Clean Green Energy Exported?

[Zardnaar]

One if my D&D players is big on hydrogen as a clean fuel over batteries which destroy the environment mining it.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business...or-new-zealand-s-largest-green-hydrogen-plant

Anyway we have an Aluminum plant closing down. They built a hydro electric dam for it a few years back that generates 15% of the national grid.

It's kinda remote though so they can't really send it to Auckland so they have excess capacity and water to create hydrogen fuel.

I kind of look at electric cars as a scam almost due to the mining involves to get the resources to build the batteries. And where you gonna dump said batteries once they're wrecked.

 

[Hygro]

I'm not at all worried about waste storage in the long run. Of all the future technologies we can count on, being able to recycle our waste, even if we have to store it for 100 years, is certain.

 

[Samson]

It does seem that there are problems with the availability of lithium. At the moment EV's are little more than a yuppee toy, and still the harm done with lithium extraction is significant. How this is going to scale up to meet the world demand for personal transportation within a decade has not been explained.

ATM the EU is burning or land filling 95% of LI batteries.

 

[Zardnaar]

It does seem that there are problems with the availability of lithium. At the moment EV's are little more than a yuppee toy, and still the harm done with lithium extraction is significant. How this is going to scale up to meet the world demand for personal transportation within a decade has not been explained.

ATM the EU is burning or land filling 95% of LI batteries.

Yep Jeremy Clarkson made a joke if you care about the environment drive a V8.

He wasn't joking by much. Just make anything over 1.3 litres illegal with exceptions for working vehicles eg tractors for food production.

 

[Samson]

Just make anything over 1.3 litres illegal with exceptions for working vehicles eg tractors for food production

I really think one of the big steps we need to take is to get away from the idea of using 1 ton of metal to move a single person from A to B. I think 50cc mopeds should have been the default for getting around town for decades.

 

[Zardnaar]

I really think one of the big steps we need to take is to get away from the idea of using 1 ton of metal to move a single person from A to B. I think 50cc mopeds should have been the default for getting around town for decades.

Inconvenient when wet. And kids.

I hate these urban "trucks" etc. If you're a tradesperson or farmer sure.

 

[Tee Kay]

Sure but we're not talking about getting rid of all cars (well,, some people are, but sane people are not)

Many households have two cars. One for dad to drive to work and one for mum to drive the kids to school and to shops, because schools and shops are not located within easy walking distance or reliable public transport. Vice versa if the household is slightly progressive, or two dads, two mums, whatever.

Obviously you can't just tear down the suburbs, but there are lots of tools you can use to discourage car use while also not punishing people when they do need to drive. Working from home, better bus routes, removing on-street parking (also helps traffic flow), car sharing, etc.

But back on topic, yeah hydrogen is pretty cool I guess. We do need ways to make renewable energy storable/portable and chemical batteries will not be the large-scale solution in the long-term due to all of the issues already mentioned and more.

 

[Samson]

I really like the idea of borohydride fuel cells. Sodium borohydride is far easier to store and transport than hydrogen. Technical problems certainly exist, and may be insurmountable at the scale required, but we could probably put more funding into it.

Gold coated titanium nanotubes, presumably in a fuel cell.

 

[amadeus]

I really think one of the big steps we need to take is to get away from the idea of using 1 ton of metal to move a single person from A to B. I think 50cc mopeds should have been the default for getting around town for decades.

I'm on board with smaller cars in principle, but my concern is crash safety when you have a mix of large and small vehicles on the road.

 

[Samson]

I'm on board with smaller cars in principle, but my concern is crash safety when you have a mix of large and small vehicles on the road.

I agree, and I think the main way that governments should incentivise this change is improving road facilities for motorbikes at the expense of cars, separating the different classes of vehicles and so reducing the car/bike collisions. The easy one would be that the fast lane on 3 lane motorways could be bikes only. This does not help towns, but there are plenty of options that would.

 

[EnglishEdward]

For shorter journeys, the problem is to a certain extent being resolved, entirely
outside of government policy, in the UK , by the growing use of e-scooters.

It is illegal to buy one and drive it on the roads but people do it anyway, and
the plod normally ignores it like they ignore cyclists without lights at night.

There is however a risk the government will decide to screw it up by regulating them.

 

[Samson]

For shorter journeys, the problem is to a certain extent being resolved, entirely
outside of government policy, in the UK , by the growing use of e-scooters.

It is illegal to buy one and drive it on the roads but people do it anyway, and
the plod normally ignores it like they ignore cyclists without lights at night.

There is however a risk the government will decide to screw it up by regulating them.

This is another of those things I do not get. They seem to have no advantage over electric bikes, and the relative difference in height of the axles and the centre of mass must make them loads more dangerous, in both stability and stopping distance. How these things can be allowed on the road I do not understand.

 

[amadeus]

I agree, and I think the main way that governments should incentivise this change is improving road facilities for motorbikes at the expense of cars, separating the different classes of vehicles and so reducing the car/bike collisions. The easy one would be that the fast lane on 3 lane motorways could be bikes only. This does not help towns, but there are plenty of options that would.

Man, I can't get behind the motorbike thing. But you just sent me on a 20 minute search for a used kei truck. I found a truck and a country house I could buy, both as a set for under $25,000. That would be the life!

 

[EnglishEdward]

Escooters are smaller and many can be folded
up and more readily carried on trains and buses.

 

[amadeus]

I don’t want to be exposed to unpleasant things like rain, wind, or people.

 

[Samson]

Escooters are smaller and many can be folded
up and more readily carried on trains and buses.

So can bikes, and can you take the hire ones on public transport?

Spoiler Electric folding bike that costs 10 times what my car cost :

 

[Zkribbler]

I don’t want to be exposed to unpleasant things like rain, wind, or people.

Motorcycles are ubiquitous here in the Philippines. We have plastic arches which run the length of the bike.

 

[Farm Boy]

Old battery plants and disposal areas are heinous nasty polluted. Not sure what's worse, nuclear waste, I guess.

 

[amadeus]

Motorcycles are ubiquitous here in the Philippines. We have plastic arches which run the length of the bike.

The pizza delivery folks have those here. Some of them also kind of look like those little off-road four-wheeler things with the fat tires, but just narrower.

 

[tjs282]

Gold coated titanium nanotubes, presumably in a fuel cell.

Not to be a wet blanket or anything, but are Ti and Au really that much better than Li, environmentally speaking?

Extraction (and refining) of just about any kind of metal ore tends to be pretty harmful to the environment — and even more so in poorer/more corrupt countries where the environmental legal standards for extractive industrial operations are less stringent and/or enforced than they arguably should be.

Per Wiki, China — that well-known paragon of environmental stewardship — tops the list of both Au- and Ti-producing countries by tonnage, and is 3rd for Li.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_gold_production
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_titanium_production
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_lithium_production