Best energy alternatives to stop global warming

[Seret]

Environmentally Friendly? The only waste of Hydrogen fuel cells is water. WATER!

Sure, but where do you get the hydrogen?

[SargeRho]

Environmentally Friendly? The only waste of Hydrogen fuel cells is water. WATER!

Let's not forget about all the energy spent to aquire the hydrogen...it doesn't naturally occur on Earth in pure form.

[xcorps]

I thought PEM was supposed to be pretty efficient? Isn't there a gas to power plant being built in Germany somewhere that uses PEM to support a grid?

[peadar1987]

I thought PEM was supposed to be pretty efficient? Isn't there a gas to power plant being built in Germany somewhere that uses PEM to support a grid?

It is efficient, and fuel cells aren't limited by the Carnot efficiency, seeing as they're not heat engines. However, you still have to get the hydrogen from somewhere. I think they are a promising technology for certain technologies though, especially waste-to-energy, where it's relatively easy to generate methanol.

[lajoswinkler]

I believe that Hydrogen Fuel Cells are missing from this list.

Cheap? ehhh....

Dangerous? New nano-technologies are allowing for safer mass storage of Hydrogen

Environmentally Friendly? The only waste of Hydrogen fuel cells is water. WATER!

If you get hydrogen from water, then it's not an energy source, but an energy storage.

if you get it from oil, it's called "black hydrogen". It's an energy source, but comes with a price in the form of CO2.

There is no free lunch, people.

[Seret]

I thought PEM was supposed to be pretty efficient?

The issue isn't efficiency really (although it's nice to have) it's that hydrogen just shifts the emissions elsewhere in the system. You still have to actually deal with them.

That doesn't mean it's a bad idea. Centralising carbon emissions at power plants where low-carbon fuels or maybe CCS can be used would allow us to substantially decarbonise hard problems like transport. But until we've done that hydrogen isn't actually any cleaner than current options like oil.

[xcorps]

I might be remembering wrong, but I was under the impression that the plant was using PEM to produce hydrogen to inject into natural gas and that the hydrogen increased the efficiency of the natural gas without increasing emissions.

[Nibb31]

Hydrogen isn't a source of energy. It's a method of storage, in the same league as batteries.

[DeepOdyssey]

I'll wait for a fusion energy. Coupled with a wind/solar energy at a small community level, this will be a truly clean energy.

Still, refineries and steelworks will emit quite a lot of CO2.

[lajoswinkler]

I'll wait for a fusion energy. Coupled with a wind/solar energy at a small community level, this will be a truly clean energy.

Still, refineries and steelworks will emit quite a lot of CO2.

No, there will never be a clean energy source. Ever.

[DeepOdyssey]

Of course. Meaning clean energy i had in mind, energy that doesn't produce CO2, during the plant operation. I didn't count the energy and resources needed to build the plant in the first place.

[Seret]

Still, refineries and steelworks will emit quite a lot of CO2.

That's actually a really good point. It's not just the energy sector that emits GHGs.

[Nibb31]

I'll wait for a fusion energy.

How long are you prepared to wait?

[RuBisCO]

You're right of course, but there are practical problems. Ideally we'd be taking a two-pronged approach:

1. Stop emitting carbon
   
2. Remove the excess carbon already in the cycle
   

I don't disagree but algae fertilizing is unlikely to be dangerous on a world wide scale, the worse that could happen is that it could be gigantic waste of money if the carbon does not stay sequestered on the sea floor.

[Elthy]

The worst that could happen with algae fertilisation would be a complete breakdown of the ecosystem an a mass extinction. We have no idea how the ecosystem would react, it could be even worse than a large scale nuclear catastrophy. Whenever humans tried to change something in the nature it destroyed a balance that was build in millions of years...

[Seret]

I don't disagree but algae fertilizing is unlikely to be dangerous on a world wide scale, the worse that could happen is that it could be gigantic waste of money if the carbon does not stay sequestered on the sea floor.

I'm not a marine biologist but I'm pretty sure algal blooms only happen in nature due to an imbalance in the system, and are pretty lethal for a lot of marine life.

[PakledHostage]

The worst that could happen with algae fertilisation would be a complete breakdown of the ecosystem an a mass extinction. We have no idea how the ecosystem would react, it could be even worse than a large scale nuclear catastrophy. Whenever humans tried to change something in the nature it destroyed a balance that was build in millions of years...

The idea of using climate engineering to solve global warming always makes me think of Goethe's "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". We don't know enough yet to even be considering messing with the climate even more than we already are. We'll likely only make things worse.

Rather than trying to come up with Band-Aid solutions, we should be focusing on solving problems at their root causes.

[lajoswinkler]

Of course. Meaning clean energy i had in mind, energy that doesn't produce CO2, during the plant operation. I didn't count the energy and resources needed to build the plant in the first place.

You should count it in. Whole life cycle is extremely important, otherwise we could be fooling ourselves with actually detrimental sources... like most of the PV industry is.

[Seret]

You should count it in. Whole life cycle is extremely important, otherwise we could be fooling ourselves with actually detrimental sources... like most of the PV industry is.

Life cycle analysis is routinely used for PV, and doesn't result in any unpleasant surprises.

[xcorps]

The worst that could happen with algae fertilisation would be a complete breakdown of the ecosystem an a mass extinction. We have no idea how the ecosystem would react, it could be even worse than a large scale nuclear catastrophy. Whenever humans tried to change something in the nature it destroyed a balance that was build in millions of years...

That's such bunk. There is no "balance" in nature. Natural environments are constantly in flux. Climate has ALWAYS changed, landmasses have ALWAYS changed, and species have been going extinct for billions of years. Mass extinctions are nothing new. Local extinctions are nothing new. The only question is whether OUR species will go extinct.

[m4v]

You should count it in. Whole life cycle is extremely important, otherwise we could be fooling ourselves with actually detrimental sources... like most of the PV industry is.

Oh you, again making wild statements without knowing the subject. Solar panels return the energy needed to produce them after ~2 years if placed in Europe, much less time in places with good irradiance. Almost all of the energy produced during their lifetime is free.

[PakledHostage]

That's such bunk.

It may be "bunk", but it being bunk doesn't give us a right to follow suit with our own efforts at causing mass extinction. Super volcanoes are indifferent. Asteroids and comets are indifferent. We are not indifferent. We (presumably) have brains and free will to steer ourselves away from destroying ourselves and/or many of the other things that are beautiful and intricate on this planet.

[Bean]

The basic TL;DR of this thread appears to be that we need to move to a predominately fission based grid with maximum use without excessive storage of renewable sources until either storage costs come down, or a more compelling technology is introduced, be it fusion, breeder reactors or other.

Moving from Coal, Oil and Gas is the main problem. Nuclear and renewables are equivalent so far as you can't rely on renewables for baseload, and you will run out of fissible material at some point, but neither produce remotely close to the greenhouse effect of fossil fuels.

Also to make a point about waste output of a few fuels (In terms of Mass in is approx mass out in waste ^{citation needed})

[peadar1987]

Oh you, again making wild statements without knowing the subject. Solar panels return the energy needed to produce them after ~2 years if placed in Europe, much less time in places with good irradiance. Almost all of the energy produced during their lifetime is free.

Free in terms of energy. The financial payback time is far longer.

It may be "bunk", but it being bunk doesn't give us a right to follow suit with our own efforts at causing mass extinction. Super volcanoes are indifferent. Asteroids and comets are indifferent. We are not indifferent. We (presumably) have brains and free will to steer ourselves away from destroying ourselves and/or many of the other things that are beautiful and intricate on this planet.

^This

[RuBisCO]

I'm not a marine biologist but I'm pretty sure algal blooms only happen in nature due to an imbalance in the system, and are pretty lethal for a lot of marine life.

A) That is not a world wide damaging phenomena

30 seconds on google: "Algae blooms in the open ocean are not usually harmful; instead, they provide many benefits, largely deriving from the fact that the open ocean is relatively unproductive (low in nutrients)." Read more: http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/A-Bi/Algal-Blooms-in-the-Ocean.html#ixzz35l0iEZ2x