Waypoint 4
I am documenting my own journey into & through the global Energy Transition movement. Along this renewable path, I am marking waypoints to capture and share my insights with those on similar paths.
In my most recent Point of View update, I discussed how I have been organizing my thoughts as I continue gather and absorb information related to all things renewable energy. Along the way, even as I endeavor to catalogue every item into its appropriate categories, I am also collecting miscellaneous nuggets that are perfect for sharing in this Waypoint article format. I hope you enjoy this next batch:
Erecting - then dismantling an entire city
I can’t remember how I stumbled on this story but every time I go back to review it, I am still astounded. Even if you only focus on the electricity infrastructure, it is impressive.
Every four years a massive but temporary city is created to welcome Hindus celebrating the Kumbh Mela. This spiritual Festival of the Urn rotates among four areas in the region but each of them is located next to the same sacred river in India.
What makes it a remarkable story is that, in a span of only 5 months, the makeshift city is created from scratch and then completely dismantled - and it is meant to accommodate 100 million visitors which can translate to 30 million inhabitants on any given day!
The whole project is impressive, even more than comparable efforts around 1-time Olympic buildouts but I am most fascinated by the design and construction of a temporary electric grid that reliably serves that many people!
You can read more here.
Recommending a new podcast: The Big Switch
If like me, you’re on the lookout for great sources of information that help explain the Energy Transition and its many facets, then you will want to tune into this new podcast. Host Dr. Melissa C. Lott, a Senior Research Scholar and Research Director at the Center on Global Energy Policy uses a narrative storytelling approach for her series that is especially engaging for energy n00bs like me.
In the first season, she uses the backdrop of the 2021 Texas Winter Storm to explore decarbonization and what it will take to move the US power grid away from fossil-fuels and to renewable energy.
Give it a listen here and enjoy!
Hydrogen’s future will certainly come in many colors
Image credit here.
I am still not detecting universal agreement on precisely how hydrogen will fit into the future renewable energy puzzle but there is certainly enough interest in how to tap into this abundant resource for clean power.
The research and experimentation have not only been escalating but continue to broaden in terms of potential sources, methods and benefits. All this activity has warranted a colorful naming convention to help the industry reduce confusion.
The hydrogen rainbow includes, for example:
Green hydrogen - a method of producing electricity through electrolysis using only clean energy sources such as wind or solar power.
Blue hydrogen - creating hydrogen from natural gas, a fossil fuel which also produces carbon dioxide as a by-product, thus less attractive for a net zero future.
Grey hydrogen - the most popular production method used today but the natural gas or methane production methods don’t attempt to capture/store any of the greenhouse gases created in the process -so… bad.
Pink hydrogen - creating new hydrogen requires a lot of energy up front so all these approaches are ultimately looking at significant power sources to drive the production and pink hydrogen is an electrolysis method that uses clean(er) nuclear energy. Note that this method is also sometimes referred to as purple or red hydrogen.
White? Yellow? Turquoise? - yes! There are still more colors to explore here which may give you a sense of why there is growing interest and investment in hydrogen.
I will certainly be writing more articles in the future on the feasible applications and relative successes of these innovative approaches. Until then, enjoy the rainbow!
That time I came across an Edison dynamo
Edison engine on display in Miami museum
This is a bit random but on a trip last year to Miami Beach, I stopped in to visit the Wolfsonian museum and was completely surprised to see an Edison dynamo on display!
I had just finished listening to The Grid The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future by Gretchen Bakke that tells the origin story of the US national electric grid. Edison played a major role in the early days, and it was inventions like this that originally provided large scale power to the bigger cities and even some private residences.
We are still using versions of this machine of course to generate electricity but the push for clean, renewable energy will soon leave coal and its fossil-fuel cohorts behind, perhaps appearing as a companion museum piece for future generations.
More Waypoints on the Renewable Path
I’ve been collecting online resources that attempt to capture, distill and present the full Energy and/or Climate landscape in a consumable model. These have helped me on my own path, and I hope you find some/all of them valuable too.