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   feld (feld@bikeshed.party)'s status on Wednesday, 27-Dec-2023 07:35:40 JST feld

   in reply to

   • Charlie Stross
   • Haderach C. Kwisatch
   • Rolf Steinort
   @rstein @cstross @rayckeith ideally you want to make the hydrogen out of fresh water not salt water, but even so -- one question that nobody answers is "what do you do with all the minerals?"
   
   So you filter the water, probably need to desalinate it, and then you split it. But soon you're left with millions of tons of salt and minerals from the processing that water. And oxygen. Did you capture it? Got a plan for it?
   
   What do you do with it all? Nobody's buying it, and you can't just ignore it or bury it. You really really shouldn't just dump it back into the ocean either as you're just going to pollute the local ecosystem with a crazy high concentration of those minerals.
   
   Hydrogen has so so many problems beyond "well what if we could get nearly free electricity with which to produce it?" and nobody seems to care. It's really disappointing that the news doesn't encourage a more honest discourse around it.
   • Embed this notice
     Rolf Steinort (rstein@social.tchncs.de)'s status on Wednesday, 27-Dec-2023 07:35:42 JST Rolf Steinort

     in reply to

     • Charlie Stross
     • Haderach C. Kwisatch

     @cstross @rayckeith Hydrogen could be a good solution. With big gas stations on the oceans. Electrolysis and liquification powered by solar, wind and waves. The engines on the ships should be much cheaper and way safer.

   • Embed this notice
     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Wednesday, 27-Dec-2023 07:35:43 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     • Haderach C. Kwisatch

     @rayckeith MSWR Thorium reactors have a lot of "this fixes plutonium proliferation!!!" astroturf PR backing them, but it turns out you can breed U-233 in them, a lesser-known fissile isotope of Uranium that can be used to make bombs.

     So let's build lots of small modular reactors to decarbonize shipping (yay!) and sail them past pirates or rogue states who can seize and repurpose them as A-bomb farms (boo!).

   • Embed this notice
     Haderach C. Kwisatch (rayckeith@techhub.social)'s status on Wednesday, 27-Dec-2023 07:35:44 JST Haderach C. Kwisatch

     China’s Nuclear-Powered Containership: A Fluke Or The Future Of Shipping? | Hackaday

     "Since China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) unveiled its KUN-24AP containership at the Marintec China Expo in Shanghai in early December of 2023, the internet has been abuzz about it. Not just because it’s the world’s largest container ship at a massive 24,000 TEU, but primarily because of the power source that will power this behemoth: a molten salt reactor of Chinese design that is said to use a thorium fuel cycle. Not only would this provide the immense amount of electrical power needed to propel the ship, it would eliminate harmful emissions and allow the ship to travel much faster than other containerships" https://hackaday.com/2023/12/26/chinas-nuclear-powered-containership-a-fluke-or-the-future-of-shipping/