In a country that worships the wind and sun Gods and treats our natural energy gifts, coal and uranium as the Great Satan, there is not much point even discussing energy or Australia's fast approaching descent into the Third World.

Australians don't deserve people like Keith Suter; they prefer to listen to dirty, smelly anarchists like Extinction Rebellion.

The car analogy is apt because when you drive a new car out of the showroom you'll never get back a huge percentage of what you paid for it. Same with hydrogen; it takes 54 kwh of electricity to make a kilogram of hydrogen by electrolysis but that hydrogen has a maximum heating value of 39 kwh and much less if you want to convert it back to electricity. It is much more efficient to use the original electricity directly such as in batteries. Battery cars are under under $50k and can fuelled at home unlike hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

Hydrogen is also leaky, corrosive and explosive over a wide range of fuel-air ratios. To save the aviation industry we might have to make synfuel with hydrogen but they are struggling to get the cost down to $3 a litre. It's interesting how Finkel and CSIRO have put their reputations on the line by spruiking hydrogen. My guess is that when the ARENA grants run out the nascent hydrogen industry will stop in its tracks, just like geothermal and wave power. The reason is that successful future energy has to have a high net return like nuclear.

All true, but what is adroitly ignored is the energy component required to make or extract hydrogen and the massive cost of that energy component! And in previous examples has seen the cost of liquified hydrogen retail at around $6.00 a litre.

Now the proposal seems to be to use off-peak coal-fired power to make hydrogen?

This is just as nonsensical as continuing to use petrol to power our transport options! Given in he first instance we actually ad more greenhouse gas to the enviroment and ignoring that as we usee a vastly more expensive fuel to power vastly more expensive vehicles

Just so w can keep coalfired power and the dividend streams that low to shareholders from that resource!

There are four methods of making hydrogen, the first, extracting it from fossil fuel. By chemically separating the hydrogen and carbon constituents.

The second, via fractional separation directly from the atmosphere.

The third via electrolysis as advocated by the author.

The forth is via the catalytic cracking of the water molecule, the oldest method and not without some risk, given the volatile nature of the separated hydrogen. But not quite as volatile as some of the vapours produced in the extraction in refineries of petrol.

And burnt off in the flares we see at every refinery of gas compression station.

Thee same flares can instead be passed through a catalyst to also liquify them an as such be able to b used as fuel. Thus limiting the amount of greenhouse gas to the environment? At least for a time! TBC
Alan B.

The cracking of the water molecule to make hydrogen can be done using solar thermal power and seawater. The outlay to make it economic has to be massive and must include an astronomical cash outlay in the initial construction costs.

That said all the costs except routine maintenance are upfront!

This method includes flameless heat! With a certain amount of CO2 added to the super-heated steam just prior to it passing over the catalyst.

Which separates the H2O into its constituent parts, lighter than air hydrogen and the heavier oxygen and CO2.

The gas flow can be immediately cooled to below zero via the application of triangulated laser beams. which would massively assist liquefication. I'd pick a mostly unpopulated site along our west coast where we have almost desert conditions and nearby coastline. To limit pipelines and other outlays. Then build a connecting rail and use our east-west rail line to transport it across the Nullarbor and on to the southern and east coast.

Yes, we could do it here, and given the hours of sunshine etc. not much more expensive than doing it in the west. But the west coast option opens up a host of export market opportunities not as well served from here! TBC
Alan B.

Prize-winning, investigative journalist and science writer Richar Martin has written a book, called, Thorium, Super Fuel and subtitled, green energy.

He gives a short summation on U tube in google tech talks. As does author Professor Robert Hargraves, the Author of, Thorium, cheaper than coal.

Thorium is the most energy-dense material on the planet and so everywhere abundant, we can never ever run out of it in the predicted life of the universe!

Thorium is less radioactive than a banana and can be used in an unpressurised, molten salt reactor (MSR) It is as the element thorium fertile not fissile and therefore the element thorium cannot be compressed to create a thermonuclear reaction,i.e., a nuclear bomb!

The difficulty of weaponising it is what led to its eventual rejection and mothballing in the late seventies!

However, its prohibition later by congress would seem to protect the fossil fuel industry, big nuclear, which make the overwhelming profit stream from its fuel fabrication business, which would be completely destroyed by a change to universal and much, much cheaper, molten salt reactor technology.

Finally, that other big player, big pharma would see its cancer industry returns decimated by the introduction of the alpha particle, bismuth 213. A known, tried and tested, conventional medicine, miracle cancer cure. And via conventional radiological medicine. Repeat, CONVENTIONAL RADIOLOGICAL MEDICINE!

Whereas, many of big pharma's clinical servants here would have the gullible and uninformed public believe?

And just not the complementary or alternative medicines They to a virtual generic clinician claim for bismuth 213!? It has been used by reported conventional medicine in conventional medical clinics to have cured a whole host of virtual death sentence cancers, not the least of which is ovarian cancer, cured it would seem, given clinical reports, in European clinics in 2006.TBC
Alan B

Finally, we and the whole world needs to understand, we just cannot keep mindless burning fossil fuel! If you doubt the wisdom of that just go out to Bourke and take an unblinkered unconstrained by personal financial considerations, look at what climate change has wrought out there!

We need a universally affordable substitute for coal as our baseload dispatchable energy and that universally affordable substitute remains exclusively the nuclear power option! But particularly, for currently drought-ravaged and desperately clinging to faint hope!

Almost everything else including Kieth's current contribution, is horrendously expensive, pie in the sky stuff for most cash strapped Aussies!

We cannot build any nuclear reactors today, even using know tried and tested modular versions in factory mas production.

As for MSR thorium, we'd still need around seven years to produce a tried and tested prototype, given how much of the work has already been done!

Tha dovetails with the expected and or extended lives of the bulk of our coal-fired power stations and enough time for any adversely affected to make other timely rearrangements to their investment portfolios, which cannot keep, on including coal, given in the foreseeable future, you won't be able to given thermal coal away.

Finally, MSR technology can be fueled for literal centuries with the world' stockpile of nuclear waste! As we earn annual billions for providing the storage repository. But not before we've burnt the stuff and reduced the half-life to just 300 years!

And in the process, very safely, create virtually free, CARBON-FREE ENERGY! Which would also lend itself to turning inexhaustible seawater into endlessly sustainable, conventional fuel!
Alan B.

Alan. Here you go again, loose with the facts.

You stated “thorium is less radioactive than a banana”, rubbish.

“Thorium is an alpha emitter and, once in the body, it can cause cancer and other anomalies. Impacts can vary depending on the timing and amount of exposure. Childhood leukaemia is a verified outcome of thorium exposure. Children with high levels of thorium can suffer multiple birth defects. Studies show that children exposed to Thorium contamination suffer primarily from congenital heart defects and neural tube defects. The magnitude of public contamination caused by this alpha-emitting radioactive compound is a serious question to be answered.”

This quote from recent studies of Thorium and other radioactive exposure in Iraq.

How do you like those bananas Alan?

There is always some smarty who can see a buck in doing something, that doesn't need doing, to con people out of their hard earned.

Why the hell would you want to make a new fuel that is,
Hard to store,
Dangerous,
More expensive than what you have now,
Provides less power per dollar than what it is made from,
Is totally less useful than what we have.

This is just another spin off from the Global Warming scam, & academia getting research grants for doing totally useless research.

Honda spent years trying to develop a useful hydrogen fuel cell. In fact they spent so much money they were on the verge of bankruptcy, before common sense returned & they dropped the idea.

The only way hydrogen can be economic for the public to use as a fuel is if it is grossly subsidised, that is if we are forced to pay the real cost in our taxes.

Using high temperature nuclear to split water (not via electrolysis), then combining the hydrogen with carbon dioxide, produces liquid hydrocarbon fuel that can be distributed as normally.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very-high-temperature_reactor

The reason electricity prices are high is to cover both coal generation that is being replaced by increasingly expensive gas, and, the building of renewables generation and transmission infrastructure that is redundant when we have to run backup contingent for its 100% failure.

I disagree with consumers not having to pay bills that factor in international pricing for gas as this is effectively a government subsidy. Let there be:

1. a hefty carbon price, with income tax and welfare payment compensation which is gradually removed.
2. removal of the nuclear ban
3. no subsidies for any generation source
4. a reliability requirement upon retailers matching that which coal generation delivers. To meet reliability, retailers buying from renewables electricity wholesalers would then have to consider carbon-prices fossil-fuelled backup or preposterously expensive storage.

These measures would result in the triumph of nuclear generation over other options.

The hydrogen economy will come, but not as Keith Suter envisages. Plenty of hydrogen will be produced, but it will mostly be used for production of sponge iron, ammonia and hydrocarbon synthesis - very little will be used directly as fuel, as it's quite difficult to work with, and batteries are a more practical alternative for most vehicles.

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ttbn,
Extinction Rebellion are demanding the government take action, so they're certainly not anarchists. And am I right in thinking you've never actually encountered any of them and your labelling of them as dirty and smelly is based on your imagination (like your wind worshippers claim)?

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Luciferase,
Where did you get the idea that nuclear power would be a cheap option? It seems to be very expensive in England - why do you think that is?

And is a government subsidy really so bad as a short term policy? Even if we do go with nuclear, it will take time to build. We're going to be temporarily far more reliant on gas for the next few years, at a price nobody envisaged, and meanwhile some of our competitors, including the USA, have domestic quotas so gas is cheap for them.

The fact is the scientists are just conning some more of our dollars with this hydrogen nonsense. China, India and Russia will take up all our supposed CO2 savings and add a lot more so it is all nonsense!
Our grid is going to be ruined but watch out when we start suffering power cuts and the continual doubling of power prices. You doughnuts will blame the voter but their blame is what sticks. They will blame the renewables and their supporters.
Personally I see that smarty in NSW buying another coal power station and making himself another fortune.. that should show the way but I fear we will lead the world in power expenses.
Good news Asia have few solar or wind turbines. Never seen either after over a year in Vietnam. They plan big coal plants and cheap power, now there is an idea!

British bus builder Dennis experimented with hydrogen and fuel cells.
They abandoned it because the life of the fuel cells made it uneconomic.
Another major catch, you cannot park hydrogen cars in underground car parks.
Connectors cannot be made leak proof.
The source to wheels is very inefficient.

New EPR reactors will carve a learning and regulation route that will only cost greatly once. South Korea doesn't have too much trouble affording reactors based on cookie-cutter rather than bespoke designs. In any case, a 60-80 year life over which to amortize capex is ignored by greenies, who are really pushing the cost issue now as they realise they're losing on their other exaggerated bases for opposing nuclear power. France, China, India et al don't seem to be listening to the cost argument, e.g., http://www.reuters.com/article/us-edf-nuclear-epr/france-asks-edf-to-prepare-to-build-6-epr-reactors-in-15-years-le-monde-idUSKBN1WT27T

Coal-stations can be kept going for decades with continuous upgrading and overhaul, or new HELE will be cheaper than renewables plus gas, with not much more emissions, until nuclear reigns, which will be soon enough once the ban is lifted. Why build renewables that will not be renewed themselves once load-following nuclear capacity, contingent for their 100% failure, are built? After this it wouldn't be viable to maintain renewables or gas-plants for efficiency, not even to remove the dust from solar panels

Opposing arguments are becoming more shrill and tenuous as positive public perception of nuclear is growing in response to children's calls (Greta and XR crowds) to do something effective http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/8144-nuclear-power-in-australia-september-2019-201910070349

Taswegian is correct, hydrogen is a mug's game. The requirement to use super high pressure to store hydrogen combined with it being super explosive means that any vehicle is a potential bomb.

Similarly for fixed installations, batteries are now far more efficient.

Aidan, "And is a government subsidy really so bad as a short term policy?" Yes most definitely.

When ever governments try to pick winners they always rely on academics & bureaucrats for advice. Have you ever seen any of either group with enough general knowledge or common sense to know which way is up, let alone the right choice?