The power of narratives and framing – Snowy 2.0
Narratives and framing are an essential part of political story telling. Snowy 2.0, Australia’s proposed pumped hydro project, is building on the “nation building” narrative of the original Snowy 1.0, and being framed as a universal solution to wind and solar...
The Green and the Brown – the varied colours of hydrogen
Hydrogen ‘colours’ can be a useful shortcut for differentiating hydrogen supply options. But delimiting by colour can obscure the nuances between supply options, and oversimplify what are difficult policy and commercial choices. There is no universal standard for...
Why is the energy density of hydrogen so much higher than batteries?
I’m sometimes asked why the gravimetric energy density of hydrogen is so high, and much higher than batteries. For example, the Tesla Model S (85 kWh) requires a battery pack weighing about 540 kg to achieve a 400 km range, but a similarly sized gasoline...
Energy Storage and Civilization
This is my first post for over a year, and I'm planning on following up with several more posts in the near future. I've been working on several projects, including my project engineering role in manufacturing, research projects on hydrogen and a book on storage,...
EROI and theories of value
Conventional economists' rejection of EROI Conventional economists usually reject net-energy analysis. The assumption is that the price system embeds all the energy and non-energy costs, and therefore there is nothing to be gained by a narrow focus on energetic...