Battery Storage Backers Energized By Prospect Of New Tax Credit
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on Bloomberg Tax
- Thirty percent tax relief would be provided for energy storage.
- It might also stand a chance of becoming law in the US.
Read the article and question as I did, that tax relief may be the best way to get investors to build energy storage to keep the lights on, when the wind’s not blowing and the sun’s not shining.
Balloons On The Line Blamed For £1m Worth Of Train Delays
The title of this post, is the same as this article in The Times
This is the first two paragraphs.
Families have been told to stop bringing helium-filled balloons into railway stations after they were blamed for delays that cost the network £1 million a year.
In the latest version of “leaves on the line”, Network Rail said there were 619 “balloon-related incidents” across Britain in the past 12 months.
Liverstock farmers don’t like them either, as they fall into fields and get eaten.
I don’t like banning things, but surely some regulation and sensible rules are needed.
Former Gasworks Turning Into Entertainment Venue
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on IanVisits.
This is the first paragraph.
Four giant warehouses and an empty field — a former gasworks in Tottenham — is to become a new entertainment venue.
These are some points about the venue.
- Four interlinked warehouses capable of holding 10,000 people.
- Ten acres of outdoor space.
- Close to the soon-to-be-opened Meridian Water station.
- It will be know as the Drumsheds.
The first event will be the Field Day on June 7-8, 2019.
This Google Map shows the location of the site.
Note.
- The blue-roofed shed in the North-East corner of the map, will be the centrepiece.
- The site is bordered on the West by Pymmes Brook and on the East by the Lea Navigation Canal.
- The grass area South of the sheds must be the outdoor space.
- Meridian Water station is perhaps four-hundred metres to the West.
- There’s even an IKEA and a large Tesco, for those who don’t want to hump their tent and food from hundreds of miles away.
Could this be the first of a new style of entertainment venue?
In some ways, this venture brings me back to the vibrant music scene in the area, where I grew up, just a few miles to the North-West.
Artists from the sixties, that I saw in the area included.
- Adam Faith
- Animals
- Chuck Berry
- Joe Brown
- John Mayall with a very drunk Eric Clapton
- Nashville Teens
- Rolling Stones
But no venue was bigger than the large Regal Edmonton cinema, which held perhaps a few hundred!
After the recent opening of the new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, this is surely more good news for the area, which has had its troubles over the last few years.
A Visit To The V & A At Dundee
I took these pictures on a visit to the V & A At Dundee.
It should be noted that I was taking a lazy journey between Glasgow and Edinburgh, so I went via Dundee, where the new museum and other attractions are very close to the station.
France, Denmark Eye Hydrogen Future
The title of thid post is the same as that of this article on Energy Reporters.
A few points from the article.
- EDF has launched a hydrogen production and distribution company called Hynamics.
- EDF is now the largest shareholder in McPhy, a electrolyses, hydrogen storage and charging station provider.
- European gas-fired power stations will run on twenty percent hydrogen.
- Hydrogen will be used to decarbonise the gas network by 2050.
- Hynamics said it was planning 40 projects in France, Belgium, Germany and Britain.
- In Denmark, Ørsted, is working on plans to convert electricity from its wind turbines into hydrogen.
The article is a must-read.
The Dutch Plan For Hydrogen
The Dutch Plan For Hydrogen
I have cut this out of The Train Station At The Northern End Of The Netherlands, so don’t read if if you’ve read it before.
Searching Google for hydrogen around Groningen, I found this document on the Internet, which is entitled Green Hydrogen Economy In The Northern Netherlands.
It is a fascinating read about what you can do with hydrogen generated from wind and biomass.
This is a sentence from the document.
Large scale green hydrogen product.ion together with harbor transport and storage facilities will be located at Eemshaven, with green chemicals production in Delfzijl
It is an ambitious statement.
Eemshaven
It also appears that Eemshaven will be the main connection point for electricity from offshore wind farms. This is said.
In the Eemshaven an offshore electricity cable from Norway, the NorNed cable with a capacity of 700 MW, comes on land. The Cobra cable, with a capacity of 700 MW, from Denmark is foreseen to connect at the Eemshaven to the onshore grid. The Gemini wind farm is connected to the grid in the Eemshaven with a capacity of 600 MW. Within 10 years it is foreseen that another 4.000 MW offshore wind will have their electricity cable to the Eemshaven.
Does all this explain, the building of a station at Eemshaven? Delfzijl station was built in 1883 and has its own connection to Groningen.
The following proposed actions are from the document
Build A 1,000 MW Electrolysis Plant
This is an extract from the of the document.
A 1.000 MW electrolysis plant that runs 8.000 hours a year, uses 8 billion kWh and 1,5 million m3 pure water to produce 160 million kg Hydrogen. A reverse osmosis plant has to produce the 1.5 million m3 pure water, using sea water or surface water as input. If an electricity price of 2‐2,5 €ct/kWh and a total investment between 500 million and 1 billion Euro with a 10 year life time is assumed, a green hydrogen cost price around 2‐3 €/kg will be the result. This is about competitive with present hydrogen prices, produced from natural gas by steam reforming.
How much energy is contained in a Kg of hydrogen?
This page on IdealHY says the following.
Hydrogen is an excellent energy carrier with respect to weight. 1 kg of hydrogen contains 33.33 kWh of usable energy, whereas petrol and diesel only hold about 12 kWh/kg.
At three euros for a kilogram of hydrogen, that works out at nine euro cents for a kWh.
Build A 1000 MW Biomass Gasification Plant
The title is a section in the document and this is an extract from the section.
Green hydrogen can be produced by electrolysis using green electricity, but can be produced also from biomass via gasification. Biomass gasifiers use solid biomass as an input and deliver a green syngas, a mixture of hydrogen, carbon‐monoxide (CO) and carbon‐dioxide (CO2), and char as an output. The CO could be used, together with water (H2O), to produce extra hydrogen. The resulting products from biomass gasification are green hydrogen and CO2. However, from CO2 and green hydrogen every chemical product could be produced. Therefore, the combination of green hydrogen and CO2 or green syngas creates the opportunity for a fully green chemical industry in the Northern Netherlands.
The process is still being developed. My first question, is can you use animal manure as a feedstock? It should be noted that The Netherlands used to have a very large and smelly manure problem.
Offshore Hydrogen Production From Far Offshore Wind Farms
The title is a section in the document and this is an extract from the section.
Offshore wind farms produce electricity which can be brought onshore via an electricity cable. Such an offshore electricity cable is expensive. The farther offshore the wind farm is located the more expensive the electricity cable cost. At the North Sea, an alternative solution for these wind farms is to convert the electricity into hydrogen at an existing oil/gas platform and to transport this hydrogen eventually mixed with gas via an existing gas pipeline. Onshore the hydrogen is separated from the natural gas and cleaned to be transported via pipeline, ship or truck to the markets.
I think that the technology and existing infrastructure could be made to work successfully.
- Europe has over fifty years experience of handling offshore gas networks.
- Recent developments have seen the emergence of floating wind turbines.
- Would it be easier to refurbish redundant gas platforms and use them to collect electricity and create hydrogen, rather than demolish them?
- Hydrogen is only produced when the wind blows.
- There is no need to store electricity and we’ve been storing gas since the Victorians.
There will be problems, like the integrity of an ageing pipeline, but I suspect that the expertise to solve them exists.
Will there be a North Sea, where every part has a large wind farm?
Note that the Hornsea Wind Farm has an area of 1830 square miles and could generate around 6 GW, when fully developed.You could fit 120 wind farms of this size into the North Sea. Even if only a small proportion could be developed, a sizeable amount of hydrogen could be produced.
A Market For 300,000‐tonnes Green Methanol + 300,000‐tonnes Green Ammonia
The title is a section in the document and this is an extract from the section.
Hydrogen (H2) and Carbon‐dioxide (CO2) can be used in chemical processes to produce a wide variety of chemical products. Two of the main building blocks in chemistry are methanol and ammonia. Methanol can be produced from H2 and CO2. Ammonia is produced from H2 and nitrogen (N2), captured from the air.
Wind power and biomass have been used tp create the basic chemicals for the petro-chemical industry.
The Construction Of Green Hydrogen Fuel Cell Balanced Data Centres
The title is a section in the document and this is an extract from the section.
Google builds a very large data center in the Eemshaven, see picture below. The reasons for Google to choose for the Eemshaven are the existence of an offshore data cable, enough space and green electricity. Google as well as other companies that install and operate data centers wants to run on green electricity. Therefore, Google has signed a power purchase agreement with Eneco to buy green electricity for 10 years. For this reason, Eneco builds an onshore wind farm nearby. On a yearly average this wind farm produces enough electricity to meet the data center demand.
However, supply and demand are not at every time in balance. At moments that there is no wind, other power plants must take over the electricity supply. Now, these are fossil fired power plants.In future, these power plants will be closed and supply and demand needs to be balanced in another way. And of course, that needs to be done with renewable electricity. This can be done by fuel cells fueled with green hydrogen. Fuel cells can follow demand and supply variations very fast with high efficiencies. Fuel cells are quiet and have no emissions, except very clean, demineralized, water.
I like this concept.
Surely, we could build a few data centres in places like Lincolnshire.
Build A Pipeline To Rotterdam And Germany
The Dutch have ambitious plans to export the hydrogen.
Other Ideas
The report is full of clever ideas and I suggest you take the time to read it fully!
Hydrogen Trains In The Northern Netherlands
The document says this about trains powered by hydrogen fuel cells.
In the Northern Netherlands, 50 diesel trains are daily operated on non‐electric lines. These trains, operated by ARRIVA have two or three carriages and a power of 450‐600KW supplied by Diesel‐Electric engines. Fuel cell‐electric hydrogen trains could replace these diesel trains. Alstom is a company that builds these fuel cell hydrogen trains and will perform a test next year on the line Groningen‐Bremen. Because the depreciation time for trains is 25 years, not all trains will be bought new. Some trains may need to be retrofitted with fuel cell‐electric power supply, which is technically feasible. When all these 50 diesel trains are replaced an investment in new and retrofitted trains of about …? Million Euros is needed. The total hydrogen consumption of these trains is about 5,000 ton.
These points are shown in a table.
- Total (diesel) trains in the Northern Netherlands is 50 units
- Hydrogen consumption approximately 25 kg H2/100km
- Train operations average 6 days per week. Train is operated approximately 1.200 km per day, based on two times per hour per trajectory of 50km.
- Train operations average 6 days per week. 330 days per year.
- Capital expenditure per train approximately …. ? 50 Units …? Million Euro
- 50,000 tonnes of hydrogen will be needed.
- The fuel bill at three euros a Kg will be 150 million euro.
Would this be economic?
From various comments, I suspect that Stadler are working on a hydrogen-powered GTW.
But failing that, as Stadler are developing a diesel/electric/battery Flirt for the South Wales Metro and some of the routes from Groningen are only about 30 km, I wouldn’t be surprised to see diesel/electric/battery GTWs running across the flat lands of the North.
Battery trains could be fitted with pantographs and recharge in Groningen, where most of the platforms are electrified.
There are a lot of possibilities and engineers will come up with the best solution with regards to operation and economics.
Conclusion
Thr Dutch have big plans for a hydrogen-based economy in the North of the Netherlands.
Where is the UK Government’s master plan for hydrogen?
I’ve Just Been Ripped Off By O2 And One Of Their Partners
For the last month or so, I have been plagued by the number 01329-277600 on both my mobile and land line. As I didn’t know who they were, I just ignored the call.
In the end, I got so fed up and looked them up on the Internet.
On unknownphone..com, I found this review of 01329-277600.
Don’t answer, these people are O2 partners, they tricked me into updating my tariff – I was not made aware I would no longer be an o2 customer until a few months later when I called o2 and they said they couldn’t talk to me I had to ring Sync Comm! I’ve never received a contract and never signed anything – so how can they be allowed to do this! It’s a scam! They are also more expensive than o2 direct. Dishonest.
My experience was similar except tht the company was called Think Comms! But the phone number was the same!
So I phoned O2 and asked what was going on, as I have been an O2 customer for forty years and hadn’t knowingly changed from them. Someone did phone saying they were from O2 and put me on a sim-only contract, but I never received any contract or confirming e-mail.
I asked what I had to do to get back to O2 and they said I would have to pay O2 eighty pounds.
My late wife was a barrister and that sounded like blackmail to me!
So now I am posting, so that others don’t get caught in the same legal fraud!
I shall be changing to another mobile phone operator.
Is There A Connection Between The Rise Of Knife Crime And Brexit?
This may seem an outrageous suggestion to make!
However, serious knife crime seemed to increase around or just after the Brexit referendum.
But the Brexit Referendum on the 23 June 201, does seem to have brought out the worst in some people.
- Jo Cox was murdered just seven days earlier.
- Since then there has been the rise of the far-right.
- MPs of all colours have received terrible abuse on social media.
- Racist chants seem to have reappeared at some football matches.
- The Labour Party has had a row on anti-semitism.
I’m no psychologist, but it’s almost as if the Brexit result has said it’s alright to go against established norms.
I wonder if crime rose in the Phoney War in 1940.
This page on History Extra is entitled 10 Facts About Crime On The Home Front iI The Second World War.
Read it and see what you think!
Hamburg
I took these pictures in the centre of Hamburg, after taking a U-Bahn train to the Rathaus.
I should say that it took me under thirty minutes to get to the Airport from this area. So it was a good place to kill some time, rather than wait at the Airport.
The Anonymous Widower 