Oh fuck it, thread time.

Inspired in a way by a certain long discussion by a well known Sci-fi author about the announcement of a Nuclear powered container ship from China. I wanna talk about "technology won't save us" When it comes to climate change.

"Technology won't save us" is the usual refrain when someone mentions Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). CCS is often touted by the fossil fuel industry as a way of us being able to keep burning dinosaurs. Continue our lives unchanged...

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so we can continue the lifestyles to which we have become accustomed. Alas, for all the talk of CCS in the last couple of decades, it's never come to pass. At least not at a large scale, not capturing 100% of emissions from that which it is fitted. And it doesn't work on mobile emitters like trucks and ships. CCS is a bit like a disability dongle, but for fossil fuel companies.

BUT, and here comes the but. There are some technologies, which we are going to need if we are to have a hope...

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of surviving climate change. So in this thread I want to talk about some of those technologies, and how far away they are from being reality.

To start with, I wanna talk about ammonia. Currently ammonia production accounts for about 1.8% of global emissions. Which is about the same as shipping globally. It's made by taking Methane in natural gas, splitting that to make hydrogen, and CO2. The CO2 is dumped, and the hydrogen is combined with Nitrogen. Ammonia is however critical...

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to our society. It's used primarily for fertiliser production, as well as a feed stock for various industrial processes. It can also be used to creation greenhouse gas emission free electricity via fuel cells. Those fuel cells could be used on ships... or trains... As long as the ammonia is produced without needing fossil fuels, it's a good way of powering things where Batteries don't scale.

Ammonia can be produced electrochemically, using just nitrogen (from air), & hydrogen (from h20)

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Proof of concepts are there, we just need to scale it up. It's a great way to use surplus energy from renewables, or for renewables constructed in places with lots of sun, but few people. It's safer and easier to transport than hydrogen. It's an technology we are going go need to develop.

Next up. Steel. Those who remember my recent epic thread on the subject will know that steel is really important to our world. But it also accounts for about 7% of global emissions.

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Steel is produced by reducing Iron ore with a source of carbon, this is usually from coke made from coal. So to make this emissions free, we need to replace that carbon source, or find a way to bypass it entirely. Here we have two potential technologies showing promise. One is to use hydrogen instead of carbon as the reducing agent. Hydrogen can be produced cleanly via electrolysis of water. This method is already in commercial production in Sweden, producing steel for volvo.

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The other option is Electrolysis. A bit like how we make Aluminium. This has shown promise in small scale setups, and there is a commercial scale pilot due to go online in 2025. It's showing great promise, as is the Hydrogen approach. They just need to be rolled out at scale. (something something, future not evenly distributed yet).

Next up. Cement. This is about 3-8% of global emissions depending on source. Cement is a key part of our modern society.

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Cement is a fundamental part of our society. The built environment would be very different if we didn't have cement. While there are moves to reduce it's use (see wooden sky scraper). We can't reduce our use to zero. We're gonna always need some cement. But it's production is problematic. It's basically made by cooking limestone at over 1400°C, to remove Co2 from the limestone, to make quick lime. This is one area we don't really have a viable technology to avoid emissions.

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There's lots of people trying to find a way of making cement without emitting greenhouse gases, but none are ready for use at scale. But we're gonna need a solution here if we are to have some hope.

Next up. Heating. Let's step away from chemical processes for a bit and look at the built environment we live in. 17.5% of emissions come from our buildings, via heating, cooling, and lighting. Lighting is a solved issue. LED's are incredibly efficient, and can be powered by renewables.

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But for most of the world, heating still takes the form of burning stuff to keep warm. In the developed world most homes and offices are heated by burning natural gas. And while the fossil fuel industry has talked about using hydrogen in the gas pipes to fuel these, so we don't have to change anything. That has proven to be unviable stuff used to distract politicians. We have a technology for heating that is incredibly efficient (like 300-500% efficient), and well understood.

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Heat pumps are an amazing technology. They are essentially a very large fridge run in reverse. If you want to know more about them, Technology Connections on Youtube has some great videos explaining how they work. They are absolutely brilliant, and combined with better insulation, they are going to allow us to heat our homes and offices with 100% renewable electricity cheaply and efficiently. Alas there's a lot of FUD out there from those who make a living from boilers.

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But their main drawback currently is they are expensive to install. This is a political problem that is easy to fix with subsidies and simple economy of scale. .NL installed 100000 heat pumps in 2023. They hope to install another 120000 in 2024. Still tiny numbers, but a great start. You can also run a heat pump in reverse, solving cooling too. This is a great technology. It's mature. It works. It's understood. And it's really unevenly distributed.

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So that's 4 technologies. Ammonia, Steel, Cement, Heating, that between them could help us reduce our emissions by over ⅓rd. Something that is going to be critical to the chances of our society surviving beyond 2040. And with all bar cement, we have solutions for them now. We just need the political will to roll them out more. But we also need the renewable energy sources to support them. That means thousands, if not tens of thousands of wind turbines.

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The largest turbines now are able to generate upto 16Mw of energy. There's a lot of offshore wind resources we're not yet making use of. Ditto solar. Every suitable surface in our built environment needs to be covered in solar panels. Solar has come down so much in cost now, and will only get cheaper. there's little excuse now. Think of all the big warehouses and apartment blocks and shopping centres. Cover them all with solar.

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@quixoticgeek and parking lots. Covered parking is more valuable than uncovered so you get a double benefit. Also it's a whole lot easier to retrofit solar car ports on an existing concrete pad than haul them up to a roof.

@SkipHuffman nah. Just get rid of parking lots. Private cars are ridiculously inefficient, they destroy cities. Deploy public transport, cycling, and walking. Either use the parking lots as places to build new buildings, or convert them back to nature.

@quixoticgeek parking lots exist, as does significant private car ownership. Changing that is far more complicated than just sticking solar roofs over big patches of concrete and asphalt.

@SkipHuffman if society is to have any hope. We need to move away from private car ownership. It's that simple.