LinkedIn weirdness
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Keith Henson
Mar 3, 2026, 3:19:32 AMMar 3
to ExI chat list, extro...@googlegroups.com, Inventor's Lunch, Power Satellite Economics
I posted this on LinkedIn.
The biggest problem with renewable energy is large scale, long term storage.
"A Victorian gas-making technology might solve this problem. About
1860, they made gas by burning coke till it got white hot, then
shutting off the air and blowing steam through the mass of coke. This
made CO and hydrogen, which was distributed as town gas.
"For carbon, we can use municipal waste, which is 40% carbon. For
heat, renewable electricity from wind or solar. 4 MWh will vaporize a
ton of carbon in steam, making about 11 MWh of syngas. The syngas can
be stored and then burned in a combined cycle turbine, giving over 6
MWh of electricity.
"This scales to a rather large size. LA makes 100,000 tons per day, of
which 40% is carbon. Run 1/3rd of the day, the gasifiers could absorb
20 GW, producing 240 GWh of syngas. This sounds like a lot until you
realize California is putting in 13 GW over the canals."
According to LinkedIn, almost 1000 people read it, including people in
the utility industry. There were no comments except my comment,
giving my email. No emails.
Is the idea so strange that people can't understand? 75 years ago,
the US made town gas from coke at a similar scale. Is invoking
chemical reactions from the Victorian era simply rejected?
Any thoughts on the results? I am mystified.
Keith
PS March 24, I am giving a talk on this topic to the local IEEE
chapter. If it is not closed, I will let you know.
The biggest problem with renewable energy is large scale, long term storage.
"A Victorian gas-making technology might solve this problem. About
1860, they made gas by burning coke till it got white hot, then
shutting off the air and blowing steam through the mass of coke. This
made CO and hydrogen, which was distributed as town gas.
"For carbon, we can use municipal waste, which is 40% carbon. For
heat, renewable electricity from wind or solar. 4 MWh will vaporize a
ton of carbon in steam, making about 11 MWh of syngas. The syngas can
be stored and then burned in a combined cycle turbine, giving over 6
MWh of electricity.
"This scales to a rather large size. LA makes 100,000 tons per day, of
which 40% is carbon. Run 1/3rd of the day, the gasifiers could absorb
20 GW, producing 240 GWh of syngas. This sounds like a lot until you
realize California is putting in 13 GW over the canals."
According to LinkedIn, almost 1000 people read it, including people in
the utility industry. There were no comments except my comment,
giving my email. No emails.
Is the idea so strange that people can't understand? 75 years ago,
the US made town gas from coke at a similar scale. Is invoking
chemical reactions from the Victorian era simply rejected?
Any thoughts on the results? I am mystified.
Keith
PS March 24, I am giving a talk on this topic to the local IEEE
chapter. If it is not closed, I will let you know.
ilsa
Mar 3, 2026, 3:38:44 AMMar 3
to extro...@googlegroups.com
Most people even really intelligent people don't get it.
I made a one years old and most people don't get me at all it's very unfulfilling when nobody gets you but I get what you're you're trying to do I'm just an old lady I'm not powerful anymore but I applaud you are putting it intellectually out into the air and I hope with positive thinking and circulation you will succeed
In Harmony and generosity, ilsa bartlett
Ilsa Bartlett
http://www.google.com/profiles/ilsa.bartlett
www.hotlux.com/angel
"Don't ever get so big or important that you can not hear and listen to every other person."
-John Coltrane
www.hotlux.com/angel
"Don't ever get so big or important that you can not hear and listen to every other person."
-John Coltrane
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Keith Henson
Mar 4, 2026, 9:12:08 PMMar 4
to Robert Poor, Paul Werbos, ExI chat list, extro...@googlegroups.com, Inventor's Lunch, Power Satellite Economics
On Tue, Mar 3, 2026 at 8:54 PM Robert Poor <rdp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Keith:
>
> You assert that "The biggest problem with renewable energy is large scale, long term storage." and proceed to suggest converting municipal waste into town gas (CO + H2) as an energy source.
It is more of an energy storage method, though the carbon in waste
does contribute to the output.
> An awful lot hangs on that assertion and the suggested solution. I'll start with the assertion, and counter that the biggest problem that renewables face is obstacles to mass deployment.
If you know of another way to cope with a cloudy week with no wind, or
a way to store renewable energy for a month, let me know.
Battery-firmed renewables are already cost effective (cue Lazard's
LCOE and LCOS studies). Rather, mass deployment in the US is hindered
partly by access to the grid: there's a large and growing backlog for
interconnection requests. But a larger impediment lies in policy and
market structures. Battery storage, essential for any sane renewable
energy source, provides multiple benefits (peak shaving,
infrastructure deferrals, frequency stabilization, congestion
abatement), but is only priced for its ability to perform arbitrage.
When a solar farm generates too much energy for the grid to use, it is
curtailed while gas and coal and nuclear plants remain online since
they can't be shut down easily.
I agree with you that coal and nuclear are hard to shut down, but gas
is easy. In California, gas picks up the load when the Sun goes down.
> A more sane approach would simply to deploy more batteries to soak up the excess.
This is more like a very high-capacity battery than anything else. LA
waste will soak up as much as 20 GW. And you can get the power back
anytime you want it, even a year later. Can you do that with Lithium
batteries, or does self-discharge eat them up? I think batteries are
a good idea, but they do have limits.
> The town gas approach will face the same problems that any thermal generation technology faces: a race against time. The current backlog for utility scale turbines is about five years.
The existing gas turbines will be just as happy with syngas as they
are with natural gas.
> If you extrapolate what costs will look like in five years, it's likely that solar will have gotten a little cheaper, while batteries will have become a lot cheaper. The cost of turbines probably won't decrease at the same rate. And as someone who has studied the angles of turning waste into useful products (including energy), there's another infrastructure problem: do you site the processing plant (in this case the town gas processing plant) near the feedstock (presumably near landfill), or do you site it at the point of consumption, e.g. near a grid connection.
Put them at the landfill, that's where the trucks dump now. In the
case of LA, the largest landfill is no more than 5 miles from the 3 GW
Sylmar converter station. Gas is piped all over the place, and there
are empty gas and oil fields all over the place. If you want to store
energy for more than a few days, it would probably be best to convert
it to methane and use the gas network. (A big leak of CO would be a
bad event.)
> In either case, I posit that permitting alone will be challenging. By contrast, solar-powered battery plants are coming online at record rates: planning to going online within 18 months.
They are not without problems. Consider Moss Landing. Is there even
a date for getting that one back online?
> Another thing that sets batteries apart from other forms of generation and storage: they're multi-scale. You can build huge utility-scale systems to provide grid stabilization and alleviate congestion, or you can pool together thousands of small batteries sited in people's garages or C&I plants to deliver power where you need it and when you need it. All of this has been amply proven in South Australia.
At some scale, this is less expensive than batteries.
Keith
> - rdp
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 3, 2026 at 4:57 AM Paul Werbos <paul....@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Technologies interfacing with it.
>>> --
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>>
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>
> Keith:
>
> You assert that "The biggest problem with renewable energy is large scale, long term storage." and proceed to suggest converting municipal waste into town gas (CO + H2) as an energy source.
It is more of an energy storage method, though the carbon in waste
does contribute to the output.
> An awful lot hangs on that assertion and the suggested solution. I'll start with the assertion, and counter that the biggest problem that renewables face is obstacles to mass deployment.
If you know of another way to cope with a cloudy week with no wind, or
a way to store renewable energy for a month, let me know.
Battery-firmed renewables are already cost effective (cue Lazard's
LCOE and LCOS studies). Rather, mass deployment in the US is hindered
partly by access to the grid: there's a large and growing backlog for
interconnection requests. But a larger impediment lies in policy and
market structures. Battery storage, essential for any sane renewable
energy source, provides multiple benefits (peak shaving,
infrastructure deferrals, frequency stabilization, congestion
abatement), but is only priced for its ability to perform arbitrage.
When a solar farm generates too much energy for the grid to use, it is
curtailed while gas and coal and nuclear plants remain online since
they can't be shut down easily.
I agree with you that coal and nuclear are hard to shut down, but gas
is easy. In California, gas picks up the load when the Sun goes down.
> A more sane approach would simply to deploy more batteries to soak up the excess.
This is more like a very high-capacity battery than anything else. LA
waste will soak up as much as 20 GW. And you can get the power back
anytime you want it, even a year later. Can you do that with Lithium
batteries, or does self-discharge eat them up? I think batteries are
a good idea, but they do have limits.
> The town gas approach will face the same problems that any thermal generation technology faces: a race against time. The current backlog for utility scale turbines is about five years.
The existing gas turbines will be just as happy with syngas as they
are with natural gas.
> If you extrapolate what costs will look like in five years, it's likely that solar will have gotten a little cheaper, while batteries will have become a lot cheaper. The cost of turbines probably won't decrease at the same rate. And as someone who has studied the angles of turning waste into useful products (including energy), there's another infrastructure problem: do you site the processing plant (in this case the town gas processing plant) near the feedstock (presumably near landfill), or do you site it at the point of consumption, e.g. near a grid connection.
Put them at the landfill, that's where the trucks dump now. In the
case of LA, the largest landfill is no more than 5 miles from the 3 GW
Sylmar converter station. Gas is piped all over the place, and there
are empty gas and oil fields all over the place. If you want to store
energy for more than a few days, it would probably be best to convert
it to methane and use the gas network. (A big leak of CO would be a
bad event.)
> In either case, I posit that permitting alone will be challenging. By contrast, solar-powered battery plants are coming online at record rates: planning to going online within 18 months.
They are not without problems. Consider Moss Landing. Is there even
a date for getting that one back online?
> Another thing that sets batteries apart from other forms of generation and storage: they're multi-scale. You can build huge utility-scale systems to provide grid stabilization and alleviate congestion, or you can pool together thousands of small batteries sited in people's garages or C&I plants to deliver power where you need it and when you need it. All of this has been amply proven in South Australia.
At some scale, this is less expensive than batteries.
Keith
> - rdp
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 3, 2026 at 4:57 AM Paul Werbos <paul....@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Mar 3, 2026, 03:19 Keith Henson <hkeith...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> I posted this on LinkedIn.
>>>
>>> The biggest problem with renewable energy is large scale, long term storage.
>>
>>
>>
>> No, it is ignorance by energy decisionskers of the thermal storage technologies developed and proven in chile, and US and Persian Gulf
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Mar 3, 2026, 03:19 Keith Henson <hkeith...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> I posted this on LinkedIn.
>>>
>>> The biggest problem with renewable energy is large scale, long term storage.
>>
>>
>>
>> Technologies interfacing with it.
>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Power Satellite Economics" group.
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>>
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Keith Henson
Mar 21, 2026, 12:54:39 AM (7 days ago) Mar 21
to Michael Shiloh, The Hackers Conference - members-only discussion list, ExI chat list, extro...@googlegroups.com, Inventor's Lunch, Power Satellite Economics
On Fri, Mar 20, 2026 at 8:49 PM Michael Shiloh
<michaels...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This is what All Power Labs in Berkeley is doing
I looked, and they are a biochar project, not making syngas out of mixed waste.
Keith
>> --
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<michaels...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This is what All Power Labs in Berkeley is doing
I looked, and they are a biochar project, not making syngas out of mixed waste.
Keith
>> To post, email to: hack...@lists.hackersconference.org
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Keith Henson
Mar 21, 2026, 5:23:25 AM (7 days ago) Mar 21
to vid.b...@fotonika-lv.eu, Michael Shiloh, The Hackers Conference - members-only discussion list, ExI chat list, extro...@googlegroups.com, Inventor's Lunch, Power Satellite Economics
I read through the website, and the only mention they have for scale is 300 MWh.
That's not very much; California fires up something in the range of 30
GW of natural gas turbines when the sun goes down. I am proposing to
make syngas from renewable energy and waste to replace natural gas for
this use. Or we could make about twice as much jet fuel from LA trash
as LAX uses. The fully built-out system is huge. LA could soak up 20
GW for 8 hours during the day and make enough syngas to produce 20 GW
for 12 hours.
Keith
Best wishes,
Keith
On Sat, Mar 21, 2026 at 1:27 AM <vid.b...@fotonika-lv.eu> wrote:
>
> What I find fascinating about organic redux flow batteries (ORFB) is that costs can be expected to decline as implementation is scaled. Use widely available materials. Minimal use of critical materials. A early pilot was implemented in Austria in 2023. https://www.cmblu.com/en/press-and-media/first-solidflow-energy-storage-system-delivered/. The concept appears ideal for decentralized, micro-grid power, for wind farms, solar farms and data centers in combination with super capacitors for instant response to power fluctuations.
> Partners are welcome to join us in developing innovative solutions. Vid Beldavs
>
That's not very much; California fires up something in the range of 30
GW of natural gas turbines when the sun goes down. I am proposing to
make syngas from renewable energy and waste to replace natural gas for
this use. Or we could make about twice as much jet fuel from LA trash
as LAX uses. The fully built-out system is huge. LA could soak up 20
GW for 8 hours during the day and make enough syngas to produce 20 GW
for 12 hours.
Keith
Best wishes,
Keith
On Sat, Mar 21, 2026 at 1:27 AM <vid.b...@fotonika-lv.eu> wrote:
>
> What I find fascinating about organic redux flow batteries (ORFB) is that costs can be expected to decline as implementation is scaled. Use widely available materials. Minimal use of critical materials. A early pilot was implemented in Austria in 2023. https://www.cmblu.com/en/press-and-media/first-solidflow-energy-storage-system-delivered/. The concept appears ideal for decentralized, micro-grid power, for wind farms, solar farms and data centers in combination with super capacitors for instant response to power fluctuations.
> Partners are welcome to join us in developing innovative solutions. Vid Beldavs
> --
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Keith Henson
Mar 21, 2026, 3:55:53 PM (6 days ago) Mar 21
to Bill Gardiner, ExI chat list, extro...@googlegroups.com, Inventor's Lunch, Power Satellite Economics
The biggest problem is CO. We lived with that in town gas from 1860
to 1950. With about 15% energy loss, you can convert syngas to
methane. That might be the right path for long-term, high-pressure
storage. Otherwise, if you set a leak on fire, it is no longer a
poison gas problem. This is only a problem with high pressure; the low
pressure at which town gas was delivered did not leak enough to be a
big problem. Storing GWh of syngas at low pressure might be a
problem. They used giant floating tanks when I was a kid. Burning
low-pressure gas in turbines might take some thought. I guess you
could just carbonate the gas into the air stream.
On Sat, Mar 21, 2026 at 4:54 AM Bill Gardiner
<william.w...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> What are the perceived risks of syngas in the form of those principle components?
> How do çyou dismiss them?
>
> Bill
to 1950. With about 15% energy loss, you can convert syngas to
methane. That might be the right path for long-term, high-pressure
storage. Otherwise, if you set a leak on fire, it is no longer a
poison gas problem. This is only a problem with high pressure; the low
pressure at which town gas was delivered did not leak enough to be a
big problem. Storing GWh of syngas at low pressure might be a
problem. They used giant floating tanks when I was a kid. Burning
low-pressure gas in turbines might take some thought. I guess you
could just carbonate the gas into the air stream.
On Sat, Mar 21, 2026 at 4:54 AM Bill Gardiner
<william.w...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> What are the perceived risks of syngas in the form of those principle components?
> How do çyou dismiss them?
>
> Bill
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Keith Henson
Mar 21, 2026, 4:41:33 PM (6 days ago) Mar 21
to Simon Quellen Field AB6NY, vid.b...@fotonika-lv.eu, Michael Shiloh, The Hackers Conference - members-only discussion list, ExI chat list, extro...@googlegroups.com, Inventor's Lunch, Power Satellite Economics
On Sat, Mar 21, 2026 at 6:08 AM Simon Quellen Field AB6NY <simon...@gmail.com> wrote:
You are proposing using renewable energy electricity during the day to make syngas to burn at night.
Right, waste contains a relatively small amount of fossil carbon, where the natural gas the syngas replaces is 100% fossil.
To replace that renewable electricity, California would use natural gas electricity.
Syngas would only be made from solar that was in excess of demand. There is some of that now and considerably more expected in the future.
This is a huge waste, as natural gas uses far less electricity to acquire than syngas, and is at least 40% more efficient by your numbers.
I don't track that, numbers please.
Also, instead of burying the carbon, you are putting it into the atmosphere.
I wonder how long the carbon stays in the ground before leaking out as CO2? I was surprised to find that a landfill in the US is on the top 5 methane sources.I have to acknowledge that "do nothing" is a lot less trouble.
Keith
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Keith Henson
Mar 21, 2026, 4:59:06 PM (6 days ago) Mar 21
to gu...@python.org, The Hackers Conference - members-only discussion list, ExI chat list, extro...@googlegroups.com, Inventor's Lunch, Power Satellite Economics
On Sat, Mar 21, 2026 at 8:13 AM Guido van Rossum <gu...@python.org> wrote:
>
> Could it be that it looks like you are *burning* waste? (With toxic gases being produced,)
>
In Europe, they mostly do burn (incinerate) waste. This makes dioxins
and other nasty stuff, which is hard to get out of the stack gas.
This process makes syngas out of the carbon in waste and steam. The
gas it makes is toxic, being half CO, but after going through a power
turbine, the exhaust is the same as natural gas exhaust.
Or you can run the gas through an F/T process and make liquid fuels.
It seems that LA trash could make about twice the fuel that LAX uses.
As a downside, I can see public campaigns to do your part and make
more trash. :-)
Keith
> --Guido (mobile)
>
> Could it be that it looks like you are *burning* waste? (With toxic gases being produced,)
>
In Europe, they mostly do burn (incinerate) waste. This makes dioxins
and other nasty stuff, which is hard to get out of the stack gas.
This process makes syngas out of the carbon in waste and steam. The
gas it makes is toxic, being half CO, but after going through a power
turbine, the exhaust is the same as natural gas exhaust.
Or you can run the gas through an F/T process and make liquid fuels.
It seems that LA trash could make about twice the fuel that LAX uses.
As a downside, I can see public campaigns to do your part and make
more trash. :-)
Keith
> --Guido (mobile)
Keith Henson
Mar 21, 2026, 6:31:50 PM (6 days ago) Mar 21
to gu...@python.org, The Hackers Conference - members-only discussion list, ExI chat list, extro...@googlegroups.com, Inventor's Lunch, Power Satellite Economics
"What happens to the waste after the sun as is extracted?"
It gets really dark.
Keith
On Sat, Mar 21, 2026 at 2:25 PM Guido van Rossum <gu...@python.org> wrote:
>
> What happens to the waste after the sun as is extracted?
>
> --Guido (mobile)
It gets really dark.
Keith
On Sat, Mar 21, 2026 at 2:25 PM Guido van Rossum <gu...@python.org> wrote:
>
> What happens to the waste after the sun as is extracted?
>
> --Guido (mobile)
Keith Henson
Mar 21, 2026, 10:01:10 PM (6 days ago) Mar 21
to Steve Saunders, hack...@lists.hackersconference.org, ExI chat list, extro...@googlegroups.com, Inventor's Lunch, Satellite Economics Power, Guido van Rossum
On Sat, Mar 21, 2026 at 5:06 PM Steve Saunders
<Steven_E...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> Perhaps the question would be — what happens to the non-carbon (non-CHO) part of the waste/feedstock after the gas is produced? Has its bulk been reduced enough for it to be ignored? Or to significantly reduce landfill volume? Would it be hazardous material?
The operator sells all of it. The slag layer can be used for
construction, and the metal layer goes to the metal recyclers. There
are a couple of small (100 ton/day) gasifiers that sell everything
from the process.
Keith
> Steve
>
>
> On Mar 21, 2026, at 7:03 PM, Guido van Rossum via Hackers Discussion <hack...@lists.hackersconference.org> wrote:
>
>
> But it has to be disposed. Do you plan for it to go to the regular dump?
>
> Anyway, I’ve said enough. I t sounds like a cool plan but I don’t know the first thing an out the tech. (I do recall the transition from syngas to natural gas in the ‘60s in Holland, when I was a child.)
<Steven_E...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> Perhaps the question would be — what happens to the non-carbon (non-CHO) part of the waste/feedstock after the gas is produced? Has its bulk been reduced enough for it to be ignored? Or to significantly reduce landfill volume? Would it be hazardous material?
The operator sells all of it. The slag layer can be used for
construction, and the metal layer goes to the metal recyclers. There
are a couple of small (100 ton/day) gasifiers that sell everything
from the process.
Keith
> Steve
>
>
> On Mar 21, 2026, at 7:03 PM, Guido van Rossum via Hackers Discussion <hack...@lists.hackersconference.org> wrote:
>
>
> But it has to be disposed. Do you plan for it to go to the regular dump?
>
> Anyway, I’ve said enough. I t sounds like a cool plan but I don’t know the first thing an out the tech. (I do recall the transition from syngas to natural gas in the ‘60s in Holland, when I was a child.)
Keith Henson
Mar 21, 2026, 10:23:51 PM (6 days ago) Mar 21
to Simon Quellen Field AB6NY, gu...@python.org, The Hackers Conference - members-only discussion list, ExI chat list, extro...@googlegroups.com, Inventor's Lunch, Power Satellite Economics
FOn Sat, Mar 21, 2026 at 5:10 PM Simon Quellen Field AB6NY <simon...@gmail.com> wrote:
Heating municipal solid waste (MSW) to produce town gas (via gasification or pyrolysis) releases several toxic gases, including hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen cyanide, ammonia, and various volatile organic compounds (VOCs).The process also generates dioxins, furans, and vapors of heavy metals like mercury and lead.
These gases require extensive scrubbing and purification to convert the raw gas into usable town gas.
Ever the chemist and mostly correct. The whole process is reducing with very little free oxygen, so there is no reason dioxins would form. The gas cleanup heats the gas and smoke to 1500 deg C with more steam making it all syngas. Very much correct in that you have to clean up the gas stream. H2S, HCl, HF are not too hard to get out. You have to get them out to protect turbine blades or downstream F/T plants. The Great Plans Synfuel plant does this at a huge scale 16,000 tons of coal per day and it has been operational since 1984.
Keith
Virus-free.www.avast.com
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