By Jo Nova
Don’t call these fossil fuel generators — they are baby hydrogen plants!
Facing industrial death, Germany has finally decided it needs dispatchable reliable electricity. But they can’t announce that they suddenly need to build 10 gigawatts of fossil fueled gas power plants. It would be like admitting the sacred Energiewende had been a ghastly mistake that wasted billions of dollars on a reckless vanity quest to change the clouds. So instead, these new “power plants” with a focus on “gas-fired sites” must be convertible to run on hydrogen by 2045. Of course, they may never run on hydrogen, given that makes pipes brittle, leaks, and costs four times as much as natural gas, but it makes a good cover story.
This is exactly what I would do if I wanted to hide a major backflip and pretend this was just a slight variation on the renewables theme. (Especially if I had no scruples).
Note that the Reuters Blob-Media story (below) does not mention the words “fossil fuels” or “dispatchable” it just talks about the need to generate electricity over “a longer period of time”.
The gas to hydrogen plant story is the PR cover and escape hatch from the Sacred Renewables Mission.
It’s just another marker of how fast the renewable energy plan is coming undone…
Germany, EU reach general agreement on power plant strategy
Obviously, there are no apologies, no honesty, and they will never admit they were wrong.
Photo by Raimond Spekking of Power plant Burshtyn TES, Ukraine
I don’t understand the Left’s obsession with hydrogen. It is a nightmare fuel, even for NASA and requires extraordinary precautions in handling and special materials resistant to hydrogen embrittlement and leakage etc.
And the big question, where is it going to come from in such vast quantities?
There are absurd (failed) projects such as Victoriastan where it was seriously proposed, with lots of taxpayer money, to make synthesis gas from coal, and bury, “sequest” the CO2.
Or equally absurd Australian projects, again with lots of taxpayer money, to electrolyse water using thousands of windmills.
Hint to science, engineering and economics-challenged Leftists: just because something burns doesn’t make it a good fuel.
The only thing such projects are good at is harvesting taxpayer money.
https://environmentvictoria.org.au/2018/07/13/converting-brown-coal-to-hydrogen-the-dirty-details-on-another-coal-boondoggle/
https://www.hancockenergy.com.au/its-not-easy-going-green-for-fortescue-despite-the-funding/
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And of course none of these clueless parasites masquerading as ‘leaders’ and ‘policy makers’ will be around to be held accountable in 2045 or later.
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To store or transport or use Hydrogen at high pressures or elevated temperatures requires specialized metallurgy.
This implies the use of austenitic stainless steel, 316L , or more exotic alloys like Hastalloy C or better. Very Very expensive.
A plant built for Both H2 and Methane use will have at least a 50% to 100% cost increase in piping costs to handle the H2.
Hydrogen embrittlement, HE, in the piping is a true and real concern. Also in the combustion turbine blades. High efficiency turbine blades are made of powder metals that are sintered and fired to near end dimension forms. They use alloys such as Incoloy MA 6000. I’ve no idea the effects of H2 on this alloy. But. that alloy allows a 30% efficiency increase as in the CFM 56 turbine, and later models, because it allows closer tolerances and less leakage in all turbine stages. It is a Nickle based alloy, with Yttrium Oxide.
My point is that designing a power plant to use H2 will double the cost of all piping and likely the cost of combustion turbines.
The Green attempt at H2 usage has an enormous price tag.
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See also: https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0066431
“Hydrogen embrittlement testing of austenitic stainless steels SUS 316 and 316L”
” It is imperative that materials commonly used in gaseous hydrogen service are properly tested for hydrogen embrittlement resistance. To assess material behavior in a pressurized hydrogen environment, procedures were designed to test materials for susceptibility to hydrogen embrittlement.”
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As I understand it, Hydrogen has a slower “flame front” on ignition, than HydroCarbons like Benzene.; thus it WILL NOT work as advertised in internal combustion engines.
Amusingly enough, and on top of that. burning Hydrogen results in an oxide product: DiHydrogen Monoxide, (WATER vapour), which is a greater “greenhouse gas” than good-old CO2.
Any advances?
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Hydrogen has a faster burn rate than natural gas, 1.7 meters/sec vs .4, it also has a higher flame temperature than natural gas.
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Lance – “Very Very expensive.”
Yes – but –
It’s Other Peoples’ Money.
[We can always jack up the cost of electricity another 10 or 20 percent …]
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Fine arguments but, unless I am mistaken and there is some new process, would not the turbine blades be exposed to steam, not the fuel?
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See the smoke coming out of the chimneys in the headline photo?
In Australia that smoke is invisible.
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Gulag AI confirms my intuition.
I asked it:
It responded:
So building a gas plant designed for dual fuel operation, pretending that it will one day run on hydrogen even though there may never be any genuine intention to do so, just woke virtue signaling, is still expensive and will obviously be reflected in power bills, although it would still be cheaper than intermittents.
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My Lord, I am enjoying this….. 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
There ain’t enough popcorn in the world to see us thru this clown show!
Of course the clowns in Canberra believe they’re more clever than the Germans. So they’ll carry on merrily down the same road hoping for a Dreamtime miracle to save us!!
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They will probably build standard gas plants with imaginary upgrade plans for future hydrogen conversion
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Only if they have brains. Evidence to date doesn’t suggest that they do.
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Education in Materials Science, Metallurgy, and Mechanical Engineering, is the basis of my “intuition”. I don’t trust AI to tell the truth. Even if it does, one MUST compare actual, historical, knowledge, and known evidence, to the results of AI generated answers.
I’m all for fast analysis of data by AI. But I’m leery of Answers from AI without strong comparison to known and knowable knowledge.
Human reasoning, based on broad and deep education and analysis, is slower, but better, in the long game.
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Wasn’t the Kurri Kurri gas plant designed to run on natural gas, then Bowen required it to run on hydrogen? Now it is being rushed into service as a natural gas burner but there is no guarantee the gas will be available in sufficient quantities because the Narrabri gas project has been continually delayed by enviros.
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Kurri is in final testing at present, and will run on gas/diesel. No hydrogen in the foreseeable future. Gas supply is yet to be firmed/confirmed, hence diesel.
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You are correct, David, about the additional costs of an H2 burning gas turbine. But the work-around for that is just to install a normal gas turbine and then indicate it will be replaced with an H2 burning one “when the time comes.”
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The wretched Germans are stealing an Aussie innovation.
We got there first with ‘green hydrogen by 2030’ Kurri Kurri.
Now running on diesel.
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Don’t worry, the Germans haven’t got Dreamtime on their side.
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But the Germans have an incentive – in that the lovely, cuddly Mr. Poisoner Putin might bring them some ‘Russian Winter’ – fairly soon …
And, for what it’s worth, the BBC here in the UK, has not yet announced that the Malicious Mr. Miliband will follow the German lead and go – even nominally – for some [quite] quick build ‘hydrogen’ power stations that – coincidentally – could, at a pinch, be run off Natural Gas . . . .
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He already has by closing the gas pipelines (and to be fair after Germany either helped or encouraged others to sabotaged the Nordstrom gas lines).
If Germany didn’t now about the sabotage they still wanted them out of action, even the one left OK.
As for Miliband any decision he makes wouldn’t be to the UK’s advantage.
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Hydrogen is in the ‘free energy’ basket like wind and solar. Because the base raw material is naturally occurring it is thought by those who like to ignore facts to be free.
The facts are that the processes necessary to derive the final fuel, ie before generation can even take place, are very expensive in an energy sense and technically difficult to maintain due the nature of hydrogen. It all adds up to an impractical source of energy which is anything but free.
Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.
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The wind is “free” but just ask any yachting enthusiast how expensive it is to (randomly) collect.
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One day the guvment will wake up and demand royalties on this natural resource. If they can nearly price coal out of use with them why not apply them to wind also?
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Nothing is too stupid to be believable.
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A lack of wind in the past has hindered exploration and commerce via ships, hence phrases originated to describe the situation. Obviously these situations occurred time and time again to warrant the phrase. The Germans have discovered that wind turbines are not immune to the vagaries of weather.
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/in-the-doldrums.html
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Similarly, lost at sea… RIP.
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Few people ever consider why the Pacific Ocean is named the “Pacific Ocean.” It’s in the name, people, very quiet winds for most of the time, except for trade winds (the secret is in the name “trade winds”) that occur seasonally in the western Pacific and assisted sailing vessels that relied on the wind to do their trade with Asia.
These wind people really need to go back and read their 18th/19thC history of the world. or else learn to sail.
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This will be fun to watch. I’ve ordered a kilo of popcorn.
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I don’t like these compromises which just enable the can to be kicked down the road.
The woke nations should go full-on into “green” energy and totally ban all properly engineered methods of electrical power generation, coal, gas, nuclear and real hydro (not SH2).
Go full-on into their beloved wind, solar and Big Batteries.
That’s the only way rapid economic and social collapse can be brought about to make the masses understand the absurdity of wind and solar who will then DEMAND proper power generation and the return of economic prosperity.
The current situation of “compromises” such as these gas/hydrogen plants and extension of coal plant operations in Australia (with taxpayer funding) or use of GE TM2500 gas turbine generators like in SA just prolongs the agony.
Let’s get it over and done with ASAP.
Let full implementation of W & S bring about rapid economic and social collapse, not a slow lingering death as we now have. Then reform and rebuild.
https://esdnews.com.au/power-plant-wheels-deliver-back-generation-sa/
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That story is from 2017.
Was it ever implemented?
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Yes.
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Jay Weatherall was the Premier and he was the fool who blew up the coal plant at Port Augusta. The foolishness of progressives know no bounds.
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David,
The inter-connectors into South Australia need to opened and LOCKED.
I’m suggesting for a month.
BUT, maybe a week might just about be enough.
That’ll learn ’em to blow up perfectly good coal fired power stations.
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Hydrogen has always been a dangerous disaster and costs a fortune and makes pipes very brittle in a very short time.
Just ask silly Twiggy Forrest and the poor used and abused Aussie taxpayer.
Just use Gas and forget about the delusional Hydrogen fantasy and save a lot of money.
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We can always argue that if we use natural gas, we’re using hydrogen anyway, I mean isn’t it part of the natural gas composition? Same as the carbon that’s causing “climate change”, I mean the bogey “Carbon” is part of carbon dioxide? No difference in my mind.
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Where will Germany be getting the specialized dual-fuel generation turbines and associated support systems needed to achieve 10 GW of new gas-fired capacity by 2031? China? South Korea? Domestic power equipment suppliers? All of the above? (A project miracle of some kind?)
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Here’s all the Energy sources that we use in our World today and DANGEROUS Hydrogen doesn’t rate a mention.
The Germans should save endless billions and just build SAFE, RELIABLE Coal, Gas or Nuclear to make sure they guarantee their future energy and jobs.
SAFE, BASE-LOAD energy security = National Security.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-energy-substitution
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As Jo alludes, the German government is using the hydrogen as a smoke screen to placate the idiotic and delusional leftoids. It has no intention of using hydrogen. They know that hydrogen is a bust unlike out idiotic and delusional Chris Bowen who believes hydrogen is practical.
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Incidentally, while the stupid woke fantaay world continues to “invest” taxpayer money into hydrogen, NASA and other rocket organisations are disengaging from it to use safer and easier to handle methane (the main component of natural gas).
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Thinking ahead that makes rocket launches exercises in saving the planet.
Methane will be removed from the atmosphere and as any brainwashed zealot knows CH4 is a gazillion times worse than CO2. Heck you could even use herds of cows as a fuel source.
And the products of burning methane are pure water and some other stuff which encourages a greener planet (no need for exact details).
Imagine it. Clean green space travel.
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The reason there aren’t any hydrogen powered zeppelins in the skyline is due to a certain incident in 1937…
If a next-gen rocket launching company were silly enough to uses hydrogen as fuel they’d make a similar mark in history.
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Apparently the fire that destroyed the Zeppelin was started by the interaction of steel and aluminium powder, the product of oxidation, in the skeleton of the airship. Static electricity started a thermite burn near the rear of the airship as shown in a very slow motion movie I saw once.
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If they are smart they will build normal gas-fired power stations. There’s plenty of time between now and the target date to convert to hydrogen. Easy to explain too: technology advance is expected to make it easier and cheaper to convert later.
If the people are smart, they will throw them out anyway.
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Australian Federal Government owns Snowy Hydro and that organisations owns the hydro electric power scheme including the pumped system Snowy 02 plus various gas turbine generators and large diesel generators located elsewhere, and retailer of electricity Red Energy.
Not long ago the Minister argued for hydrogen to be the fuel for a new NSW location gas turbine generator, one of several proposed by the Morrison Government for VIC, NSW & QLD.
When the MD or CEO said it was not commercially viable at this time his response ended with his resignation being accepted.
ps;
Morrison also recommended a new HELE coal fired power station for QLD but the State Labor Government was not interested, even though Morrison offered to underwrite the financing.
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A HELE power station could be built at a fraction of the cost of Bowens transmission lines.
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Related German energy news:
https://brusselssignal.eu/2026/01/germanys-shut-down-of-nuclear-plants-a-huge-mistake-says-merz/
”
Of course, Merz came to this conclusion too late, as the German government made sure those evil nuclear plants couldn’t be brought back online by imploding their cooling towers just a few months ago.
https://caliber.az/en/post/germany-demolishes-two-nuclear-cooling-towers-in-controlled-explosion
I believe you Aussies are familiar with this concept, as your own government blows up coal plants to make sure that dastardly dinosaur rocks can never produce energy again.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/synergy-blows-up-boiler-in-spectacular-demolition-of-a-former-coal-power-plant/
[Try not to quote 50% of an article. Trimmed to 28%. Copyright and fair use concerns. – LVA]
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Regarding the cost of a nuclear power station the US Licensing System in recent years has approved 80 years operation subject of course to certification inspections, and has indicated that increasing to 100 years is possible.
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Germany imports massive amounts of power from France- which generates approximately 70% of its power via nuclear reactors. They have 57 operable reactors.
https://www.ceicdata.com/en/germany/electricity-imports-and-exports/electricity-imports-france
Australia does not have any next door neighbours to leech power from. Big Wind Bowen needs to realise this before we go to far down the renewables path…or perhaps that should be the renewables cul de sac.
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Australia does not have any next door neighbours to leech power from.
Did I not see news of a proposal to export power TO one of our neighbours? Something about a huge number of solar panels in the “Top End”.
It would save the government a lot of money if losses from one project/company could not be used to offset the profits from another. There is precedent in that “(hobby) farmers” cannot use farm losses to offset other income if the income is “too high”…
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Project cancelled. Darwin doesn’t want more solar power.
It was a Twiggy Forest idea, huge solar plant and a transmission line across an active tectonic fault line (that should read a very active fault).
The electricity was supposedly going to finish in Singapore.
I understand that the Singaporeans (were somewhat hysterical about “crazy Aussies” among them selves) but politely agreed to take any electricity provided the cost was right.
Given that much of Asia is keen on getting money from Singapore and are building new generating capacity (and are closer to Singapore anyway) any promise was about as worth as an Australian PM’s promise.
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Not quide dead yet, but surviving in a self induced coma !
Twiggy pulled out , but M C-Brooks soldiers on blindly…
https://www.suncable.energy/our-projects
Another $30bn of false hope !
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Be aware that there is a trend to find natural underground deposits of hydrogen which do actually exist, e.g. the village of Bourakébougou in Mali is powered by a natural hydrogen supply which was discovered during water drilling.
However, because hydrogen is so difficult to contain, I think the likelihood of finding significant quantities, enough to power an industrial country, are minimal. And there is still the handling problem.
Nevertheless, be prepared to see lots of environmental destruction and taxpayer subsidies as the usual environment laws are abandoned for wokeness and drilling for hydrogen.
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There was a bit of a “gold rush” into Mali, but after about 10 years the hydrogen supply dwindled.
A hydrogen “mine” has been found on York Peninsula.
Supposedly the hydrogen is generated by a reaction with sea water (or bore water) with iron containing minerals.
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Australian company Gold Hydrogen in 2024 started its first well tests for natural hydrogen on South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula after results from Australia’s first dedicated natural hydrogen exploration well in 2023 confirmed the presence of a field of natural hydrogen at 73.3% purity.
The discoveries correlated with natural hydrogen at 76% purity found in 1931 around Minlaton on Yorke Peninsula at depths of 240.8 metres, 262.1 metres, and 507.8 metres when the area was being explored for oil and gas.
Gold Hydrogen’s 2023 hydrogen find was boosted by also detecting helium at 3.6% air corrected, at 890 metres. Research by the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) also confirmed helium possibilities on Yorke Peninsula.
The Chairman of Gold Hydrogen is Alexander Downer.
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The process is called serpentinisation where water chemically alters rocks like olivine and pyroxene and transforms them into serpentine, releasing hydrogen gas in the process. The H2 comes from oxidation of iron in the precursor minerals.
E.g.:
Mg,Fe₂SiO₄ (Olivine) + H₂O → Mg₃Si₂O₅(OH)₄ (Serpentine) + Fe₃O₄ (Magnetite) + H₂
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I’m all for drilling for hydrogen. Just so long as useful fuels are extracted in usable quantities at the same time.
Ideally the hydrogen can be burned off as a waste product in the extraction process.
Perhaps unobtanium mining will come into its own at about the same time. I believe that lots of uranium will need to be mined first to get to it.
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It’s taxpayer’s monies of course being squandered, not politicians personal commitment and risk.
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This sounds suspiciously like Tim Flannery’s hot rocks idea to power Australia. He gained $90 million from PM Rudd but the technical problems of inserting pipe into superheated rocks proved impractical. Rudd did not get a return on our investment.
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Natural Hydrogen (“White Hydrogen”) may have some legs as far as sourcing goes….
But it doesnt change all the technical issues around using it !
All the big turbine makers ..RR, Mitsubishi, P&W, etc have been struggling to make turbines run on H2, but a believe the best is a 20% mix with NG.
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Jo, today is the first time I’ve seen it, and thought you might like to know there is an admission by Merz that Germany had made a mistake. It appears in the short video at the bottom of this article.
https://electroverse.substack.com/p/prolonged-freeze-for-alaska-arctic
[ Article is paywalled. Steve posted a non paywalled link at #12. Thanks for the info, though. – LVA]
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Toxic, unreliable W & S and Hydrogen are a disaster and should never be used to build prosperous economies.
Wind is only available for 2.9 months every year and Solar just 1.8 months. That’s based on the Aussie data or capacity factors for W and S that I’ve linked to in the past.
Does anyone really think we should WASTE TRILLIONS of $ and destroy our forests and animals etc just to have UNRELIABLE W & S that goes missing for W 9.1 months and S 10.2 months every year?
Then after 15 to 20 years toxic, unreliable W & S + toxic batteries have to be replaced again and again, forever.
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Around the time (2007-2013 Federal Labor Governments) that Renewable Energy Target 32% was legislated, noting that 2014/15 the Abbott Coalition Government tried to repeal that legislation but was blocked by the Senate, there was enough international indications that if so called renewable energy wind and solar were to be introduced that no more than 30% of total electricity grid supply should be provided and with 100% back up support from controllable generators.
The warning was that the more intermittent supply was added the more grid destabilisation became a problem.
Continuing to pay for systems to stabilise the grid (firming) as the renewables input increases when the wind blows and when the sun shines makes no engineering or economics sense, the decision to shut down power stations was not well considered and must be reversed.
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The Hyndenburg.
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The Hindenburg had lots of flights too & fro to its credit.
Even worse, the R101 on its first long flight.
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Would it be impolitic to remind folks that our NATO “partner” has already made themselves overly dependent one on Russian gas once?
Given the state of their economy, they’ll again hear the siren song of cheap Russian fuel.
What an Ally!
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Well, they’ve stopped? using brown coal which they have lots of very cheaply. Also black coal, although it seems from figures that these provide at least 25% of German electricity.
Also they’ve banned/shut down nuclear plants.
I’m not sure how much wood they burn. household rubbish is a limited source for inner city needs.
And their chemical industry is going on-shore to China, America. Along with a lot of other firms.
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So USA is installing more gas plant. Germany is installing more gas plant. UK installing more gas plant. Japan is installing more gas plant. Korea is installing more gas turbines. India wants to install gas turbines. And China is rapidly increasing its gas turbine fleet.
So where will Australia get its “firming” gas plant from?
Apparently wait time for gas turbines is now out to 7 years in USA.
Lucky Australia has a back-up plan for its dilapidated fleet of coal generators. Rooftop solar/ battery with de-industrialisation included.
Can you imagine Australia trying to establish;ish gas turbine manufacturing to meet the need for “firming”.
All the money wasted on building stranded grid scale wind and solar assets. And the country is now thoroughly dependent on clapped out coal generators to keep the lights on and refrigerators cold. I can envisage air-condition being a thing of the past unless you have rooftop solar to run it. Air-conditioning will be unaffordable using grid sourced electricity outside the solar window unless you have a battery.
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The problem with this is that what the EU have permitted Germany to build is far less than they need. The state is having to fund these plants because private investors are not interested because there is not a decent return on their investment and so the EU is involved because of this state funding.
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Just the Facts. 😱🥴
All so easy. 😱🔥💪⚡
Methane one day, hydrogen the next.
GREY HYDROGEN production is the most common, cost-effective method for making hydrogen, primarily using Steam Methane Reforming (SMR) of natural gas (methane) with steam at high temperatures, but crucially, it releases large amounts of uncaptured carbon dioxide (CO₂) into the atmosphere, making it a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions.
Essentially, it’s the same SMR process as blue hydrogen, but without carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology.
Ref: Google A.I.
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FWIW
“FDA Removes Web Content Saying Cellphones Are Harmless – HHS Launches Study”
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/fda-removes-web-content-saying-cellphones-are-harmless-hhs-launches-study
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Modern Germany …
baseloads plants disguised as ‘future hydrogen plants’.
Also globalist authoritarian government disguised as ‘democracy’.
At least there is some consistency.
I also get get confused on my bad elements.
Carbon bad, hydrogen good … is that right?
I know which color is not a color.
And that not ‘of color’ is bad.
Oh, and Orange is bad too.
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No hydrogen: Buses are standing idle because there is no refueling station.
There are other shorts too…
Hydrogen may exacerbate global warming
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Liverpool has found that, too –
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c36z2386lw3o
“It’s a pity that we spent £10m on the wrong decision.”
Other People’s Money.
It’s on the BBC Website, so, obviously, it simply has to be true.
Unless the BBC Editing has, ‘accidentally’ [or ‘inadvertently’] made it look completely different.
Although they would never do that … except to [Orange] Hate-figures that are utterly beyond the pale …
Oh … https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr5e9erpnzlo
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Might as well build natural gas plants with solar panels on the roof and wind turbines in the exhaust vents.
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Was sind die reralen, marktgängigen Betreitstellungskosten von H2 und was kostet der Transport von x nach y bei Jahresmengen von
> 1.0 Mio t/a. Was kostet die Bereitstellung des dazu notwendigen Wassers. Bei 1.0 Mio t H2 sind 9.0 Mio to Wasser notwendig.
Mit freundlichen Grüssen in Erwartung von Antworten
Beat Frei
[Translation: “”What are the real, marketable provision costs of \(H_{2}\) and what does the transport from x to y cost for annual quantities of > 1.0 million t/a? What is the cost of providing the necessary water? For 1.0 million t of \(H_{2}\), 9.0 million t of water are required.With kind regards, in anticipation of your answers”” (Please write in English Beat Frei! – Jo]
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