to think that electric cars, electric radiators, hydrogen fuel cell cars are not zero emission?

[chomalungma]

First things first - I am totally for reducing a carbon footprint. I do things myself that are bad for the environment. Even starting this thread is using some energy that doesn't need to be used. I also think that electric cars, hydrogen power etc are a really good idea.

BUT

I was looking last night at getting electric radiators in the house. Inspired by the Government Green Grant. Even though this doesn't cover them.

There was a bit about a good reason to replace the traditional hot water radiators with electric radiators is that they have zero emissions of CO2 and so are 'infinitely' better for the environment.

Well - yes, in the house, there would be zero emissions. You aren't burning gas. And they are much more efficient than other radiators. But the electricity still has to be generated and we still have a lot of our electricity generated by gas turbines. We are getting better though

gridwatch.co.uk/

The same applies to electric vehicles - with the added issue that the energy costs in producing them - especially in mining the metals used for the batteries is high. And takes place in countries where they haven't got as much renewable energy sources.

Hydrogen - it's the future. Boris was in Teesside talking about the hydrogen economy. Hydrogen fuel cells. Great. Non polluting in cars - and that's a great thing for the local environment.

But you need to get hydrogen.

Most hydrogen is made by reacting methane with steam. This makes hydrogen and also leads to making CO2.

You can also make hydrogen by electrolysis of water. Which needs energy from electricity.

It's all so complicated. It's such a great idea to reduce pollution in cities. So important.

But at the moment, it seems that the CO2 is being made elsewhere - unless we move to more renewables to produce electricity (and even moving to more renewables has energy costs in that)

Really, we want to be finding ways to reduce our energy use, make things more energy efficient, reuse things that have cost energy to make.

And to be aware of all the energy costs and the ultimate life cycle in energy costs, CO2 production of everything we do.

I wonder how much energy this thread used?

In shipping people are begging to look at ammonia but it will be 40-50 years before all cargo ships are using this

Interesting

But ammonia is superior to diesel as it is significantly less expensive than diesel, does not pollute the environment and is less likely to be stolen and resold as its use is relatively specialized

(from a website)

I suppose the issue again is the energy needed to make it.

Fossil fuels need energy to separate them from crude oil, and gas requires some energy to extract it - but they produce CO2 when used.

Ammonia - well you need a lot of energy to produce it - but it doesn't pollute when used.

Massive overthinking going on here with me!

We really need to find good ways of making energy that are less polluting.

CO2 capture technology has to be improved as well. And making the best use of nature to maybe make some of the products we need instead of the chemical industry?

people have to stop their love affair with private cars

If you really want to be cynical, spend time looking into carbon offsetting. One of the biggest cons ever.
Transforming your 3rd world factory with foreign grants to use electricity rather than coal - sell your credits.
Pay a third world country to plant a forest regardless of whether they reach maturity or cause other issues in their ecosystem - sell your credits.
One major supplier of offsets is owned by a US oil company. Too many competing "certification" bodies, all with vested interests.
It's a bit of a scam.

It's an interesting idea. It's maybe easier to envision in the context of a model of driverless rental cars (in areas with high population density) - summon one, a fully charged car trundles to your home, you use it, maybe swap to a new car at service stations rather than waiting for a recharge, and then when you're done it trundles back to its docking station.

I'm not really convinced this is a realistic model of how people would want to use cars though.

I think the future of energy use does look really interesting.

It's something I would like to get involved in professionally - but I fear it's getting too late to retrain.

I do love the idea of offshore wind farms, solar panels, tidal farms etc providing energy to drive electrolysis to make hydrogen.

I love the idea of trying to use nature as much as possible to help us.

We are an expanding population with increasing energy needs.

Errolthedragon - it's basically an extension of the Car Club idea, which was an extension of the car hire business. Convenience of being able to use a private vehicle when and where you want to, without the hassles of ownership.

Unfortunately somewhere along the line cars became more than transport and gained an emotional attachment for too many...

I've not read about tidal farm ideas recently. The barrage type of designs proposed in the past seemed far too destructive of vital, delicate ecosystems.

It can work, at the simplest level if we encourage electric cars we can also encourage solar panels on offices, houses and retail parks to help charge them. We're also rapidly shifting to large amounts of very green offshore wind.

If the government really wanted to create a green revolution they'd make solar panels and car charging points a minimum requirement for all new builds. They could extend subsidies for existing properties too, maybe for people on the lowest incomes who tend to struggle with energy costs. That's just one idea among many that would create enormous amounts of jobs. Win for the environment - win for the poorest in society - win for economic growth.

@user1471439240

Hydrogen is going to be the future. The plan is to extract it from water by electrolysis. Yes, it uses a lot of energy. The plan is to use offshore wind farms as a carbon neutral source for the power required. The Hydrogen will be compressed and stored subsea in the depleted North Sea gas caverns. It will be piped onshore, much like natural gas currently is into a national grid. This is what the current Tory announcement on wind power is leading to. Burning fossil fuel natural gas to produce electricity to charge batteries is definitely not carbon neutral. Electric vehicles are useful for short journeys only. Hydrogen will replace petrol and diesel for vehicles. The range and tank filling time is the same as currently. Nuclear will provide the stable baseline load, five new power stations will strengthen the capacity of Nuclear.

Hydrogen is incredibly difficult to work with - it leaks like buggery (because it's the smallest molecule known to man). It's colorless and odorless. And it has a nasty tendency to go bang very easily

If you want to piss around with hydrogen (as I said upthread) bolt on some oxygen and carbon atoms and it becomes almost trivial.

The point is that theycan be zero emissions

Unlikely, if you take into account the carbon produced making them.

If the government really wanted to create a green revolution they'd make solar panels and car charging points a minimum requirement for all new builds.

Successive governments have done their level best to discourage car ownership. Egged on by their mates in housebuilding who get to sell less land for more money.

It's why the streets of the last new build near me (2016) are almost impassable with cars on the pavement and "garages" used for keeping toy collections.

The myths around Hydrogen -
www.hydrogeneurope.eu/hydrogen-safety

Successive governments have done their level best to discourage car ownership

But oddly, without planning public transport, sufficient local workplaces, shops, schools etc. Perhaps London is somewhat the exception?

I wouldn’t rip out my relatively new gas boiler to replace with electric now, but in a couple of years time if it needed replacing I’d look at the UK grid mix, look at the future projections and consider the electric option.

Would you still consider it if it meant your heating bills tripling?

We are an expanding population with increasing energy needs.
The problem in a nutshell. Neither of those trends can continue.

Did anyone else catch the maiden voyage of a hydrogen powered train on the BBC? www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/business-54350046

[quote MayYouLiveInInterestingTimes]We are an expanding population with increasing energy needs.
The problem in a nutshell. Neither of those trends can continue.

Did anyone else catch the maiden voyage of a hydrogen powered train on the BBC? www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/business-54350046[/quote]
I didn't see that, but I mentioned an interview with a couple of the engineers upthread (it was in the Weekend Women's Hour today)

I Iove electric cars when dealing with short distances, but realise they aren’t great for the environment. If I had a car, I would get one of these (but love my electric moped in the meantime).

I absolutely think electric heating is incredibly inefficient and wonder why anyone who had the choice would use it. Natural gas burns pretty cleanly actually ....

Planet of the Humans is a great documentary though on this topic, did you watch it OP?

If the government really wanted to create a green revolution they'd make solar panels and car charging points a minimum requirement for all new builds

Solar panels in the U.K.? Doesn’t sound very useful or even cost effective.

Planet of the Humans is a great documentary though on this topic, did you watch it OP

No - I watched David Attenborough's recent documentary about how he has seen the world change in his lifetime.

I do find it fascinating - and this is a great discussion on here.

It's so complicated - and I do agree that doing something is better than doing nothing, and it's a great thing we are trying to look at alternatives.

Life cycle analysis, looking at reducing our energy use, looking at repairing things rather than investing in new things - but there does come a point when you should do that.

Redesigning cities, encouraging public transport.

But we are an increasing population. Nearly 8 billion people on this planet. That's a lot of energy needs.

Hydrogen is an awful choice for a fuel. The biggest issue is energy density. It doesn't compress well so needs to be chilled or a large storage area. It diffuses readily and is unstable too. The best ways to generate hydrogen are in a reactor using combined heat and electrolysis or spare capacity from renewables. For the first part that means a huge investment in nuclear, as for the second pumped lakes or battery storage are preferable to hydrogen storage form a safety and efficiency pov. We would be far better staying with the combustion engine but trying to convert electrical generation to 100% renewable. Work on making fuels as green as possible including bio mass.

I sometimes ponder how much unnecessary power is used by folk commanding Alexa to do their bidding.

Hydrogen is best thought of as a battery - it has disadvantages and difficulties but its performance doesn’t degrade over time and it’s not necessarily reliant on mining rare minerals.

@TheSilveryPussycat

I sometimes ponder how much unnecessary power is used by folk commanding Alexa to do their bidding.

All those server farms need a lot of energy......

I wouldn't get electric radiators now, but in a few years I'd look at electric heating, and especially an air-source heat pump. They can actually give you more heat energy out than they draw electrical energy from the grid, because they take heat out of the air.

A ground source heat pump would be even better, but installing the pipes needed to get heat out of the ground needs big excavation work or deep drilling so it's less likely to be cost effective unless you're already doing the digging/drilling for some other reason.

And don't let the emissions from fossil fuel power stations put you off going electric: some of the cheapest tariffs are 100% backed by renewables.

@DilysPrice

I'm Aberdeenshire. Starting to get cold now.

Shamelessly burning some wood in the stove.
I plant loads of trees though, so doing my small part.