JohanEmpa

JohanEmpa, 9 months ago

If nuclear was better than coal, then countries with coal mines would have stopped mining coal in the 80s. They didn't. Coal was better for the economy, but coal isn't an option any more.

#coal #nuclear

JohanEmpa, 9 months ago

If nuclear was better than renewables we would see increased nuclear capacity when coal plants are shut down. We don't.

Instead we see countries actively trying to add nuclear capacity and failing. Renewables are better for the economy.

#renewables #nuclear

JohanEmpa, 9 months ago

@martijn What does Elon's app has to do with anything? 😂

JohanEmpa, 9 months ago

@martijn If the task was to choose the (economically) best option and y was chosen, then x is the worse option. It doesn't hold if it's flipping a coin, but when the choice was made over decades in several independent countries it has to tell us something. Okay there's a national security aspect to it and so on, but overall it does say something that coal stayed when nuclear arrived.

JohanEmpa, 9 months ago

@denspier All of that is important to recognise, but step one is to make sure we agree to exclude the really bad types of energy. 😁 There are some cons that weigh much heavier than many pros together. Nuclear waste and CO2 emissions for example.

JohanEmpa, 9 months ago

@adelgado The combination of canopies giving shade and generating electricity would be pretty good.

JohanEmpa, 9 months ago

@adelgado I assume these solar films are too expensive for everyone except companies pioneering it, but they seem to have the potential to be mass produced.

On the same theme, having regular solar panels on the roof and running the AC on that will become common. It's amazing how we invented a way to solve the problem of too much sun by using the sun to remove the heat.

JohanEmpa, 9 months ago

The interesting thing is that battery trains can have short sections with overhead wires where they charge.

I believe that will arrive on some tram, bus and truck routes in the future.

JohanEmpa, 9 months ago

@Hypx It's pretty nice to buy a smaller battery and top up halfway.

The diesel routes already have some bits with electrical overhead wires.

They sometimes share the track with an electrical train. In the depot and perhaps on some stations along the way. The article mentions it as a reason for choosing battery over hydrogen. Because the electrical connection exist it's relatively easy to extend it enough to top up.

I also think there may be a lack of green hydrogen. Need renewable fuel 🤷

JohanEmpa, 9 months ago

@Hypx If it was cheaper to electrify they wouldn't buy 102 battery trains would they?

JohanEmpa, 9 months ago

@Hypx It's pretty clear that renewable electricity is better than CO2-emitting blue hydrogen. It's okay to make irrational decisions if it's good for the climate and also the cheapest option.

I recently learned that UK is going all in on blue hydrogen, and it wouldn't surprise me if half of USA is going that route too but with fracked blue H2, or even gray H2.

Renewable electricity isn't bad at all if the alternative is fossil H2

JohanEmpa, 9 months ago

@Hypx They ordered 14 hydrogen locomotives 2018 for testing. They wouldn't have done that if hydrogen wasn't part of the consideration, would they?

Now they're buying 102 battery locomotives, they wouldn't do that if it was feasible to fully electrify the lines.

Why do you think H2 shouldn't be a consideration on a partly electrified rail line?

Nearly all remaining diesel rail lines in the EU must be like the ones we're talking about.

From that point of view the German tests are influential

JohanEmpa, 9 months ago

@Hypx
You can't compare Californian railways with German railways. It's stone age vs the Nintendo 8-bit console.

They bought 14 hydrogen locomotives and then decided to stop that and go with 100+ battery ones. It's the same situation and the better solution won.

The credible arguments you're looking for are. A green hydrogen setup is more expensive and any other hydrogen isn't acceptable for railways. Fully electrifying the very last rail lines isn't feasible, but batteries are.

JohanEmpa, 9 months ago

@peterdutoit Introducing a CO2 cap and charging 268 $ per tonne over that seems to work in New York.

JohanEmpa, 9 months ago

Cheat sheet
2-3 cm is ²⁵/₃₂ inch to 1 ³/₁₆ inch.
1 cm is ²⁵/₆₄ inch

#inch #CheatSheet

JohanEmpa, 9 months ago

I can't believe USA is using these units 😄 Why not say 2,54 mm instead of 1 inch?

JohanEmpa, 9 months ago

@matt @patpro I like how the dl measure fills the same function as the cup in recipies.

Have you ever had any issues with the decimal separator being a dot in UK and (probably) a comma in Norway? It messes up my spreadsheets sometimes.

JohanEmpa, 9 months ago

@sciencebase
I see you're a British science writer. Excellent. The decimal comma isn't a problem, is it? :trollface:

It's part of my new European English style guide, because 99,8 % of people use decimal comma.

Soon I'll have more useful improvements ready. 😇

JohanEmpa, 9 months ago

@sciencebase Good blog` Precision is important´´´we need to get it right!

JohanEmpa, 9 months ago

@sciencebase Annoyingly I own a "yardstick" and in addition to cm it has inches. The bloody thing is called "inch-stick", but translated into Swedish words. I just checked and yes it's 1/16th inch.

There are efforts to rename it into measuring-stick, but progress is slow.

2.5 cm per inch looks wrong at 8 inch and outright British ("mind the gap") at 20 inch. It must be 2,54 to line up 😄