... (the website and pseudonym, that is, not the author) ...
That's right, it's now been a whole year since I launched Watthead to discuss climate change, sustainability and the path to a clean energy future.
For those of you who are curious, it all began with this post on August 11th, 2005: Start Fighting Global Warming ... Like Yesterday People!"
The sentiment expressed in that original post still motivates this blog and it's author: we must act quickly and decisively to cut back global emissions of greenhouse gases to mitigate and stabilize the effects of global climate change, many of which are already underway (two links), and one of the most effective ways we can do that, I believe, is to transition our energy infrastructures - both electricity and transportation - to sustainable and clean sources of energy.
I'd like to thank all of you who read this blog, especially those who regularly comment. We're up to about 100 visits per day now, and I appreciate being able to share news and commentary about the exciting and constantly changing field of sustainable energy with all of you.
I'd like to open the comments in this post as an open thread to provide feedback, suggestions, and comments about this blog in general. What would you like to see more/less of? What subjects do you enjoy the most/least? What suggestions do you have to improve the content/layout/anything else of this blog?
Thanks again to all of you out there. I'd love to hear more comments from those of you who don't regularly leave them. Share your ideas, and let's use this blog as a place for discussion, comment and banter.
Cheers,
Jesse Jenkins (aka Watthead)
Friday, August 11, 2006
Watthead Turns One Year Old...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Congratulations! Keep up the good work.
Happy blogging birthday!
A little bit more analysis would be nice, that is more posts with your own thoughts and ideas (like the one on hydrogen).
http://watthead.blogspot.com/2006/04/why-im-not-big-fan-of-hydrogen.html
I'd also like a greater emphasis on Fischer-Tropsch, particularly involving biomass and renewables.
http://www.spiegel.de/spiegelspecial/0,1518,427152-3,00.html
I'll roughly translate, original German below.
If there were to be large scale production of hydrogen from renewables in the middle of the 21st century, it mightn't be used by fuel cells.
Rather, it might go to producers of biofuels. In the synthesis of BTL fuels, there is an acute shortage of hydrogen. If this was supplied, the yield of the CHOren process could be nearly doubled.
CHOren founder Wolf remarks that hydrogen is never in its elemental form in nature on our planet Earth. "I do not see why we should do this differently".
http://www.choren.com/en/
Sollte in der Mitte des 21. Jahrhunderts aber doch noch eine ebenso saubere wie gigantische Produktion von Wasserstoff beginnen, endet dieses Gas womöglich gar nicht direkt im Tank von Brennstoffzellenautos.
Dankbare Abnehmer wären etwa die Produzenten von pflanzlichen Kraftstoffen. Bei der Herstellung des BtL-Diesels herrscht akuter Wasserstoffmangel. Durch eine Einspeisung der reaktionsfreudigen Substanz in den Choren-Prozess ließe sich der Gesamtausstoß der Anlagen nahezu verdoppeln.
Das Ergebnis wäre eine vollkommen regenerative Prozesskette, die dem Vorbild von Jahrmillionen Erdgeschichte folgt: Wasserstoff ist ein ausgesprochen heiratswilliges Element. Nur in Verbindung mit Kohlenstoff bildet es den Grundbaustein organischen Lebens - und der daraus resultierenden Energieressourcen Erdöl und Erdgas.
"Die Natur", sagt Choren-Gründer Wolf, "lässt den Wasserstoff nirgends in seiner reinen Form vorkommen. Es leuchtet nicht ein, warum die Industrie das anders machen sollte."
Thanks for the comments, Heiko. I'd love to be able to do more anaylsis posts too.
The news posts end up taking about 15-30 minutes to put together, since they mostly consist of finding a story elsewhere, copying it/editing it into my blog and then maybe adding a bit of commentary/analysis.
In contrast, the straight analysis posts like the one you mentioned take considerably more time - usually a whole evening (and at least a couple hours), and I unfortuanetly don't have as much time to do those kinds of posts as I'd like.
I'll write up some posts based on my thesis research at some point too that will be some original analysis, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.
I'll keep an eye out for more on FT BTL processes. I guess I have been more focused on biomass-to-ethanol processes, but FT BTL is promising as well, especially Choren's system, which seems to be the most advanced at this point.
Any other topics of interst, or analysis you want me to do?
Post a Comment