EU Hydrogen economy/power scam

[Haenk]

Could you provide a source for your claim of the forging of documents, please? If you think that one of your links is a source that substantiates this claim, could you please specify which one and where it supports this claim (possibly just quote the relevant section)?

This has been greatly discussed in german media like a couple of weeks ago.
Essentially, the ministry misquoted power companies statements of the future use of nuclear plants. The choice of words and leaving out parts (or even that selective choice of text) might turn a statement by 180 degrees.
AFAIR their statement went from "due to the scheduled going dark process, revision work and recertification will be needed to keep the plants running" to a statement by the ministry like "the industry said it's not possible to keep the plants running".
Which is IMHO a blatant lie.

Nähere Informationen auf Deutsch:
https://www.cicero.de/themen/atomausstieg

(Nevertheless, I think the exit from nuclear power was the right idea, but the execution was the worst possible. And I would blame pretty much all parties for this - CDU/SPD for sabotaging regenerative energy production and now SPD/Grüne for making a crazy mess out of everything)

[ksjh]

Nähere Informationen auf Deutsch:
https://www.cicero.de/themen/atomausstieg

I would take all this information with a grain of salt. Cicero lost a lawsuit, after which one would be basically allowed to say that they "added fictional information" in their articles after a web site published a fact check:
https://www.volksverpetzer.de/faktencheck/habeck-rechte-pseudo-skandal-akw-files/

[zilp]

This has been greatly discussed in german media like a couple of weeks ago.

No, it hasn't been. I am aware of the Cicero story, but forgery of documents was never even an accusation that was made in that context, so that can't be it.

Essentially, the ministry misquoted power companies statements of the future use of nuclear plants. The choice of words and leaving out parts (or even that selective choice of text) might turn a statement by 180 degrees.

That is not forgery of documents (Urkundenfälschung). Forgery of documents is a crime, specifically the crime of presenting a document as being authored or signed in the form presented by an entity that did not in fact author or sign that document as presented. Authoring a document and putting into it an incorrect or misleading quote of some other party's statement is not document forgery, and also not a crime in itself.

AFAIR their statement went from "due to the scheduled going dark process, revision work and recertification will be needed to keep the plants running" to a statement by the ministry like "the industry said it's not possible to keep the plants running".
Which is IMHO a blatant lie.

First of all, this is all about contents of internal documents of the government, so it is kinda misleading to say "statement by the ministry". Mind you, Cicero had to sue to force the ministry to hand over the documents. Primarily, this is about documents prepared by the ministry for consumption by the minister. In this case, the document apparently was also shared with another ministry (authored in the Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Klimaschutz, shared with Bundesumweltministerium, because the latter is responsible for nuclear safety, both led by green ministers, with the documents being edited by people within the ministry who were essentially hired by the minister).

And also, my understanding is that the changes that were made in the editing process that apparently were the basis for the accusation made by Cicero were completely trivial and in no way made the text misleading. Actually, it seems almost as if the whole basis for the accusation is a misunderstading of the original text by Cicero. With the "text" being changed also apparently being primarily a heading.

Nähere Informationen auf Deutsch:
https://www.cicero.de/themen/atomausstieg

I think this analysis of the case is worth a read:

https://www.volksverpetzer.de/faktencheck/habeck-rechte-pseudo-skandal-akw-files/

[wraper]

No, it hasn't been. I am aware of the Cicero story, but forgery of documents was never even an accusation that was made in that context, so that can't be it.

It was. They either suppressed expert assessments or manipulated them by changing the conclusion that nuclear power plants can continue operating safely to the opposite.

[coppice]

Yes, just let me know one thing from the EU that is not dumb and a scam, though, I'm still looking.

When the EU has done low level things, like sponsoring common standards across Europe for things like cellular and digital TV, they have a pretty good track record. When they do more public facing things the peacocks need to strut, and the efficacy of what they are strutting about is largely irrelevant. This is true everywhere, but the EU accentuates it by a greater level of disconnect from the discipline of elections.

[coppice]

Remember, Ammonia is just 3 Hydrogen atoms bonded to a central nitrogen atom.  IE: Ammonia is a hydrogen fuel without any carbon.  This chemically concentrates the hydrogen into a smaller volume with a lower pressure boiling point.  25psi for liquid Ammonia at room temp.  That's the same pressure as what's in your car tires to get ammonia all the way down to a liquid.  The issue is that the bond to nitrogen is strong and burning ammonia happens slowly at typical ICE piston compression levels with natural aspiration.

Ammonia has a lot going for it, but to be clean you do need to use it in ways that don't result in a lot of nasty nitrogen based side products. I don't see enough written about that issue in texts about ammonia powered ICEs, fuel cells, etc. If its pretty much a non-issue for some modes of consuming ammonia I would expect their proponents to be shouting about it.

[Marco]

For all the claimed dangers of hydrogen, getting into detonation range is pretty hard. Ammonia can kill a lot easier.

[zilp]

No, it hasn't been. I am aware of the Cicero story, but forgery of documents was never even an accusation that was made in that context, so that can't be it.

It was. They either suppressed expert assessments or manipulated them by changing the conclusion that nuclear power plants can continue operating safely to the opposite.

You apparently accidentally stopped reading after one sentence, so let me help you by quoting what I wrote next:

That is not forgery of documents (Urkundenfälschung). Forgery of documents is a crime, specifically the crime of presenting a document as being authored or signed in the form presented by an entity that did not in fact author or sign that document as presented. Authoring a document and putting into it an incorrect or misleading quote of some other party's statement is not document forgery, and also not a crime in itself.

I can also recommend the rest of my post which explains in some detail how your description of the situation makes no sense at all.

Also, I asked you a question above that you apparently accidentally skipped over:

And try spreading that cancer over the rest of EU.
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2023-002175_EN.html

Can you explain who the source of this text is, and why you think that this source is a reliable source of information?

As I have a bit more time now, let me help you with answering this:

This text on the website of the European Parliament is a question that was asked by a member of the European Parliament to the European Commission. The answer is linked at the top right of the page.

The specific MEP that asked this question is Kosma Złotowski from Poland, who is a member of the parliamentary group ECR, as is noted on the page. More specifically, he is a member of the party PiS.

Also, there is some background information that he apparently isn't aware of, and given that you don't seem to be from Germany either, I suspect that you might not be either, so let me explain:

The Heinrich Böll foundation and the Rosa Luxemburg foundation are what is called in German Parteistiftungen, i.e. foundations associated with political parties. Except most of them aren't actually legally foundations, but that doesn't really matter here, and I'll go with calling them foundations as is customary. Specifically, the Heinrich Böll foundation is associated with the Greens (Bündnis '90/die Grünen) and the Rosa Luxemburg foundation is associaled with the Left (Die Linke).

Now, it is technically correct that these foundations are funded primarily by the federal government. Because all of these party-associated foundations of parties that are represented in the Bundestag (federal parliament) receive federal tax funding, by law (sort of, it's a bit complicated, but the point is that the government is not free to just decide who gets money). The purpose of this funding is to enable all parties to do political work without being dependent on large donors, and thus in particular to avoid political influence of large donors. The important point here is that the federal government doesn't provide funding to further particular political goals, as is implied by Kosma Złotowski's question, but rather provides funding to all of the party-associated foundations, who then decide freely what they do with that money.

Given the misleading presentation of this aspect, whether because he isn't aware of how the fundig of party-associated foundations in Germany works or because he is trying to intentionally mislead, I would be very skeptical that the rest of that question is any more factually reliable. At the same time, though, it's not exactly a scandal that political foundations do political work promoting their respective political views, including, I would suspect, PiS and associated organisations.

Another piece of background information that might be helpful is that he quotes BILD in that question. BILD is a tabloid. While not everything they write is false, a lot of it is, as it tends to be with tabloids. So, it's a weird choice for a source to quote.

I hope that helps with judging how to take the text of that question.

[Stray Electron]

For all the claimed dangers of hydrogen, getting into detonation range is pretty hard. Ammonia can kill a lot easier.

   Who said anything about detonation?   I don't think that's possible for Hydrogen to detonate but it will combust. It will even spontaneously combust in the presence of certain oxidizers or certain catalyst.

"Ammonia can kill a lot easier."

   If you're only talking about the direct affects of the ammonia or hydrogen by itself, that is probably true. But there are many other ways that either one can kill you either directly or indirectly. Suffocation alone is probably a bigger hazard than possible burns and is a possibility with just about anything that is gaseous at STP.   And there are many other factors that have to be taken into account when deciding which is safer and/or more practical and/or more efficient.

[wraper]

That is not forgery of documents (Urkundenfälschung). Forgery of documents is a crime, specifically the crime of presenting a document as being authored or signed in the form presented by an entity that did not in fact author or sign that document as presented. Authoring a document and putting into it an incorrect or misleading quote of some other party's statement is not document forgery, and also not a crime in itself.

Maliciously altering expert assessment is a forgery by any reasonable means. If you say give altered expert assessment showing altered property value to a bank, you can be prosecuted for that. I don't see any difference of it's nature here.

Also, I asked you a question above that you apparently accidentally skipped over:

And try spreading that cancer over the rest of EU.
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2023-002175_EN.html

Can you explain who the source of this text is, and why you think that this source is a reliable source of information?

How about you google the name of one who wrote it and actually check the links on the bottom.

[zilp]

That is not forgery of documents (Urkundenfälschung). Forgery of documents is a crime, specifically the crime of presenting a document as being authored or signed in the form presented by an entity that did not in fact author or sign that document as presented. Authoring a document and putting into it an incorrect or misleading quote of some other party's statement is not document forgery, and also not a crime in itself.

Maliciously altering expert assessment is a forgery by any reasonable means.

Whatever you mean by "reasonable means", it certainly is not by the standards of the legal profession. And in particular it is not forgery of a document, as you claimed. You don't have to like that, but that still is how it is.

If you say give altered expert assessment showing altered property value to a bank, you can be prosecuted for that. I don't see any difference of it's nature here.

I will take your word for it that you don't see any difference. But I will also tell you that the legal profession does, and so I think it makes sense to follow the experts here in order to not confuse things.

First of all, if you take a signed document from an expert that assesses a property value and modify it, then that in fact is, as per the definition that I gave, document forgery, a crime. But that is not the accusation that was made. The accusation was at most that the expert was quoted incorrectly. Incorrectly quoting someone is not forgery of a document.

So, to change your scenario to more accurately match the accusation that was made, let's say that you wrote a letter to your bank and in that letter you misquoted the property assessment of an expert. First of all, that is not document forgery. Also, it is not a crime by itself. However, it can be a part of a crime, such as fraud. If you were to intentionally misquote the expert's assessment with the goal of gaining an economical advantage, for example, then that would be fraud.

However, as I wrote, the accused misquoting was part of internal documents of two Greens-led ministries. So, the accusation was that someone inside the ministry who was appointed by the minister and who was responsible for editing the document in question edited the document such that it misrepresented facts, which then supposedly would mislead the minister who appointed them.

So, to modify your scenario further, it wouldn't be you misquoting the expert assessment, but rather the bank boss's secretary misquoting the expert assessment in a letter to their boss

Also, the minister himself, after the accusations were published, did not feel misled.

So, to modify your scenario further, the boss of the bank, after the supposed deception was uncovered, stated that they had not been misled about the value of the property.

Now, I  obviously don't know how you feel about whether it should be a crime to "misquote" information in a way where the supposed victim says that they were not misinfomed, but what I can tell you is that in Germany, that is in fact not a crime, nor is it in most (all?) other countries.

Also, if you can read German, I can highly recommend reading the analysis by the Volksverpetzer that ksjh an I linked to. You might come to the conclusion that it would be highly surprising if the minister had been misled by the editing that supposedly was intended to mislead him. In particular, no expert was misquoted anywhere, so all of the text above is actually completely irrelevant to the case, as no misquoting ever even happened.

Also, I asked you a question above that you apparently accidentally skipped over:

And try spreading that cancer over the rest of EU.
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2023-002175_EN.html

Can you explain who the source of this text is, and why you think that this source is a reliable source of information?

How about you google the name of one who wrote it and actually check the links on the bottom.

I have a pro tip for you: Sometimes, it can be helpful to read texts in full and not stop after the first sentence.

In this case, the post that you are quoting from here, contained a lengthy explanation of both who the person who wrote it is, and how the text is misleading.

For your convenience, here is a link to the post.

Also, you seem to be under the mistaken impression that google could tell me why you think that they are a reliable source of information. That is in fact a question that only you can answer.

[tszaboo]

For all the claimed dangers of hydrogen, getting into detonation range is pretty hard. Ammonia can kill a lot easier.

   Who said anything about detonation?   I don't think that's possible for Hydrogen to detonate but it will combust. It will even spontaneously combust in the presence of certain oxidizers or certain catalyst.

"Ammonia can kill a lot easier."

   If you're only talking about the direct affects of the ammonia or hydrogen by itself, that is probably true. But there are many other ways that either one can kill you either directly or indirectly. Suffocation alone is probably a bigger hazard than possible burns and is a possibility with just about anything that is gaseous at STP.   And there are many other factors that have to be taken into account when deciding which is safer and/or more practical and/or more efficient.

My issue with hydrogen is twofold.
It's very difficult to store it as it will diffuse through a steel wall, breaking it in the process, called Hydrogen embrittlement.
And if it's escaped, a tiny bit of energy is enough to set a hydrogen-oxygen mixture to explode. Energy stored in a 10uF capacitor, charged to 12V will explode it. It cannot be anywhere near electronics.
CHG, LNG is much safer, we already use and store it, the infrastructure is there, and it's just one extra step to make it.

[AVGresponding]

For all the claimed dangers of hydrogen, getting into detonation range is pretty hard. Ammonia can kill a lot easier.

   Who said anything about detonation?   I don't think that's possible for Hydrogen to detonate but it will combust. It will even spontaneously combust in the presence of certain oxidizers or certain catalyst.

"Ammonia can kill a lot easier."

   If you're only talking about the direct affects of the ammonia or hydrogen by itself, that is probably true. But there are many other ways that either one can kill you either directly or indirectly. Suffocation alone is probably a bigger hazard than possible burns and is a possibility with just about anything that is gaseous at STP.   And there are many other factors that have to be taken into account when deciding which is safer and/or more practical and/or more efficient.

My issue with hydrogen is twofold.
It's very difficult to store it as it will diffuse through a steel wall, breaking it in the process, called Hydrogen embrittlement.
And if it's escaped, a tiny bit of energy is enough to set a hydrogen-oxygen mixture to explode. Energy stored in a 10uF capacitor, charged to 12V will explode it. It cannot be anywhere near electronics.
CHG, LNG is much safer, we already use and store it, the infrastructure is there, and it's just one extra step to make it.

Don't forget the fact that the stoichiometric ratio at which this can occur is also a very broad range of values.

[Marco]

It's very difficult to store it as it will diffuse through a steel wall, breaking it in the process, called Hydrogen embrittlement.

Then don't use a steel wall ... pay for aluminium, stainless, composite whatever.

And if it's escaped, a tiny bit of energy is enough to set a hydrogen-oxygen mixture to explode.

Likely at very lean mixtures do to its propensity to escape. As I said, it's hard to get it to detonate.

Meanwhile a sprinkler system turns an ammonia leak into a low hanging poison cloud ... it's a sideways step at best.

[nctnico]

It's very difficult to store it as it will diffuse through a steel wall, breaking it in the process, called Hydrogen embrittlement.

Then don't use a steel wall ... pay for aluminium, stainless, composite whatever.

Yup. Hydrogen is being used, stored and transported on a large scale already. Problems with doing that have been solved a very long time ago.

And if it's escaped, a tiny bit of energy is enough to set a hydrogen-oxygen mixture to explode.

Likely at very lean mixtures do to its propensity to escape. As I said, it's hard to get it to detonate.

Meanwhile a sprinkler system turns an ammonia leak into a low hanging poison cloud ... it's a sideways step at best.

Agreed. Hydrogen is very light / volatile so it will escape quickly. I recall my chemistry teacher needed quite a bit of effort to make hydrogen go 'bang' due to hydrogen escaping so quickly. The demonstration for making an explosion with natural gas was much easier to do OTOH.

Ammonia is super nasty stuff; toxic and corrosive. You don't want to mess with that.

[TimFox]

A detailed technical article about hydrogen embrittlement of steels, including appropriate coatings where the steel is exposed to hydrogen gas.
https://www.mdpi.com/2673-4141/4/2/22
This problem has been worked on actively for years, to combine the strength of steel with impermeable coatings.

[Siwastaja]

As always,

• Thermal storage of heat (when used as heat, which is large part of our energy needs)
• Pumped water (usable as electricity)
• Acceptance of fact that using a little bit of fossil fuels is not catastrophic, so no need to supply 100% of needs by storage
• Hydrogen made out of excess solar/wind to replace existing needs for hydrogen in the industry
• If, after all this, we have excess of solar and wind, low-efficiency storage in hydrogen is not completely stupid, just that people like nctnico making it the primary solution for energy issues is the error

[Marco]

• Acceptance of fact that using a little bit of fossil fuels is not catastrophic, so no need to supply 100% of needs by storage

The cost from status quo to net zero has an S shaped curve.

It makes no sense to cheap out for a couple peanuts ... that's like Australia's NBN, spend nearly all the money any way but stop before the finish line.

Unless your little bit is leaving multiple 10s of percent.

[nctnico]

• Acceptance of fact that using a little bit of fossil fuels is not catastrophic, so no need to supply 100% of needs by storage

The cost from status quo to net zero has an S shaped curve.

It makes no sense to cheap out for a couple peanuts ... that's like Australia's NBN, spend nearly all the money any way but stop before the finish line.

Unless your little bit is leaving multiple 10s of percent.

Indeed. Having a power plant running at 50% capacity still requires 100% of the maintenance and investment costs but now spread over half the production quantity. Energy from fossil fuels gets really expensive that way. At some point it simply makes no commercial sense to use fossil fuels. Especially when only a little bit is needed.

[Marco]

Looking at the cost of concrete composite LNG tanks, PWh scale storage is probably doable for liquid hydrogen. No need to go underground (which might not even be possible outside of limited salt caverns). Trillion per PWh range, but doable.

[Siwastaja]

Indeed. Having a power plant running at 50% capacity still requires 100% of the maintenance and investment costs but now spread over half the production quantity. Energy from fossil fuels gets really expensive that way.

It's not a problem at all. While price goes up by the ratio, usage also goes down by the very same ratio. We can skip all this zero sum math theater and just calculate the total cost to the society as (cost of maintaining fossils + cost of maintaining renewables) / electricity used. Regardless of their ratios, the sum will be roughly the same.

By "little bit of fossils", I'm referring to something like reducing the current amount to say, half on short term (decade or two), and maybe to 10-20% on longer term.

Even though maintenance (fixed operating cost) is a large part, it's not everything, so it's not like cost per kWh increases by 10x if amount of production is decreased to 10%. Maybe it increases by 5x and that would not a problem at all, because you would use only one tenth of it. And even if you use very expensive electricity for a week, it doesn't matter, money averages out. If you are scared about market mechanisms, contracts where this volatility is hidden from you will obviously be available.

Also remember that in current situation fossil fuels are somewhat scarce resource and because harvesting the resources is a political act (which includes stuff like war, which is expensive), the cost of the material itself probably reduces when less is used, and those who still produce it need to fight for customers to buy it.

[tszaboo]

It's very difficult to store it as it will diffuse through a steel wall, breaking it in the process, called Hydrogen embrittlement.

Then don't use a steel wall ... pay for aluminium, stainless, composite whatever.

And if it's escaped, a tiny bit of energy is enough to set a hydrogen-oxygen mixture to explode.

Likely at very lean mixtures do to its propensity to escape. As I said, it's hard to get it to detonate.

Meanwhile a sprinkler system turns an ammonia leak into a low hanging poison cloud ... it's a sideways step at best.

For starters, you need 3x the tanks to store the same amount. 3x the ships, the tanks, the pipes.
I know this country has this irrational hatred of natural gas, but I expect technical people to be more educated on these subjects. Also the green transition would be better if we wouldn't wreck our wallets in the process.
As I said, we already have the infrastructure to use, store, drive around with, heat with methane we only need to make it renewable.

[Marco]

Once CO2 stops being a byproduct of fossil fuels and becomes a resource to be acquired from the environment, it gets very expensive.

[Siwastaja]

I know this country has this irrational hatred of natural gas

More like love-hatred relationship: depend on it while talk otherwise.

Anyway, for fossil fuels, as I said above, it's all about the amount. Natural gas is great, as long as you use the amount you can easily harvest (relatively) close-by, being self-sufficient, or buy from free market from those who play by the same free market rules, in a mutually beneficial arrangement.

When it gets to the point that you have to build multiple pipelines thousands of kilometers long, to a terrorist country which then attacks their neighboring countries in order to secure more natural gas to sell it to you, so that you are now putting money to support the both sides of the war at the same time, you have lost; your "natural gas" has become moral, environmental, and economical disaster. If we look at actual total cost, it would have cost less to produce the same amount of energy using some freaking solar roadways or harvesting wind produced by unicorns flapping their wings.

Then again, for example UK has their own natural gas resources relatively close to them and under their own political control. It would be unwise to just suddenly stop using them completely and let them go to waste.

So real cost of fossils is not a constant. Use too much and the cost skyrockets because it's a scarce resource (part of the cost is hidden from the view, e.g. war is really expensive). Use less, and it's just an excellent way to completely sidestep the whole energy storage issue.

Fossil fuels are great servants but bad masters, using them is absolutely fine but uncontrollable dependency is not only horrible, it's expensive as hell.

[zilp]

Then again, for example UK has their own natural gas resources relatively close to them and under their own political control. It would be unwise to just suddenly stop using them completely and let them go to waste.

I mean, not stopping suddenly is one thing, because that would cause huge avoidable disruption.

But leaving natural gas in the ground is "letting it go to waste" in about the same way that not drinking a bottle of cyanide solution is "letting it go to waste". If you include the externalities, the value gained by "not letting it go to waste" is negative.

And fossil sources under your own political control are the only ones that you can actually prevent from being released into the atmosphere. So, it's actually preferable to buy the fuels you need elsewhere and keep your own stuff in the ground forever.

Use less, and it's just an excellent way to completely sidestep the whole energy storage issue.

Except it obviously is not?! I mean, it is a useful temporary solution for filling the gaps in renewable generation, but it obviously increases the CO2 content of the atmosphere, so how can it possibly sidestep the storage issue?!