Physical Realities
I subscribe to several journals that cover the process and energy industries. Almost every week, my inbox includes a report such as the one I received today from Hydrocarbon Processing. Its title is, AES Andes abandons $10-B green hydrogen project in Chile. The opening paragraph reads:
AES Andes has announced that, following a detailed review of its project portfolio, it has decided to desist from the execution of the INNA project, an initiative designed to produce green hydrogen and green ammonia.
The pattern is hard to ignore. Major alternative-energy projects are not being halted by politics or public opposition, but by internal technical and economic reviews. Engineers, project managers, and investors are concluding that projects such as these cannot be justified.
This is not primarily a political or social debate. It is a question of physical limits. Large-scale substitutes for oil and natural gas must obey the laws of thermodynamics and system efficiency. Those limits are now emerging not in academic papers or opinion pieces, but in quiet announcements that multi-billion dollar projects are being terminated.
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