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© 2020 AFPJapan carbon pledge boosts hopes of ammonia backers
By Etienne BALMER TOKYO©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.
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© 2020 AFP
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Cricky
The plan to become carbon neutral is all over the place, wind, geothermal not getting much mention. Rather these expensive unproven Ideas that currently need massive injection of funds for dubious results. What a MOX up.
Peter Neil
"Ammonia Backers" sounds like a great name for a rock band.
"Here's a new song by the Ammonia Backers..."
Fun facts:
Ammonia was the fuel of the X-15 rocket plane.
Ammonia is toxic to aquatic life.
sf2k
Just another pollutant and poison. Go go green renewables. Sunshine wind water and land.
dbsaiya
Right on Cricky...
bokuda
Desert Tortoise
Hydroelectric power destroys habitats, sometimes whole fisheries. Big dams on rivers in California has killed off many salmon and steelhead runs. Where salmon was once so abundant it was called "poor mans steak: today it is scarce and commands high prices. Towns like Fort Bragg that once thrived on salmon fishing are now decrepit shadows due to lack of fish to catch. The dams change natural river flows, retain sediments that would otherwise replenish river banks and beaches and slower water below the dams is warmer, often too warm for other native fish species to survive in. Damming rivers leading to the Sacramento River Delta has reduced fresh water flow so much that salt water intrudes many miles upstream into regions of formerly fresh water, causing problems for farms that rely on fresh river water adjacent their fields. Where the Sacramento River once had four distinct salmon runs two are now extinct and the other two survive only though human intervention in the form of salmon hatcheries and significant flow management that is fought every step of the way by farm groups that want the water for irrigation. The days of building big hydropower dams in North America in particular are long past.
Geothermal power requires a hot spot in the earth's surface and water. The necessary hot spots are not globally distributed. They only occur in volcanic zones. We have an established geothermal field nearby that may have to to shut down as they have depleted the local aquifer. If the volcano(s) a geothermal plant are situated near erupts you can see your power generating station destroyed.
Desert Tortoise
Go go green renewables
None of the several renewable energy sources currently known are available all day every day for a baseload, which is an absolute necessity to operate and electrical grid. Wind, solar and tidal power are all episodic. On a calm stinking hot humid night you won't have solar or wind power to run an air conditioner on, nor will you have power for your heater on a calm subfreezing winter night. For those occasions you need something else. There is no way around it. Hydropower has its own set of environmental drawbacks, some of which are severe. Batteries I would argue are as big a source of pollution and of hazardous waste as many current sources of thermal energy. It's nice to toss off glib slogans but what is a realistic means to generate power at night when there is no wind and between tides? Just suffer? Shut factories, businesses and public services? What is your realistic, doable solution? Please be specific. Hint, there won't be one silver bullet that solves the problem. Using ammonia as a fuel might be a partial solution.
ebisen
Dessert Tortoise - 100% behind what you wrote. It takes an electrical engineer to fully understand the implications of having to have a solid baseload, and most of the greens aren*t one.
Desert Tortoise
Gas turbines are used as peakers, not for baseload. Their benefit for use as peakers is fast start up, lots and lots of power in a relatively compact space and they can sit for extended periods of time unused. Their drawback is high fuel burn and time between overhaul is shorter than for steam turbines.
Desert Tortoise
Every big refrigerated warehouse or any big freezer in a business is uses ammonia as the refrigerant. It's ubiquitous.
Desert Tortoise
By the way, for those who don't know a "gas turbine" is a technical name for a jet engine. When used to generate power the high pressure exhaust gases that normally propel an airplane are used to spin what's called a "free power turbine", basically a big fan right in the jet exhaust and that fan spins a big generator to make electrical power. You can also use the free power turbine to spin a big gearbox and propel a ship or spin the rotors of a helicopter. Jet engines turn up making power in lots of different settings.
Desert Tortoise
Industrial sized refrigeration plants use anhydrous ammonia almost exclusively. Ammonia based systems are less expensive to build because they use smaller diameter pipes, are more efficient, have better heat transfer qualities and ammonia costs much less than CFC or HCFC refrigerants.
Chop Chop
Also it's smelling like urine too.
Desert Tortoise
The deleterious aftereffects of building big hydroelectric dams are common around the world. The lessons learned elsewhere are fully applicable to Japan.