Dear Damian
Thinking about your comments on this subject, yesterday evening, I want to share my thoughts with you and with Rob Clinton, Mark Richards and Ros Partridge who also heard your comments and may want to correct or comment on what I am writing here.
My understanding is that any kind of burning releases carbon dioxide (CO2), one of the five main greenhouse gases. The others are methane (even more potent than CO2 and is being released from the thawing permafrost), nitrous oxide, water vapour and ozone. (Source - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas) We have to cut all greenhouse gases, urgently because climate scientists tell us that they are dangerously enhancing the natural greenhouse gas layer in the upper atmosphere that enables life on earth to survive. It is called global warming or climate change/breakdown/crisis/emergency or, the greenhouse effect.
I think I am right in saying that hydrogen must be made by using energy or, as you told us last night, from burning metal (did you say aluminium foil, Damian?) that releases greenhouse gases even though it releases hydrogen that can be captured, unless the energy used comes from renewables. In which case, it is more sensible and has less of an impact on climate breakdown, if the renewable electricity is used directly than to use it to make hydrogen. Hence, the need to move from gas to electricity that can have less of a climate changing impact. I don't think that using hydrogen in our gas cookers, heaters and boilers will help. Energy efficiency and using less of everything will!
Making aluminium, ceramics, cement and steel is very energy intensive, I believe and so is bad news. Hence, my opposition to replacing perfectly good, existing steel train tracks and trains with steel Metro tram tracks and the very large amounts of cement to make the concrete used for tram tracks much more than than for concrete sleepers (and continuously welded track) for the missing trains that I saw on our mainline railway at the bottom of Castle Hill as recently as the 2000s decade. This is the mainline railway "of national strategic significance" ...
... now, part converted to light rail and very light rail, no less!!
But what do others think?
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