to buy.
We are caught in a quasi private power system ....royal screw up and we will see this ongoing.

Lot of disruption in the shift to low carbon....to a degree we have to suck it up. At least many of these projects will look pretty decent a decade out if amortized early.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Report publicised on the BBC website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-28041525



This is the unfortunate consequence when government policy end up painting them into the corner. Can't blame the suppliers for securing the best deal possible

This is indeed most on-topic (instead of the constant billboard of novelties this thread has become): A country with high population density and poorly endowed by nature when renewable sources of energy are considered -they do average in wind, and badly in the rest-, accepts an ambitious goal to be obtained within its territory.

If the goal were 30%-equivalent either domestic or abroad it would be easy obtainable and there would be a logic to analyse it: we keep the money -and jobs- in a thrive against inefficiency or we look for efficiency abroad but saying goodbye to some money. Some balance may be found this way, for instance, between solar done in a location in England with 1000 kwh/m2 or less of insolation a year, besides its crazy seasonality, and solar done in a location in Mali with +3000 kwh/m2 of insolation per year, evenly distributed. That is, burn more natural gas in the UK and less fuel-oil in the Sahel and West Africa, as the environmental effect is the same with much more efficiency in energy.

Many European countries rely on imported biofuels to meet their emission goals. My country is -or was- a huge exporter of biodiesel from soybean. The problem is an equivalent area like Belgium's or The Netherlands' was developed mainly from bushland or secondary forests, and in some cases the land was ploughed, generating more greenhouse gases that those saved in Europe -but Europeans patted each other on the back celebrating their environmental awareness-. For this kind of no-solution, there's enough money to expend abroad.

Now, as soybean cultivation isn't expanding here and no-till techniques are mostly in used, there's no additional harm to the environment except that of the nitrous oxide emissions which is very small. But what is done, is done, and the logic that had it done still seems to be there. I hope it's no longer that way and the 11,000 km made me believe so.

 

[jimbob]

Report publicised on the BBC website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-28041525



This is the unfortunate consequence when government policy end up painting them into the corner. Can't blame the suppliers for securing the best deal possible

Tim Yeo (Conservative Environment Minister in the 1990s) was quite robust arguing against several aspects of that report.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b047c76p?t=2h34m4m0s 2h34mins into the program if that link doesn't work.

"And I'm afraid a particularly crass recommendation in paragraph 19 of their report is to say that the government should now take part and alter... retrospectively, the prices that these contracts are set at"

The strike price for the electricity generated by renewables has been fixed in advance, and from what I guess is quite generous, but this just encourages investment.

Tim Yeo made the point that the aim was to get the system started and then introduce an auction for the next round.

 

[macdoc]

Are current renewable energy strategies worth it?

until one reviews the emerging as well as the existing renewable strategies you cannot effectively answer the question.
So yeah Alec a string of novelties represents a slice of what potential strategies may emerge....and stimulates discussion of the barriers to uptake.

They are only "worth it" if they can make a dent on the non-renewables in a reasonable time frame and cost.

Hydrogen for instance has long been discussed as a desirable end point but remains elusive for some of the reasons noted in the thread - yet despite those barriers some companies will be selling commercial vehicles next year.
Novel - yeah sure.
Useful information when surveying potentials for renewables....yup.

 

[Trakar]

This is indeed most on-topic (instead of the constant billboard of novelties this thread has become)...

Actually, while I do not mind such discussions here and do engage in them myself, technically this is a science/technology board. This topic is more properly a public policy(politics)/social implementation issue.