Green Hydrogen Assessment Study Paints Bleak Picture

Image: PwC

The British accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has published a new report evaluating the status of green hydrogen projects worldwide. Green hydrogen, as a reminder, is hydrogen produced by splitting water using renewable energy. Green hydrogen could be used as energy storage or to directly power vehicles. In some countries, it is regarded as an essential part of the clean energy transition. At the moment, almost all hydrogen (> 95%) worldwide is produced from methane instead. You can see the summary of the PwC report in the above figure which contrasts plans for 2030, in light pink, with reality, represented by the black dots. The dots are kind of hard to see because they’re so small. To give you some numbers, the European target for 2030 is 120 GW in installed capacity. Operational at the moment are 0.2 GW. It is beyond me how anyone can believe that green hydrogen is going to save the day.

Check out this video on strange coincidences! The universe seems to be ruled by equations and numbers. But why just these equations and why just those numbers? Is it just coincidence? In this video I have collected seven of the weirdest coincidences in physics. You can take the quiz here.

Rumours of Unusual Higgs Particles at the LHC

Image: CERN/CMS

A group of physicists just published an arXiv paper in which they present 4.3 σ evidence for a Higgs triplet – in other words, the Higgs-boson would not just be one particle but actually a set of three. That’s approximately 99.75% confidence that the signal is not a statistical fluctuation. However, the analysis is a combination of 12 different types of measurement, none of which has particularly high statistical significance on its own. While such measurement combinations are not necessarily wrong, there are many possible such combinations, and that makes it difficult to interpret the statistical significance. In other words, don’t get your hopes up too high

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Fusion Company Reports Energy Record with Z-Pinch Method

Image: ZAP Energy

The private fusion company Zap Energy has reported a breakthrough with their Z-pinch Experiment. They have observed decay products of fusion reactions and measured electron temperatures between 1-3 keV, or 11 to 37 million °C (20 to 66 million °F) in the plasma. This exceeds the temperature at the core of the sun. It is a significant step for fusion systems, though somewhat higher temperatures are usually required to maintain fusion reactions on Earth.The Fusion Z-pinch experiment is a method of plasma confinement. It uses an electric current in the plasma to generate a magnetic field that focuses the plasma in one direction, usually called the Z-direction, hence the name "Z-pinch." Press release here. Paper here.

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