We all live in a beautiful world...

Why ignore it?

Why spoil it?!

By covering it in solar panels and wind farms.

Or industrially digging it up or pumping it dry or covering it up in pollution...

How do we save ourselves from ourselves?...

Los Angeles, Drill baby Drill!

... A good reminder of NOT the solution...


All on our only one planet,
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

... A good reminder of NOT the solution...

It has to organically cost more than another method. If it doesn't then nothing changes. Don't delude yourself that taxes can change the cost, think about smuggling and fraud.

Indications battery storage might not be the solution.

Fire at one of the world’s largest battery plants in California forces evacuations

MOSS LANDING, Calif. (AP) — Hundreds of people were ordered to evacuate and part of Highway 1 in Northern California was closed after a major fire erupted at one of the world’s largest battery storage plants.

The fire started Thursday afternoon and sent up towering flames and black smoke, and about 1,500 people were instructed to leave Moss Landing and the Elkhorn Slough area, The Mercury News reported. It showed no sign of easing by Thursday night.

The Moss Landing Power Plant, located about 77 miles (about 124 kilometers) south of San Francisco, is owned by Texas-company Vistra Energy and contains tens of thousands of lithium batteries. The batteries are important for storing electricity from such renewable energy sources as solar energy, but if they go up in flames the blazes can be extremely difficult to put out.

“There’s no way to sugar coat it. This is a disaster, is what it is,” Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church told KSBW-TV. But he said he did not expect the fire to spread beyond the concrete building it was enclosed in.

Indications battery storage might not be the solution.

Mankind did not come to this conclusion when the first jetliners (e.g. DH.106 Comet) crashed, killing dozens, due to unknown reasons.

Large oil storage facilities are dangerous as are refineries. It seems over time people learned how to mitigate fire hazards.

Would be interesting to know the basic setup of this battery plant. The (surely much smaller) battery plants which our transmission grid operator builds up here are placed in dozens of ISO containers, placed on concrete foundations with a significant safety distance between.

Another example: multiple large transformers in substations are typically separated by concrete walls between to stop a fire from spreading to nearby transformers.

Indications battery storage might not be the solution.

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3295145/los-angeles-burning-teslas-add-toxic-mix-pollution-delaying-return-fire-evacuees

As the smoke clears from devastating Los Angeles wildfires, efforts to clean up the affected areas are being complicated by burnt-out electric and hybrid vehicles and home-battery storage systems.
Lithium batteries from Tesla, along with those from other carmakers, have added to the mix of toxic materials requiring specialised removal in the wake of the fires. They will delay the fire victims’ return to their properties.

Way to go:


France's 2024 Electricity Production Hits 95%...
wrote:

In 2024, France achieved a record level of low-carbon electricity production, reaching 95% of its total electricity output ... driven by a rapid recovery in nuclear power and a record high in renewable energy production...

... Renewable energy sources contributed 27.6% of the total...

... Conversely, fossil fuel-based electricity production dropped to its lowest level since the early 1950s ... falling below solar production for the first time.

China's Installed Renewables Achieved Yet Another Record in 2024
wrote:

China broke its own record in installing renewable power in 2024, as the world’s top polluter continues to push its energy transition while the US shifts away from fighting climate change...

... The world’s second-largest economy added roughly 277 gigawatts of solar last year... It also added nearly 80 gigawatts of wind...

... The record installation means China has hit its 2030 renewables target six years early...

Solar farms are booming in the US and putting thousands of hungry sheep to work
wrote:

... 900 megawatts of power across 4,000 acres (1,618 hectares).

How do they manage all that grass? With the help of about 3,000 sheep, which are better suited than lawnmowers to fit between small crevices and chew away rain or shine.

The proliferation of sheep on solar farms is part of a broader trend — solar grazing — that has exploded alongside the solar industry.

Agrivoltaics, a method using land for both solar energy production and agriculture, is on the rise...

What a good idea!

All on our only one planet!!
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

This looks like good fun! Especially for progressive motorbikers!!


Aptera Says Its $40,000 Solar-Powered EV Is Finally Coming This Year. Should You Believe It?


Spectacular... Even if a little pricey.

Ideal for cruising along the long distance roads in the sun?


Have fun!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Ideal for cruising along the long distance roads in the sun?

Ehh... Martin... I don't know where you live, but I see this Union Jack below your non-existant Avatar. So... ehm... okay.... How to express this politely?

An old friend of mine, after visiting the UK for the first time, once claimed: The next time I'm going to visit England will be as soon as this whole country is completely outfitted with roofs.

China broke its own record in installing renewable power in 2024, as the world’s top polluter continues to push its energy transition while the US shifts away from fighting climate change...

There is one problem with that:

'Fighting climate change' or 'energy transition' is not about installing renewables but about reducing CO2 emissions. The yearly numbers for the US are decreasing, lately below 1970s figures while the numbers for China, India, etc. are increasing fast, due to a rising demand for electricity, dozens of new coal power plants each year, transport, ... China alone emits more CO2 than the entire Western hemisphere (countries west of Greenwich). The propagated Green Deal in the West often means shutting down efficient (but still CO2 intensive) production and replacing it with imports from China (e.g. steel). That's Greenwashing.

It seems that Donald Trump expressed an unwanted truth and pulled out of a non-expedient agreement. That's bad, isn't it? We will witness further such decisions. WHO, UNRWA, ... [off-topic].

If agreements don't solve a global problem it's adviced to improve them. Instead a (now even smaller) minority tries it alone and is nevertheless convinced to finally solve the global problem, no matter the costs, if one just firmly believe in it.

Source: (configurable diagram: countries, start/end years)

The steam train that could power the future, BBC video

A train which is powered purely on hydrogen is now undergoing tests with those behind it hoping it could help move the industry away from fossil fuels.
The former Thameslink locomotive has been converted in Warwickshire and now only produces water as an emission.
The company behind the project hopes the train could be a cheaper alternative for railway lines which cannot be electrified.
Tests are being carried out on routes in Warwickshire, Worcestershire and the West Midlands ahead of potential future commercial uses.

Thanks for that...


... Except that hydrogen is ridiculously wasteful and expensive and it is an excellent excuse to burn more oil to produce the hydrogen...


Far more efficient is to use ammonia as a convenient fuel.

Better yet, good solutions using batteries and rapid charging at the stops at stations are already available...


Is the hydrogen merely a profitable greenwash campaign to keep the dirty old oil people greedy with their profits a little while longer?


All on our only one planet...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Whatever the reasons, this is one way to go:


Clean energy contributed 10% to China’s GDP in 2024, analysis shows
wrote:

... electric vehicles and batteries added largest amount to country’s clean-energy economy...

So... How are we progressing for the Rest of The World?

All on our only one planet...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

I don't like to badmouth actually good news...

But BEVs and batteries do not make for a 'clean economy'. (Besides the vast demand for raw materials... which harmful side effects (mining etc.) I refrain to scrutinize here)... Each modern (e.g. Diesel) ICE car (which will soon be banned here, btw.) produces much less CO2 than the most efficient BEV that is charged at night in China with electricity from one of the hundred coal-fired PPs added to the grid there every year.

This problem of credibility will exist for an interim period of unknown length... at least 2050/2060??? (until renewables and nuclear PPs will have replaced coal and gas in China). This truth should always be named to not lose sight of the real goal (true clean economy) within all the excitement about progress in renewables and BEVs.

Remark: Just yesterday I received canvassing of our Greens in my postbox. They proudly claim to already have cleaned our electricity generation with the vast capacities of renewables built-up in the previous decade. In reality, we just replaced Nuclear with Wind/Solar and massive LNG imports while we still burn insane amounts of (today also imported) coal and (local) lignite which results on average in the 2nd dirtiest electricity in Europe (per megawatt hour); and by far the most dirty energy sector in total figures (mega tons of CO2).

Making the right decisions requires constantly considering reality. I'm not sure we do that all the time, that is, decide wisely and unaffected by ideologies.

Would you believe it!


Global Sales of Combustion Engine Cars Have Peaked
wrote:

... global sales peaked in 2018. This is calculated based on data from the International Energy Agency. Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates this peak occurred one year earlier, in 2017.

Sales of electric cars, on the other hand, are growing quickly.

Hence the rabid misinformation from the old fossils (industry) this past few months?


One small step for transport...

One giant leap for a more healthy Planet!


All on our only one planet...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

There's some good commentary in here for the UK:


Heat pumps and EVs – how to fight climate change from home



Very good to hear that the Greenwash scam of hydrogen is dead. (Hydrogen = burning oil to make that hydrogen.)

Will the Fossil Fuel Lobby allow the rest of that article to come to pass over their dead oilfields?


All only on our only one planet,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Headline in The Telegraph today, ‘My heat pump works so badly in winter I have to use my toxic wood stove’

They are supposedly the greenest form of home heating. But even in the most well-insulated properties, homeowners are turning to polluting wood-burning stoves to pick up the slack from inefficient heat pumps.
Among them is Stephen Coombs, whose home is the model of energy efficiency.
...
The retiree, 80, from West Felton in Shropshire, just barely missed a perfect A-rating on his property’s energy performance certificate (EPC).
In addition to its use of solar power, the home has a system for collecting rainwater for flushing the toilets, and a whole-house series of ventilators that extracts heat from wet rooms and transfers it to other parts of the house.
...
“The heat pump installation including underfloor heating, hot water tanks, controls and electrical installation came to about £8,500,” says Coombs.
The former chemical engineer also installed a proportional-integral-derivative (Pid) controller – an industrial-grade system which manages the home’s heating.
For the most part, he says the heat pump performed as expected. The machine’s coefficient of performance (COP, the measure of a heat pump’s efficiency) averaged at 2.2. A typical gas boiler, by contrast, has a much lower average COP of between 0.7 and 0.8.
...
“During the last couple of weeks with freezing temperatures, the COP fell to 1.7,” Coombs says. “With electricity at four to five times the cost of gas, it is easy to calculate that my heat pump costs around twice that of a 90pc efficient condensing gas boiler.”
To supplement his heat pump, Coombs has begun using a wood stove. Though still popular for those looking for an extra boost to their heating on cold winter nights, there are concerns about the health and potential environmental impacts of burning wood in your home.
...
Heat pumps lose efficiency in cold weather because the machines must expend more energy to extract the same amount of heat from the air outdoors.

Analysis by the Energy Utilities Alliance (EUA) found that heat pumps cost around £4 more per day to run in sub-zero temperatures than gas boilers. Notwithstanding its effect on the environment, logs are expensive.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/bills/energy/heat-pump-works-badly-winter-wood-burning-stove/

Yes... Sadly there is too much of that from bad installations... Too much ignorance or just simple cowboy profits for the installers.


Meanwhile... The Scandinavian countries use heat pumps to good effect.

Why not in the UK?...


The fix is to use dual stage heat pumps, or to design in appropriate low temperature radiators/under-floor heating.

All by good design...


All on our only one planet...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

I'm not sure if this is "good" or "bad" news - the return of steam for powering trains?
https://www.railwaygazette.com/uk/class-60-steam-loco-conversion-decision-expected-soon/68337.article?CMID=88A17C323-CMP264CON294-RCP2I48347O32&utm_campaign=RG-RBUK-RSSB%202025-270225-JM&utm_medium=email&utm_source=RGeditorial&utm_content=newsletter

Using hydrogen fuelled boilers and high pressure turbines a claim is made that this will be more efficient and have a longer service life than fuel cells.
Time will tell.

---

Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Meanwhile... The Scandinavian countries use heat pumps to good effect.

Why not in the UK?...

Because conditions in Scandinavia are different.

Since a hundred years they have cheap electricity from vast hydro capacities; in Sweden (50%) and Finland (30%) also nuclear ones. Accordingly, since generations they consume a multiple more electricity per inhabitant than the average continental European does.

Unfortunately, we lack their vast uninhabited (SE, NO, FI) mountainous (FI less so) regions in a humid climate to build up significant hydro power. Oh, eventually in Scotland... but what would happen if somebody suggests... a large dam project?

Heat pumps are perfect for most of the year in our mild climate. You can't deny that.

But, one should focus on how to provide people (and the economy) with much more and much cheaper electricity, reliably 24/7; instead of discussing the make and age of boilers people use in their private homes (it's their business). That would solve most of our problems. Definitely the wrong way is to regulate by law what type of heating is legal; which one is not... with deadlines to replace the existing 'evil' ones while ignoring the related substantial costs (insulation; low-temp floor heating instead of high-temp radiators; easily exceeding financial capabilities of elderly homeowners). (one of the more substantial reasons why our government coalition was battered in elections last Sunday).