Mike -
Thanks for weighing in. I do like the re-purposing or up/downcycling
of existing infrastructure as part of a transition strategy. Any
perspective you might have from a *systems* point of view of how Breeze
and pneumatic storage/transmission can help improve the robustness and
efficiency of multi-scale systems would be great.
I was very shocked a few years ago when I learned about the application
of compressed air in mobile applications as well: I didn't realize
there was enough energy-density to be had.
https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/air/compressed-air-vehicles-can-be-a-potential-mode-of-urban-transport-in-india-62987
There is something kindof organic/serendipitous about being able to
harvest ambient energy gradients (fill your air tank in coolth of the
night or in the shade and expose it to sunlight/heat at the time/point
of use).
When I hit "send" on this message, I'm crawling back down my well-house
to repair a burst pipe and (re)evaluate the difficulty of removing the
pressure tank so that I can replace the air-bladder in it. The
Pneumo-Hydro hybrid of a well is there primarily to reduce pump-cycling
and pressure hammer in the piping system but it is a good everyday
example of hybrid systems. A pressure tank is pretty cool
serendipitous solution. I would guess that submerged airbladders would
complement hydro-storage pretty well.
The Breeze literature fed my overly tangential mind with an image of
Tony HIllerman's novel Sinister Pig wherein pipelines crossing the US/MX
border might be used to move drugs in the "pigs" designed to act as
moving plugs to separate different types/ownership of petroleum products.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sinister_Pig
I've been fascinated with hybrid mechanical/hydraulic/pneumatic systems
from an early age with a good friend even in the early 80s running a
boot repair business from an antique belt-driven set of stations up and
down the line in his shop from cutters to stichers to sanders to
buffers, etc. Of course all were driven from a (single) electric motor,
but any rotational mechanical energy was fine
(wind/water/animal/human-driven
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treadwheel_crane>) . It was all shafts,
bushings, pulleys and idlers and (leather) belts. It was very clever
and relatively efficient (by some measures) compared to a half-dozen or
more stations, each driven by it's own electric motor. Setting up a new
station was pretty easy with little more than sliding a pulley down a
shaft and fixing it with a set-screw.
I'd love to have my (mostly idle/defunct) blacksmith lean-to running
with such a shaft, an oversized airtank (that I can differentially shade
and expose to sun) and a small windmill connected (belt-drive) to the
human-powered, stationary bicycle-style grinder I already use. The
stone, when not grinding becomes a flywheel for the system and the
pedals a human-input into it. Then comes the trip-hammer and the
bellows! Not in this lifetime. I'll be lucky to have water pressure
back in the house this week with my rate of project progress!
- Steve
Hi. I'm a reader more than a contributor, but the Hydrogen discussion
is close to my day to day.
Many of us in renewables think Hydrogen might mostly be kick the can
as Steve mentioned. It is something that might be economically
feasible in the 2030s and so the length of time oil companies sell oil
increases. Having said that, there are a number of very pricey
Hydrogen projects getting funded. That might be showing how
profitable the O&G industry is.
I'm working with a company we call Breeze
<http://www.breezesqueeze.com >. It uses compressed air in pipelines
to move turbines at power plants. Without fossil fuels or using water
this is getting a lot of attention. There are many advantages such as
cold air where compressed air is released that can be used by data
centers. 25% of all GHGs come from generating electricity. 45% of all
water used in the US is used to create electricity.
We see this as a better option than Hydrogen. We do think Hydrogen
fuel cells are a solution for mobile applications.
Mike Orshan
On Mon, Feb 7, 2022 at 10:27 AM Steve Smith <[email protected]> wrote:
On 2/6/22 8:31 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
https://thebulletin.org/2022/01/whether-green-blue-or-turquoise-hydrogen-needs-to-be-clean-and-cheap/
///Low-cost fossil fuel resources are finite. Someday it will
simply not be possible to burn oil, natural gas, and coal for
the affordable heat, electricity, and motive power humans need
to power their prosperous societies./
////
Must we always begin with the assumption that growth in terms of
geographical/geometric, material and energy
consumption/appropriation are requisite to continuing/growing a
"prosperous society"? Tangentially (or not), if "green" hydrogen
implies a 2:1 ratio of CO2 production to H2 but often begins with
fossil fuels, it is obviously yet another "kick the can down the
road" solution. Harvesting solar and direct-solar/lunar-derived
energy (including wind, tidal) and channeling it through our
living (including technological infrastructure and agri-industry)
systems to yield high-entropy "waste heat" seems to be orders of
magnitude more sustainable (if still questionable on some very
long time-scale limited by a Dyson-Sphere-like-limit). If the
H2 is created by cracking H20 (and capturing both to be recombined
later to release energy) using solar (and other renewables) energy
it is a *closed cycle*. One would presume the total amount of H2
we would have stored/
From ecology there comes the observed phenomena of "island
syndrome" which can include island dwarfism and poikilothermy
which are both driven by reducing the demand on finite resources
without giving up function or complexity.
From Alexander Payne comes the absurdist SciFi flick Downsizing
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downsizing_(film)#Plot> which
postulates by shrinking humans by ???-fold (5 inches tall ~= 12:1
in 1 dimension, 144:1 in cross section and 1728:1 in
volume/mass... ) the movie implies no change in metabolic rates
which would nominally speed up with "shrinkage", yielding (also)
shorter lifespans. Oh well.. Fiction. But the point would seem
well taken... Gaia would get a 2000:1 reprieve from our *current*
energy/mass burden on her systems.
I'm not promoting shrinking people as-such, just noting that our
0th order instinct is growth, and supralinear if at all possible,
up to and likely achieving Kurzweillian asymptotic resource
consumption.
On that note, I believe that the myriad technological singularity
concepts all point toward increased complexity and downscaling to
extend the use of material and energy, driving up the effective
collective metabolism of "the system" and paradoxically
*increasing* the rate at which we approach any of the jillion
ecophagic gray-goo <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_goo>-like
scenarios neo-luddites like me might contrive.
I assume (but have not yet poked around for) that Alifers have
already studied the multi-scale *structure* of negative entropy
profiles in complex systems-of-systems. I think Glen has his ear
closer to that rail than some here? EricS? ??? I'm still
fascinated in the topic but gave up my little-toenail-purchase in
the community in the early 2000s - Symbiotic Intelligence ALifeVI
<https://cseweb.ucsd.edu//~rik/alife6/papers/SY51.html>. This
reads so naive yet (mildly) prophetic now...
All is lost! Flee the solar system!
//
On Feb 6, 2022, at 7:20 PM, [email protected] wrote:
Grey hydrogen?
https://retakeourdemocracy.org/2022/02/06/another-stunning-hydrogen-development/
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