[FRIAM] Another Stunning Hydrogen Development - Retake Our Democracy
Steve Smith
sasmyth at swcp.com
Mon Feb 7 13:34:26 EST 2022
Mike -
Thanks for weighing in. I do like the re-purposing or up/downcycling
of existing infrastructure as part of a transition strategy. Any
perspective you might have from a *systems* point of view of how Breeze
and pneumatic storage/transmission can help improve the robustness and
efficiency of multi-scale systems would be great.
I was very shocked a few years ago when I learned about the application
of compressed air in mobile applications as well: I didn't realize
there was enough energy-density to be had.
https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/air/compressed-air-vehicles-can-be-a-potential-mode-of-urban-transport-in-india-62987
There is something kindof organic/serendipitous about being able to
harvest ambient energy gradients (fill your air tank in coolth of the
night or in the shade and expose it to sunlight/heat at the time/point
of use).
When I hit "send" on this message, I'm crawling back down my well-house
to repair a burst pipe and (re)evaluate the difficulty of removing the
pressure tank so that I can replace the air-bladder in it. The
Pneumo-Hydro hybrid of a well is there primarily to reduce pump-cycling
and pressure hammer in the piping system but it is a good everyday
example of hybrid systems. A pressure tank is pretty cool
serendipitous solution. I would guess that submerged airbladders would
complement hydro-storage pretty well.
The Breeze literature fed my overly tangential mind with an image of
Tony HIllerman's novel Sinister Pig wherein pipelines crossing the US/MX
border might be used to move drugs in the "pigs" designed to act as
moving plugs to separate different types/ownership of petroleum products.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sinister_Pig
I've been fascinated with hybrid mechanical/hydraulic/pneumatic systems
from an early age with a good friend even in the early 80s running a
boot repair business from an antique belt-driven set of stations up and
down the line in his shop from cutters to stichers to sanders to
buffers, etc. Of course all were driven from a (single) electric motor,
but any rotational mechanical energy was fine
(wind/water/animal/human-driven
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treadwheel_crane>) . It was all shafts,
bushings, pulleys and idlers and (leather) belts. It was very clever
and relatively efficient (by some measures) compared to a half-dozen or
more stations, each driven by it's own electric motor. Setting up a new
station was pretty easy with little more than sliding a pulley down a
shaft and fixing it with a set-screw.
I'd love to have my (mostly idle/defunct) blacksmith lean-to running
with such a shaft, an oversized airtank (that I can differentially shade
and expose to sun) and a small windmill connected (belt-drive) to the
human-powered, stationary bicycle-style grinder I already use. The
stone, when not grinding becomes a flywheel for the system and the
pedals a human-input into it. Then comes the trip-hammer and the
bellows! Not in this lifetime. I'll be lucky to have water pressure
back in the house this week with my rate of project progress!
- Steve
> Hi. I'm a reader more than a contributor, but the Hydrogen discussion
> is close to my day to day.
>
> Many of us in renewables think Hydrogen might mostly be kick the can
> as Steve mentioned. It is something that might be economically
> feasible in the 2030s and so the length of time oil companies sell oil
> increases. Having said that, there are a number of very pricey
> Hydrogen projects getting funded. That might be showing how
> profitable the O&G industry is.
>
> I'm working with a company we call Breeze
> <http://www.breezesqueeze.com >. It uses compressed air in pipelines
> to move turbines at power plants. Without fossil fuels or using water
> this is getting a lot of attention. There are many advantages such as
> cold air where compressed air is released that can be used by data
> centers. 25% of all GHGs come from generating electricity. 45% of all
> water used in the US is used to create electricity.
>
> We see this as a better option than Hydrogen. We do think Hydrogen
> fuel cells are a solution for mobile applications.
>
> Mike Orshan
>
> On Mon, Feb 7, 2022 at 10:27 AM Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 2/6/22 8:31 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> https://thebulletin.org/2022/01/whether-green-blue-or-turquoise-hydrogen-needs-to-be-clean-and-cheap/
>
> ///Low-cost fossil fuel resources are finite. Someday it will
> simply not be possible to burn oil, natural gas, and coal for
> the affordable heat, electricity, and motive power humans need
> to power their prosperous societies./
> ////
>
> Must we always begin with the assumption that growth in terms of
> geographical/geometric, material and energy
> consumption/appropriation are requisite to continuing/growing a
> "prosperous society"? Tangentially (or not), if "green" hydrogen
> implies a 2:1 ratio of CO2 production to H2 but often begins with
> fossil fuels, it is obviously yet another "kick the can down the
> road" solution. Harvesting solar and direct-solar/lunar-derived
> energy (including wind, tidal) and channeling it through our
> living (including technological infrastructure and agri-industry)
> systems to yield high-entropy "waste heat" seems to be orders of
> magnitude more sustainable (if still questionable on some very
> long time-scale limited by a Dyson-Sphere-like-limit). If the
> H2 is created by cracking H20 (and capturing both to be recombined
> later to release energy) using solar (and other renewables) energy
> it is a *closed cycle*. One would presume the total amount of H2
> we would have stored/
>
> From ecology there comes the observed phenomena of "island
> syndrome" which can include island dwarfism and poikilothermy
> which are both driven by reducing the demand on finite resources
> without giving up function or complexity.
>
> From Alexander Payne comes the absurdist SciFi flick Downsizing
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downsizing_(film)#Plot> which
> postulates by shrinking humans by ???-fold (5 inches tall ~= 12:1
> in 1 dimension, 144:1 in cross section and 1728:1 in
> volume/mass... ) the movie implies no change in metabolic rates
> which would nominally speed up with "shrinkage", yielding (also)
> shorter lifespans. Oh well.. Fiction. But the point would seem
> well taken... Gaia would get a 2000:1 reprieve from our *current*
> energy/mass burden on her systems.
>
> I'm not promoting shrinking people as-such, just noting that our
> 0th order instinct is growth, and supralinear if at all possible,
> up to and likely achieving Kurzweillian asymptotic resource
> consumption.
>
> On that note, I believe that the myriad technological singularity
> concepts all point toward increased complexity and downscaling to
> extend the use of material and energy, driving up the effective
> collective metabolism of "the system" and paradoxically
> *increasing* the rate at which we approach any of the jillion
> ecophagic gray-goo <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_goo>-like
> scenarios neo-luddites like me might contrive.
>
> I assume (but have not yet poked around for) that Alifers have
> already studied the multi-scale *structure* of negative entropy
> profiles in complex systems-of-systems. I think Glen has his ear
> closer to that rail than some here? EricS? ??? I'm still
> fascinated in the topic but gave up my little-toenail-purchase in
> the community in the early 2000s - Symbiotic Intelligence ALifeVI
> <https://cseweb.ucsd.edu//~rik/alife6/papers/SY51.html>. This
> reads so naive yet (mildly) prophetic now...
>
> All is lost! Flee the solar system!
>
> //
>
>>
>>
>>> On Feb 6, 2022, at 7:20 PM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Grey hydrogen?
>>>
>>> https://retakeourdemocracy.org/2022/02/06/another-stunning-hydrogen-development/
>>>
>>>
>>>
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