From all that I’ve seen electricity lines (also HVDC) have higher transmission losses by a magnitude. With hydrogen and modern material science you’ll probably have the choice between higher losses and embrittlement, but that’s just another economical equation: Do you want to eat the higher losses, or replace the pipeline in a couple of decades or a century.

At least environment-wise hydrogen leaks aren’t an issue: Some atoms diffusing through the wall don’t constitute a fire hazard and the end result is water. Methane, OTOH, is a nasty greenhouse gas.

Speaking of nature: Ammonia is nasty, but nature produces it itself (just not at those concentrations) and can deal with it. The site directly surrounding a leak would be dead, a bit further downstream (literally) there’s going to be over-fertilisation. Not nice but definitely better than an oil leak and fixing it quite literally involves waiting until grass has grown over it as rain dilutes it and microorganisms migrate back in to eat it. Similar things apply to ethanol which I’d say would be a better choice for general use such as hybrid cars, camping stoves and whatnot because it’s not going to burn your lungs away. Can’t rely on people being conscious enough to get up and flee the ammonia stench when they’re in a car accident.

Burning methane also produces steam. Methane produces 891 kJ/mol, hydrogen 286 kJ/mol, methane has four hydrogen atoms that’d be 1144 kJ per what should the unit be in any case: Methane produces less heat per unit of produced water than hydrogen (the hydrogen first needs to get ripped off the carbon). Those ovens burn dryer than your current gas oven.

Never used steam when making pizza, they’re not in there long enough for steam to make a difference. For bread it’s indispensable to get a proper crust, though.

EDIT: Did I get moles right? It’s been a while and I am no chemist.

Back in the early days of gas infrastructure, before wide-spread electrification, you know gas street lights and everything, the gas was produced by gasifying coal, resulting in gas that was often over 50% hydrogen, with only ~20% methane. Rest nitrogen and CO.

Natural gas has a methane content upwards of 75%, which meant that everyone had to switch out their burner nozzles but the rest of the infrastructure stayed intact.

All this is to say: Nothing about is really new or rocket science. Europe is certainly creating a backbone pipeline network for hydrogen, parts of it new pipes, other parts re-purposed natural gas pipes, many were built to a standard that allows them to carry hydrogen though some valves etc. might need upgrading. Some of those were originally built for hydrogen in the first place, and checking Wikipedia there’s actually a 240km segment in the Ruhr area, built in 1938, still in operation, which always carried hydrogen. Plain steel but comparatively low-pressure so it works.

Oh and have another number: According to Fraunhofer, Germany’s pipeline network can store three months of total energy usage (electricity, transportation, everything). Not in storage tanks, but just by operating the pipelines themselves at higher or lower pressure.

And we need that stuff one way or the other: Even if tomorrow ten thousand fusion plants go online that doesn’t mean that the chemical industry doesn’t need feedstock, or that reducing steel with electricity would make sense. Both of those things need hydrogen.

Fusion is still in the future so the plan is to import most of that hydrogen, mostly from Canada and Namibia, in tankers carrying ammonia which is way more efficient that trying to compress hydrogen also ammonia is needed for some processes anyway.

All three paragraphs are written by wikipedia authors summing up longer texts by various scholars. If you want to actually engage with the topic on a deeper level, read those scholars, not just the summary. It’s all linked (those numbers in brackets). Ignore the Christian if you please, noone will blame you.

So you picked out one non-Muslim (a scholar of comparative religion) among the many Muslims, with doctorates in Islamic Law from Arab universities and everything, to dismiss all of it.

I tried not to but I have to start to doubt your intellectual honesty. Not towards me, I don’t care, but towards yourself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijab#Alternative_views

“Clear and decisive scholarly consensus” my ass. There might be if you’re ignoring everyone who disagrees.

There’s no mention of Hijabs in the Quran and “dress modestly” is very much relative. You also may or may not see Turks drinking plum wine but they’re definitely drinking beer and most definitely Raki.

I’d be willing to introduce national backsides to Euro notes so they can put their King’s mug on it.

Because they went to Eton which teaches important skills such as talking utter bollocks with absolute confidence. People trust them.

Not to mention that the UK originally joined the EC in the early 70s precisely to fix its economical problems.

Joining the EU might indeed be a bit off because everybody is weary of a not actually fully committed UK but that doesn’t mean the UK can’t join the single market, or at least a customs union. Turkey currently is more closely integrated with the EU than the UK is.

The whole situation is BS in the first place, back in the days the concept of gender was introduced to allow some flexibility in the social aspects while keeping sex (as in phenotype) a binary which science already knew it wasn’t. Bimodal distribution, yes, binary, no. Things get complicated fast once you go past egg cells and sperm, that’s the only actual binary that exists.

English in particular uses transsexual because back in the days activists wanted to avoid associations with sexuality, to not get tangled up in people’s homophobic sentiments. Other language use precisely that term, transsexual. Hirschfeld coined “transvestite”, back then a catch-all term for behaviour not conforming to your sex assigned at birth (and you could get a transvestite pass in Imperial Germany to stop the police harassing you for “inciting public disorder”), Benjamin coined “transsexual”, in English, as a diagnosis separate to “just liking to dress up differently”, it got replaced later on don’t ask me for a source right now.

It’s not genocide for the same reason that straight-up euthanising, say, schizophrenics isn’t: Neither are a people, but a subset of every people.

I’d lump it in with eugenics but genocide is catchy so I’ll permit it despite better semantic judgement.

EDIT: What, y’all disagreeing with me about the use of “genocide” being politically opportune?

Detractors have that fixation on straws, for the EU legislature it was just another regulation among many.

Also the plastic straw fixation is now kinda fading in favour of attached bottle caps. People will literally lose 50 IQ points and stub their nose to spite Berlaymont instead of rotating the bottle 90 degrees.

Btw, the democratic tradition in Germany was barely 14 years old

The SPD was founded 1863. Germany had been a constitutional monarchy with a parliament for quite a while, based on Prussia’s introduction of the thing in 1848. That was introduced not so much by grace of the King but because of the people demanding it.

And, no, the Americans didn’t have a plan going into Germany, either. Not having plans is kind of their thing. They didn’t even plan on entering the war, remember. I could go into endless detail here but that e.g. VW still exists is due to the Brits, definitely not US policy, and let’s not forget the French keen on overcoming arch enmity and turning it around into European integration.

We had just come out of commiting the worst genocide in history and most of us cheered for it.

For claiming to be German you know preciously little German history.

Under the american occupation, afghan women and minorities enjoyed more protection and participation than they ever had in the last 100 years.

Yes. And it was a grave mistake to not arm the women. Imagine the Taliban trying to take Kabul if there were two or three women battalions around, very much fighting in self-interest, calling their male colleagues limp-dicked over not putting up a fight.

There’s three more currently in parliament, including a Nazi (Harald Weyel, AfD).

You’re vastly oversimplifying.

Afghanistan as we know it was created by Pashtuns, the majority ethnicity in Afghanistan back then in 1747 (A large chunk of Tajiks settled in North Afhghanistan fleeing the Red Army, that’s why they’re so numerous now). It’s already post-colonial, in the sense that it’s not part of Persia (or Greece) any more and avoided becoming Russian, it fought for its independence. Saying “it only exists because it’s convenient to colonial powers” is a fucking insult.

You’re erasing their own struggles and achievements for your own messed-up white saviour complex, “Oh poor brown people are poor and behave like assholes that must be because we did it”.

No, colonial conflicts did not instil misogyny in Afghanistan, least of all during the Soviet or US invasion. That’s a mixture of ancient tribal values reinforced by convenient interpretations of Islam. The US could certainly have supported nicer people than the Mujahideen to fuck with the Soviets trying to colonise but it’s not like Afghanistan was a beacon of progressivism before, on the contrary. Some enlightened absolutism in Kabul, yes, the Royals got around and studied abroad, everywhere else, very much not.

If you ask me the mistake the US made, big-picture, was to not arming women.

Years of competent and cooperative occupation? 5? Thats how long it took in Germany.

I’m having flashbacks to Iraq, or rather talking to Americans about the thing when they were all gung-ho about it. “It’s going to be just like Germany!” is what you always say, completely ignoring that Germany had a democratic tradition, proper civil society, well-educated population able to re-industrialise in a couple of years, Universities that pre-date Columbus, and in many ways created those very values you claim you instilled. Do I have to remind you of the US’s domestic Apartheid policies at that point in time gods fucking thanks you didn’t instil shit.

Also the occupation of Germany lasted 45 years (1945-1990) but that’s a technicality.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
  But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
  And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—
       Merely this and nothing more.

In case anyone is curious, there’s also Aramand Zorn, SPD (just like Diaby), Awet Tesfaiesus, Greens, and Harald Weyel, AfD, of all parties. Also happens to be the only native-born German.

Diaby is member of the SPD, their left wing on top of that which makes him a target for Nazis in the first place and his skin colour of course isn’t helping. Neither is his constituency being in the east though do note that he didn’t get into the Bundestag over the party list, he won a FPTP seat.

Presumably when we’re talking off-site backups we’re talking about a separate company sitting somewhere in an abandoned nuclear bunker which can justify the price of a tape drive or twenty.