Thread: Katoomba Monthly Temp average set to be SMASHED!!! AGAIN!!!

Originally Posted by doug3030

Even if it was possible to switch off all coal-fired power today, it would still be necessary to mine coal.

There is currently no practical way to manufacture steel without it.

Sure, but that doesn't mean that we would necessarily need new mines or new CF power stations. Remember that I have twice said before that I still see some CF power generation happening for....I dunno...as long as it takes to replace it altogether.

The argument is not so much about not burning coal, as not putting CO2 into the atmosphere (nett), so if we still need to burn some coal for heavy industry we should be able to as long as we take back out the quantity of CO2 that has been emitted. It's absolutely not about shutting everything down and then saying "OK, what do we do now?" So if the industries that are putting out CO2 are also (just as an example) investing in Sophia Wang's business (which she said was very easily up-scalable and transportable), then that is the same as buying carbon credits.

Originally Posted by NeilS

Had we started the transition a decade ago, like the UK and some other countries in Europe did, the transition would have been smoother and more gradual. Having been held back for so long we no longer have that luxury.

Ain't that the truth.

Originally Posted by NeilS

During WWII my father trained as a morse code signalman, then became an expert in repairing valve radios, then transistors radios, then B&W TVs then colour TVs.

Morse Code has been invented? We're all screwed then. All the Semaphore flagmen are out of work.

Originally Posted by AlexS

The Y2K scenario would have been a major problem if it had not been recognised and dealt with. As an example, all the data loggers used for telemetering water data in NSW were first generation units that would have failed. That would have meant that many people in Sydney wouldn't have had water, or depending on the circumstances at the time, dams around the state could have been put in dangerous states. Farmers in the west of the state would either have gone without their ordered irrigation supplies or watched water go to waste.

Alex

You made me go back through pages of my drivel to find that one as I thought I recognised it (Post #393).

I may have expressed myself poorly and I suspect your hydrology background is a little sensitive to some aspects. My poor attempt was to explain how technology gets ramped up when there is a crisis. It happened in WW2 (probably WW1 too, but a bit before my time) and it is undoubtedly happening again in these times and that was my reference to perception. My reference to YK2 was that it was indeed perceived as a risk. That fact that 1 Jan 2000 turned over without all the computers in the world (including those in our cars) crashing (that's the computers: Not the cars) is irrelevant, The crisis hastened action. I dread to think what would have happened if the computers had all died. I remember asking a computer guru friend what would happen and he said that they had no idea. But what if......

Having said all that, I think the "perception" of climate change is more of a reality. A fait accompli, but I was trying to leave the door open for debate.

Regards
Paul

There is more to Y2K than what I will talk about here, but IIRC one of the problems to be overcome is that we COBOL dinosaurs of the early 80s used to use a test date year of 1999, because we all knew for an absolute fact that there was no way these programs were going to be running in 15-20 years time so if our test data succeeded with that date, then no wuckas.

OOPSIE!

That's what you get for employing programmers who can write good solid stable code that lasts for.....longer than the analyst had planned.

1997-99 was the golden period for COBOL programmers to earn big but short-term bucks.

Originally Posted by NeilS

but try telling German and Swedish steel makers who have been at it since steel manufacturing began that there is no practical way of achieving what they plan on doing.

Originally Posted by doug3030

There is currently no practical way to manufacture steel without it.

The linked articles indicate that these companies hope to be commercially producing fossil-free steel by the mid-2020's. Nobody said it could not be done. The would-be manufacturers themselves seem to concur with my statement from the content of the articles linked.

It is really getting tiresome to see a lot of my statements and those of others here being taken out of context by a self appointed few who do not wish to hear any opinions that do not align exactly with their own.

1-" What is this golden opportunity that Australia is presented with? I hear this touted a bit but don’t understand what it is".
-We have massive amounts of free energy that we can pump up into asia by -direct transmission, carbon neutral steel and aluminium, -exported hydrogen. The world is wanting these products already and as the first most obvious reaction to climate chaos will be many carbon taxes we will be well placed to supply low carbon products and energy.

2- "This coal replacement item/ product has yet to come to fruition as we have recently discussed, I don’t understand how we are meant to be going full steam ahead and leading the world when we don’t even know what direction we are meant to face."
-We were up with the world leaders in solar and wind energy and profitably exporting our intellectual property until Abbot wrecked it. I remember him bragging that he had wiped fifteen thousand jobs from the renewable sector. But right now just about all the tomatoes sold through Coles supermarkets come from one hydroponic farm in SA which is powered by a concentrated solar mass system. Not only runs a desalination plant which provides all the water but also supplies all the energy for pumping, lights, etc. It looks like concentrated solar mass will be the long term winner. It works by collecting heat in a solar tower, moving that energy by the medium of compressed air and pumping it into sand storage where it will keep hot for weeks or months. Extraction of the energy is simply by pumping water through pipes in the hot sand silos and then running the hot steam through conventional steam turbines. This provides super cheap reliable base-load power 24/7.

Originally Posted by doug3030

Even if it was possible to switch off all coal-fired power today, it would still be necessary to mine coal.

There is currently no practical way to manufacture steel without it.

This is just not true. At the beginning of the industrial revolution steel was made with charcoal and it was only replaced with cokeing coal as forests were decimated and charcoal became more expensive. Very recently our own CSIRO published a number of papers revealing that their research had shown steel could be made with modern charcoal and it would produce better and cheaper low carbon steel. The Liberal Federal government responded by slashing the CSIRO budget by $300m. Causing the loss of about 300 permanent science jobs. When are we going to wake up!

"We'll all be rooned" said Hanrahan.

Originally Posted by Toymaker Len

This is just not true. At the beginning of the industrial revolution steel was made with charcoal and it was only replaced with cokeing coal as forests were decimated and charcoal became more expensive. Very recently our own CSIRO published a number of papers revealing that their research had shown steel could be made with modern charcoal and it would produce better and cheaper low carbon steel. The Liberal Federal government responded by slashing the CSIRO budget by $300m. Causing the loss of about 300 permanent science jobs. When are we going to wake up!

What about high carbon steel and alloys? Only having low carbon steel would be very limiting.

I think we need to be careful in distinguishing between pilot plants and mainstream plants. It is excellent that companies are investigating new possibilities, but it is a trap to suggest that tomorrow everybody is going to switch over: Ok, yes, I am being a little dramatic there, but all these things should be put into perspective. It's a possibility: Not a probability at this stage. It is similar to the geothermal power. It was/is possible, but is it viable?

I did take this from Neil's post:

"Thyssenkrupp is one of the world’s largest steel producers and produces around 12 million tonnes of crude steel annually. The company has committed to achieving a 30 per cent reduction in the company’s emissions by 2030. The company is also aiming to become carbon neutral by 2050."

Clearly they have a reasoned approach to emissions, but note that only one of the 28 selected tuyeres had hydrogen running through it in the pilot.

I am not completely up on the requirements for high carbon steel (despite having worked at the Newcastle steelworks for two year back in 1980) but clearly the BOS plant requires some form of carbon (can they extract it from CO2? That has the carbon and the oxygen )

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Toymaker Len

1-" What is this golden opportunity that Australia is presented with? I hear this touted a bit but don’t understand what it is".
-We have massive amounts of free energy that we can pump up into asia by -direct transmission, carbon neutral steel and aluminium, -exported hydrogen. The world is wanting these products already and as the first most obvious reaction to climate chaos will be many carbon taxes we will be well placed to supply low carbon products and energy.

2- "This coal replacement item/ product has yet to come to fruition as we have recently discussed, I don’t understand how we are meant to be going full steam ahead and leading the world when we don’t even know what direction we are meant to face."
-We were up with the world leaders in solar and wind energy and profitably exporting our intellectual property until Abbot wrecked it. I remember him bragging that he had wiped fifteen thousand jobs from the renewable sector. But right now just about all the tomatoes sold through Coles supermarkets come from one hydroponic farm in SA which is powered by a concentrated solar mass system. Not only runs a desalination plant which provides all the water but also supplies all the energy for pumping, lights, etc. It looks like concentrated solar mass will be the long term winner. It works by collecting heat in a solar tower, moving that energy by the medium of compressed air and pumping it into sand storage where it will keep hot for weeks or months. Extraction of the energy is simply by pumping water through pipes in the hot sand silos and then running the hot steam through conventional steam turbines. This provides super cheap reliable base-load power 24/7.

I was just about to respond to your post but Bushmillers post # 461 since probably did it better than I can.

It is great we have all these new technologies emerging and I look forward to the end of coal etc. but the truth is this is all still trials and spin doctoring at this stage.
I recall Tim Flannery getting a 90 million dollar grant from Gillard for his thermal rock energy that he said was very straight forward and an easy form of energy, well after the money was gone guess what, it was too hard.
I am sure that the Ginas, Clive’s and Twiggys etc of the nation will be all over it as soon as the right technology is here regardless of the government of the day.
Likewise , I know little about hydrogen but again, common sense tells me that if our mining fraternity has not already jumped on it it must not be a winner yet, I can’t imagine that all that opportunity is sitting in the ground with big $$$$ signs all over it and they are ignoring it can you?

Doug, remaining calm and balanced is useful to the discussion.
Practising blatant double standards is not.
Looking for every single itty bitty word to argue with, and being generally contrarian and argumentative it is not productive.

Different point(s) of view? No problem - just express it/them in the spirit of debate and discussion rather than continual combative, emotive argument.

You claim to have been taken out of context repeatedly, or in your precise words "a lot", and yet you do exactly that, showing double standards. Here are some exchanges to exemplify that. This is your entire post, in response to me saying that coal is on the nose for financiers (and note that I have never suggested switching off all coal-fired power today, and have in fact twice before this statement said that we will need some CF power for a while yet - "I dunno....for as long as it takes to replace it altogether" was my exact response):

Originally Posted by doug3030

Even if it was possible to switch off all coal-fired power today, it would still be necessary to mine coal.

There is currently no practical way to manufacture steel without it.

I made no allusion to saying steel manufacturing could be done without coal (but I did say that perhaps hydrogen or methanol might take over from coal). I was merely stating that it is going to be impossible to find finance for coal (which BTW is an indisputable fact - ask the banks, or Gautam Adani). I was actually talking about new coal, but it could be extended to existing coal that needs refinancing (and IIRC Paul said Millmerran was coming up for refinancing?).

Therefore by default, and implied in my response, existing coal can still be used for a while yet to manufacture steel, by utilising existing CF assets that can be kept running. So I spent another half dozen lines calmly clarifying your obfuscation of my original post about coal being on the nose financially.



And yet when Neil quoted the second half of your post (carefully inserting "[coal]" to be very clear that he was quoting you....wait for it....in context, and then goes on to say (note his caveats in bold):

Originally Posted by NeilS

I'm not a metallurgist, so I have no insights into the veracity of the following report (that you are unlikely to have read about in the Murdoch press) from Germany on a steel furnace running on renewable hydrogen: a world first.

first://reneweconomy.com.au/another-nail-in-coals-coffin-german-steel-furnace-runs-on-renewable-hydrogen-in-world-first-55906/

SSAB is planning to do the same thing in Sweden.

First in fossil-free steel - SSAB

I have no doubt that there will be issues ahead for them, but try telling German and Swedish steel makers who have been at it since steel manufacturing began that there is no practical way of achieving what they plan on doing. Anyway, I like their chances better than us producing 'clean' coal. What a stalking horse or red herring (whatever) that was to deflect us from getting on with what has to be done!

....you start nitpicking single words and complaining you were taken out of context, when you were not at all taken out of context by Neil. He was merely quoting you so that his next statement about what is being developed for steel milling would be relevant to it. Neil didn't say anything about being able to shut coal down now wrt steel - he was just talking about what is coming up (and thanks Neil). In fact nobody (in this discussion) has said that coal can be shut down now.

Originally Posted by doug3030

The linked articles indicate that these companies hope to be commercially producing fossil-free steel by the mid-2020's. Nobody said it could not be done. The would-be manufacturers themselves seem to concur with my statement from the content of the articles linked.

It is really getting tiresome to see a lot of my statements and those of others here being taken out of context by a self appointed few who do not wish to hear any opinions that do not align exactly with their own.

So are you seeing anything positive in the discussion Doug? Are you learning anything new? Or is it all disagreeable, and all to be quibbled with? (if Len comes back to address high carbon steel, the next thing will no doubt be "but what about HSS"?)

Personally, I'm taking away many positives from this discussion, and learning stacks of stuff that I didn't know about.


As for this....

Originally Posted by doug3030

...a self appointed few who do not wish to hear any opinions that do not align exactly with their own.

....that's just an emotive exaggeration, and quite unproductive to what is generally a very informative discussion, despite some occasional white noise.

It is most unfortunate that both here and also in real life we have found ourselves at odds over a situation which does not improve with argument.
Global Warming, Coal mining, Co2, production, renewable energy etc. Yes these are all factors worth serious consideration as they are all important contributing aspects to the current situation. Nitpicking proves nothing and it is nitpicking that handicaps logical progressive thinking. In the course of this thread we have never stopped to take stock of where we, as a Country, are really at. Can we seriously consider closing down the coal industry overnight? Are renewables at a level and standard to take over where coal has left off? Have we got the money to make the changes needed overnight? The list goes on. We are not politicians (thank God) we do not have to lie, misquote or stab anyone in the back just to keep our nose in the trough. We are blessed with the freedom to take the time to hear alternate points of view, theorys and wishful thinking. Because somewhere among all this are the fundamentals to come up with a sensible solution. Leave the nitpicking to the monkeys.

[QUOTE=FenceFurniture;2173463] (and IIRC Paul said Millmerran was coming up for refinancing?).

QUOTE]

Brett

Not quite. It is the Bluewaters station in WA that is about to be re-financed. It will not be easy for them. Banks don't stick their necks out for anybody and if there is doubt on the ability to repay it won't fly.

Regards
Paul