New Nanomaterial Offers Efficient Hydrogen Production – Just Add Light
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Hydrogen Central.
These are the first two paragraphs.
A new nanomaterial catalyst needs only light to convert ammonia into hydrogen, its developers have said.
Made of inexpensive raw materials, the catalyst was developed by a team from Rice University in Texas, Syzygy Plasmonics Inc., and Princeton University in New Jersey.
I am not surprised, as I am a great believer in the power of catalysts.
In Hydrogen Fuel Cells Could Get A Lot Cheaper With Newly Developed Iron Catalyst, I wrote.
In the early 1970s, I worked with one of ICI’s catalyst experts and he said, that improvements in this area will be large in the future.
Increasingly, I see his prediction being proved right, in the varied fields, where catalysts are used.
It may be over fifty years ago, but then scientific truths don’t fade away and die. They just sit there quietly waiting to be rediscovered.
It is worth looking at the Syzygy Plasmonics web site.
Under a heading of Deep Decarbonisation For Chemical Manufacturing, this is their mission statement.
Syzygy is commercializing a deep-decarbonization platform dedicated to cleaning up the emissions-heavy chemical industry. We use breakthrough technology pioneered in the Laboratory for Nanophotonics at Rice University to harness energy from LED light to power chemical reactions. This new technology has the potential to partially or fully electrify the chemical industry, shifting it to renewable electricity, and cost-effectively reducing its carbon footprint.
The energy transition is here. The time to act is now.
That is some mission statement! But possibly one to expect from Houston.
Highview Power In The Daily Express
This article in the Daily Express is entitled The Storage Sites Around The UK That Could Provide Cheap Power To Millions Of Homes.
Highview Power gets a large mention for its plan for twenty storage sites around the UK.
This is said about their planned sites at Carrington and on Humberside.
It is hoped that the first plant, a £250million Manchester station, will come online as early as 2024. It will have a 30megawatts capacity, able to store 300megawatt hours of electricity, enough to supply 600,000 homes with clean power for an hour.
The next plants will be even larger in scale, with four a five planned for Humberside with a 200megawatt/2.5gigwatt hour capacity. The CRYOBattery site would be able to store excess energy generated by the Dogger Bank, Hornsea and Sofia wind farms.
There is also a comprehensive map, with sites indicated at places like Aberdeen, Anglesey, Inverness, Liverpool, Montrose, Norfolk and Sizewell.
The sites seem to be following the wind, which is where excess power needs to be stored and released, when the wind is on strike.
Bananas And Me
According to my mother, I didn’t see or taste a banana until I was seven.
That would have been 1954, which is when rationing ended.
The Wikipedia entry entitled Rationing In The UK is a valuable resource.
Bananas had been available since 1945, although they had not been imported during the war.
I had been born in 1947, with my sister born in 1950. As my paternal grandmother lived with us, we were a family of five.
So I suspect, that although they were available my mother didn’t buy them for some reason.
The Wikipedia entry has a section called Political Reaction, which talked about reaction to rationing after the war. This is said.
In the late 1940s, the Conservative Party utilised and encouraged growing public anger at rationing, scarcity, controls, austerity and government bureaucracy to rally middle-class supporters and build a political comeback that won the 1951 general election. Their appeal was especially effective to housewives, who faced more difficult shopping conditions after the war than during it.
My father had been politically active before World War II, but he was much more politically agnostic after the war, judging by some things he said to me. I can’t ever remember my mother saying anything political, although I can remember her saying something, which agreed with the last sentence of the Wikipedia extract.
I suspect she was under pressure from my grandmother, so perhaps she kept the shopping light because of rationing.
Anyway, I can remember her telling my wife that my face had been a picture when I saw and ate my first banana.
I’ve not stopped eating them since.
- I generally eat between one and three every day.
- I have problems with fruit that needs to be cut up because of my gammy left hand, so for pineapple, melon and mango, I usually buy them ready-cut in pots from Marks and Spencer.
- I also eat a lot of berries, when they are in season.
But, I never eat oranges, apples or pears, except in a processed form.
Bananas And My Family
As far, as I can check, I’m the only one of my family, who likes bananas and eats them regularly.
I have checked on two sons and my granddaughter and none seem to like them.
Could it be my mother’s denial of the fruit to me until rationing ended, gave me a love of the fruit?
Bananas And Coeliacs
This page on the Harvard University School of Public Health gives the nutrition facts about bananas.
This is the second paragraph.
The scientific name for banana is Musa, from the Musaceae family of flowering tropical plants, which distinctively showcases the banana fruit clustered at the top of the plant. The mild-tasting and disease-resistant Cavendish type is the main variety sold in the U.S. and Europe. Despite some negative attention, bananas are nutritious and may even carry the title of the first “superfood,” endorsed by the American Medical Association in the early 20th century as a health food for children and a treatment for celiac disease.
Now there’s a thing.
This page on the Gluten-Free Watchdog is entitled Early Dietary Treatment for Celiac Disease: The Banana Diet.
I’d never heard of this diet until yesterday.
Interestingly, a large banana contains 50 mg of vitamin B6 according to Dr. Google.
I take a B6 supplement and I wrote about the advice I received from a doctor at a respected medical university in Amsterdam in Vitamin B Complex for Coeliacs.
I
Small Nuclear Power Plants To Replace Gas In Quest For Net Zero
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on The Times.
I was very much involved in the writing of project management software in the last three decades of the last century and if there’s one thing we’re generally good at in the UK, it’s complex project management.
Usually problems arise because of political or ignorant senior management meddling.
Our Energy Saviours
I believe our two energy saviours will be floating offshore wind and small nuclear reactors (SMRs) and both need good project management to be built successfully on production lines.
So I don’t see any reason, why we can’t build large numbers of floating offshore wind farms to supply our electricity.
They are also complimentary, in that the fleet of SMRs back up the wind.
Floating Wind First
Floating wind is likely to be developed at scale first, as certifying anything involving nuclear will take an inordinate time.
The electricity from floating wind farms will keep us going, but it is also starting to develop a nice line in exports.
This press release from Drax is entitled Britain Sending Europe Power Lifeline – Report, where this is the sub-title.
For the first time in over a decade, Britain became a net exporter of electricity to its European neighbours, making around £1.5bn for the economy in three months.
Note.
- The report was written by Imperial College.
- Two new interconnectors; Viking Link and NeuConnect between the UK and Europe are under construction.
- Several large wind farms are under construction and will be commissioned in 2023/24 and could add over 4 GW to UK electricity production.
Exports will only get better.
A Sprint For Wind
So we must have a sprint for wind, which will then provide the cash flow to allow the SMRs to roll in.
Or will that be too much for the ultra-greens, who would object to cash-flow from GWs of wind being used to fund SMRs?
Avanti West Coast Applies For Second Hourly Euston And Liverpool Service
Tucked away beside the Grand Union Sets Out Stirling Ambitions article in the December 2022 Edition of Modern Railways is a report on Avanti West Coast’s application for a second service between Euston and Liverpool.
This is said.
Avanti West Coast has applied for access rights for its second hourly Euston to Liverpool service, starting from December 2023, although a phased introduction of the new service is likely. This would make use of Avanti’s new fleet of 10×7-car Class 807 Hitachi EMUs, which are expected to enter service from Autumn 2023. The ‘807s’ would be deployed on the current hourly Liverpool service, on which a call at Liverpool South Parkway would be added. (provision is made for this in the December 2022 timetable.).
Pendelinos would then operate the second service each hour, calling at Lichfield Trent Valley and Tamworth.
A linespeed project is in progress to raise the permissible speed for non-tilting trains on the West Coast Main Line, and Avanti’s new Hitachi trains will take advantage of this.
In Will Avanti West Coast’s New Trains Be Able To Achieve London Euston and Liverpool Lime Street In Two Hours?, I laid out my reasoning for a two-hour journey between Euston and Liverpool Lime Street.
I’m not sure, if they will reduce the time to two hours, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they do.
The Celtic Cluster Launches New Regional Strategy To Maximise Offshore Wind Benefits
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.
This is the sub-heading.
The Celtic Sea Cluster has released a new Regional Strategy that outlines how Wales and South West England can maximise floating offshore wind technology benefits, in line with the forthcoming Celtic Sea leasing process being delivered by the Crown Estate.
Who comprise the Celtic Cluster? This paragraph gives the answer.
According to the Cluster, which is led by its founding partners, the Welsh Government, Cornwall, Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership, Celtic Sea Power, Marine Energy Wales, and the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult, the strategy will allow the region’s stakeholders to ensure their activities are aligned and can achieve their common objectives.
I am surprised the Irish aren’t involved politically.
- The Irish Republic has a coastline on the Celtic Sea.
- There are a lot of Irish companies, finance and engineers involved in wind farm development.
But the cluster does have a firm ambition, according to the article.
The Cluster’s ambition is to establish the Celtic Sea region as a world leader in floating offshore wind by 2030 and to deliver 4 GW of floating wind in the Celtic Sea by 2035, with the potential to grow to 20 GW by 2045.
Note.
- The Wikipedia entry for the Celtic Sea, gives the sea an area of 300,000 km2.
- 20 GW or 20,000 MW is to be installed by 2045.
That is an energy density of just 0.067 MW/km2.
In ScotWind Offshore Wind Leasing Delivers Major Boost To Scotland’s Net Zero Aspirations, I calculated that ten floating wind farms had an average energy density of about 3.5 MW per km².
I wouldn’t bet against a few more floating wind turbines being squeezed into the Celtic Sea.
Grand Union Sets Out Stirling Ambitions
The title of this post, is the same as that of an article in the December 2022 Edition of Modern Railways.
This is the first paragraph.
Grand Union Trains has updated its plans to operate services between Stirling and London Euston. It is targeting a 10-year track access agreement with services starting in May 2025.
I have a few thoughts.
The Route
The route between Stirling and Euston is as follows.
- Trains will call at Larbert, Greenfauds, Whifflet, Motherwell, Lockerbie, Carlisle, Preston, Nuneaton and Milton Keynes.
- Station upgrades are proposed for Larbert, Greenfauds, Whifflet and Lockerbie.
- The route is fully-electrified.
- There will be four trains per day in both directions, with a slightly reduced service on Saturday evenings and Sunday mornings.
This sentence from the article sums up the philosophy of Grand Union Trains.
The company says the aim is to link towns which have no or limited long-distance services and to improve connectivity for some station pairs on the West Coast Main Line.
Note.
Currently Larbert, Greenfauds and Whifflet don’t have services running past Stirling or Motherwell.
- Currently, Nuneaton and Milton Keynes have no Scottish services.
- Nuneaton is well connected to Peterborough and the East.
- Milton Keynes will be on the East-West Railway to Oxford and Cambridge.
It looks to be a service that has been well-planned and offers good possibilities for travel.
The Trains
The article says this about the trains.
New bi-mode rolling stock would be used and GUT says discussions with potential suppliers and manufacturers are ongoing.
Why Are Bi-Mode Trains Needed?
I can think of these reasons.
- Grand Union Trains want to run their South Wales services with the same trains.
- They might want to extend Scottish services from Stirling to perhaps Perth or Dundee.
- They want to offer a reliable service, when the electrification is damaged.
Bi-mode trains will certainly offer flexibility and reliability.
How Long Will The Trains Be?
Consider.
- An eleven-car Class 390/1 train is 265.3 metres long.
- A pair if five-car Class 802 trains is 260 metres long.
I suspect a train has a maximum length of 260 metres and these can be run between London Euston and Stirling.
Could it be that station upgrades are needed for Larbert, Greenfauds, Whifflet and Lockerbie, is that these stations have short platforms?
Could the trains and platforms start short and grow with the business?
The Trains Will Have Three Classes
These classes will be offered.
- First Class in compartments
- Standard in a 2+1 arrangement
- Standard Economy in a 2+2 arrangement
You pays your money and you make your choice.
Vanload Freight May Be Carried
Consider.
- There has been a lot of speculation and some serious train conversions, looking at the possibilities of high speed freight.
- Imagine a train of perhaps five passenger cars and one freight car for containerised freight.
- I suggested earlier, that the trains might grow with the business.
- As business develops, extra cars can be added as appropriate.
- If business booms, then it might be best to run separate passenger and freight services.
Modern trains and refurbished older ones, offer a multitude of solutions.
The Finance
The article says this about finance.
Grand Union Trains has linked with European independent investment firm Serena Industrial Partners to support its ambitions for its new Great Western service, and the project is supported by Spanish operator RENFE.
Serena Industrial Partners are Spanish, so does that mean, that the trains could be Spanish too?
World’s First 16 MW Offshore Wind Turbine Rolls Off Production Line
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.
This is the subtitle and the first paragraph, that add some detail.
The first nacelle for a 16 MW offshore wind turbine jointly developed by China Three Gorges Corporation and Goldwind Technology has rolled off the production line at Fujian Three Gorges Offshore Wind Power International Industrial Park in China.
According to China Three Gorges, the unit has the largest single capacity, the largest rotor diameter, and the lightest weight per megawatt in the world.
The West, is going to push hard to make sure, we don’t give away another industry to the Chinese.
Google Buys Scottish Offshore Wind Power
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.
This is the sub-heading and the first paragraph.
ENGIE and Google have entered into a 12-year, 100 MW corporate power purchase agreement (CPPA) supporting the Moray West offshore wind development in Scotland.
ENGIE will provide Google with more than 5 TWh of green power from the Moray West project, a nearly 900 MW offshore wind farm set to begin generating power from 2025.
Increasingly, it seems that large energy users are committing themselves to long-term energy deals.
One of Google’s senior people is quoted as saying.
People across the UK and Europe are increasingly worried about climate change and energy security. We share that concern and believe technology is an important part of the solution – both by reducing our own emissions, and by helping others to reduce their own.
I have a few thoughts.
How Much Of Moray West’s Output Is 5 TWh?
Consider.
- Moray West has an maximum output of 882 MW.
- This converts to 7.73 TWh.
If Google are buying all the electricity produced by the wind farm, that would mean that the capacity factor is around 64.7 %, which is quite reasonable, if a bit high for a fixed foundation wind farm.
If we are, it does surely reflect a desire for stability and security in a fast-changing world.
Are We Seeing More Corporate Power Purchase Agreements (CPPAs)?
The Anonymous Widower 