Credit: Scottish Power
Plenty of talk but not very much action, it seems. The author notes that ‘the small size of hydrogen molecules poses safety and greenhouse gas-related risks that must be mitigated’, while most current gas grids can’t cope with more than 20% hydrogen content anyway. Affordability looks at least questionable. Such issues will require years of effort and expense to even attempt to get to grips with.
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The global discourse on addressing climate change, energy transition, and investments is currently dominated by the topic of green hydrogen, says Dr. Cyril Widdershoven @ OilPrice.com.
The media frenzy surrounding the expanding array of projects, subsidy schemes, and international strategies is fueled by the influence of Washington’s IRA plans and the EU’s energy strategic projects.
It appears as if the choice for a post-hydrocarbon world has already been made, with green hydrogen or its derivative, green ammonia, emerging as the favored options. Western parties remain highly optimistic, as large-scale renewable energy initiatives are closely tied to these alternatives.
However, it is crucial to bring realism into the discussion. This aspect should be addressed sooner rather than later.
During the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha, Saudi Ministry of Energy Abdulaziz bin Salman highlighted the skepticism, stating, “People talk about hydrogen as the fuel of the future… but who is going to be the offtaker?”
Abdulaziz bin Salman emphasized that hydrogen lacks a clear market price, which inhibits its development. He questioned the prevailing discussions on various types of hydrogen, such as blue, green, purple, or pink, by emphasizing the need for identified offtakers and clear policies in this regard.
Amin Nasser, CEO of Saudi Aramco, previously stated that blue hydrogen costs $250 per barrel of oil equivalent (boe), which suggests that customers in the EU, Japan, or South Korea would not be willing to procure it at such prices.
Additionally, Bloomberg reported that despite the exponential growth of the green hydrogen project list, investors remain unconvinced about financing them.
Currently, there is a proliferation of hydrogen projects being proposed, but only a mere 7% of them have secured financing to commence construction. Bloomberg New Energy Finance has highlighted that this financing reality sharply contradicts the expectations set by the IRA and EU strategic plans.
Financial institutions remain highly skeptical about the feasibility of economically and affordably producing large volumes of green hydrogen.
According to some industry insiders who spoke to Bloomberg, while there are numerous project announcements, very few are actually being realized on the ground.
Full article here.
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
Hydrogen is filthy stuff, best avoided, and I speak from experience!
Hydrogen has the highest energy per mass of any fuel; however, its low ambient temperature density results in a low energy per unit volume, therefore requiring the development of advanced storage methods that have potential for higher energy density.
. . .
Storage of hydrogen as a liquid requires cryogenic temperatures because the boiling point of hydrogen at one atmosphere pressure is −252.8°C. [bold added]
https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-storage
Not cheap or easy to store or handle – quite the opposite.
We have in Australia a scientifically incompetent energy Minister (and Prime Minister) with a fantasy about Green hydrogen, so our budget has allowed $2billion towards its development. 2 Billionaires (with a combined wealth of about $50 billion) are competing for the money, alongwith others who would like to throw other peoples money away.
We have (or had) a pilot plant making hydrogen from brown coal in Victoria – the least expensive way – and a green hydrogen pilot in South Australian making small quantities using renewable electricity, which is feed into a local suburb gas supply at 5%. Meanwhile SA is importing electricity from Victoria where brown coal is the main generator.
And for the “success” of renewables I point out King Island, in Bass Strait between Victoria and Tasmania, with wind and solar energy (along with batteries and a flywheel). This should show the current supply**.
https://www.hydro.com.au/clean-energy/hybrid-energy-solutions/success-stories/king-island
** We have a strong weather change this evening so it could make it look a success. Other times it relies on diesel generators.
Last I checked, hydrogen was colorless and invisible to the unaided eye. It is also environmentally intensive to produce. Nothing “green” about it.
Huh, all this nonsense! Look at it this way: Man goes off to do a job with the latest Hi-Tech “Smart ( Ha ha) Tech machine ” to do a job. Gets there and pulls out Brush ‘n shovel to do a basic wee job. Oh look, Could do with the Blower instead. OK Blower in back of truck. Ahhhh petrol leaked out – not even enough to get started and run for 5 minutes – these floating inlet tube’s dangling in the tank don’t work that well from cold. Puh! that’s that then! Oh wait – we’ve a cordless in the other truck. Flattery’s bat, he says in desperation, standing outside the local petrol station: Could go in there and buy some 2-stroke mix in a new 10L can, or canNOT get a dose of ANY kind of “D” or “AA” batteries to fit in the Cordless – need proprietary batteries and a Kwik charge is out of the question. Ach gimme the Brush n shovel again. Job done. Hydrogen anyone? naw just gimme fresh air away from the Dust we just generated with the brush. Save the expense on “re-Search” and infrastructure
Hydrogen? whatever happened to the Gas Hybrid cars – running on LPG when available, Infrastructure costs would be for the minority – why ADD to their costs?
WIND, anybody? …. anyone ? … no? sound of SILENCE … The Herons are all watching Gridwatch: check it out – you may see afew.. Oh – they’re all flying around with the other Big birdies enjoying the Spring evenings undisturbed. Even the Cat’s up the Cherry tree, chased by the Dog and annoying the Craws.
What is Washington’s IRA plans? As far as I know, IRA’s are retirement investments.
[reply] Inflation Reduction Act — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_Reduction_Act
Hydrogen is used for fuel in rockets. Many Hydrogen leaks have delayed many launches of rockets. Hydrogen is much more dangerous and much more difficult to contain than Natural Gas. The promoters like it because they will make fortunes just trying to make it work. They follow the subsidies and tax credits, grab the money and sell the business or go bankrupt and then begin again.
Reblogged this on Utopia, you are standing in it!.
Hydrogen is a dead-end. It will never be cheap enough or safe enough to be a widespread fuel. Its the delusion of those who don’t understand we are on a path dictated by Hard Greens, who have no intention of letting our present lifestyles survive.
Article: the EU’s ambitious target of importing 10 million tons of green hydrogen by 2030 is at significant risk. Converting existing LNG regasification plants and infrastructure to accommodate green hydrogen transportation, as some suggest, would be exorbitantly costly and has not yet been factored in.
. . .
Green hydrogen is expensive, and if it cannot be efficiently transported, it ceases to be truly green and becomes a potential waste of financial resources.
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Cost looks like a killer for industrial-scale hydrogen.
Burning hydrogen releases the most potent greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, water!
the only thing ‘green’ about it is the color of our tax money being grifted for more snake oil “cures” to a non-existent threat made up out of whole cloth
Yes!
There are uses for hydrogen – piping it to peoples houses or burning it to make electricity (and nitrogen oxides you don’t get from burning methane) aren’t amongst them. This maybe makes sense, since it saves them buying the hydrogen from someone else – and, note, they use it all themselves, so they are not ‘supplying’ H2 at all:
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Nine-Mile-Point-starts-supplying-hydrogen
But if you want overhyped – how about this from the Telegraph, for goodness sake:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/27/electricity-thin-air-cloud-lightning-clean-energy-machine/
“Scientists have created a cloud device that can harvest clean electricity from the humidity in air, an academic paper reveals.”
“They said the breakthrough could be used to tackle the climate emergency by bringing widespread commercialisation of electric vehicles a step closer.”
Yeah, right. But I’m not a scientist, so I struggle to believe that the static I get from a doorknob can power my EV. Course it can.
There’s more than a whiff of desperation about all these so-called climate solutions, which don’t and won’t solve anything.
Hydrogen in its various colours could turn out like the Dutch tulip bubble. Can not do anything with it when no one wants to pay high prices for something that is only show and cheaper substitutes. Why make hydrogen from electricity to heat a steel melting furnace when you can use an electric furnace. One way of making hydrogen is to break down methane (I believe the most popular way to make hydrogen) when you can use the methane directly.
Non-investment due perhaps to lack of faith in the carbon dioxide scam
cementafriend says: Why make hydrogen from electricity to heat a steel melting furnace when you can use an electric furnace.
Hydrogen can be stored to overcome intermittency of renewables, but it’s all extra cost of course.
Which comes back to the old problem, green, ? To be green, means the storage must be green, also. Hydrogen still does not make it. Effective storage, of hydrogen involves low temperatures, really low. Where cycles of use are counted, prior to a pre accident change. Hydrogen style temperatures create microfractures in steel, aluminum and cryo adapted plastics. It “ain’t” safe. And now they want it in homes? Someone is not into sustainable living. Or they do no care if the others survive.
Getting ever more desperate?
Hydrogen battery: Storing hydrogen in coal may help power clean energy economy
Date: May 26, 2023
Source: Penn State
Summary:
The quest to develop hydrogen as a clean energy source that could curb our dependence on fossil fuels may lead to an unexpected place — coal. Scientists have found that coal may represent a potential way to store hydrogen gas, much like batteries store energy for future use, addressing a major hurdle in developing a clean energy supply chain. [bold added]
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/05/230526121105.htm
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Major hurdle indeed.
Stuart Brown says:
May 28, 2023 at 9:43 pm
Yes!
“There are uses for hydrogen – piping it to peoples houses or burning it to make electricity (and nitrogen oxides you don’t get from burning methane) aren’t amongst them. ”
False statement. It has already been pointed out previously by myself and others that hydrogen burns at a high temperature (higher than methane) which actually creates more NOx emissions requiring emissions controls or very specially designed burners to lower the flame temperatures.
https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/nox-emission-combustion-fuels-d_1086.html
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01926-8
https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/features/hydrogen-the-burning-question/
https://insideepa.com/share/227828
Contrary to the claims of rent seekers, there are significant (expensive) issues with hydrogen combustion. This is the typical result of pie in the sky visions that more resemble a child like thought process that is ignorant of the details. In this case, a deliberate ignorance designed to enrich the few at the expense of all. We recently convicted a con artist peddling false hope in the medical field. Elizabeth Anne Holmes ….. Theranos. No matter how true you want something to be, just because it looks good on paper doesn’t mean it actually works.
dscott – Stuart Brown said…
“There are uses for hydrogen – piping it to peoples houses or burning it to make electricity (and nitrogen oxides you don’t get from burning methane) aren’t amongst them.” 🤔
UK hydrogen-ready boilers face ‘greenwashing’ warning
1 June 2023
Efforts to promote the wider adoption of low carbon heating systems could be hindered by misleading marketing tactics, according to a new report by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).
The CMA notes that these ‘hydrogen-blend’ or ‘hydrogen-ready’ boilers emit the same amount of carbon emissions as standard gas boilers due to the current unavailability of hydrogen fuel for home heating.
— https://www.energylivenews.com/2023/06/01/uk-hydrogen-ready-boilers-face-greenwashing-warning/
– – –
If hydrogen was ‘available’ in the gas grid all the other boilers using that supply wouldn’t work any more?
Hydrogen blending plan under fire
Organisations have warned against blending hydrogen into the gas grid in a letter to the UK Secretary of State for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero
According to the group’s calculations, a 20% hydrogen blend would increase gas costs by approximately 16%, while only reducing emissions by 7%, due to inefficiencies in burning hydrogen.
— https://www.energylivenews.com/2023/04/12/hydrogen-blending-plan-under-fire/
“If hydrogen was ‘available’ in the gas grid all the other boilers using that supply wouldn’t work any more?”
The flame failure circuit on a conventional gas boiler works by passing a current across the spark electrodes through the flame. The carbon in the flame partially rectifies the AC to DC which then completes its recognition circuit over the Neutral to Earth circuit from the mains earth. ( n.b. this is why a standard boiler will not when when plugged directly into a portable generator or battery/inverter unit – these have “floating earths” and do not supply the correct DC pathway and the boilers “lock out”)
Burning 100% hydrogen obviously produces no carbon so the flame safe circuitry in a conventional boiler will immediately shut down the gas flow.
So called “Hydrogen ready” boilers have a replaceable flame failure unit, the replacement unit works by using an optical (laser) flame failure circuit.
So to answer your question, if there is sufficient methane in the blend then a convention boiler should still work but when the hydrogen level goes beyond a specific point it will not and the boiler is toast as it it is uneconomically difficult to modify the flame fail circuit.
[reply] thanks for the info.
Oldbrew, thanks for the support!
DScott, you’ve vehemently agreed with everything I said, but thanks for the links supporting the points I was trying to make.
There are uses for H2 – folks wouldn’t go to the trouble of making it out of natural gas else. Ammonia production, hydrodesulfurisation, hydrocracking, powering rockets, as a coolant in power stations – hence the link to the story on Nine Mile Point…. If there is any point to green hydrogen, it should surely be to address those needs first.
The hype seems to me to be around replacing methane for cooking and domestic heating. But as the post says it won’t be economic or affordable.
I think technical and commercial constraints remain unresolved while European nations are making huge commitments to green hydrogen.