JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Cold facts about hydrogen simply stated:
https://www.cfact.org/2026/07/10/alice-in-hydrogen-land/
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It is a nightmare fuel, even for NASA, and is absolutely not suitable as a general purpose transport fuel.
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Fun facts to know and tell.
High purity hydrogen is used to fill the generator casings of steam turbo generators.
The low viscosity significantly reduces drag on the rotor and the high thermal conductivity extracts heat more efficiently than other gasses. Maintaining gas tight seals is a mission, however.
That’s about as near to electricity generation as you’d want hydrogen.
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IIRC that was too closew for Callide
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From what I read, hydrogen wasn’t the source of Callide’s problems.
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It was a design fault that during switch over disconnected one battery bank without connecting the other to the control. No control the generator overspread.
Working from memory, accuracy not guaranteed but basically correct.
20
Interesting article:
The COMMENTs section was fascinating with Richard Greene vs Elind (or as referred to by some as Eloon).
Despite many replies shouting down his fantasies, Eloon kept claiming his fantasy would work.
Says a lot about such Green Loonies who believe their fantasies MUST be TRUE because their intentions are TRUE. At least that will keep psychiatrists in Mercedes (or other expensive) cars. And the Loonies will be off to Turkey later this year on taxpayers money.
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Yes I seldom read the comments even on my articles because they tend to be mostly Greene vs Elind and are seldom about the article. Facts are not Elind’s strong suit and he is often holding few while playing with less than a full deck (to flog a metaphor). I much prefer the often intelligent comments here and on WUWT.
31
This prejudice (against facts) is quite widespread. Arguing with it is pointless. I’ve found that even highly educated medical people take refuge in it, using the “99% of climate scientists say …” as a battering ram – although genteely, of course.
Using H2, as Faustus says above, is very limited by high engineering risk, yet the fantasy that R&D will resolve this is extremely strong and widespread. Arguing with this is pointless, too.
30
Good article about some of the difficult issues with using hydrogen as a fuel.
He does not mention that hydrogen causes embrittlement of most materials which makes it even more difficult to store it under pressure.
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The fact that the practical realities of hydrogen use such as hydrogen embrittlement of metals (known about since 1875), problems of sealing pipes, tanks and valves, an exceptionally wide explosive and flammability range, storage etc. are never mentioned by the wokesters and subsidy harvesters who promote this fuel shows you their utter ignorance of the relevant science and technology.
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It is irrelevant (/s)
That all happens far from their business offices, banks and residences
70
Molybdenum, ceramic coatings, alloys, laser peening or maybe just ask Grok to design a HE resistant product.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
https://h2bulletin.com/seah-besteel-becomes-first-south-korean-firm-to-secure-core-hydrogen-infrastructure-material-technologies/
Next up – Hydrogen myths that won’t die.😉
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They are not the only ones who show their utter ignorance of relevant science and technology. The most influential person in the Australian energy system is one Chris Bowen who demonstrates every day that he has absolutely no knowledge of either science or technology.
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So, I’m on a flight inbound to Australia (connected via onboard WiFi), and it was announced that someone was caught vaping in the toilet and upon landing they would be handed over to authorities and prosecuted.
I am amazed that anyone would try smoking or vaping on an aircraft these days. Especially on flights under Australian jurisdiction where regulatory enforcement tends to be strict with heavy penalties (although laws relating to crime and violence are not strictly enforced as we can see in lawless Melbournistan).
240
Having watched the border security shows where Chinese tourists try to smuggle half a pig into Australia and just get a stern talking to and a $168 fine, I doubt the consequences will be all that great once to tough talking is done. Especially light if they have membership of approved tribes and “communities”
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I had exactly the same thing happen on a flight from Melbourne to Gold Coast earlier this year, Federal Police were waiting for the culprit upon landing. The d*ckhead couldn’t wait 2 hours for a vape…
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Wow of all the “Engineering degrees” that its possible to get, one can now become a “Climate Engineer”
Once again the dreamers come up with ways to save the planet from its self.
https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/stop-the-dominoes-from-falling-race-to-save-australia-from-super-el-nino/news-story/5ad994a42b23b1de91c79bdcd0f0f98f
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“It says here you’re a doctor”
“Yes.”
“What of?”
“Climate”
Heaven help us!
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“All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.”
T. E. Lawrence.
See also:
“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”
Blaise Pascal
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There is a new buzzterm.
Renewable gas.
It refers to biomethane and hydrogen.
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“Biomethane is produced through a process called anaerobic digestion, where organic materials such as food waste, agricultural waste and wastewater break down in the absence of oxygen to produce biogas.”
But, probably not when the biogas is produced as a product of the digestive systems of animals
10
The public service announcement: don’t waste your time on the movie project Hail Mary. It is an anti-CO2 trope. I wasted 30 minutes of my life on it, but now you don’t have to. Clearly, telling people that the planet is experiencing catastrophic and runaway warming isn’t having the desired effect. Now, they are basically telling people that too much CO2 will lead to attack by space aliens that will kill the sun. Besides that, there were more potholes than a kitchen strainer. Celluloid garbage.
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Tony Dique:
Sounds like one of the more reasonable GREEN stuff. Probably Blackout (and Mandelson) will want it to be compulsory in pre-schools.
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The story is as far from classic (mid XX century) SciFi as global warming from environment protection.
May be we need to accept the reality – there will be no Julius Verne nor Strugatsky in XXI century.
Not because of luck of talents, just that stage of Enlightenment – the irrational thirst of science-based knowledge, has been satisfied for now.
00
I was out on Satdy night. The conversation turned to the cost of things and the cheapest place for a meal and a beer was a prominent club. “It’s the solar they installed, they get their own cheap electricity”. I pointed out that, in Cairns, we haven’t seen the sun in a couple of months and being a smart alec I said they should look outside (7pm) “no sun, no electricity”. They looked at me like I was made. Much work still to be done.
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Mad, not made.
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These days, club could well have a battery as well as rooftop solar. There was a total of 11.2GWh of installed residential battery capacity under the Cheaper Battery Program at end of May. That was done in under a year. The residential storage capacity in Australia will exceed the capacity of Snowy 2 by the time Snowy 2 is completed (if it gets completed)
Cairns sunshine has been quite steady last week averaging 4kWh per day.
https://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_nccObsCode=193&p_display_type=dailyDataFile&p_startYear=&p_c=&p_stn_num=031215
Last week in cairns was better than much of January in Cairns this year.
My location at 37S has averaged about 2kWh per day for the past week. The grid connected battery was not fully charged on any day.
Rooftop solar/battery get subsidised by others to buy the stuff and then get significantly more subsidy leaning on the grid to keep the lights on. Rooftop solar would be a solid competitive advantage for any business that owns a roof unless the business can achieve government protected species list (more likely when the business is foreign owned).
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Less than 25Kw performance is a sick joke.
Even with EXPENSIVE automatic sun-tracking system, there are physical limits to when ANY panels “generate” and when they do NOT.
At every “junction in a solar rig, there are inefficiencies and limits.
25 Kw is “DC” terminology. Does the associated “toyshop” have the BATTERY capacity to store every converted photon to “usable” electricity?
Assuming a generous 30% “efficiency” of photons to electrons; what is the efficiency of “battery-storage” charge vs discharge?
REAL installations will also run a fully-synchronous, PURE sine-wave inverter to deliver the correct mains voltage and frequency; again at somewhat less than 100% efficiency.
ENTROPY ROOLS!
Start shopping for slow-combustion stoves and serious solar hot-water systems. A good rig will have the two interconnected, so that in prolonged “inclement weather”, the “waste heat” from the stove buffers the under-performing solar heater.
These days, under the “rules”, it is virtually impossible to find a “new” slow combustion stove, and the seasoned wood to run it, See also: Dealing with “zealous” NIMBYs and jack-booted “officials” will be a daily occurrence, at least in the “burbs”. Out in the “weeds”, probably less so, until you get busted collecting “dead-fall” timber for fuel.
20
FWIW
“EU changes its ‘moo-d’ about livestock’s climate impacts”
https://youtu.be/Qmr47PTlO8s?si=nH-gnz2vIUWUn7zQ
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Bits of good news keep trickling through
https://brusselssignal.eu/2026/04/belgium-takes-over-entire-nuclear-fleet-from-engie-in-surprise-move/
Bit like that madness of crowds quote, where the crowd regains its sanity one at a time
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“Men, it has been well said, think in herds: It will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one”.
Charles Mackay, Scottish journalist : First published in 1841 under the title “Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions”.
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FWIW – for the covid files
“Faucci Paid Wuhan, And Now We Know That’s where “it” came from”
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2026/06/22/faucci-paid-wuhan-and-now-we-know-thats-where-it-came-from/#respond
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FWIW
“New Study: NASA’s Models Wildly Underestimate The Capacity Of Clouds To Alter Solar Radiation”
“Today’s climate models are so inaccurate they must be improved a hundredfold just to detect a CO2 signal in climate change.”
More at
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/07/12/new-study-nasas-models-wildly-underestimate-the-capacity-of-clouds-to-alter-solar-radiation/
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Why doesn’t that surprise me!!!
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A good point!
“A useful way to think about migration is to consider what kind of societies the migrants have built in their home countries and to what extent you would like those conditions replicated here.”
So…a train trip through the Congo:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4t6Rie4Fz_I&pp=iggCQAE%3D
*French narration.
Ironically, the EU is looking quite like the video now.
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As they say, import the Third World, become the Third World.
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FWIW – more “ABC Wisdom”
” “THE ABC NOW BLAMES CHILD BRIDES ON “CLIMATE CHANGE”
Nation First looks into how the ABC and UN aid industry are exploiting child marriage to push a climate agenda, attract more taxpayer funding and shield the adults and customs responsible.”
https://harryr.substack.com/p/the-abc-now-blames-child-brides-on
I haven’t read it yet to see if the ultimate blame gets “levelised on Trump”
20
Also discussed on Jo’s Saturday thread on this topic for those who missed it.
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Dear Bozotheclown,
Today most of the Ukrainians are hardly the US-supporters but they are really shocked by sudden and unexplained death one American politician.
Immediately they point out to Navalny’s underpants.
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If you mean Lindsey Graham: A spokesperson said the cause of death was aortic dissection due to Arteriosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease. The family is known to have heart issues, and he was known to also. When the aortic artery blows — you die.
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FWIW
More “Climate change does hot and cold”
“The North Atlantic “Cold Blob” and Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation Collapse Hype
The latest hype underscores the need for measured analysis grounded in evidence rather than headline-driven conclusions presented by people whose funding and power are linked to narrative outcomes.”
More at
https://legalinsurrection.com/2026/07/the-north-atlantic-cold-blob-and-atlantic-meridional-overturning-circulation-collapse-hype/
Via https://hotair.com/headlines/2026/07/12/the-north-atlantic-cold-blob-and-atlantic-meridional-overturning-circulation-collapse-hype-n3816816
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Maybe I’m prone to recognizing truth or maybe I’m paranoid, maybe both…
Lindsey Graham died of something sudden after a very recent visit to Ukraine and the purpose was to hammer out the details of strong added sanctions on Russia. I sure hope there is an autopsy.
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1. He was vaxxed but got Covid anyway.
2. His flight schedules don’t reconcile.
3. Climate change did it! 😆
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See my comment at 13.1
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In the 1640’s the Dutch inhabitants of New Amsterdam built a 12 foot wall to keep the “bad people” out.
In 1664 the British ignored the wall and took New Amsterdam by sea.
It’s now called New York.
They took down the wall and built a street, which is now called Wall Street.
Now, the bad people are on the inside, trading. 😆
/inside, trading. Get it? 😁
00
FWIW – for Mazda fans
“MAZDA MAKES GOOD CARS: Smashing Success! 2026 Mazda CX-5 Earns IIHS Top Safety Pick: The CX-5 joins eight other Mazdas in achieving the IIHS’ highest safety award for 2026, the most of any U.S. brand.”
https://instapundit.com/809474/#disqus_thread
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FWIW – Canada
“Import The Third World”
A Toronto example
https://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2026/07/11/import-the-third-world-2/
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FWIW
“Turkey Gave NATO Leaders Handguns as Gifts – EU Leaders Don’t Know What to Do
July 11, 2026 | Sundance | 407 Comments”
“Personally, I believe Turkish President Recep Erdogan knew exactly what would happen when he gave all the NATO leaders a “Magnum” .357 handgun at the 2026 NATO Summit in Ankara, Turkey. What happened next is exactly the reason he did it.
President Trump brings Erdogan’s gift back to the White House, with a casual ‘cool gun’ nonchalant approach. Meanwhile, back in Europe, the apoplectic recipients, administrators’, various office bureaucracies and support staff that surround each NATO politician are physically and mentally stuck, not knowing what to do.”
More at
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2026/07/11/turkey-gave-nato-leaders-handguns-as-gifts-eu-leaders-dont-know-what-to-do/
Speculate on what “Elbow” might have done
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