[HN Gopher] Hydrogen lobbyist quits, slams oil companies' "false...
___________________________________________________________________
Hydrogen lobbyist quits, slams oil companies' "false claims" about
blue hydrogen
Author : LinuxBender
Score : 248 points
Date : 2021-08-22 11:52 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| seltzered_ wrote:
| It's worth noting that Jacob Leachman, a researcher at Washington
| State University, wrote against the Nytimes piece referenced:
| https://hydrogen.wsu.edu/2021/08/19/bias-and-green-vs-blue-h...
|
| To make sense of a few things, first, what are the different
| types of hydrogen production (from Leachman's piece):
| 'Black' hydrogen is produced from coal or oil with the highest
| associated CO2 emissions. 'Gray' hydrogen is
| produced from methane with steam reformation resulting in
| approximately 7.2 kg CO2 for every kilogram of hydrogen produced
| (this is the color associated with the vast majority of
| industrial hydrogen produced over the years, which nearly
| entirely go to petroleum refining and ammonia fertilizer
| production). 'Blue' hydrogen is produced with CO2
| emissions but those emissions are captured and sequestered in
| some way, like geological storage or concrete.
| 'Pink' hydrogen is produced with no CO2 emissions but from a
| nuclear reactor and the associated nuclear waste (for what it's
| worth hydrogen will fluoresce a beautiful pink in an arc lamp,
| just about the only color hydrogen ever actually is).
| 'Green' hydrogen is produced with no CO2 emissions, typically
| from electrolyzing water via renewable energy like wind or solar.
|
| From the OP arstechnica piece about Chris Jackson:
|
| "Jackson continues by saying that blue hydrogen is "at best an
| expensive distraction, and at worst a lock-in for continued
| fossil fuel use" which would derail goals that the country and
| the world have set for decarbonizing the economy. He takes
| particular issue with the fact that oil and gas companies have
| asked the UK government for decades of subsidies while also
| claiming that blue hydrogen will be inexpensive to produce. "If
| the false claims made by oil companies about the cost of blue
| hydrogen were true, their projects would make a profit by 2030,""
|
| From Leachman's piece:
|
| "
|
| For what it's worth, all you'll see is green hydrogen in my CSA
| short course or on my blog, because that is the future I'm
| training professionals for. But you won't see me slamming the
| door shut on 'blue' hydrogen either. The green hydrogen route
| with liquefaction that I've been pushing for over a decade now
| was long ridiculed using many of the same arguments as those
| against blue hydrogen above. Both the press and journal articles
| make the same mistake of casting as absolute extrapolations of
| the status quo without consideration for the limits of physical
| law. Those limits of physical law mean that if something is not
| forbidden, we will eventually find a use for positive means. What
| we really need is more research on ways to produce hydrogen (of
| any color) more efficiently with less global warming. Until we
| finally fund hydrogen research equivalently with batteries and
| electricity, all of this negative bias about hydrogen is turning
| my hair gray; no, let's call it silver."
|
| (via https://twitter.com/hydrogenprof/status/1428359262506393602
| )
|
| Keep in mind the research funding is seemingly dependent on
| grants and funding from oil companies.
| tremon wrote:
| _we will eventually find a use for positive means_
|
| I don't have anything to add to the argument, but this phrase
| stood out to me. It's a dangerous assertion to make especially
| in this area, because just as eventually we will find a way to
| externalize the negative effects, leaving only the positive
| means to capitalize.
|
| So maybe "the limits of physical law" should not be what drives
| this discussion?
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Those distinctions are all likely academically accurate and
| valid technological (green/black/blue/pink) distinctions.
|
| The real issue with the colors of hydrogen isn't the science or
| the technology.
|
| It's that the petroleum industry will use politics and the
| complexities to forestall alternative energy and EV, and play
| labelling games with hydrogen:
|
| "It's blue! We pumped all the CO2 into the ground!"
|
| Do you have any way to prove that is actually sequestered CO2,
| or that you actually did the sequestering? Is there independent
| certification and tests to make sure it isn't leaking out?
|
| "..... Look it's blue hydrogen! Don't use EVs!"
|
| It's like "Organic" food and "Sustainable" products all over
| again.
| loicd wrote:
| I fail to see an economic future for hydrogen as a fuel source.
| If it is produced from e.g. methane (the blue version), then we
| are burning more methane than we would have if we had been using
| the methane directly. If it is produced from electricity and
| water (the green version), then we are wasting electricity that
| could have been used directly in BEVs. At the end of the day,
| hydrogen is always going to cost more than the energy source that
| was used to produce it, and it will not be competitive against
| solutions that use that primary energy source directly.
| atonalfreerider wrote:
| Every discussion of green hydrogen should include a mention of
| solar thermal zinc hydrolysis. Sunlight is used to heat water
| and zinc to a relatively low temperature point where hydrogen
| is released:
|
| https://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/21765
| a3n wrote:
| Green hydrogen is a way to store more electricity (effectively)
| in a car than can be stored in a battery. More range, and less
| weight.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| It is competative as a medium for energy storage and in some
| cases for transportation. The line losses on a hydrogen
| pipeline are tiny compared to those of electrical transmission
| lines. A two-inch pipe full of compressed hydrogen can deliver
| massively more energy than a conductor at the same price per
| mile.
|
| Hydrogen as a direct swap for natural gas is an attractive
| concept in areas like mine that suffer very low renewable
| energies seasonally. (Northern winter. Little sun/wind for
| several months.)
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| But you have to generate electricity in order top split water
| to get hydrogen. You are better off just building more HVDC
| lines to distribute the electricity to where it is needed.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Line losses are low, but compression losses are very high.
| api wrote:
| Is there a way to turn CH4 into C + 2H2 and bury the C or use
| it for some industrial use that does _not_ result in it being
| burned or emitted into the atmosphere? (Plastics? Some kind of
| building material additive? Roads?) If so it would be a way of
| getting some percentage of the energy from CH4 without
| releasing CO2 into the atmosphere.
|
| I can't see hydrogen for cars and stuff due to lack of
| infrastructure, but if we got better and cheaper H2 fuel cells
| I could see a natural gas power plant that emits absolutely
| zero CO2. The loss of energy by converting to H2 and throwing
| away C would at least partly be compensated for by the high
| efficiency of fuel cells vs. heat engines.
| iamthemonster wrote:
| Yes, methane pyrolysis. You can search for "CSIRO Hazer
| Process" for an example. As I understand it, you bubble
| methane through a very high temperature liquid metal, and it
| pyrolysis the methane into hydrogen and graphite.
|
| I am not sure of the economics or the conversion rate of
| methane.
| tjs8rj wrote:
| Exactly, that's why all society is run on photosynthesis ;)
| HPsquared wrote:
| Well, fusion power really.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| Currently it seems that batteries are an expensive technology.
| And we have limited capacity for their production. So having
| plug-in hybrid EVs (which can run on batteries for most
| everyday journeys) or cars running on (green) hydrogen means
| that sufficiently more greener vehicles can be produced such
| that more emissions can be avoided sooner than if the focus was
| battery EVs. Furthermore, BEVs are heavier and cause more road
| wear (some wear scales with the _fourth power_ of the weight
| over an axle)
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Yup. The exception is industrial processes that use hydrogen
| chemically, like ammonia production and steel production.
| verelo wrote:
| So i kind of agree but wonder if it is usable as a means of
| storage of energy. Electricity is easy to generate but hard to
| store, we have done a great job of figuring out how to safely
| store gases. Could we not generate electricity in areas where
| it's not needed and simply ship in the hydrogen? I feel like
| it's a useful tool in the journey of replaying a fossil fuel
| economy.
| bayindirh wrote:
| Isn't hydrogen is one of the hardest gases to store, and
| seeps out of almost everything due to being the tiniest
| atom/molecule of all?
| kuschku wrote:
| You can turn hydrogen into methane in an exothermic way,
| which you can store very easily.
| hannob wrote:
| Which is very energy intensive, as you need to capture
| CO2 for this to work. And it adds the problem of methane
| leakages (methane itself is a powerful greenhouse gas).
|
| The most promising chemical to use as a hydrogen carrier
| is ammonia. It has its problems, too, but it doesn't
| contain carbon, which is a huge bonus.
| beervirus wrote:
| That completely defeats the purpose of using hydrogen
| _instead of_ methane.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| As long as it isn't adding fossil carbon, it seems fine
| to me.
| Lio wrote:
| Methane is reputedly much worse for global warming than
| CO2 though. I've heard 4x worse before.
|
| If that's true then inevitable leaks of unburnt methane
| would not be a good thing at all.
| leoedin wrote:
| It is, but only for a short time - I think 9 years or so.
| It's broken down in the atmosphere into CO2 and water.
| mech422 wrote:
| So its worse the C02 for 9 years...
|
| And then _becomes_ CO2 ?
|
| Not seeing how this is a win?
| beervirus wrote:
| Where would the carbon come from that turns hydrogen into
| methane? It's not being sucked out of the air.
| masklinn wrote:
| > It's not being sucked out of the air.
|
| It could be if it comes from wood or charcoal (though
| that seems unlikely).
| adrianN wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas is a fairly
| popular proposal for seasonal storage. You probably want to
| turn the hydrogen to Methane to make it easier to store.
| timthorn wrote:
| It can also be produced from waste streams - eg contaminated
| plastic that can't be recycled. The process is self powering so
| the H2 production cycle is highly efficient as well as reducing
| waste to landfill.
|
| https://www.powerhouseenergy.co.uk/technology/
| hannob wrote:
| The biggest misconception about hydrogen is that it has
| something to do with cars. The whole "but BEV!" discussion is a
| distraction that has nothing to do with the real use cases of
| hydrogen.
|
| Hydrogen will be extremely important in a decarbonized economy,
| e.g. as a chemical feedstock or as a reduction agent for steel.
| Likely it will also form the basis of some fuels for ships
| (maybe ammonia) or planes.
| hollerith wrote:
| If ammonia-powered ships are visiting a port, then that port
| and any nearby cities need an evacuation plan in case of an
| ammonia leak.
| hannob wrote:
| Ammonia has potential safety issues, but you should be
| aware that there are already ammonia ports and ammonia
| ships. Not using it as a fuel, but transporting it.
|
| So while ammonia needs to be handled safely if it's being
| used as a fuel, there already is a big ammonia industry
| today that has plenty of experience in handling it.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| > reduction agent for steel
|
| Direct electrwinning is about 85-90% efficient. Why add an
| extra step by using hydrogen? Not to mention eletrowinning
| iron is a wet process. Where with reduction with hydrogen is
| a hot process.
|
| I think 'hydrogen' is basically just an attempt to preserve
| the legacy power relations that have grown up around
| coal/oil/natural gas. If people can be convinced it's viable
| they can kick the can down the road for another 10-20 years.
| layoric wrote:
| Storage and transportability.
|
| Even if end to end efficiency is between 10-20% for green
| hydrogen (solar/wind electricity generation -> electrolysis
| -> hydrogen/ammonia -> fuel cell -> electricity), it helps
| solve the problem around intermittency for renewables.
|
| To power a large electricity network with just wind/solar,
| it will need to be over-provisioned to the point where peak
| production will be heavily curtailed and lost or redirected
| to storage. Electricity needs to be used at the time of
| supply for something otherwise generation is wasted.
|
| Batteries are great if you need to redirect that power over
| the course of an hour or maybe a day and are highly
| efficient but too costly at any kind of large scale. Most
| solar/wind at present day are only built with battery
| support of about 1-2 hours worth of equivalent storage.
| This is a massive help to smooth output but doesn't help
| any kind of long term storage.
|
| Then there is transport. Poles and wires are expensive to
| build/maintain. Their highly efficient but completely
| inflexible.
|
| Hydrogen can be stored at large scales as well as be
| transported, plus be generated from generation that would
| otherwise be curtailed and lost due to having nothing to
| use it on.
|
| Pumped hydro needs specific geography and is also hugely
| damaging to river eco systems, not to mention ties up a
| huge amount of a valuable resource (water). Renewables also
| geographically dependent, some places on earth are bestowed
| with huge amounts of wind/solar where others are not. Some
| of this will be solved by building international power
| lines, but smaller scale will likely want something like
| hydrogen fuel.
|
| I'm very cynical of old/current energy companies and they
| are doing everything they can to slow this transition but
| hydrogen will very likely be part of the mix into the
| future. What I'm not sure of is if it will serve a massive
| part like heating Europe over winter via excess generated
| over summer or much smaller for backup of more remote
| decentralised grids I don't know but it will definitely
| play a part in the energy mix for generations to come.
| specialist wrote:
| Correct.
|
| The threshold is renewable energy used to produce methane and
| ammonia, more economically than fossil fuels sources. Then H2
| economy becomes inevitable.
|
| For transportation, tackling all the use cases Li-ion
| doesn't. In other words, FCEV compliments BEV.
|
| If we unlock H2 soon, maybe civilization can survive climate
| crisis.
| rswail wrote:
| It's a way of shipping solar power. There are plans for green
| hydrogen in the North West Australia area, using solar power to
| generate hydrogen that is shipped to Japan and other Asian
| destinations.
| credit_guy wrote:
| I'm not entirely convinced about the rationale for hydrogen,
| but I'll play devil's advocate. If you burn the CH4 at the
| place of extraction, then you need a way to transport the
| electricity. This is a hard problem. You can instead ship the
| natural gas via pipes (or LNG) to some other place, close to
| the consumer, where it will be burned in a power plant. For
| this option, there will be leaks proportional to the distance
| the gas is shipped. A pipeline 100km long will leak 10 times
| more than a pipeline 10km long. When the famed analysis that
| claimed 3.5% average CH4 leakage came out, they simply did not
| consider the length of the pipe. If you instead immediately
| convert the CH4 into H2, and ship that via pipes, then you have
| no reason to have CH4 leaks beyond a tiny amount associated
| with the extraction itself (which would be there even if you
| decide to convert the gas into electricity on the spot). So,
| all in all, there's a case to be made that the conversion of
| CH4 into H2 would result in great reductions in overall
| greenhouse gas emissions.
| HALtheWise wrote:
| I don't understand why the leak rate from H2 pipes wouldn't
| be as bad as CH4. In fact, shipping hydrogen is generally
| much harder, since it requires such deeply cryogenic
| temperatures to stay liquid, unlike liquid natural gas which
| can be accomplished with just pressure.
| credit_guy wrote:
| H2 is not a greenhouse gas. The leak of H2 does not
| contribute to global warming.
| twic wrote:
| > If it is produced from e.g. methane (the blue version), then
| we are burning more methane than we would have if we had been
| using the methane directly
|
| Yes, but since we're capturing the CO2, that's fine.
|
| There's also turquoise hydrogen [1] - produced from natural gas
| by pyrolysis, capturing solid carbon, without ever producing
| CO2. This is equivalent to blue hydrogen, but the technology
| looks a lot more promising to me, because solid carbon is
| easier to sequester than CO2.
|
| The big problem with natural gas is the losses of the gas
| itself during production and transport. This is only 1-3% of
| the gas produced, but methane is a very powerful greenhouse
| gas, so even that amount is significant. If that could be
| substantially reduced, turquoise hydrogen looks pretty good to
| me.
|
| Something i haven't been able to find out is how much the loss
| rate varies. Maybe it's 2% on average because losses from old
| Russian gas wells are 5% and losses from modern North Sea gas
| wells are 0.1%. That would also change the picture.
|
| > we are wasting electricity that could have been used directly
| in BEVs
|
| It's vital to understand what hydrogen would be used for. The
| most important use i can see is substituting for natural gas in
| legacy domestic heating. There are over 20 million gas boilers
| in homes in the UK. We are slowly replacing them with heat
| pumps, electric heating, and better insulation, but it will
| take decades to replace them all. If we could replace natural
| gas in the supply with hydrogen [2], we could cut emissions
| much sooner - even faster than waiting for electric cars to
| displace petrol ones.
|
| [1] https://spectra.mhi.com/achieving-net-zero-what-is-
| turquoise...
|
| [2] https://www.hy4heat.info/
| madsbuch wrote:
| The lost energy in transforming to hydrogen might be merited by
| not using scarce and environmentally problematic materials in
| batteries.
| belorn wrote:
| The reason why the Swedish and German green party is so much in
| favor of green hydrogen is that it seems to be the best bet in
| their view for a future where the primary source of energy is
| wind. A storage for wind need to be able to last for months,
| have a output capacity that is proportional to the capacity of
| the wind, and be expected to repay the storage investment
| within a reasonable time frame.
|
| The other storage alternatives each have their major drawbacks.
| Lithium batteries work great for solar as there you only need a
| few hours of capacity, and the current economical setup seems
| to be about 80% of output for 4 hours. Each day they get
| charged and each night they discharge and provide a relative
| fast return of investment. This doesn't work for wind.
|
| Massive amount of reverse hydro has also been suggested, but
| getting the capacity up to the same output as current wind
| installations are difficult. Having a country like Germany
| operating for months on only hydro power would require a lot of
| land and constructions, both which carries with them a lot of
| initial pollution in terms of both methane and co2. It is also
| very expensive.
|
| There are a few other lesser know storage suggestions like rust
| batteries and heat storage, but I have yet to hear any of them
| being currently economical viable to run a whole country.
|
| Green hydrogen can however be created through converting a wind
| farm into a hydrogen production farm. The cost is currently
| still prohibitively more expensive compared to nuclear, but it
| is still the place where those political parties I mentioned
| early is putting their bets. They are hoping that prices will
| go down enough that they can start building those kind of wind
| farms and then convert existing fossil fuel burning power
| plants and infrastructure to use hydrogen instead.
|
| (I had switched green to blue. Whops. Fixed).
| hannob wrote:
| The german green party is not in favor of blue hydrogen, and
| everything else you say does not make much sense either. Sure
| you know what blue hydrogen even means?
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| Does it matter when what the german greenies babble makes
| no sense at all, either? More Da-Da, more DIE PARTEI,
| because the party is always right! Ja ja, da da di la lall!
| leoedin wrote:
| Do you mean green hydrogen? Blue hydrogen is made from
| methane - it is essentially a fossil fuel.
| belorn wrote:
| Yes. Those political parties are betting on green hydrogen.
| I was commenting on why they are looking towards using
| hydrogen and wind farms that generate hydrogen, but wrote
| the wrong color.
| roenxi wrote:
| What then would be the plan for a 7+ day disruption to the
| power grid?
|
| At the moment, the backup plan is generally diesel generators,
| and the transport grid is independent of the electrical. Going
| full battery changes the risk profile quite substantially.
| whazor wrote:
| There are many use cases for hydrogen, the following diagram
| shows a ladder of competitiveness:
| https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E81j2loXEAYzjo5?format=jpg&name=...
| roboticmind wrote:
| I think for cars that's probably the case, but that might be
| too focused on cars.
|
| A possible future for it might be for large planes, boats, etc.
| that would really need the higher energy density of hydrogen vs
| batteries. The inefficiency is of course not going to be great,
| but it means those could possibly use renewable sources
| (depending on hydrogen production). Or maybe some major battery
| advancements come before that and make energy density less of
| an issue -\\_(tsu)_/-
| [deleted]
| m4rtink wrote:
| Actually the energy density of hydrogen due to its low
| density and special storage requirements.
|
| IMHO synthetic methane or synthetic liquid fuel based od
| captured CO2 is a better option.
| [deleted]
| _fizz_buzz_ wrote:
| Don't you make these from hydrogen?
| marcosdumay wrote:
| They are not "hydrogen as a fuel".
|
| There a plenty of uses of hydrogen, and they won't stop
| with electrification. But we probably won't be using them
| as fuel any time soon (except where its energy density is
| important enough to override price, flexibility and some
| safety concerns).
| MisterTea wrote:
| Yes.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_pro
| ces...
| ashtonkem wrote:
| It might have some utility in places where energy density
| matters, such as ocean going transport.
| akomtu wrote:
| Hydrogen as a liquid fuel has no future, but hydrogen as a
| battery of some sort might be the solution to weak lithium
| batteries. I remember a post on HN talking about a special form
| of crystal oxygen that's filled with hydrogen atoms. That kind
| of thing might be an efficient battery.
| MrsPeaches wrote:
| As others have pointed out it might be used for flight/boats.
|
| In general though saying it isn't useful for cars is kind of
| missing the point of new sources of energy. New sources of
| energy (and the associated prime movers) allow new forms of
| transportation.
|
| For example you couldn't really make a car using steam power.
| That was only possible with gasoline and an IC engine.
|
| Looking at it another way: what new forms of transportation
| would be possible with hydrogen? Personal flight maybe?
|
| We do a lot of really inefficient things if there is a market
| for it.
| KozmoNau7 wrote:
| > For example you couldn't really make a car using steam
| power. That was only possible with gasoline and an IC engine.
|
| Stanley (and others) made steam cars in the early 20th
| century. By all accounts they were quite nice, but did have
| drawbacks in regards to needing pre-heating, and they were
| rather expensive luxury cars. Steam cars were absolutely a
| thing, though. Electric cars too, but the battery technology
| of the time was too primitive for long range.
|
| Also, hydrogen isn't a source of energy, it is merely a
| storage medium.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Motor_Carriage_Compa.
| ..
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| Why the downvotes? Steam cars lost to gasoline, but they
| were a thing, and quite fast too:
| https://youtu.be/wBU8IPyUyTk
| loicd wrote:
| There was also Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot who built a steam
| "car" in 1770.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas-Joseph_Cugnot
| jeltz wrote:
| > Also, hydrogen isn't a source of energy, it is merely a
| storage medium.
|
| Yeah, we used to power cars with wood during WW2 but wood
| was just the storage medium. The wood was used to create
| carbon monoxide which was used in an internal combustion
| engine.
| [deleted]
| mojomark wrote:
| > end of the day, hydrogen is always going to cost more than
| the energy source that was used to produce it.
|
| What your failing to account for is a.) the fact that Hydrogen
| (and Oxygen) used with fuel cells is effectively a battery, and
| b.) all batteries use more energy to charge than the amount of
| retractable energy, c.) we accept these energy losses (costs)
| in the battery charging process because we need batteries for
| most mobile applications (not subways & similar though, these
| are connected to the grid).
|
| H2 and other batteries (including oil itself) are a means of
| making energy portable so that you don't have to plug into the
| grid. If we could pluge everything into the grid, then yes
| you're correct, H2 energy storage would only be useful for back
| up grid or grid buffer energy storage.
|
| For stationary applications, it doesn't make much sense to have
| batteries (H2 or Electric, or otherwise) since, as you state,
| you can just connect to the electric grid and avoid battery
| charging losses (unless your worried about grid instanility).
| However, for mobile applications (cars, ships, planes, etc),
| now you need to consider how to store energy off of the grid in
| a manner that is COMPACT and LIGHT, because these factors
| greatly effect vehicle transport efficiency.
|
| Oild is still king in terms of volumetric energy desnity and
| specific (mass) energy desnity. An energy capacity equivalent
| Li-ion battery is still relatively much heavier and takes up
| more space (meaning your vehicle will be less energy
| efficient). H2 storage has the potential to exceed oil in terms
| of volumetric/specific energy density, but it's not there just
| yet.*
|
| *Note that, the other component in the energy storage race
| isn't just the storage media, but the energy conversion
| efficiency of devices that use these media. For example, most
| common fuel cells are roughly 50% efficient in terms of the
| energy usage, but if you can make a fuel cell 90% efficient,
| then that makes the use of H2 as a battery, much more
| competitive. The same is true about oil burnjng engine
| efficiencies. Electric batteries and motors are very efficient
| at converting energy, however, electric batteries are currently
| much less energy dense than H2 or oil systems.
|
| Oil is effectively a battery that has been charged naturally by
| the sun (as with most mined chemical energy storage). If you
| create oil in a lab, you are storing the reaction energy for
| later use, just like charging any battery.
|
| When you charge a battery, because batteries follow the laws of
| thermodynamics, you always invest more energy to charge that
| you get out of them. Mined oil is cheap energy because it's
| already "charged". However, if you were to capture the waste
| emissions from the atmosphere and recombine them, the energy
| lost in the recombination would be far greater than that which
| you can extract when you burn it again.
|
| If someone had a way to economically capture oild emissions,
| then recombine the into oil - and if this process is cheaper
| that liberating H2 from water.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| It would require a clean energy surplus and prices of clean
| energy to drop enough that the generated green hydrogen is
| cheaper than blue and grey hydrogen. Both are going to happen
| eventually.
|
| If you look at price trends, you can pretty much calculate when
| that might happen. A few decades from now, blue hydrogen will
| be more expensive than green hydrogen. The grey variety is
| likely to be heavily taxed with carbon taxes by then as well
| but even without that it will eventually end up being more
| expensive than green hydrogen.
|
| Grey hydrogen is only cheap if we let you dump 7kg of CO2 in
| the atmosphere for every kg of hydrogen for free. Capturing and
| storing that 7kg of CO2 is not going to be cheap either. 1kg of
| hydrogen is about 33 KWH of electricity with a decent fuel
| cell. It takes at least 3x the kwh of clean electricity to
| create that. So, about 100kwh.
|
| The price of grey hydrogen is about 0.70$ per kg. That's the
| dirties and cheapest variety. A more common price is > 2$/kg
| (still grey) in most parts of the world. Blue hydrogen costs
| more like 5$ per kg. So it's about 2-5x the cost of grey
| hydrogen.
|
| So, get price competitive with grey hydrogen, green hydrogen
| would have to be generated using clean energy costing less than
| 0.7 cents per kwh. Once we hit that price point, it will be the
| cheapest form of hydrogen.
|
| Current grid prices are way higher than that but a few recent
| bids for solar and wind plants came out at around 1.2 cents per
| kwh. So we're not that far off from hitting that price point.
| state_less wrote:
| Your projections seem pretty good. Renewable energy is likely
| to continue to get cheaper, opening up power to gas
| possibilities (e.g. green hydrogen).
|
| Something I think is missing in these hydrogen discussions on
| energy storage is LiFePO4 cells. They give very good round
| trip efficiency, are simple to operate and have been
| plummeting in price.
|
| https://about.bnef.com/blog/battery-pack-prices-cited-
| below-...
|
| If prices continue to decline at the current trend, I'd
| expect to see large scale batteries used to store energy for
| use over multiple days. For small towns, this could be a
| relatively maintenance free and economical option to only
| draw from the grid on the days of the week when you have
| surplus wind or solar.
| erpellan wrote:
| If it's made from fossil fuel, whether coal, gas or oil, we
| cannot afford it. Any 'solution' that includes taking carbon out
| of the ground is not a solution. The fossil fuel industry would
| love to sell us on blue hydrogen. They would get to keep doing
| exactly what they're doing, but now with added subsidies to pay
| for turning it into hydrogen.
|
| Blue hydrogen would be a disaster.
| macawfish wrote:
| I'm excited about a slew of new carbon capture processes that are
| integrated with green concrete + hydrogen production. There are
| an assortment of them that take things like salt water/air and
| calcium and produce hydrogen and lime (and sometimes brine or
| additional byproducts that would need to be managed)
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cement-from-carbo...
|
| https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/combat-climate-cha...
|
| https://news.stanford.edu/2019/03/18/new-way-generate-hydrog...
|
| https://fuelcellsworks.com/news/carbon-capture-process-produ...
| maxdo wrote:
| it feels like these guys are from the same mafia group :)
| rob_c wrote:
| Where there's money to be made there's controversy...
| nikkinana wrote:
| Hydrogen is their last gasp. Good riddance! Of course it'll never
| happen because there's supposed to be a water shortage.
| croes wrote:
| It's pretty simple. If it's a claim by big oil, it's most likely
| a lie.
| webreac wrote:
| So true. Wind turbines are supported by the gas lobby because
| thermal power plants are needed to compensate for wind
| variations. This same lobby is pushing blue hydrogen against
| green. But if wind turbines were used to produce green
| hydrogen, many problems would be solved : energy storage,
| energy transport.
| pa7x1 wrote:
| I think this is the way. The only way to go truly green is to
| install over capacity of renewables and store the excess to
| handle their variability. I haven't done the math but I have
| the impression that Li-Ion storage at that scale is not
| feasible or would take us too long, so I think a balance of
| H_2 production from excess clean production, hydroelectric
| storage where possible and Li-Ion will be needed.
|
| H_2 is also the only clean solution for certain forms of
| transportation, e.g., cargo shipping, air transportation,
| substitution of diesel trains and likely even heavy duty
| trucks. So we will need some form of clean H_2 if we want to
| make a clean transition in those areas.
|
| H_2 is not the devil, we must steer away from so called Blue
| Hydrogen (and worse forms of H_2 production). But Green
| Hydrogen is very likely part of the solution. At least I
| don't see other way out.
| duped wrote:
| Or we can just use a proven technology like nuclear
| pa7x1 wrote:
| I'm myself a big nuclear proponent and I would like to
| see bigger funding towards achieving fusion.
|
| With that said, nuclear cannot solve the issues
| mentioned. It's great for base-load but not great to
| handle renewable energy variability. For that we nowadays
| use thermal power stations that burn fossil fuels and can
| be turned on and off easier.
|
| So I agree on nuclear being part of a clean energetic mix
| but it can't fix the problems mentioned in the post
| above.
| bshipp wrote:
| It doesn't even have to be wind turbines (although what you
| say us absolutely true). Almost every municipality/utility
| has peak and off-peak times where electricity must be moved
| around because production capacity can not be reduced any
| further. I've always felt that something like H2 production
| or high-efficiency batteries would be ideal in non-peak
| periods.
|
| As a former truck driver, H2 is probably the most practical
| from a long-haul perspective.
| lambdasquirrel wrote:
| It's just so weird we're supposed to get hydrogen from petroleum
| sources. It's not like you can't split it from water (with solar
| providing the energy). Everyone learns that in elementary school
| chemistry.
|
| Hydrogen doesn't seem like a good idea for cars, too much
| dispersed infrastructure that needs to be built, that seems even
| more difficult to pull off than electric charging. But for
| airplanes, it might make more sense.
| xyzzy21 wrote:
| It's about costs: both energy and economic.
|
| Those are BOTH non-negotiable facts.
|
| I agree: there are NICHES where hydrogen could be right.
| NICHES!!! Not everything or even most cases.
| dogma1138 wrote:
| You can but it costs much more, this is why 95% of current
| hydrogen is produced from natural gas and hydrocarbons.
| [deleted]
| brightball wrote:
| If you're doing that, isn't it better to just use natural gas
| directly?
| [deleted]
| WJW wrote:
| That depends on what you need the hydrogen for. If you want
| to burn it in a turbine or use it in a fuel cell then yes,
| using natural gas directly is more efficient. OTOH, using
| hydrogen as a feedstock for chemical processes often can't
| be replaced directly with natural gas.
| digianarchist wrote:
| Wouldn't it be easier for carbon capture to occur when
| producing hydrogen and just let hydrogen consuming sources
| output water?
| guerrilla wrote:
| > elementary school chemistry.
|
| You mean elementary chemistry or school chemistry? Who has
| chemistry in elementary school?
| gambiting wrote:
| >>Who has chemistry in elementary school?
|
| Uhm, I'd hope everone? Here in Poland you take chemistry in
| elementary school, starting in year 4(so at 10-11 years of
| age).
| Aulig wrote:
| In Germany you take chemistry from year 7 onwards usually.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Elementary school means up to years 1 to 4 or 6 [1]. It
| ends at age 11-12 or so[2].
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Germany#Sch
| ool_ye...
|
| 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elementary_schools_in_th
| e_Unit...
| guerrilla wrote:
| You start studying chemistry before 12 years old? Around
| 11-12 is when elementary school ends [1]. I don't think
| I've ever heard of that in California and they don't
| usually start until high school in Sweden either [2].
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elementary_schools_in_the_
| Unit...
|
| 2. https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kemi_A
| _huayra_ wrote:
| iirc one main difficulty besides electricity is the cathode or
| anode material, as on industrial scale I think they may need to
| be replaced due to corrosion or something (again, not entirely
| sure).
|
| However, we really ought to solve that problem and then put
| hydrogen stations in sunny / windy places that just make the
| gas when electricity is available there. Seems like a no-
| brainer for the middle east with copious amounts of sun year
| round.
| dogma1138 wrote:
| There are many other challenges, like the fact that you need
| very pure water which if you use salt water you need to
| desalinate it first and make sure it has little to no
| impurities. Then you need to both select and engineer the
| structure of your electrodes to maximize surface area whilst
| allowing for easy H2 extraction, you need to match your
| electrolyte material to your electrodes as well as figure out
| how to extract the other byproducts without them gunking your
| setup until something goes boom.
|
| There is some research into autoionization of water but that
| has its own massive engineering challenges you need quite
| high temperatures or pressure to make that even remotely
| feasible and that process needs to be very controlled because
| you don't want free hydrogen and oxygen floating around.
| rob_c wrote:
| A lot of which we can do at scale for H3 extraction. Is
| just the economics of it on the private sector.
| jokoon wrote:
| The solution for transport is electric trains and very
| lightweight electric vehicles, like electric bikes and other 4
| wheel things lighter than 400kg. All powered by nuclear energy.
|
| I even foresee a network of narrow rail tracks for cities,
| supplied by a collection of warehouses for freight for the last
| kilometer to supermarkets and shops. Such rail is much easier to
| build on existing infrastructure.
| seventytwo wrote:
| When are we going to make this and other forms of public
| disinformation akin to fraud?
|
| Some of the biggest, deadliest, costliest sagas now and in the
| past 75 years have been caused by society-level disinformation
| campaigns by organized groups. Yes, in the long term, the truth
| wins out, but usually after an incredibly hard fought battle,
| years or decades of damage, erosion of trust in institutions, and
| billions in profit rewards for the fraudsters.
| the-dude wrote:
| I am wondering if you are hinting at the cold war, Vietnam or
| Afghanistan/Iraq.
|
| I honestly can't tell.
| brandmeyer wrote:
| In addition to sibling comments, I'd add
|
| Focusing just on industrial misinformation, I'd add
| - asbestos and lung disease - mercury dumping -
| chromate dumping - numerous workplace hazards
| sokoloff wrote:
| Or the war on drugs, or the food pyramid, both of which are
| still happening.
| imglorp wrote:
| Or smoking is good for you.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| Or drinking a glass of wine every single day.
| q845712 wrote:
| leaded gasoline, the low fat diet, web 2.0, ...
| wolfram74 wrote:
| I was thinking the vaccines cause autism debacle, the
| manufacturing consent on whether or not cigarettes cause
| cancer, the oil companies holding their climatology research
| they'd finished in the 70's. But gulf war 2 probably counts
| too.
| mcny wrote:
| I am positive growing up I read about how some anesthetic
| they used during childbirth in the sixties was linked to
| some kind of birth defect but it is ridiculous to say that
| about vaccines.
|
| Why is there doubt that vaccines are safe and that tobacco
| is harmful?
|
| I can understand reluctance to say too much of sweet
| smoothies filled with fresh fruits is harmful or milk/milk
| products are harmful because they contain lots of useful
| nutrients and the reality is very nuanced and our
| understanding will evolve over the next few decades.
|
| However, the topics you mentioned are solved issues. Why is
| it so easy to cast doubt about them?
| ben-schaaf wrote:
| > Why is it so easy to cast doubt about them?
|
| The entire vaccines cause autism thing started as a
| disinformation campaign against the MMR vaccine in order
| to sell an alternative (expensive) 3 part vaccine and to
| win a lawsuit. The media gave the original paper huge
| coverage without actually reading it and it took many
| people a lot of work debunking and discrediting the
| author before he even lost his medical license.
|
| You never read "We got tricked into spreading BS" on the
| front page of a newspaper.
| throwaway672000 wrote:
| Thalidomide might be what you're thinking of. Didn't
| realise until now that it wasn't approved in the US until
| the risks were well known. But in the UK at least
| "thalidomide was (supposed to be) safe too" is an easy
| argument you'll hear fairly often.
|
| >... a subsidiary of Distillers Co. Ltd (now part of
| Diageo plc), marketed thalidomide throughout the UK,
| Australia and New Zealand, under the brand name Distaval,
| as a remedy for morning sickness. Their advertisement
| claimed that "Distaval can be given with complete safety
| to pregnant women and nursing mothers without adverse
| effect on mother or child ... Outstandingly safe Distaval
| has been prescribed for nearly three years in this
| country."
|
| >Experts estimate that thalidomide led to the death of
| approximately 2,000 children and serious birth defects in
| more than 10,000 children, about 5,000 of them in West
| Germany
| Retric wrote:
| > Why is it so easy to cast doubt about them?
|
| Because people will say just about anything if you pay
| them to say it, and they will keep saying it for as long
| as you keep paying them.
|
| This feeds into people reasonable assumption that if to
| different people are saying different things these is
| some doubt about the issue.
| danaris wrote:
| How about tobacco and climate change?
| jes wrote:
| Infant circumcision in America is a good candidate here, sadly.
| afarrell wrote:
| When we either
|
| A. adjust our social norms to make the world at large less
| punishing for pedants, "well, actually", and those who do not
| "read the room" -- when people are more willing to accept "well
| that was poorly framed but true" as a valid reason to keep
| someone in leadership.
|
| B. Make humans better at social interactions in general without
| somehow introducing tradeoffs.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| product liability truths are a third-rail in market capitalism
|
| translation: mass market products are responsible for a very
| large portion of the total economic GDP, and by definition,
| touch the lives of millions (or more) people each day. Product
| liability is a system of law where the brand holder does have
| financial responsibility when things go wrong. Truth,
| obviously, is the real effects of the products on people,
| living things, and our common environment. A third-rail is a
| real-live, high voltage carrier of power for trains, but the
| term is used to convey something too powerful to even slightly
| touch, at the risk of death and destruction. In colloquial
| political talk it means that a appointed official or elected
| official could be terminated by broaching the topic in public.
|
| from an "Economist magazine point of view" some products do
| cease to generate profit after restrictions or penalties on the
| market, which is "deadly" to profit.
|
| depending on your world view, many products today, like gas-
| driven cars, are actually toxic from the beginning, yet have so
| much economic and daily importance that it is collectively
| tolerated, until it is not.
|
| ordinary product liability, like "body burden" long lived
| chemistry rubbing off from sofas or children's toys, live in a
| gray area in markets where a change in public opinion or
| regulatory framework can alter the product and its market quite
| a bit at any time.
|
| since steady profit over time is a de-facto definition of
| social power, there are multiple layers of second or third
| order actors that delay, deny and obfuscate any change in
| status quo, and are paid real money to do so.
|
| activists, educators, researchers and regulators that try to
| change the status quo of products with facts about toxicity are
| then "touching a third-tail"
|
| source: research on electronics products life-cycle worldwide
| Borrible wrote:
| A disillusioned straw man leaves?
|
| Send the MOD Squad!
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thank_You_for_Smoking
| nnutter wrote:
| Physics Girl just made a video comparing hydrogen fuel cell and
| batteries. The weight to energy ratio makes it extremely clear to
| me that there is a place for both. As far as blue hydrogen vs.
| green hydrogen I don't know the details.
|
| https://youtu.be/dWAO3vUn7nw
| baktubi wrote:
| I would like to see something like biodiesel electric hybrid. It
| can reuse infrastructure and could use solar to offset fuel
| consumption.
| gambiting wrote:
| You mean like any of the Mercedes 300de/300de powertrains?
|
| 31kWh battery mated to a 2.0L diesel:
|
| https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/mercedes/gle/107851/new-merced...
|
| Like any diesel, this one could run on biodiesel with some
| adjustments.
| readonthegoapp wrote:
| Shorter lobbylist: "I got my money, suckers, now I found a
| lobbying job in electric. We all gonna burn but I'm gonna have
| a/c till the end."
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| So, I'm very pro-green hydrogen. We need to start generating a
| whole bunch of it right away to start replacing grey hydrogen
| (fossil fuels split into hydrogen and CO2 and the CO2 vented)
| that we use for a variety of things today, including fertilizer.
|
| And I think it's fairly sensible to simply ban blue hydrogen and
| carbon tax grey hydrogen so that people don't get confused.
|
| Combine that with minimum green hydrogen mix regulations that set
| a glide path to 100% green hydrogen and you're done. We can bring
| those dates in closer once it becomes obvious it works and is the
| cheapest option. You've only got the political problem of
| corporations that benefit from the status quo inciting conspiracy
| theories and fascism to slightly bump their quarterly numbers.
|
| But, what I think is worth noting about this story, given that
| the guy runs a green hydrogen company and the other recent one
| about an Australian mining billionaire and right wing PM speaking
| out against blue hydrogen in favour of the green hydrogen their
| company produces, is that we've possibly hit a tipping point
| where starting a carbon friendly corporation is the best move
| today for selfish people who just want to get rich.
|
| Which is kind of a good thing, though it feels kind of weird.
| WJW wrote:
| > Combine that with minimum green hydrogen mix regulations that
| set a glide path to 100% green hydrogen and you're done.
|
| This is only "done" in the sense that you are now moving in the
| right direction. It might still take several decades to
| actually complete the transition. New green hydrogen plants
| don't just pop up out of the ground as soon as the incentives
| are right, they take billions of investment and years of labor
| to construct.
|
| (Also, I don't think banning blue hydrogen and taxing grey
| hydrogen is something that can be done "simply". That in itself
| will probably take a decade to move through the slow-moving
| gears of government and even then there are other countries
| like OPEC that would not necessarily follow suit)
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Those political processes aren't randomly slow. Someone paid
| a lot of money to slow them down.
|
| But my point was that the market for paying off politicians
| is shifting. The Australian ex-PM who repealed a carbon tax
| is now speaking out against blue hydrogen, because he has a
| stake in a green hydrogen venture.
|
| The game now is to profit from the inevitable policy response
| and leave governments and slow responding pension funds to
| carry the can for the costs of fossil fuel cleanup.
| tim333 wrote:
| So where does this green hydrogen come from without huge
| subsidies? That's always seemed the main problem to me - we
| don't have it knocking around and making it is more expensive
| than alternatives like solar and batteries.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| We don't subsidize it, we tax the alternative source of
| hydrogen and then we set a minimum green mix.
|
| So Dino Inc can still make hydrogen from fossils, but they
| have to at least source 1% green hydrogen, and they pay a tax
| on the 99%. And they know that 1% will be 10% and eventually
| 100% and the tax will increase so they have a business case
| for investing billions.
| tim333 wrote:
| Hmm. There are still costs even with clever accounting. I'm
| guessing in that scheme the tax per unit energy would have
| to be lower than the tax on regular gas to make people
| bother with hydrogen.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| This is fairly standard stuff. The US, EU and China just
| did it for EVs, solar and wind power, battery storage
| with great success and they've all announced similar
| already for green hydrogen.
| onethought wrote:
| I'm undecided about hydrogen. I don't see where it is better
| than just replacing everything with solar and wind, and
| batteries.
|
| Where is any colour hydrogen superior to that?
| Retric wrote:
| Hydrogen is used in industrial processes not just fuel. In
| terms of transportation batteries are to heavy for long
| distance aircraft and very expensive for long distance cargo
| ships. It's not clear that hydrogen is the solution for
| either of those, but it's a reasonable option.
| thinkcontext wrote:
| We need millions of tons of it to make to make NH3 for
| fertilizer. It's also likely we'll need it to make steel.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Anything that can be directly electrified should. Storing
| power in baggeries when you dont need to is stupid. Storing
| it as hydrogen is also stupid, unless:
|
| You make fertilizer from fossil fuels and it currebtly
| generates 2% of the worlds greehouse gasses. We need to
| replace that.
|
| You currently use coal to make steel and the replacement
| process uses hydrogen.
|
| You need some kind of fuel for flights and ships and the
| basic building block of all of current options is hydrogen.
|
| You need to store energy for a long time, or transport it a
| great distance.
|
| The bonus is that all these things interact, and you can dip
| into your fertilizer reserves if you need more electricity.
|
| The bad press around hydrogen mostly comes from fossil
| interests using it as a distraction (don't use battery based
| vehicles, hydrogen ones will be here any day now and be
| better, and shorlty after that well magically invent a way of
| disappearing the carbon from blue hydrogen) but its a fairly
| basic part of human life and we need to decarbonise its
| production.
| zeruch wrote:
| Given that I don't trust lobbyists from the petrochem industry, I
| won't trust one from the "blue hydrogen" lobby either.
|
| It's all of the greediest, dumbest scorpions in an opaque bottle.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _I won 't trust one from the "blue hydrogen" lobby either._
|
| Agreed, I felt the same way when this article was circulating
| last week.
|
| This is a guy whose career was based on, apparently, lying
| about the benefits of his lobby. Now he's decided to take a
| more socially palatable position, and suddenly we're to believe
| him? Sounds like his trying to get a different lobbying gig.
|
| _"Instead, they're asking taxpayers for billions in subsidies
| for the next 25 years. They should tell the government they
| don't need it. The fact that they don't tells you everything
| you need to know."_
|
| Can't we same the same about solar or EV subsidies? Isn't the
| purpose of these subsidies to diminish investment risk and
| promote new tech?
| kelvin0 wrote:
| This mans powers his entire house from hydrogen obtained via
| electrolysis. Very impressive, the excess solar power from his
| panels is used to produce hydrogen by splitting water. Stored
| into huge containers. Of course, he lives on a huge piece of
| land, would not work for most urban settings.
|
| https://www.hydrogenhouseproject.org/index.html
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-08-22 23:02 UTC)