ENERGY MATTERS

[PanBiker]

They know how to do it properly in Iceland.

[Tripps]

Not as easy as it seems?

Newcastle bore hole

[PanBiker]

Probably a lot more experience when you live on a volcanic island. After they have used the geothermal water at the power station it gets pumped through social housing, (which they have a lot of in Reykjavik) for heating. Then it is pumped in pipework under the roads and pavements and finally discharged into the harbour area at an artificial beach area to raise the temperature of the water so that kids can have a paddle.

[Stanley]

That's fairly comprehensive Ian.
The nearest I ever came to this was the district heating system that served Dolphin Flats where my brother lived for a while. The flats were a council build and the heat came from the power station next door. That was common and was why the London city power stations had no cooling towers when they were in use.

[PanBiker]

When we visited Iceland it was February and I was amazed that in Reykjavik even though it snowed and extremely cold you didn't see a snow plough or gritter. The roads and pavements were clear. They kept the ploughs and gritters for the peripheral main road around the island. Plenty of snow once out of the city. Any route off the peripheral is considered off road.

We did a day with a professional off road driver in a huge Toyota 4 X 4. Drivers of those call the Land Rover Discoveries, Dinky Toys.

The Toyota's were stripped down and rebuilt for extreme use. They have independent suspension on each wheel and independent inflate / deflate of the tyres from inside the cab. Sat Nav, Air Con in the cab with front and back winches and they could navigate or cross riverbeds up to 6ft deep. Six forward and three reverse gears I think from memory. He took us straight up the 45 degree side of one of the peaks over snow and boulders to about 3,000ft. We got out on the top for a couple of minutes it was -20 degrees with the same in wind chill. It took your breath away with both the view out over the ice fields and the clarity of the air. Blokes were reminded not to to take the opportunity to have a pee.

[Tizer]

I wasn't sure whether this should go here or in Computers or Climate Change, it has wide ramifications. It's a good 101 on bitcoin and its energy usage. Elon Musk's hypocrisy is illustrated - he bought $1.5 billion of bitcoin, made a profit of $900 million out of it, and sent its price rocketing up which meant vast amounts more energy expenditure - and he's the man who is selling green credits to other industries! My views on Musk are unprintable here!
`How Bitcoin's vast energy use could burst its bubble' LINK

[Stanley]

I wonder how many people have realised that? I can't see how it's not fraud.

[Tizer]

As Musk's wealth is $185 billion (billions,not millions) I guess he pay for an army of lawyers to prevent him being prosecuted for anything.

Back to the Cumbria coal mine yet again. Now UK foreign ambassadors are warning Boris that his support for the mine is bringing accusations of hypocrisy but the mine's supporters still argue it should be encouraged because it will produce special coking coal for steel making, not thermal coal for power.*
`Cumbria coal mine plan 'damaging PM's reputation'' LINK
*I've already mentioned how Birmingham scientists are developing the production of hydrogen from waste plastics so the gas can be used instead of coke to make steel. Now there are other methods of avoiding coal being investigated...
`Coffee may be the secret to making eco‑friendly steel' The Times
`Coffee grounds and old tyres could soon be used to make eco-friendly steel, thanks to a breakthrough to be presented in London tomorrow [22nd Feb 2021]. Professor Veena Sahajwalla, of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, has developed a technique that removes the need for coal from steel-making. She is in discussions with Molycop, a company already using a version of her technology. Molycop is in talks with interested British manufacturers..'.

[Stanley]

From your mouth to God's ear Peter. There would appear to be some ulterior motives at work here.... Possibly from the people with most to gain from mining?

[Stanley]

It must be getting warmer, the February total is £106. Nice! (And I think us crumblies might get another cold weather payment....)

[Tizer]

I've put this in Energy Matters although it has wider implications. Tesla is using its power to gain control of mineral reserves although in this case at least the local people have fought successfully against the mine being sold to Swiss commodities trader Trafigura...
`Tesla partners with nickel mine amid shortage fears' LINK
`Tesla has decided to become a technical partner in a nickel mine - which is needed for lithium-ion batteries that power electric cars. Elon Musk's car firm will also buy nickel from the Goro mine on the small Pacific island of New Caledonia to secure its long-term supply. The move comes amid growing concerns about future supplies of nickel. New Caledonia is the world's fourth largest nickel producer, which has seen a 26% rally in prices in the past year. "Nickel is our biggest concern for scaling lithium-ion cell production," Musk said on Twitter last month. New Caledonia is a French overseas territory although it has seen growing calls for its independence.

[Stanley]

The hunt for rare metals...... Did I see the other day that there is a fresh initiative to mine the sea bed for them?
Is this Bucky Balls?

[Tizer]

There's a battle between the miners and the ecologists because the sea bed is rich in a range of concentrated mineral ores and rare amazing creatures, as explained in this Nature article from 2019.

`Seabed mining is coming — bringing mineral riches and fears of epic extinctions. Plans are advancing to harvest precious ores from the ocean floor, but scientists say that companies have not tested them enough to avoid devastating damage. ' Nature

[Stanley]

Link Peter?

[Tizer]

Whoops! I've added it to the post above but here it is again: Nature

[Stanley]

"Since the DISCOL experiment was completed, scientists have returned to the site four times, most recently in 2015. The site has never recovered. In the ploughed areas, which remain as visible today as they were 30 years ago, there’s been little return of characteristic animals such as sponges, soft corals and sea anemones. “The disturbance is much stronger and lasting much longer than we ever would have thought,” says Thiel."
That was the key paragraph for me. But will certain destruction be any bar to exploitation? Don't hold your breath.

[Tizer]

The International Seabed Authority (ISA) hasn't been much use - it just lets the businesses rush on with their projects.

[Tizer]

Here we go again. All the time it's put over as a small local company `creating 100s of jobs for locals' when the truth is that it's a project funded by a massive global mining company...
`Whitehaven coal mine firm seeks judicial review of council U-turn' LINK

[Stanley]

Persistent buggers aren't they.

[Tripps]

`Seabed mining is coming

You know you are getting old when you see this story for the fourth or fifth time. A bit like nuclear fusion.

Guido has some interesting facts on the reality of coal production and use today Guido Fawkes on Coal
Here's an extract

Coal India is investing of about 473 billion rupees ($6.4 billion) on 32 mining projects as the company seeks to boost output to replace imports of the fuel. The sites will have a combined peak output of 193 million tons a year. The miner targets reaching 1 billion tons of annual coal production by 2024.

[Whyperion]

Here we go again. All the time it's put over as a small local company `creating 100s of jobs for locals' when the truth is that it's a project funded by a massive global mining company...
`Whitehaven coal mine firm seeks judicial review of council U-turn' LINK

I understand given the Greenhill situation , and some indication that not all is profit in the related Steel Production company in the UK, that maybe someone might have their numbers go wrong if the steel specialist or otherwise is disappearing out of Whitehaven. The Daily Mail also reports Scots govt agreed to buy electricity from the Aluminium Smelter plant, if that failed to operate, so maybe thats more power to the grid, for now (though I doubt the smelter is likely to close - though its not the UKs only one, some recyclers run their own fairly small scale ones.

[Tizer]

The steel company that's in jeopardy now due to the Greensill fiasco is Liberty owned by Sanjeev Gupta. Ironically he's very keen on finding CO2 emissions-free alternative sources of energy for making steel instead of coking coal. So while the global coal mining group* supports the Cumbria mine project, the steel maker who wants to make steel without coal is possibly losing his business. You couldn't make it up!

The group funding the Cumbria project is EMR Capital, a massive resources company operating worldwide. I mentioned it early on when the project was first in the news because I found EMR mentioned on West Cumbria Mining's web site. Now it's been deleted and I can't find any mention of them on the site. They obviously want people to keep thinking it's just WCR, a little local company providing some local jobs. EMR is big in coal and certainly won't do any funding of alternatives! EMR Capital

[Whyperion]

Did Coking Coal only make sense when you used the gas as town gas for ones cooker ?

[plaques]

I'm sure my pal up in Northumberland said he once worked in a mine that worked High Grade Anthracite. He called it Diamond top but I think the general term was Black Diamond. High grade (HG) and ultra high grade (UHG) anthracite are the highest grades of anthracite coal. The UHG equates to 'coking coal' or Metallurgical coal. Surprising what you learn at school.

[Tripps]

Jez Lowe had it sorted

Black Diamonds