By TONY MOBILIFONITIS
ANDREW “Twiggy” Forrest, the Australian iron ore billionaire, really does care for the planet and has been telling his fellow billionaire buddies so, at Davos.
Forrest, after making his fortune with his company Fortescue riding the iron ore wave over the past decade with its share price rising 700%, has now gone all green and has been at the WEF bragging about it. He’s even gained a reputation as a “climate evangelist” i.e. a delusional species of humans who think they can tweak the temperature of planet Earth like they tweak the temperature on their home airconditioning systems.
The apparently guilt-stricken Twiggy confessed at Davos that his company burns a billion litres of diesel a year, but now he’s going all out in an act of penitence by “transitioning” to green hydrogen-electric dump trucks and other equipment – at least in the not too distant future he hopes.
But all of this posturing at the WEF is just more of the predictable green claptrap based on the cemented-in narrative that “we must transition away from fossil fuels”. Anglo-American, the ultra-woke global miner based in South Africa, actually beat Twiggy to the hydrogen hype. Anglo spends multiple millions telling everyone how dedicated they are to sustainability, decarbonisation, diversity, equity and inclusivity.
John Cadogan, the naughty, nasty Aussie motoring journalist, who delights in sending up the endless claptrap peddled by “EVangelists”, quite correctly calls it The Age of Bullshit and there is a fair dose of that behind the “planet-saving” hydrogen hype. For a start there are three types of hydrogen, gray, blue and green.
As pointed out by a somewhat honest DW report, 90% of hydrogen made today is made from fossil fuels. (We hesitate to use the term “fossil” because that narrative has been questioned for some years.) Most of that gray hydrogen comes from burning natural gas.
The blue hydrogen supposedly offsets this “dirty” gray hydrogen process by including the quite demented “carbon capture and storage” process, which supposedly stops untold tonnes of the evil CO2 floating up into the atmosphere and choking the planet. Yes, people actually believe this.
But as noted by the DW reporter, there’s a big problem with blue hydrogen. It too has a big carbon footprint, which is the overarching issue in this age of enlightenment. “Blue hydrogen actually has a very, very large greenhouse gas footprint,” Robert Howarth of Cornell University, co-author of a report on this, tells DW. “Turns out that the greenhouse gas footprint of blue hydrogen is worse than if you simply burn the natural gas directly for fuel instead.”
Big oil has been in on the blue hydrogen production scheme for some time now, and Shell’s shining example is its massive Scotford plant in Alberta, Canada. Shell boasted it could capture and store up to 90% of the carbon from the plant, but environmental cops soon threw cold water on that, saying the actual figure was “only” a shameful 48%. Another problem with hydrogen is that it takes up three times as much space as your regular petrol and diesel.
Howarth says hydrogen manufacturing is basically a self-serving, virtue-signalling con job by the gas and oil industry, that governments worldwide, including Australia, have largely bought into. This is why Australia’s so-called regional hydrogen hubs are being built near existing ports.
The “solution” therefore, is green hydrogen, which is processed using, you guessed it, renewable energy in the form of solar and wind power. So what the brilliant woke folk at Anglo American and Fortescue plan to do is to build renewable energy hydrogen-production plants next to their mining projects.
This is on a similar level of insanity as the giant wood burner aka “air burner”, designed to power a steam turbine to charge up Volvo’s electric heavy vehicles on work sites. Cadogan had a field day on this one.
But not to worry, when you’re on a holy mission to save the planet, you’ll do any damned thing other than to simply fill your tank with the planet-killing diesel – regardless of how easy and convenient it is and regardless of the fact that what is emitted on a daily basis, whether from fuel, forests, volcanoes and cow butts is a mere fart from this gigantic eco-system called planet earth.
The fact of the matter is that how well this hydrogen-electric utopia plays out in the dusty confines or iron ore and other mines, has yet to be tested. Anglo got their big “green hydrogen” battery truck running in 2022, but little has been heard of since.
Fortescue rolled out their Liebherr Mining T 264 wonder truck last October, but they had to confess that it was still running on diesel because the enormous battery it required wouldn’t be arriving until 2026. The big battery is being built Williams Advanced Engineering (WAE) in the UK, which Fortescue acquired for $A310m in January 2022.
Around the same time Fortescue received the first 1.4-MWh prototype battery, which consists of eight sub packs, each containing 36 battery modules. The whole thing measures 3.6 x 1.6 x 2.4m, i.e. a helllishly heavy Tesla-style brick of batteries.
How and where this prototype battery is being used we don’t know, and how long such a brick would take to charge from sporadic wind-solar generation is also unknown. But no doubt Twiggy’s team will have their boring and reliable diesel generators on standby – the same generators that have so shamefully provided instant electricity for mining sites globally for decades.
The idea that you can run a huge ore-shifting dump truck or other vehicles without any emissions except water, has an undeniable appeal, especially to people who have to deal with diesel in confined spaces, but the economics of this hydrogen-fuelled battery hype has to be questioned.
Twiggy Forrest has said he’ll spend $500 million just to get this whole thing going, and he’s already done $300m of that on WAE in the UK. And then he’s going to put batteries in the train that carries the ore to port. If Australia’s iron-ore competitors like Brazil, China, India and Russia want to knock Australia off its No.1 spot on the world iron ore producer rankings, maybe a simple strategy will be just to stick with good ol’ dirty diesel.
Today I’m here to explain the role of hydrogen and CC&S in the future energy mix. Hydrogen is intended to be made by splitting apart the water molecule into its components, then when recombined they release some of the energy that was put in to split them. In the same way, Carbon Capture & Storage will eventually follow on from this tech, splitting the CO2 molecule into oxygen and lumps of coal. This coal can be stored elsewhere and conveniently re-burned at any future time, such as in case of a solar blackout.
You’re welcome.
“Hindenburg’s fiery demise is a spectacular endorsement of Hydrogen’s energy storage capacity.”
Precisely the point, assuming one differentiates between hydrogen storage and hydrogen’s energy capacity.
I have an old Ford V8 that I run on hydrogen. It is an on demand system that produces hydrogen from water when the ignition is turned on, there is no storage at all. The engine runs on petrol and hydrogen, or more precisely, Browns gas, as it also contains oxygen. The hydrogen gas supplements the fuel, giving more complete combustion, meaning better miles per gallon
daviddd2 said – “Hindenburg Storage Solutions might have a few leads on that.”
… except that the Hindenburg used Hydrogen for bouyancy, not for fuel. If anything, the Hindenburg’s fiery demise is a spectacular endorsement of Hydrogen’s energy storage capacity.
There do, however, seem to be some challenging technical hurdles to storing and using Hydrogen as fuel for road vehicles, if that’s what we have decided to do.
First and foremost, the requirement for cryogenic temperature to liquify the damn stuff.
Propane remains liquid at ambient temperature at around 8.4 atmospheres of pressure (850 kPa or ~124 psi). Hence the sturdy steel gas bottles to store propane for the barbecue and other things around the home.
Methane (the main part of so-called Natural Gas) remains liquid at ambient temperature at around 316 atmospheres of pressure (32,000 kPa or ~4,670 psi). Most LNG cars don’t actually have LNG tanks, they have COMPRESSED Natural Gas tanks which are rated for pressure considerably below the ambient liquid storage pressure. Not the perfect solution, but it seems to work. Meanwhile, bona-fide LNG-fuelled vehicles use a glorified high-pressure vacuum flask to keep the LNG at very low temperature (-50 C or lower).
With Hydrogen… well, let’s just say you’d need a storage tank made of three-feet thick Unobtainium rated for Jovian pressures to keep it in a liquid state at room temperature. IOW, the pressures involved are literally off the charts. So the alternative is to keep it cooled to cryogenic temperature around -260 C if you want liquid Hydrogen.
Never mind that even in the liquid state, the energy density of Hydrogen is way less than plain old petrol which doesn’t need any of that high-tech cryogenic refrigeration for storage or transport. Even worse if we’re talking about gaseous Hydrogen, even highly compressed.
And we haven’t even considered where the Hydrogen is coming from or how it’s being produced. Suffice to say the prospective Hydrogen economy’s supply chain and logistics framework is woefully lacking in comparison to what we’ve already been using for the last couple of centuries. For the time being, even 18th century coal-fired steam engines make far more economic sense, when we excise the hysterical manufactured Globalist-driven “climate crisis” BS from the narrative.
Good point Joe Bogan. But we stick by our view that capturing carbon is and burying it in the ground is truly demented.
Calling Carbon Capture and Storage “demented” is very subjective, imagine for a moment if you were the one getting a massively generous government contract for such a plant, with a big indemnity clause for when it failed to do anything useful. Of course the politicians who gave you the contract would be long gone by the time the results came in. You see it’s really a win-win.
Hydrogen as a fuel? A ‘novel’ idea. Hindenburg Storage Solutions might have a few leads on that.
There is serious doubt about the use of the term “fossil fuels.” Within the past year I listened to a senior member of the US petroleum industry query the much touted and posited `fossil origin’ of oil. This is because the deepest fossils found were circa 14.000 feet yet seep oil has been pumped from 22,000 feet.
In the 1960s the Moho, a region of the Earth’s crust was believed to be one possible origin of petroleum products, origination from methane, subjects to the extreme pressures to be found at depth.
Moreover, hydrocarbons have been found on various planets and moons of the Solar system, where there are no fossils to be found. Methane has long been known to exist deep in the Earth circa the Moho layer; and various scientists have posited the oil and gas are created through the temperatures and pressures existing there that act on the methane present.
There are no fossils on the outer planets and moons, yet vast amounts of hydrocarbons are to be found there, and on Earth as well.
Much scientific and petroleum company literature on the subject is to be found here:
Also, please find more on this subject here:
moho origin of oil and gas
Jan 18, 2023 · Oil and gas resources are closely related to deep crustal structures, and Moho characteristics influence oil and gas distribution. Therefore, it …
https://www.google.com/search?q=moho+origin+of+oil+and+gas&sca_esv=601029419&source=hp&ei=3vCwZYGbIf7n2roPh5yLsAM&iflsig=ANes7DEAAAAAZbD-7uYCoQkqYeKf8Z77KToifW60lWuU&ved=0ahUKEwiBgv-68vWDAxX-s1YBHQfOAjYQ4dUDCBc&uact=5&oq=moho+origin+of+oil+and+gas&gs_lp=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&sclient=gws-wiz
Dennis said – “The underground carbon fuels all got there from being deposited as surface grown vegetation, and so recovering it and using it to bring back the carbon to the surface is the correct way to continue the cycle.”
Your logic is sound, but the biotic origin of geologic hydrocarbons is a rather tenuous proposition. One can argue the details, but the theories don’t corroborate the evidence.
In any case, that hardly matters. More carbon in the biosphere means more life, both plant and animal, because that’s what they’re built from.The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is inherently throttled by it’s extraction by plants and thence to consumption by animals, and so forth.
Left to Nature, the biosphere will extract carbon from the atmosphere to build more life as fast as the planet can put it there.
Meanwhile, King of the Mass-Murdering Luciferian Baby-Eating Arseholes, creepy Bill is Hell-bent on cutting down all the trees and blocking out the Sun to “save the planet”. An uncharitable observer might suspect that he intends to kill everyone and everything.
Hydrogen as an Energy Source is a Scam
Given the explosions they have had trying to fuel hydrogen powered cars in South Korea, and elsewhere, seems the safety issue is not a consideration for Chris Bowen, who has been pushing this cart. That explosion issue can be placed amongst the least of the concerns about the choice of hydrogen fuelled cars.
Using hydrogen poses great technical challenges i.e.
– hydrogen must be stored in its liquid state at –253°C (20 K);
– refrigeration takes a great deal of electrical energy to
store hydrogen as a liquid;
– unlike hydrogen, existing oil fuels can be stored at room temperature;
– Hydrogen offers an energy content per weight which is 2.8 times higher than that of kerosene. Even so, the fuel volume is 4 times greater than that of kerosene. (Researchgate: Hydrogen vs Kerosene as aircraft fuel). Hence, the energy per unit volume of oil derived fuels is far higher and more practical from volume, room temperature and pressures, cost, and safety standpoints, than hydrogen. Think of this in terms of the size of fuel tanks for aircraft and road transport vehicles. The question of safety is an entirely separate issue:
– the tiny size of the H2 molecules makes containment difficult. Leaks are common and can be dangerous (i.e. of the Hindenburg Zeppelin disaster variety). Moreover, if hydrogen is contained in a metal tank it will eventually cause the tank to crystallize – and fracture under the pressure;
Consequently, hydrogen is uneconomic as a replacement for liquid fuels already in use. Therefore Bowen can’t be serious about this option, because it is totally impractical. Mark Butler in the ALP voiced the same impractical notions. If Bowen does not know the detractions of hydrogen he is either unbriefed, or has been paid to promote tax-payer subsidies (probably in the billions).
tonyryan43 said – “…throw the fat lady in ’til she sings.”
I doubt you’d get consensus for a Gina Reinhart serenade.
Maybe invoke Adele or perhaps Arethra Franklin (though she probably wouldn’t sound too good at this juncture) – although it would be unkind to put them in the same space as someone like Twiggy Forest.
In any case, the Fat Lady I’m looking forward too has long blonde braids and a Viking helmet.
In ww 2 the Russians in starlingrad converted their trucks to run on hydrogen and the British had hydrogen splitters ln their tanks.OLD HAT.
Mining creates another cost to humanity that has yet has gone unnoticed and unmeasured. Yet it is way more dangerous to humanity and the environment than the supposed ‘toxins’ we foolishly attempt to reduce.
I refer to the tendancy of early mines to be owned by total dumbarses like Forrester and that evil fat woman whose name I can never remember. Well, I could probably remember, but who wants to?
Anyway, my point is that the metals market lurches and all of a sudden these cerebrally deficient troglodytes are billionaires and they have more power than governments. There is something wrong with this system and it is a salutory lesson to the free trade messiahs that unconstrained capitalism may one day kill us all.
Meanwhile, I have a theory that Twiggy could survive comfortably in a hydrogen tank. As soon as he breathed out, his CO2 and nitrogen would form water to drink and nitrogen hydroxide, which is inert. I am prepared to pay fifty bucks to anyone who will prove my hypothesis correct; and up that to a hundred bucks if they will throw the fat lady in ’til she sings.
When I first proposed hydrogen as a fuel source I explained the simplicity of it of having nothing more than a tank full of water feeding an engine that consists of just a bit over 700 degree spark plugs to burn the hydrogen in the water to power whatever machinery .
How they worked out they need a 300 acre paddock to build a plant like the one in the photo has got me buggered , that is defeating the cost effectiveness of using hydrogen from the air that we breathe or the water we drink that we don’t have to go to extreme costs to produce a fuel that can power all combustion engines without to much cost involved .
I got all my information from a early 1920’s inventor who patented his formula to provide for hydrogen fuel , I suppose Standard Oil got wind of his invention and he most likely retired .
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The underground carbon fuels all got there from being deposited as surface grown vegetation, and so recovering it and using it to bring back the carbon to the surface is the correct way to continue the cycle.
There are already many patents that have been withheld from the public that provide clean and almost free energy, and can create it as needed for individual applications, small and large, portable, with no need for storage and not requiring fuel for production.
So all this waste of natural resources that is producing batteries and solar cells and turbines is for no good reason, and will soon come to an end.
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