Temperatures plunged last week across Europe and the wind stopped blowing for a number of days. Without gas- and coal-fired turbines coming immediately to the rescue, thousands of people could have perished in the bitter cold. Yet natural gas is being legislated out of existence as a source of electricity across the continent. The black lie at the heart of Net Zero energy fantasies is that there are workable back-ups for intermittent wind and solar. Apart from oil and gas, there are none. Once politicians remove them from the mix – if elected, the British Labour party plans this in barely 60 months – the old and the infirm will shiver and die when a windless electricity grid produces negligible amounts of crucial power.
Exaggeration? Not really. Earlier this year, Lord Frost delivered the annual GWPF lecture on Net Zero which he titled ‘Not Dark Yet, But’s It’s Getting There’. He felt that members of Western governments “actively prefer to live in complete cognitive dissonance rather than confront what they know in their hearts: that they are pursuing unfeasible and internally contradictory policies”. There can be no excuse for what Lord Frost describes as “high status” opinions on Net Zero. The lack of ‘green’ back-up for intermittent power is becoming obvious to all but the most blinkered and boneheaded. But a wilful refusal to confront the issue is the current default ‘settled’ position. If the grid collapses in a few years’ time, the politicians and all their trusted messengers in the media will have a great deal of explaining to do. As the frozen bodies pile up, their trite, pseudoscientific, ‘saving the planet’ political slogans will be found somewhat wanting.
The idea that we can power most of our energy from the wind and the sun has been kept afloat by the promise of massive battery storage. There can be no further excuse for peddling this delusion. Earlier this year, the U.K. Royal Society published a wide-ranging storage paper pointing out that current batteries cannot possibly store more than a fraction of the energy needed to support the grid when wind fails. And fail it does, not just during spells of extremely cold weather but, as the Royal Society pointed out, during past annual low wind speed periods. Desperate to keep the Net Zero fiction alive, the Royal Society promoted hydrogen as a back-up, an idea only slightly less dumb than digging up the planet to produce vast quantities of limited life batteries.
Highly explosive, expensive to extract, weak kinetic energy compared to natural gas, difficult to store and move around – there is no end to the disadvantages of hydrogen. The Royal Society seems to envisage a new nationwide complex of storage and pipes that would likely cost hundreds of billions of pounds. Francis Menton of the Manhattan Contrarian noted that the Royal Society’s paper contained valuable information, but was “actually useless for any public policy purpose”.
Wherever you look, promoters of green energy engage in largely unchallenged deceptions. To coincide with COP28, Channel 4 is running a ‘climate emergency’ season. “With their combined, deep expertise, Kevin McCloud, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Mary Portas will front a powerful three-part series aiming to kickstart real change, by identifying the practical steps that governments and big business can take to eliminate our carbon emissions,” reads the press release. It’s an odd choice of “deep expertise” on offer, namely, the Grand Designs TV host, a TV cook and a shop window dresser. Within minutes into the first programme, the zombie statistic that wind was nine times cheaper than gas last winter was trotted out. In fact, this occurred only briefly with a number of abnormal wholesale price spikes in electricity in the wake of developments in Ukraine. Suggesting that wind is nine times cheaper than gas is as wilfully misleading as stating that wind was infinitely more expensive when oil prices turned negative at the start of global Covid lockdowns.
Without reliable back-up, subsidy-hunting promoters can add as many windmills as they like, but it will not make any difference when there is no wind. Last week, wind struggled to provide 3% of Britain’s electricity. As the investigative climate journalist (and former accountant) Paul Homewood is fond of noting – twice nothing is still nothing. In the meantime, British electricity users are set to pay almost £100 billion in subsidies for renewables supplying the grid over the next six years. Even when the wind is blowing, this growing subsidy covers barely 5% of total U.K. energy, since the grid only accounts for 25% of consumed energy. Last week’s dismal contribution brought that down to almost zero.
The true insanity of Net Zero has yet to be faced by global elites seeking to ‘transform’ human societies in collectivist ways never attempted in the past. Since this is a political project, truth is the first casualty in the war on wicked humanity. Nobody is paying much attention to the work of the Government-funded U.K. FIRES that notes that the U.K. is likely to have barely a quarter of the energy promised by the Government and the Climate Change Committee in 2050 if all legal obligations of Net Zero are followed. In its latest energy review, U.K. FIRES writes that the “whole excitement“ of its project has been to recognise that such a shortfall is close to a certain reality. As the Daily Sceptic has reported, U.K. FIRES bases it findings on a brutally honest reality. It does not assume that technology still to be perfected, or even invented, will somehow lead to minimal disturbance in comfortable industrialised lifestyles. A world of little energy means no personal transport, no flying and shipping, freezing homes, meat-free diets and dwellings made of “rammed” Earth. And, probably, far fewer humans.
In his recent paper, Lord Frost identified a current active determination across politicians and opinion formers not too look too closely at all the Net Zero issues. This was worrying, he commented, adding the words of the political and economic writer Sir Alfred Sherman: “You can wake a man who’s asleep, but you can’t wake a man who’s pretending to be asleep.”
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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Yes it is insane and as Chris says, entirely infeasible. Windmills and watermills were medieval inventions. The medievals would have given empirical evidence to support the unreliability and catastrophic costs of using only water, solar and wind energy for a modern world, an impossibility at the scale and elasticitiy needed.
Using Occam’s razor, we can assume that net zero is not about reason, nor about Gaia given the massive amounts of material that are dug out of mommy Gaia. and then repurposed using hydrocarbon energy
The razor leads to the conclusion that criminality, money, money-laundering, totalitarian power and de-population are the key goals of this satanic cult. . Pagan and quite irrational most of us would say, with the philosophical imperative the hatred of mankind and a desire to reduce populations en masse.
Net zero means no carbon – the basis of life. As with National Socialism the name says it all.
What does “net zero” mean? Did Putin not say a few years ago that Russia was already at net zero because of the forests in Siberia?
In fact it is possible to wake up someone who is pretending to be asleep.
As the man said: ‘If you grab them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow….’
https://off-guardian.org/2023/12/04/cop28-the-globalist-agenda-has-never-been-more-obvious/
I have already posted this BTL on the NR but it seems more appropriate here and compliments this article.
Huxley, it was great to meet you last night (Marie, green blouse, we spoke as we were leaving)
Lovely to meet you Marie. And Nick.
For me it was just wonderful to meet and enjoy the company of so many like-minded people.
Wete you all at the party or something? ——–Hope it was a pleasant evening.
Moderator here: Daily Sceptic Christmas gathering. I put your name on the invitation list as a Guest, presumably you didn’t see the email?
Oh I see.—— Thankyou for the invite. I appreciate that and it would have been nice to attend. Unfortunately I live too far away but maybe another time.
Yes. I am on my way home now via a delayed Avanti West Coast.
It was a lovely evening and meeting the people behind DS was a treat.
Great to meet Toby, Will, Ian, Marie and Nick. MAk (Marcus Aurelius knew) and other DS subscribers whose names I have already forgotten.
I haven’t forgotten Lulu though – great company.
A good night.
It would be good if DS social evenings could be organised around the country for subscribers.
Here in Dorking, Surrey we have an active group of over 50 sceptics. We hold a weekly coffee morning and a monthly pub social – any DS subscribers would be warmly welcomed. Reply or message me for more details.
Well done. If I was a bit nearer I would join you but I live in Saddleworth on the top side of Manchester.
Glad you enjoyed it. ——–I am a too far away but I like the idea.
I travelled down from Manchester.
Edinburgh area here, but it is a great idea. —Merry xmas and a prosperous new year, (minus the smart meter and heat pump that is)
Hux’ I compliment you on your many comments complementing the main body of the articles herein LS.
Many thanks 10nav.
Us Lancashire lads must stick together. (“We could become a persecuted minority.”)–Tony Hancock on meeting a fellow AB-Negative in the ‘Blood Donor.’
After an hour stuck at Euston I feel like a foreigner and the hotel was full of everything but English voices.
At least they had a room….They are getting less available to do with policies and vested interests of you get the gist.
No climate emergency the truth censored
The truth of the climate lie is so obvious but it always gets censored
leaflet to print at home and deliver to neighbours or forward to politicians, media, friends online.
“Apart from oil and gas” doesn’t quite cover it. Although the structure of the supply systems varies a lot over Europe as a whole, there are areas with a fair bit of hydroelectric generation, in the mountainous areas, such as the Savoie region in France, and of course a lot of Switzerland.
A technique that could provide a significant amount of output in a predictable fashion is tidal generation – but not popular with the same type of people in favour of Zero, I suspect, given it’s possible effect on wildlife. E.g. converting the Bristol Channel into a tidal flow power supply. So, no progress there, or other types of tidal flow.
In the meantime, many nuclear power stations have been shut down, or nearing the end of their service life. Of course, they don’t deal with intermittent demand all that well, and generally deal with “base load” as much as possible.
Apart from electricity generation, another branch of using Hydrogen as a storage medium for surplus intermittent output from the likes of wind generation is to mix it with methane for commercial & domestic delivery (hybrid methane-hydrogen mixture), up to 20% by volume. Of course, if that is done, some of it will end up electric via gas fired stations, so they’ll do the sums to claim that so much is renewable. They probably won’t say much about the lack of efficiency from a wind turbine to your gas burner though!
Tidal is another technology that is only any good if energy can be stored. ——–Which it can’t.
I wonder if the rationing has begun already? At the weekend (I do not live in London) we experienced a wide ranging power cut on the coldest day, it began around 1 pm, on calling the number that deals with power outages the voice informed us the electricity would be back on at 5pm, funny that, the prerecorded message knowing it would be back on as dark was coming in. It made me wonder if during the cold snap at a weekend the grid was overloaded and so we were being rationed, there is no way I suppose of knowing this as the providers can claim a line down etc, however I do know that the cut was pretty wide ranging across the county, or was it a test run?
Post what I saw the Government with the support of Labour and Libdems did to us during the Covid years, I would not be surprised if this is how they intend to ration us, no warning just power outages during daylight hours such that they can blame it on anything but deliberate and planned rationing.
How many power cuts have you had in the last few years, or 10 or 20 years ago? Probably not that many. We had power cuts in the seventies, but that was because of Industrial action. A few years ago the head of the National Grid (Steve Holliday) warned “We are going to have to get used to using electricity as and when it is available”. —-This was quietly buried and certainly is not known to many people because MSM sweep stuff like that under the carpet, but I spotted it immediately and remember it. ——–Is this what progress looks like in the green fantasy world? We can have electricity “when it is available”. ie when the wind decides to blow? —-YES. We better get used to it, because that is what happens when you remove reliable energy in coal and gas and replace it with unreliable wind and sun and what makes it even worse is that all of this FREE WIND is costing us an arm and a leg.
I can remember what happened back then. On that occasion it was an NCB miner’s strike, when a lot of electricity generation used coal. We used to have scheduled power cuts in 3 hour slots for a while, in different local areas. At the time, my old man used to work in one of the electricity board control rooms; not a popular job then. At that time, we used a fair bit of coal at home as well, so that was in short supply, and the school I was at then had to close on account of lack of fuel (it had coal fired boilers as well).
Much more recently, along with many neighbours, we had a lot of unplanned power cuts on account of dodgy underground cable, which resulted in buried cable renewal etc. A bit of footage here: https://youtu.be/LS8VFhRMsYY
Possibly (I am guessing here) power cuts in big cities are a rarity, but here in the sticks we have a lot. We have a lot of overhead lines which go bang in a big way when swans fly into them. We also have a lot of transformers on poles which must be at the end of their lives as they frequently fail, often, again, with a spectacular explosion. The one supplying us failed last summer and our group of houses was supplied by an electricity company generator for nearly two weeks, as they couldn’t get what they needed to repair it. It is not unusual for us to have a power cut once a week, even if only for a few minutes. We know now if it goes off and stays off for around 5 minutes, we are usually in for the long haul. After 12 hours they bring a generator in (this has happened several times now). Needless to say we are well equipped with alternative heat/light/cooking equipment, and many of our neighbours have generators as well.
Yea some revealing words from Ministers etc get lost in the chaos, like Stanley Johnson “That is the National plan”…Er what is! 77 Brigade MP scum bag when Liz truss was booted out….”The days of low tax & high growth are over”….Or don’t forget Gates…..”The next pandemic you will all know about”….People need to remember this stuff, the MSM won’t remind them.
Interesting you should say that. Has anybody noticed the code at the top of their electricity bills…this is linked to phased power cuts in case of need. I’m regularly finding that the power seems “low”. Especially when cooking. Odd that, but I have my suspicions.
“Has anybody noticed the code at the top of their electricity bills…this is linked to phased power cuts in case of need.”
If you know how this coding works could you explain it?
“I’m regularly finding that the power seems “low”. Especially when cooking. Odd that, but I have my suspicions.”
….the bill won’t be …
Yesterday we were being advised to stock up on candles and torches. Supposedly incase of emergency, like “terrorist attack” etc. ——-The truth is it is an unstable grid due to taking away reliable energy solutions like coal and gas that is likely to cause blackouts. Renewables cannot provide base load. ——The only people to benefit from this absurdity will be candle and torch manufacturers
Cyber attacks may be the next psyop….See Redacted News. Also on the Radio today they were casually talking about prepping with candles, tinned food, torches etc.
It seems to me to be waste of time and energy trying to change the minds of politicians and other ‘climate change’ charlatans using logic and proper science. For two reasons: the first is that they are impervious to reason and have the mindset of religious zealots which brooks no argument that is against their faith; the second is that – as mentioned in the article – deep down they are aware that their conviction does not stand up under scrutiny, but this doesn’t matter because they are following orders from their true masters from whom they derive material riches and promises that they will join the elite when the system comes crashing down. They know full well that many people will not survive the deliberately engineered energy-poverty, but this is a price they are prepared to pay (h/t Lord F from Shrek) and they don’t care. It is as simple as that.
wink
Here you go Varmint.
“Here you go varmint” ?? —-Were you expecting one of my rants? Sorry to disappoint on this occasion. But I see that “No-one important” just did a good one.
No I wasn’t expecting a rant. I was just being polite.
Yes you are always quite polite. Glad you enjoyed the party.
I predict that the Government in place when the grid crashes, will be as interested in the number of excess deaths by hypothermia, as it is in the excess deaths by jabby-jabby.
Just what I was thinking…..30K people to get compensation for the contaminated blood scandal of the 70s & 80s…..I’m wondering, do they have to be 60% disabled!
Bridgen claims a CON Party Grandee asked him what he wanted to StFU … and said they wanted to hush up the excess deaths for at least 20 years.
On speaking to my friends I asked them what any of us could do if the gas supply was turned off and petrol and diesel not delivered to petrol stations. They said it would never happen. I am now not so sure.
Depends if it’s a temporary or permanent switch off of gas, and failure to deliver fuel.
Over the last 18 months, I’ve bought a calor gas heater and two empty second-hand gas bottles which have been exchanged for full ones. I have two bio-ethanol fires and a year’s supply of fuel in my garage; a calor gas camping stove and canister; plenty of candles and matches. I live in a small town where I can buy all the essentials for life within walking distance (providing deliveries are being made of course). So I can cope with short power cuts and probably manage for several months, maybe a year if I really have to.
But they absolutely WILL stop allowing petrol/diesel deliveries at some point, when the number of EVs on the roads means the economy won’t completely grind to a halt. I’m calculating that won’t be until about 10-15 years after they ban the sale of new ones … so sometime between 2040 – 2050 and for practical purposes, I think they’ll start with conurbations/cities where the charging infrastructure can be more easily supplied and 15 minute cities created.
Out in the sticks, the charging infrastructure and 15 minute locations are far harder to provide, plus the necessary public transport network simply doesn’t exist, so they can’t “just stop oil” there quite so easily.
I’m expecting a phased approach to be announced at some point. I’ll be buying a new petrol car in about 2026 and hope that by the time petrol is banned “in the sticks”, I’ll no longer be driving/or even here.
As mentioned above, they just don’t have the infrastructure to include all these EVs into the grid, let alone in cold snaps. Think of the power a lorry would need to deliver all the supplies. Rishi wants too virtue signal and be gone when things get bad.
A few years back during winter the internal gas pipework under the floor between our meter and the cooker and boiler were found to be leaking and were condemned. The fitter (rightly) blanked off the pipe on the supply side of the meter. While we waited for works to be scheduled and completed I was able to fit an electric shower and we dug out our ancient camping stove. Our wood burner kept us warm but we were going through our wood store at an alarming rate.
To cap it all our local electricity substation went bad and we had a days electricity outage. Gas boilers (and many gas cookers) won’t run without electricity and our elderly neighbours were finding it difficult. We invited them around to keep warm and share a hot meal – I don’t think we’d said much more than ‘hello’ to them prior to that. I like to have candles on the table at dinner so we had no problem for light.
I wouldn’t say we were ‘prepared’ but we had options which we could take. If all else had failed I’m sure we would have had help from our daughter’s family as they live only 30mins away by car.
I now have a big 12v caravan battery in the shed and a small power inverter to provide emergency power. Of course, it’s never been used. But it has been tested.
The battery is a good idea, have you considered 2 x 6 volt batteries in series, you get 12 volts with a lot more amps to play with.
I’d have thought 2 x 12v batteries in parallel would give more amps?
I’ve got a 600W inverter (sine wave) which is more than enough to power the gas boiler and the internet connection for quite a while off a 240AH battery.
Me and a mate go through forest woodland, see a downed tree and cut it up, shove in the truck and go…We go in the morning before too many walkers come by. We both can use saws, we have dragged a trunk into the lay-by with a strap before when the road was too narrow to cut it on the spot. He doesn’t like running the saw for too long as it alerts people what you’re doing, but if the noise is just a minute or two, then gone, that is preferred. Good exercise too, sometimes I think to myself, all this effort for a bit of wood!
Surely a hi-viz jacket with the word ‘volunteer’ on the back is enough to divert unwelcome attention?
Yes that reminds me of that comedy The Revolution will be Televised where most of the pranks were done in a High-Viz jacket. A whole other use in France.
Nor me ! I’ve been thinking that for a while !
It’s only a couple of years since there were alleged shortages of petrol & diesel supplies, associated with panic buying, with queues etc.
“actively prefer to live in complete cognitive dissonance rather than confront what they know in their hearts: that they are pursuing unfeasible and internally contradictory policies”
They do not “know it in their hearts” and so it is a mistake to believe that they are in cognitive dissonance. They believe in a certain narrative, which is very hard to break as everybody is in their online echo chambers, from which dissenters can be ejected with a tap of a thumb.
These people will virtue signal themselves and us all the way to our graves. Do not for a minute believe that they will change their beliefs once their houses start getting chilly.
Correct. ——It is Top Down Politics, all emanating from the UN and their IPCC and filtering it’s way down through National Governments, Local Governments, Media and TV News. ———The IPCC is a political body and it’s conclusions are all entirely political. Sustainable Development and control of the worlds wealth and resources is what it is really about. This is so obviously the “science” of the progressive left and the media that promote it are about 90% all Liberal Progressive mouthpieces for every leftist dogma..There are 5 main agenda’s that we get stuffed down our throats. Equality, Diversity, Race, Gender and CLIMATE.
I think these leftists are just being used by the Davos/Bilderberg crown and will dispose of them along with the rest of us, if they get their way of course.
Cognitive dissonance is alive and well up here with people stocking up on dried pasta and olive oil. I guess they could set fire to the olive oil to boil the pasta when the energy supplies cut off!
They have also changed their views on petrol/diesel cars, which they run, to one car is essential to keep your child safe from having to travel on public transport. The mantra is now one car per home is your parental duty and anymore is pure evil.
It think it will need a lot more BBC propaganda to ‘straighten’ out their thinking.
What important things was Naga on five Live discussing earlier….rubbish left under the seat in the Cinema….Keeping the public well informed, Licence fee well worth it!
It is remarkable how TV Channel News programs will allow people to make statements about energy and climate that are patently absurd and just plain wrong and NEVER seem to challenge any of it.—–“Wind is now cheaper than gas” is so obviously not true that it is easily put right with even the slightest bit of effort and checking of data. The fact that it never does, or seldom does, except by the Likes of Julia Hartley Brewer and a couple on GB News reveals that Mainstream News have simply become mouthpieces for the GREEN Sustainable Development and Net Zero Agenda which uses phony claims about a climate crisis and pretends that computer models full of guesses and assumptions are somehow to be classed as “the science”———-Another one you hear a lot is “All the scientists agree”, which I heard the other day on GB News from the mouth of a lady called Maaguire who is often on this channel. ——This statement of four words is so obviously WRONG it is unbelievable that it does not get ripped to bits. (1) All scientists clearly do not agree, and I can name about 20 major players in climate related disciplines right now off the top of my head who do NOT agree, and I can go straight to all the books I own for the names of many many more. (2) Science is NOT about people agreeing. People agreeing is POLITICS, not science. (3) Most of the claims about what is going to occur in the future regarding climate isn’t even science at all. It is computer modelling. But computer models filled with speculations, guesses and assumptions where many of the parameters are either poorly understood or not known at all is NOT science. ———It is as clear as day that Net Zero and climate policies are not based on science and getting rid of fossil fuels is a desired POLITICAL goal with little real science to back it up. ——-Anyone who thinks that Politicians and bureaucrats who are less trusted today than ever before can control the temperature of the entire globe to a specific temperature of a number plucked out of thin air like this 1.5 C, deserves all the impoverishment that NET ZERO is bringing us. It is the wide awake rest of us who do not deserve it .
TRT World is just as bad….Turkish channel in English, they have a show called ‘Just 2 degrees’, that is full of Sustainable Development propaganda.
Cheers——Not a channel I knew about, but I just checked that I have it on my SKY. But I will check it out later as I am just waiting for the gorgeous Bev Turner to appear on GB.
I had a brief moment of trouble understanding this. But of course, consumed energy includes oil and gas and petrol/diesel. Attempting and failing to use renewables to replace fossil fuels in current electricity generation is only a part of the picture – they want us to also replace the gas grid and car/lorry/train fuel.
Is there a quotable source for the 25% figure? Unfortunately ‘Chris Morrison says…‘ doesn’t nail it for some.
Transport uses 40% of our energy. Heat uses about 30% and the rest is electricity for lighting, appliances, computers etc. It is clear though that if you get rid of gas central heating (there are 21 million gas boilers in the UK) and replce them with heat pumps etc that the percentage of our energy use by electricity is going to increase greatly. Similarly, if we get rid of petrol and diesel more electricity will be required and we see now plans to enhance the grid in preparation for that with more pylons in the pipeline and residents being bribed to accept that clutter with discounts on their bills (bribes)
…and the few who still use storage heaters.
Where do you get those figures? Are they from OWiD or similar? I know I can get the energy mix the country consumes but I can’t see a source for how much of the gas we burn is directly in domestic and industrial boilers and how much is burned to generate electricity… the only figures I’ve seen are how much of our electricity is produced by gas (CCGt) but not how much gas is consumed to do it.
You could do the sums based on thermal efficiency of around 49% for CCGTs and the content of the fuel via this lot: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/dukes-calorific-values
It is from a very useful book called “Net Zero” by Patrick Benham-Crosswell. Ofcourse these numbers are changing rapidly as more wind and sun is brought onboard. But they are a useful guide.
On the topic of black lies, I was wondering as to when the use of the term “fossil fuel” came to life, as it is evidently being used in a pejorative context to argue against the use of long term natural hydrocarbons as a storage mechanism. The related issue is the use of it as a form of classification as to whether something is renewable or not, what is the timescale etc. E.g. it is often claimed that wood burning is renewable with certain types of timber depending on the growth period for the trees involved. Not clear as to how many years back one has to look to call something renewable.
In the real world, no more trade from overseas simply means People will starve to death in England. This is an absolutely hair-brained idea with no chance of it ever being put into practice as people usually revolt when starvation due to state neglect becomes a real possibility and then, it’s Eat the rich! time, as countless past and present would-be despotes in luxury accomodations have already found out.
I’m not sure I fancy a grisly old Billy Gates Burger.
Actually, no damn way will I eat a Billy Gates burger.
He surely doesn’t look very appetizing. But this was more meant as tip of the hat to Motörhead and to a certain grafitti I’m seeing every time I go to London by train.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wh3t49NsWBA
“Earlier this year, Lord Frost”….Pardon the pun!
The plans in place are designed to make people hungry, cold and then dead. We must take whatever action is needed against people who intend to kill us, I am sure we can all work out what that action needs to be.
The lie is supplying electricity from non-fossil fuel sources.
The truth is not supplying electricity at all – except to the rich and powerful.
I do not understand what is meant by the kinetic energy of hydrogen.
Some sources on the internet suggest that by weight and on combustion hydrogen has a greater calorific content than natural gas.
Hydrogen may well be highly explosive in suitable admixture with air but surely natural gas is too?
Not exactly Felix. Hydrogen is very dangerous and is explosive across a very wide range of Hydrogen / air (oxygen) mixture ratios. Natural gas has a much narrower band where an explosion will take place. So, in other words a NG leak will burn, but a similar hydrogen one will exxplode. As hydrogen is very difficult to contain, leaks (small ones) are much more likely, and then the chance of an accumulation and explosion much more likely.
The only way to get “Green” hydrogen is by electrolysis of water, which is pretty inneficient as most of the electricity is actually releasing Oxygen, which I suppose no one needs or will pay for. The “lie” with the weight point you make, is that hydrogen is very light, and so you need a much larger volume to get the same heat, in other words much more needs to go along larger pipes, or at a higher pressure, which makes the leak and steel pipe damage much worse!
Isn’t science a bugg er when it gets in the way of politics?
A natural gas leak will burn but not explode, eh?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-67613277
And this is actually not an uncommon occurrence, sadly.
There seem to be two options suggested by the green religious fanatics to store wind energy for when the wind stops blowing: batteries and hydrogen.
Yes, hydrogen has some big engineering problems and would be stupidly expensive.
On the other hand, using batteries isn’t just expensive. It is literally impossible on the scale required. In that sense the Royal Society (who represent scientists not economists) are right.
Hydrogen is only explosive when combined with oxygen or air. It is also extremely light, so any hydrogen that leaks flies quickly away into the air. Methane on the other hand is heavier than air, so tends to pool near ground level if it leaks, causing a bigger explosion risk.
The old town gas that we used to use and store in the local gas works before North Sea gas was up to 60% hydrogen.
The whole thing is utter rank stupidity, but would you prefer very expensive rank stupidity (using hydrogen to store wind energy), or rank stupidity that simply won’t work at all (using batteries to store wind energy)?
Of course it would be far, far better to go on using the stored solar energy in fossil fuels!
This is a good article but it is just repeating what has been said many times. The people who need to read this – the politicians, the MSM, the celebrities, Attenborough, Greta, the King and the Prince of Wales – are on a different planet and there is no reaching into their minds. A few days ago Hilary Clinton was claiming that there had been 61,000 deaths due to higher temperatures in Europe last summer. Higher than any other part of the world.