Imagine being a trucker in Northern Alberta and it's -45C and your DEF tanks or lines freeze up and then your truck won't move despite a full tank of Diesel.
Waste to Chemicals (W2C) produces Hydrogen suitable for HFCV heavy trucks from Municipal Solid Waste. The Swiss technology operates commercially in Japan since 2006. A business model which includes CO2 by sequestration, stops landfill gas and leachate emissions and all combustion engine emissions with hydrogen fuel cell electric powered drives. Financial studies confirm H2 costs less than $2 per kg.
I believe Adblue supply will be secured in Europe - at least in Germany, because one of the biggest producers BASF heavily relies on diesel trucks for in- and outbound freight. I expect them to prioritise Adblue in their production portfolio. Adblue costs 55 - 60€ Cents/liter and is not a major cost driver (so far). Even if Adblue prices doubled or tripled it will be comparably little impact compared to diesel prices.
Having worked underground for a number of years, I was amazed at the technology that reduced the toxic gases in a confined space, AdBlue was revoloutionary to the mining industry. Where will your copper/ Gold/ rare earth materials come from if the mines shut?
Have farmland on the front range of Colorado. Usually grow pintos or corn. Did hops for Coors a while back, that was different. Current plan is to fallow the land this next year and lease out the water rights for the season. Between weather, ag prices, fertilizer, water lease rates and pesticide costs, just going to step aside.
And all of this because of "global warming" and "climate change". As some point, someone in power has to simply tell these people to take their 'activism' and blow it out their tailpipe.
DEF is an enormous PITA. Want to reduce emissions? Shorten the hell out of supply chains. Send raw materials from all over the world to let indentured servants build the stuff using coal power for energy, then ship finished goods back all over the world to be snarfed up with money conjured out of thin air. Yeah I see no way this could have gone wrong.
I have an E-bike. I love it. However, it takes 8 hours to charge for 2 hours of play time. If I had to depend on it for work, the numbers just don't add up. Cold air steals some mileage too. So good luck in Alaska!
Yep. Experience with charging an e-bike from a wall socket is totally comparable to charging an e-Truck from a dedicated ultra-high speed chargers, and a battery exposed on the bike is completely comparable to a battery insulated inside the truck.
Good luck surviving climate change. You'll need it.
My post is based on my understanding of batteries and my toys that use them. I may have my biases based on the fact my family runs a trucking company and I’m employed in the automotive engine rebuilding field. If I believed electric trucks would take over in my life time, I would have an electric car too. Climate change is a political game that adds up as poorly as an 80% “quick” charge on a Tesla. I can’t make money on a half tank of fuel that takes an hour to fill. That’s just reality. It’s time these politicians start accepting it.
So just to clarify - you don't think that climate change is a real issue? Or do you believe it is an issue but we should accept what's coming to us? Or something else?
I don’t believe climate change is a real issue at all. That doesn’t mean I’m planning to heat my house with the exhaust from my father’s trucks! I grew up in an area that was once dominated by the cement industry. In the 1800’s limestone was dug out of the ground, crushed and dehydrated from burning coal + wood. It was then shipped on barges in oak barrels. The cement + the shipping relied on wood to the point the area was completely denuded of trees. #1 killer was respiratory issues, smoke from the kilns. In those days people immigrated to America for the opportunity to work in the mines. ( I guess Stewarts’ wasn’t hiring back then). Either that or likely starve to death. Eventually they found a better way to make cement and the industry died off. The canals got replaced with roads. The paper bag replaced the oak barrel. The trees grew back. People got different jobs. Life goes on. Evolution at its finest you might say.
Today they are seriously talking about starting from scratch. Shut down all the power plants that emit CO2. Replace them with wind + solar + batteries. All to “save the planet”. I just don’t see it.
My business relies on electricity. I have a 20HP pressure washer that practically spins the meter off the wall. It has to work when I snap my finger and I pay a premium for that “luxury”. If my electric bill were to double, my price increase to absorb that cost will fall on someone else. That is if they could afford it. In the end someone on the bottom of the food chain will likely lose everything.
If we were to “forcibly” reduce the use of oil. Use it only for big trucks and heavy equipment. The price would skyrocket. After all, if EVERYBODY doesn’t need it, then less people will provide it. That cost will simply trickle down and another small fry will bite the dust.
Youtube tells me the world’s first electric car was built in 1884. There is a practical reason why they didn’t dominate the auto space despite getting there first.
Is climate change real? If you do the math it has to be real, sort of. However, fire does happen naturally. Humans aren’t the only animals to change the environment to suit their needs. Beavers build dams, right? So I’m willing to drive fast without my seatbelt on and I’ll live with the consequences. If my tragic demise teaches the world a lesson, well, glad to help out! 12 years until the point of no return??? I doubt it.
1. We are at peak world population growth. It will subside in the coming century but there are now about 4 times more people in the world (7-8 billion) compared to the 1800's: https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth
2. During the last 800,000 years, CO2 in the atmosphere fluctuated by was never over 300ppm, today it's at over 412: https://www.climate.gov/media/12987
3. The world lost about a quarter of its forest area since the 1800's: https://ourworldindata.org/forest-area. Forests (and the ocean) used to absorb and balance a lot of the CO2 in the atmosphere.
4. If you drive without a seatbelt then you could get yourself and your fellow passengers killed (people riding without seatbelts can and do hit others in the vehicle in hard crashes), but if you emit co2 to the atmosphere you affect every living organism in the world.
6. And lastly - you imply that renewable energy is more expensive where all data indicates that it's cheaper to develop than running existing coal plants: https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth
What I'm saying is that just because it worked until the 1950's doesn't mean that it will keep on working - there are many more people, more factory farms, larger urban areas, much more energy use, much more waste, much more chemical emissions into the atmosphere so we have to change course.
As a farmer of 30 acres. Our farm can not run with out DEF. Even worse states like California have completely outlawed the use of pre def tractors. This is not new purchases. This means that If you have one you can not use it. This paired with a shortage of round up. 2-4x fert prices. Crop yields are going to be abysmal.
I would be so very interested if the chicken wrote a piece about something so severely prevalent, yet no one talks about. Majority of all farmers outside of the mega farms are near bankruptcy. They plant their corn or soy and let it ride. No sprays, no fertilizer, nothing. All just to collect crop insurance because they cant compete in the market. Why can they not compete with the market?
- Maybe something that is outside of the realm of what the average farmer would know, Chemical fertilizers, fungicides, pesticides, etc. RUIN the soil and over time it is unaffordable. Trust me I had to restore a 30 acre field that was conventionally farmed for 30+ yrs. Im not going to bore with details but if you are interested in finding out more read, dirt to soil by Gabe brown.
- smaller farms simply are not as efficient and cost of capital to compete is so extremely high
- Chemical inputs are not getting cheaper and mega farms get huge discounts from bulk buying
Simply put, even in a perfect world with no gov deficits or subsides, food prices will be much higher. Also smalls farms will be eaten by mega farms.
The next crisis in 10-20 years will be one of soil.
People who are chemistry illiterate should know that a nitrogen supplying molecule is the same nitrogen whether it comes from a bag of fertiliser or from manure. Not a surprise to any school pupil with even elementary chemistry knowledge. Did some (“educated”) members of society not learn anything in school science class? If so they should not consider themselves educated.
You do understand when you apply chemical fertilizer it kills all of the microbes in the soil? It is a drug for your plant. When you stop applying it the plants can not succeed because you killed all organisms (fungi,bacteria,protazoa) that would otherwize mine minerals from the soil and atmosphere and give it to your plant the hyphae. The forest does not need fertilizer for a reason. Im not discounting the miracle that chemical fertz have provided for feeding the world but it is not sustainable. Chemical fertz kill microbes, deteriorates top soil, goes into water run off and causes massive algae blooms. If it is the same as manure then why can chemical fertilizers burn you to the touch while manure just makes your hand smell. I do whatever makes me money and chemical fertilizers certainly do not do that. Modern day ag chemists are simply taught to be salesman for big ag.
Yes this paired tilling kills it all after a few years. Microbes can only survive if the can have a symbiotic relationship with plant roots. There are 35,000 lbs of nitrogen gas per acre in the air. This is all free and can be mined by microbes. I suggest you go to any conventionally farmed fields. I guarantee you the soil will be compacted and lifeless. No worms, bugs, etc. they only way that a crop could grow is by providing it with chem fertz. Not everything you learn in school is the truth.
This is a definite eye (beak) opener. I would assume development of the new hydrogen based Semi's would be receiving lots of investment, as a result of the powers-to-be stupidity. Curious if Australia has Hydrogen programs working, since Europe and the US are running the Semi's from Hyundai and several other manufacturers developing and testing. Makes sense that the Aussies go full throttle (pun intended) on Hydrogen development, with the threat of China resource sanctions. Of course, since Australia is locking up it's population and sending them to "Covid Camps" these days, they may not need as many trucks on the road, sans food distribution. I would also be investing in cargo aircraft, since they do not have emission restrictions to this severity...yet. Thanks for another great piece!
I'm not certain about this and I'm standing by to be gently corrected by a scientifically trained chicken, but I don't think hydrogen gets us away from NOX...
As I recall from several years spent working alongside GE commissioning their gas turbines at our LNG plants, NOX is a product of combustion temperature being too high. The nitrogen and oxygen come from the combustion air.
Now, hydrogen fuel cells (electric) would eliminate NOX concerns but hydrogen-combustion engines are much more realistic for heavy haulage applications IMO. If we have our national rail and heavy haulage fleets converted to combust hydrogen then NOX management will still be required. NOX management may even be more of a challenge as hydrogen burns really hot and may lead to more NOX, not less.
There is a shortage of DEF because it's made of natural gas. Changing the trucks to use hydrogen only makes the problem worse as hydrogen is also made from natural gas. Surely there's also a way of making it with massive amounts of electricity but that electricity is not available.
A crop agronomist here…regen and no-till practices still require nitrogen input to achieve respectable yields. With current tech, there are only two practical ways to get more nitrogen from non-synthetic sources: manure and microbial nitrogen fixers (biologicals). Manure is great but there’s not enough to go around. A farm needs large amounts to achieve desired nitrogen rates to grow economically viable crop. Also a pain in the ass (pun intended) to haul, spread, manage. Soybeans team up with a soil/root microbe (rhizobia) to make their own nitrogen from the air. This is unique to legumes, no such pairing exists in nature for grasses (corn ,sorghum). Agbiotech is trying to replicate this for corn and other non-legume crops. Within the last couple years, a few outfits have come to market with microbes designed to supply corn with nitrogen. At best, these bugs provide 20% of the crop need. We have a long ways to go to reduce dependence on synthetic ferts and still feed 8 billion mouths…
Imagine being a trucker in Northern Alberta and it's -45C and your DEF tanks or lines freeze up and then your truck won't move despite a full tank of Diesel.
Fascinating. Urea is found in bat droppings, guano and in urine. Maybe poop and Pee will be re-monetized
Fascinating. Urea is found in bat droppings, guano and in urine. Maybe poop and Pee will be re-monetized
Waste to Chemicals (W2C) produces Hydrogen suitable for HFCV heavy trucks from Municipal Solid Waste. The Swiss technology operates commercially in Japan since 2006. A business model which includes CO2 by sequestration, stops landfill gas and leachate emissions and all combustion engine emissions with hydrogen fuel cell electric powered drives. Financial studies confirm H2 costs less than $2 per kg.
I believe Adblue supply will be secured in Europe - at least in Germany, because one of the biggest producers BASF heavily relies on diesel trucks for in- and outbound freight. I expect them to prioritise Adblue in their production portfolio. Adblue costs 55 - 60€ Cents/liter and is not a major cost driver (so far). Even if Adblue prices doubled or tripled it will be comparably little impact compared to diesel prices.
Having worked underground for a number of years, I was amazed at the technology that reduced the toxic gases in a confined space, AdBlue was revoloutionary to the mining industry. Where will your copper/ Gold/ rare earth materials come from if the mines shut?
Just take the stupid particle filter out .
Have farmland on the front range of Colorado. Usually grow pintos or corn. Did hops for Coors a while back, that was different. Current plan is to fallow the land this next year and lease out the water rights for the season. Between weather, ag prices, fertilizer, water lease rates and pesticide costs, just going to step aside.
From Australia here, I’ve seen AdBlue prices double in the past three weeks
Further the price was $0.58/litre 4 weeks ago, $1.15 at the above post. $1.58 a week later, and $2.29 this week.
And all of this because of "global warming" and "climate change". As some point, someone in power has to simply tell these people to take their 'activism' and blow it out their tailpipe.
DEF is an enormous PITA. Want to reduce emissions? Shorten the hell out of supply chains. Send raw materials from all over the world to let indentured servants build the stuff using coal power for energy, then ship finished goods back all over the world to be snarfed up with money conjured out of thin air. Yeah I see no way this could have gone wrong.
Another motivation to switch to electric trucks...
e.g. this article from almost two years ago. I wonder how it progressed since: https://www.greenbiz.com/article/8-electric-truck-and-van-companies-watch-2020
I have an E-bike. I love it. However, it takes 8 hours to charge for 2 hours of play time. If I had to depend on it for work, the numbers just don't add up. Cold air steals some mileage too. So good luck in Alaska!
Yep. Experience with charging an e-bike from a wall socket is totally comparable to charging an e-Truck from a dedicated ultra-high speed chargers, and a battery exposed on the bike is completely comparable to a battery insulated inside the truck.
Good luck surviving climate change. You'll need it.
My post is based on my understanding of batteries and my toys that use them. I may have my biases based on the fact my family runs a trucking company and I’m employed in the automotive engine rebuilding field. If I believed electric trucks would take over in my life time, I would have an electric car too. Climate change is a political game that adds up as poorly as an 80% “quick” charge on a Tesla. I can’t make money on a half tank of fuel that takes an hour to fill. That’s just reality. It’s time these politicians start accepting it.
Thanks for explaining. I get your position.
So just to clarify - you don't think that climate change is a real issue? Or do you believe it is an issue but we should accept what's coming to us? Or something else?
I don’t believe climate change is a real issue at all. That doesn’t mean I’m planning to heat my house with the exhaust from my father’s trucks! I grew up in an area that was once dominated by the cement industry. In the 1800’s limestone was dug out of the ground, crushed and dehydrated from burning coal + wood. It was then shipped on barges in oak barrels. The cement + the shipping relied on wood to the point the area was completely denuded of trees. #1 killer was respiratory issues, smoke from the kilns. In those days people immigrated to America for the opportunity to work in the mines. ( I guess Stewarts’ wasn’t hiring back then). Either that or likely starve to death. Eventually they found a better way to make cement and the industry died off. The canals got replaced with roads. The paper bag replaced the oak barrel. The trees grew back. People got different jobs. Life goes on. Evolution at its finest you might say.
Today they are seriously talking about starting from scratch. Shut down all the power plants that emit CO2. Replace them with wind + solar + batteries. All to “save the planet”. I just don’t see it.
My business relies on electricity. I have a 20HP pressure washer that practically spins the meter off the wall. It has to work when I snap my finger and I pay a premium for that “luxury”. If my electric bill were to double, my price increase to absorb that cost will fall on someone else. That is if they could afford it. In the end someone on the bottom of the food chain will likely lose everything.
If we were to “forcibly” reduce the use of oil. Use it only for big trucks and heavy equipment. The price would skyrocket. After all, if EVERYBODY doesn’t need it, then less people will provide it. That cost will simply trickle down and another small fry will bite the dust.
Youtube tells me the world’s first electric car was built in 1884. There is a practical reason why they didn’t dominate the auto space despite getting there first.
Is climate change real? If you do the math it has to be real, sort of. However, fire does happen naturally. Humans aren’t the only animals to change the environment to suit their needs. Beavers build dams, right? So I’m willing to drive fast without my seatbelt on and I’ll live with the consequences. If my tragic demise teaches the world a lesson, well, glad to help out! 12 years until the point of no return??? I doubt it.
I appreciate the detailed explanation.
I see holes in the arguments, thou
1. We are at peak world population growth. It will subside in the coming century but there are now about 4 times more people in the world (7-8 billion) compared to the 1800's: https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth
2. During the last 800,000 years, CO2 in the atmosphere fluctuated by was never over 300ppm, today it's at over 412: https://www.climate.gov/media/12987
3. The world lost about a quarter of its forest area since the 1800's: https://ourworldindata.org/forest-area. Forests (and the ocean) used to absorb and balance a lot of the CO2 in the atmosphere.
4. If you drive without a seatbelt then you could get yourself and your fellow passengers killed (people riding without seatbelts can and do hit others in the vehicle in hard crashes), but if you emit co2 to the atmosphere you affect every living organism in the world.
5. Electric cars may have been invented back the 1800's (yeah, I saw these articles too), but battery technology had to evolve on the back of mobile phones in the last couple of decades to have enough energy density and better cost to be a viable option (sorry I can't find any data from before 1990, maybe because that's when the winning battery technology, Li-Ion was invented): https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Development-of-specific-energy-and-energy-density-with-respect-to-cost-per-watt-hour-of_fig3_329768714
6. And lastly - you imply that renewable energy is more expensive where all data indicates that it's cheaper to develop than running existing coal plants: https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth
What I'm saying is that just because it worked until the 1950's doesn't mean that it will keep on working - there are many more people, more factory farms, larger urban areas, much more energy use, much more waste, much more chemical emissions into the atmosphere so we have to change course.
Let them eat cake?
As a farmer of 30 acres. Our farm can not run with out DEF. Even worse states like California have completely outlawed the use of pre def tractors. This is not new purchases. This means that If you have one you can not use it. This paired with a shortage of round up. 2-4x fert prices. Crop yields are going to be abysmal.
I would be so very interested if the chicken wrote a piece about something so severely prevalent, yet no one talks about. Majority of all farmers outside of the mega farms are near bankruptcy. They plant their corn or soy and let it ride. No sprays, no fertilizer, nothing. All just to collect crop insurance because they cant compete in the market. Why can they not compete with the market?
- Maybe something that is outside of the realm of what the average farmer would know, Chemical fertilizers, fungicides, pesticides, etc. RUIN the soil and over time it is unaffordable. Trust me I had to restore a 30 acre field that was conventionally farmed for 30+ yrs. Im not going to bore with details but if you are interested in finding out more read, dirt to soil by Gabe brown.
- smaller farms simply are not as efficient and cost of capital to compete is so extremely high
- Chemical inputs are not getting cheaper and mega farms get huge discounts from bulk buying
Simply put, even in a perfect world with no gov deficits or subsides, food prices will be much higher. Also smalls farms will be eaten by mega farms.
The next crisis in 10-20 years will be one of soil.
People who are chemistry illiterate should know that a nitrogen supplying molecule is the same nitrogen whether it comes from a bag of fertiliser or from manure. Not a surprise to any school pupil with even elementary chemistry knowledge. Did some (“educated”) members of society not learn anything in school science class? If so they should not consider themselves educated.
You do understand when you apply chemical fertilizer it kills all of the microbes in the soil? It is a drug for your plant. When you stop applying it the plants can not succeed because you killed all organisms (fungi,bacteria,protazoa) that would otherwize mine minerals from the soil and atmosphere and give it to your plant the hyphae. The forest does not need fertilizer for a reason. Im not discounting the miracle that chemical fertz have provided for feeding the world but it is not sustainable. Chemical fertz kill microbes, deteriorates top soil, goes into water run off and causes massive algae blooms. If it is the same as manure then why can chemical fertilizers burn you to the touch while manure just makes your hand smell. I do whatever makes me money and chemical fertilizers certainly do not do that. Modern day ag chemists are simply taught to be salesman for big ag.
“It kills ALL the microbes in the soil” - not so. There is not an antibiotic in the world that does that.
Yes this paired tilling kills it all after a few years. Microbes can only survive if the can have a symbiotic relationship with plant roots. There are 35,000 lbs of nitrogen gas per acre in the air. This is all free and can be mined by microbes. I suggest you go to any conventionally farmed fields. I guarantee you the soil will be compacted and lifeless. No worms, bugs, etc. they only way that a crop could grow is by providing it with chem fertz. Not everything you learn in school is the truth.
Nitrogen fixation especially by legumes well known other plants less so. Nitrogen molecule in the air same as in bag of fertiliser.
This is a definite eye (beak) opener. I would assume development of the new hydrogen based Semi's would be receiving lots of investment, as a result of the powers-to-be stupidity. Curious if Australia has Hydrogen programs working, since Europe and the US are running the Semi's from Hyundai and several other manufacturers developing and testing. Makes sense that the Aussies go full throttle (pun intended) on Hydrogen development, with the threat of China resource sanctions. Of course, since Australia is locking up it's population and sending them to "Covid Camps" these days, they may not need as many trucks on the road, sans food distribution. I would also be investing in cargo aircraft, since they do not have emission restrictions to this severity...yet. Thanks for another great piece!
Hi Tim,
I'm not certain about this and I'm standing by to be gently corrected by a scientifically trained chicken, but I don't think hydrogen gets us away from NOX...
As I recall from several years spent working alongside GE commissioning their gas turbines at our LNG plants, NOX is a product of combustion temperature being too high. The nitrogen and oxygen come from the combustion air.
Now, hydrogen fuel cells (electric) would eliminate NOX concerns but hydrogen-combustion engines are much more realistic for heavy haulage applications IMO. If we have our national rail and heavy haulage fleets converted to combust hydrogen then NOX management will still be required. NOX management may even be more of a challenge as hydrogen burns really hot and may lead to more NOX, not less.
Again, happy to be corrected.
There is a shortage of DEF because it's made of natural gas. Changing the trucks to use hydrogen only makes the problem worse as hydrogen is also made from natural gas. Surely there's also a way of making it with massive amounts of electricity but that electricity is not available.
So how do we play this?
Off topic but, any thoughts on urea being reduced as a fertilizer due to regenerative, no-till agriculture?
A crop agronomist here…regen and no-till practices still require nitrogen input to achieve respectable yields. With current tech, there are only two practical ways to get more nitrogen from non-synthetic sources: manure and microbial nitrogen fixers (biologicals). Manure is great but there’s not enough to go around. A farm needs large amounts to achieve desired nitrogen rates to grow economically viable crop. Also a pain in the ass (pun intended) to haul, spread, manage. Soybeans team up with a soil/root microbe (rhizobia) to make their own nitrogen from the air. This is unique to legumes, no such pairing exists in nature for grasses (corn ,sorghum). Agbiotech is trying to replicate this for corn and other non-legume crops. Within the last couple years, a few outfits have come to market with microbes designed to supply corn with nitrogen. At best, these bugs provide 20% of the crop need. We have a long ways to go to reduce dependence on synthetic ferts and still feed 8 billion mouths…