Round trip conversion efficiency of electrolytic hydrogen production

No reason for booze in root beer. Ice cream works perfectly well. Even Diet Mug and Edy's no-sugar-added ice cream is good (and reasonably low calorie).

I've always wondered about that. Which is cheaper, shipping electric power, or shipping the raw materials? There was an Eastalco plant in Maryland because they were getting subsidized rates by the power company. At some point the power company decided not to do that anymore and the aluminum company moved out, I believe to Canada. I suppose they moved to a location with good access to seaports, but I don't know. I always wondered why they couldn't buy power from anyone they wanted instead of abandoning an entire factory.

As some irony, at one time there was interest in using some of the property for a power plant.

Do you know why US coke does not have real sugar ?

They moved out because the people who ran the company could not stand Maryland. I am surprised anyone lives there. Fucked up laws, f***ed up taxes and fees, kinda like Massachusetts.

Probably because it's too expensive, and it's too expensive because of protectionist laws.

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The most popular "renewable" source is hydroelectric power, and keeping the water in a dam is 100% efficient.

The charm of thermal solar is that if you collect the heat on a sufficientl y large scale, you can fill well insulated tanks with molten salts (mostly a mixture of sodium and potassium nitrate) as tap off the molten salt to ra ise steam when you want it.

Big tanks can have very long thermal time constants.

The way the free market in power works, people who provide instant reaction top-up power, like hydro stations and gas-turbine powered generating plant s, get paid huge rates for the power they supply. Batteries would cut into that market, and enough of them would destroy it. Hydro-power is still usef ul as a base-line provider, but a gas-turbine powered generating plant isn' t competitive as a baseline source, unless it gets it's gas from a sewage p lant or composting scheme.

Pumped storage is typically under mountains. What the greenies don't see they don't get upset about.

Everything has to fall into place: cheap electric rates, low shipping costs of raw material, favorable economic environments (reasonable environmental, tax and tariff laws).

China and Russia dominate aluminum production, surprisingly.

(or, if you don't trust Wikipedia,)

Michael

Sure, that's an easy one. There isn't that much cane sugar made. Seriously.

I had a daddy-in-law who was a cajun sugar cane farmer in Louisiana. He made a fortune when the price of sugar spiked. Sugar is subsidized and protected by the government, so when there was a shortage imports couldn't be brought in to dampen the bubble.

The first-press sugar, light brown, unwashed, was wonderful in coffee, similar to the "turbinado" sugar that you can buy now (and is more expensive than the bleached stuff!)

Yes, protectionist laws in countries down south with which the US f***ed back in the early 1900s. The US has no shortage of enemies down there, but they are mellowing a bit.

Not any protectionist laws of the US. In fact it bugs the people that run this country that they can't use more HFCS because of the demand or ethanol to dilute our gasoline.

Sugar is a poison actually, but it is not as bad as aspartame or HFCS. the cane producing coutries do not have the US on a "most favored nation" status because of the US' incursions down there.

They might never forget, and you know what ? Aspartame and HFCS are hurting the people in the US. Talk about an insidious (and really indirect and maybe even not conscious) way to win a war.

Ne'er a shot fired.

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grid-scale-batteries/

ahh OK.. and from the end of the article, "The world?s second largest battery by rated power is an advanced l ead-acid battery in Goldsmith, TX.

The Notrees Wind Storage Demonstration Project was developed in a joint par tnership between Duke Energy and Xtreme Power, a grid-scale energy storage provider that declared bankruptcy on Thursday."

Bankrupt... was that because of the battery storage or something else?

George H.

They had pocketed all the government grants. ...Jim Thompson

d lead-acid battery in Goldsmith, TX.

partnership between Duke Energy and Xtreme Power, a grid-scale energy stora ge provider that declared bankruptcy on Thursday."

And, in return, they 'demonstated wind storage' just as the project name de scribes. What is the bankruptcy court to make of the world's second largest battery, as an asset to be liquidated?

The government grants, if any, didn't just go into salaries, of course; The y also bought a really big battery. Maybe Duke Energy will get full custody of that little item, though:: it'd be hard to sell (shipping costs, you know).

I just checked: it's not listed on eBay yet.

Yeah, taxes sure are f***ed up in Massachusetts - for the poor. We have one of the most regressive sales and property tax structures in the country.