Lithium batteries, not worth it

Is that the idiot who uses pretty colours for his text?

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:

A very accessible introduction to the physics of energy (for an educated layman) and the difficulties in maintaining the historic exponential growth in energy production/consumption.

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

2C8H18 + 25O2 -> 16CO2 + 18H2O

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

And, of course, storage and efficiency of combustion are factors.

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.

You can liquify it, and carry it around in well-insulated tanks, as people do with liquid nitrogen.

He's nuts. Ammonia is much more practical and entirely carbon free (not that the way we make it at the moment is carbon-free).

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"

"Recharges with a squirt of methanol" -- video from 13 years ago, so *that* technology didn't make it to the consumer...

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.

2 pounds, 3 watts. If you're camping, turn off your phone.

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

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

300 peak in real life) that also has a USB outlet. Better than jumper cables!

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.