The opening four notes of Beethoven’s Vth - the Fate Symphony - are often referred to as “Death knocking”. Appropriate.
Britains last coal power station actually was previously mothballed rather than shut down - there in case of emergency need. It has been fired up a few times to keep the lights on a number of times in Winter when the pesky wind wasn’t cooperating. But the cost of keeping it in reserve is too much for the operators. Without it as stalwart back-up, with gas powered operators reluctant to invest to update or build new - well, it’s going to get interesting. Fate will decide.
It’s interesting - those who write in enthusiastic tones about BEVs, I wonder if they would expect ICEVs to be a success in Countries where there are very few petrol/diesel stations, with unreliable supply of motor fuels? The focus is the purchase cost of BEVs, but they entirely ignore their practicality in the absence of the grid infrastructure to service them.
I've heard the reference to the opening of 5th as "fate knocking on the door". In any case, easily one of the most dramatic openings lines ever. Just compare that with the 9th, that subtle hunting for notes that suddenly condense into the first musical theme, like the realisation dawning on BEVs folks that not all is well with the world (as they imagined...)
I anticipate some pushback to this nonsense if, or when, Trump regains the leadership role in the 'Free World'. Experts are so full of it, whether in energy, health or education, they can't help themselves. Idiocracy.
News just in. You’ll like this Irina, one for your hilarity parade - the UK’ energy Czar Ed Minibrain, has the solution for shutting down the coal power station and the intermittency problem… giant flywheels. These will be built in Norway since the last iron & steel works shut down last week courtesy of Ed, so we can’t make them ourselves. The flywheels will of course store wind energy when the wind is blowing, to give us power when it isn’t. A tiny matter - how to arrange wind blowing when we need to make those flywheels fly. Well we shall import electricity from Norway too - they have lots. We’d better stay friends with the Vikings.
Oh my word. Milibean has blown what's left of his cred. Flywheels. OK......
This was tried multiple times in the automotive sector. Volvo Bus even has a 750 kg monster at one point. Other solutions quickly eclipsed the supposed benefit, with or without running a flywheel inside a vacuum chamber.
“We’ve all assumed that..." - Denial isn't a river in Egypt (and Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda)
Set up a small splash site and got 50 'manufacturers' to appeal to the EU27 Commission (who help fund T&E) to keep the 2035 ban on new internal combustion engine powered light vehicle sales.
There were many companies.
Tesco (a food retailer), IKEA (who manufacture stuff that's never finished), 'start-ups' and charge station retailers / manufacturers (known collectively as spivs).
There were 3 vehicle manufacturers.
Volvo Car (owned by Geely).
Polestar (owned by Geely)
Rivian (made famous by VWG buying software from them at $1 billion per year over 5 years).
CCP needs cash. It needs to rip off EU customers by charging twice to three times the domestic price for BEVs, since their domestic brands can't build internal combustion engines except by copying them. T&E. Now part funded by the CCP?
I got involved in a big flywheel project in California 10 years ago. It never got built, of course, but we did manage to send them some rather large consulting bills, so it was a great success as far as I’m concerned. I saw the drawings and specs. Those flywheels were to be huge and weigh 100,000 pounds. They would turn at 50,000 rpm. Five of these were to be placed in an industrial park just outside a small city. After looking at the drawings and doing a little math, all I could think about was what if one of these things gets loose?
They just keep rehashing the old scams, over and over again. Like Hydrogen. I remember even George W. Bush pushing the H2 scam, and Big Oil resurrected it for a while. Then it faded away and they brought it back again. Same thing with flywheels. They let it fade into obscurity and then they resurrect it. Real spin doctors, political methodology moving into the engineering field.
I don’t know about rim speed. As I recall they were 12 feet in diameter, so pretty fast.
These were to operate in a vacuum. You are right about bearings. Clearly ball or roller bearings are out of the question. I think these guys had some nitrogen cooled high pressure gas journal bearings. I never understood it. I’m not sure they did. We were there to help figure what would happen at the grid connection as the things slowed down. The utility needed a lot of reassurance. I’m not sure I fully understood that either. Glad it didn’t get built. Our malpractice insurance might have taken a hit.
I would posit that Bloomberg and other journalist adjacent platforms are completely in the cognitive dissonance, malevolence, intentional ignorance trifecta camp. It's just not possible to be honest and write what these outfits do in a consistent way over time.
Ponder this - while closing the last coal plant normally would be good for USA LNG, the biden misadministration is trying to close down LNG projects previously approved and permitted.
So won't it be quite the shock when US LNG terminals come online, but gas production growth doesn't match demand from the countries that have become dependent on it? Both the US and their overseas customers will be adjusting plans yet again. When sorting through the constituencies that are "printing their books", remember that higher prices are GOOD for producers. So promoting natural gas as "affordable, abundant, and cheap" (for now) is the right note to strike in the ongoing symphony of the energy transition. When that last big data center turns on its new gas fired power plant to help me write my emails, and everything else, that marginal molecule won't be so cheap anymore.
I'm still a free markets person to the extent that I believe price will make the decision as to what energy demand will be in the future, and what types of energy we'll be using. It's gonna be a bumpy ride.
"This is how we end up with “European carmakers brace for a deeper and longer downturn”. Because professionals whose job, it bears repeating, is to distinguish between what is possible and what is impossible, for some reason choose to believe that impossible things are possible."
Irina, oh ye of little faith.
“Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.'
I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. There goes the shawl again!”
― Lewis Carroll
clearly the ability to believe in impossible things is a defining characteristic of the climate's.
I pity the poor folks in Europe and the UK as their political class steadily destroys their own economies in order to virtue signal more strongly.
Sometimes, when it's 05:00 and I find that all my 48 substacks have posted new items I feel unequal to the task. But I always smile whenever I live long enough to get to yours.
Applaud you on your opine Irina, on the trials and tribulations of Rebuildables, sorry keep forgetting Renewable Energy Converters (REC’s) and EV’s and the rest. This whole transition to REC’s is a complete farce, in short it ‘Ain’t Gonna Happen’. A good judge of WT’s, PVP’s and supporting infrastructure, yes like spinning flywheels will be an increase in use of FREE FINITE Flammable Fossils (FFFF’s), as there isn’t one piece of these REC’s that doesn’t require FFFF’s for them to come into existence. And you’d have to be a clueless moron not to understand REC’s will never take the place of FFFF’s as the create their own Red Queen Syndrome, as before they get anywhere near that 20% of electricity supplied by Grid, those REC’s in 30 to 40 years time, if your lucky, will need replacing. It’s a bad thought out elephant of an energy transition chasing its tail. What’s even worse is that precious FFFF are being rapidly depleted, taking us towards that fateful day when FFFF’s are no longer cheap or available to everyone, think wars, for access, and famine leading to mass human migration. There’s a great, but horrific, book on this theme by Kurt Dahl “An American Famine - A Rossetti Stone for the coming collapse” which in the most part could be applied across the world🤔
After a track record of so many years I guess my only question is how anyone can read Bloomberg and not just assume the exact opposite of what they say is happening?
The opening four notes of Beethoven’s Vth - the Fate Symphony - are often referred to as “Death knocking”. Appropriate.
Britains last coal power station actually was previously mothballed rather than shut down - there in case of emergency need. It has been fired up a few times to keep the lights on a number of times in Winter when the pesky wind wasn’t cooperating. But the cost of keeping it in reserve is too much for the operators. Without it as stalwart back-up, with gas powered operators reluctant to invest to update or build new - well, it’s going to get interesting. Fate will decide.
It’s interesting - those who write in enthusiastic tones about BEVs, I wonder if they would expect ICEVs to be a success in Countries where there are very few petrol/diesel stations, with unreliable supply of motor fuels? The focus is the purchase cost of BEVs, but they entirely ignore their practicality in the absence of the grid infrastructure to service them.
Brilliantly put.
I've heard the reference to the opening of 5th as "fate knocking on the door". In any case, easily one of the most dramatic openings lines ever. Just compare that with the 9th, that subtle hunting for notes that suddenly condense into the first musical theme, like the realisation dawning on BEVs folks that not all is well with the world (as they imagined...)
I'll never forgive the EU for appropriating the Ode to Joy. The irony!
I wasn't aware of that reference. Fitting. Yes, let's leave everything to fate and the weather. Responsible.
I anticipate some pushback to this nonsense if, or when, Trump regains the leadership role in the 'Free World'. Experts are so full of it, whether in energy, health or education, they can't help themselves. Idiocracy.
News just in. You’ll like this Irina, one for your hilarity parade - the UK’ energy Czar Ed Minibrain, has the solution for shutting down the coal power station and the intermittency problem… giant flywheels. These will be built in Norway since the last iron & steel works shut down last week courtesy of Ed, so we can’t make them ourselves. The flywheels will of course store wind energy when the wind is blowing, to give us power when it isn’t. A tiny matter - how to arrange wind blowing when we need to make those flywheels fly. Well we shall import electricity from Norway too - they have lots. We’d better stay friends with the Vikings.
Oh my word. Milibean has blown what's left of his cred. Flywheels. OK......
This was tried multiple times in the automotive sector. Volvo Bus even has a 750 kg monster at one point. Other solutions quickly eclipsed the supposed benefit, with or without running a flywheel inside a vacuum chamber.
Oh, but I've included the flywheels... after I regained my mental faculties, temporarily lost to the shock. A true hero of ingenuity, that man.
“We’ve all assumed that..." - Denial isn't a river in Egypt (and Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda)
T&E....
Set up a small splash site and got 50 'manufacturers' to appeal to the EU27 Commission (who help fund T&E) to keep the 2035 ban on new internal combustion engine powered light vehicle sales.
There were many companies.
Tesco (a food retailer), IKEA (who manufacture stuff that's never finished), 'start-ups' and charge station retailers / manufacturers (known collectively as spivs).
There were 3 vehicle manufacturers.
Volvo Car (owned by Geely).
Polestar (owned by Geely)
Rivian (made famous by VWG buying software from them at $1 billion per year over 5 years).
CCP needs cash. It needs to rip off EU customers by charging twice to three times the domestic price for BEVs, since their domestic brands can't build internal combustion engines except by copying them. T&E. Now part funded by the CCP?
I got involved in a big flywheel project in California 10 years ago. It never got built, of course, but we did manage to send them some rather large consulting bills, so it was a great success as far as I’m concerned. I saw the drawings and specs. Those flywheels were to be huge and weigh 100,000 pounds. They would turn at 50,000 rpm. Five of these were to be placed in an industrial park just outside a small city. After looking at the drawings and doing a little math, all I could think about was what if one of these things gets loose?
Or throws fragments. What was the rim speed?
Operating in a vacuum may reduce friction, but there are still bearings.
Regardless of such details, momentum is such a low density way to store energy.
They just keep rehashing the old scams, over and over again. Like Hydrogen. I remember even George W. Bush pushing the H2 scam, and Big Oil resurrected it for a while. Then it faded away and they brought it back again. Same thing with flywheels. They let it fade into obscurity and then they resurrect it. Real spin doctors, political methodology moving into the engineering field.
flywheels ... spin doctors. Heh. I see what you did there. :-)
I see no reason for such questions. They sound perfectly safe. Cheap, too, I'm sure.
I don’t know about rim speed. As I recall they were 12 feet in diameter, so pretty fast.
These were to operate in a vacuum. You are right about bearings. Clearly ball or roller bearings are out of the question. I think these guys had some nitrogen cooled high pressure gas journal bearings. I never understood it. I’m not sure they did. We were there to help figure what would happen at the grid connection as the things slowed down. The utility needed a lot of reassurance. I’m not sure I fully understood that either. Glad it didn’t get built. Our malpractice insurance might have taken a hit.
I guess they will need a nuclear grade containment dome built around them. And we know those are cheap to build…
This is all just rehashing bad ideas from the 2000s that were tried and didn’t work.
Yeah, but that's only because in the 2000s, they weren't done RIGHT.
I would posit that Bloomberg and other journalist adjacent platforms are completely in the cognitive dissonance, malevolence, intentional ignorance trifecta camp. It's just not possible to be honest and write what these outfits do in a consistent way over time.
Oh, I suspect many of them actually believe what they write. Once you internalise the dissonance, it's easy, or so I imagine.
Ponder this - while closing the last coal plant normally would be good for USA LNG, the biden misadministration is trying to close down LNG projects previously approved and permitted.
So won't it be quite the shock when US LNG terminals come online, but gas production growth doesn't match demand from the countries that have become dependent on it? Both the US and their overseas customers will be adjusting plans yet again. When sorting through the constituencies that are "printing their books", remember that higher prices are GOOD for producers. So promoting natural gas as "affordable, abundant, and cheap" (for now) is the right note to strike in the ongoing symphony of the energy transition. When that last big data center turns on its new gas fired power plant to help me write my emails, and everything else, that marginal molecule won't be so cheap anymore.
I'm still a free markets person to the extent that I believe price will make the decision as to what energy demand will be in the future, and what types of energy we'll be using. It's gonna be a bumpy ride.
I'd laugh if I wasn't crying :).
"This is how we end up with “European carmakers brace for a deeper and longer downturn”. Because professionals whose job, it bears repeating, is to distinguish between what is possible and what is impossible, for some reason choose to believe that impossible things are possible."
Irina, oh ye of little faith.
“Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.'
I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. There goes the shawl again!”
― Lewis Carroll
clearly the ability to believe in impossible things is a defining characteristic of the climate's.
I pity the poor folks in Europe and the UK as their political class steadily destroys their own economies in order to virtue signal more strongly.
Great quote, and one of my favourite!
Sometimes, when it's 05:00 and I find that all my 48 substacks have posted new items I feel unequal to the task. But I always smile whenever I live long enough to get to yours.
Thank you, that's very kind of you. :)
Applaud you on your opine Irina, on the trials and tribulations of Rebuildables, sorry keep forgetting Renewable Energy Converters (REC’s) and EV’s and the rest. This whole transition to REC’s is a complete farce, in short it ‘Ain’t Gonna Happen’. A good judge of WT’s, PVP’s and supporting infrastructure, yes like spinning flywheels will be an increase in use of FREE FINITE Flammable Fossils (FFFF’s), as there isn’t one piece of these REC’s that doesn’t require FFFF’s for them to come into existence. And you’d have to be a clueless moron not to understand REC’s will never take the place of FFFF’s as the create their own Red Queen Syndrome, as before they get anywhere near that 20% of electricity supplied by Grid, those REC’s in 30 to 40 years time, if your lucky, will need replacing. It’s a bad thought out elephant of an energy transition chasing its tail. What’s even worse is that precious FFFF are being rapidly depleted, taking us towards that fateful day when FFFF’s are no longer cheap or available to everyone, think wars, for access, and famine leading to mass human migration. There’s a great, but horrific, book on this theme by Kurt Dahl “An American Famine - A Rossetti Stone for the coming collapse” which in the most part could be applied across the world🤔
After a track record of so many years I guess my only question is how anyone can read Bloomberg and not just assume the exact opposite of what they say is happening?