Lithium batteries, not worth it

Natural gas is CH4. What happens to the C? It's turned into CO2, of course - which just makes the problem worse.

Maybe not in your lifetime, but certainly in the lifetime of your children. And it will _never_ 'run out', but it will become very expensive (more than it's worth as a fuel) to extract the remaining amounts.

That's the energy trap - since it takes energy to make energy (see EROI - Energy returned on Energy Invested), there comes a point where you don't have enough energy to develop the next source.

Discussed here:

indeed.

Some years ago, TFL experimented with a few hydrogen-powered buses. Obviously nothing useful came of it. But they thought that the use of hydrogen was so safe that they sited the filling station twenty miles from the centre of London.

On 4/15/2023 4:30 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:>. >

CH4 + 2O2 -> CO2 + 2H2O

The trick is: how much energy do we get out of CH4 compared to C8H18?

Google sez:

"Fuel cell vehicles, which use electric motors, are much more energy efficient. The fuel cell system can use 60% of the fuel's energy—correspond- ing to more than a 50% reduction in fuel consumption compared to a conventional vehicle with a gasoline internal combustion engine."

Problem with pure hydrogen is that you cannot carry a lot of it around and need high pressure storage tanks. Nobel prize winning chemist, George Olah, thought methanol would be the best renewable fuel to use.

There were a few attempts to make a commercial methanol-fueled power bank...

Sounds good: stick some methanol in, charge equipment, resulting in water & maybe some heat. Carry spare methanol to repeat. No recharge time, power easily transported in a safe fluid, etc etc.

Never came to pass: There was a kickstarter that never got off the ground. Google finds that Toshiba sold such a thing called "dynario", which seems to have faded away, and there is no such successor.

That makes me wonder what the hurdles were, as I think it would likely sell even for silly prices to off-gridders, hikers, and so on.

here is a commercially available woodburner that includes a small fan, and charges a cell from a thermopile that gets it's heat from the fire the fan helps along -- the "BioLite Campstove" so there is a market for such things.

Thomas Prufer

A couple of well meaning, "alternate power" types, had a store in Cadillac, Michigan, which actually had something like this for sale. I don't recall the brandname.

They also promoted solar cells,etc., etc., etc.

About a decade ago.

When I swung by that area a year later they were gone.

Irrelevant to his line about what gets dumped into adjacent rivers.

But that doesnt have to be at the mine. Much of ours is actually processed in Malaysia.

"Prototype Toshiba cell phone with fuel cell"

And Toshiba likely brought more resources to bear than a kickstarter project.

Thomas Prufer

Yup, there was also a PCB-mountable tiny methanol-powered turbine generator. Fun idea. Bankrupt of course.

One problem, among many, is that water vapor is a by-product of the fuel cell or the trubine, and things get mouldy.

Or get a battery-powered cell phone charger, lighter and much cheaper.

I have a cool lithium battery car starter, claimed 1000 amps (probably

And that proves . . . .

A new bakery I used to go to is gone too. Think is was the same reason?

Fantasy.

These "alarmists" act like the CO2 that goes into the atmosphere stays there. Plants create sugars from it. Our entire food supply is dependent on CO2. And if for some strange reason CO2 drops too far in our atmosphere, plants start dying and every living thing on this planet is in a heap of trouble.

So ya, "plant air supply", "plant food supply", "Everything else's food supply". CO2 is part of cycle of life.

It just occurred to me that most of there "Alarmists" as "vegetarians" and do not realize the above. This is what you get when you don't think for yourself and rely on political offices for your narratives.

But rich leftists will get rich. What is the issues????

These new small nuclear generators that can't melt down are a good start. As with all nuclear generator, they have a hard time power up and down for peak periods and lulls. But, they can run at peak power and generate hydrogen, which can be used to power conventional generators that can power up and down on command.

Danny need a better news reader

Tax it too much and the black market returns.

Where did I hear most of the cigarettes in the UK are black market? I could be wrong.

Alarmist bull s***

So? There is a limit to how much they can process. Balance. You need balance. Do you have actual numbers of how much is produced and how much is absorbed?

You body needs water. Too much though, will kill you.

It occurred to me some time back you try to apply a simple theory but have no supporting evidence. The balance of CO2 has changed.

The current global average concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is 421 ppm as of May 2022. This is an increase of 50% since the start of the Industrial Revolution, up from 280 ppm during the 10,000 years prior to the mid-18th century. The increase is due to human activity.