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Hydrogen electrolysis aka green hydrogen 4

In fairness, it's either cryogenic temperatore or high pressure, not both, but otherwise ... fair assessment.
 
I'm doing loads of Hydrogen stuff at the moment and to a certain extent will agree that a lot is just people trying to climb onto the band wagon and also a lot of gas companies realising that if the methane volumes start reducing, they are out of business.

So gas extraction companies want to do it to continue using methane and stripping off the carbon in one place then storing it. Energy transfer from one to the other is about 70-80%, but we need to do something to reduce CO2.

Hydrogen as a means of storing electricity though is one of the worst uses. The 30% is probably about right, but a lot of that is the efficiency of the GTs used to burn it to create energy again.

Hydrogen has its issues, but it needs to be used to replace methane or coal as fired heaters. You can also transport a lot of energy in a gas pipeline which is a lot less disruptive and visual than a bunch of O/H electricity pylons.

The big hope is Ammonia I think. Cryo storage is ok (about -40C) shipping etc. is ok. Pity it kills people if it escapes and no one seems to be sure how to turn ammonia back into hydrogen, But crack that and that will be the way forward.



Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.
 
I hadn't realised that Ammonia to H2 was an issue. Here's some research
Of course the ammonia in itself has some value, some significant (or not) proportion of CO2 is generated in the manufacture of ammonia for fertilizer.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
 
Little Inch said:
So gas extraction companies want to do it to continue using methane and stripping off the carbon in one place then storing it. Energy transfer from one to the other is about 70-80%, but we need to do something to reduce CO2.
Click to expand...

Isn't what you're describing similar to "FuelCell" energy production? Though, it thought fuel cells were more like stripping off an electron from a natural gas molecule.
 
LittleInch said:
Hydrogen as a means of storing electricity though is one of the worst uses.
Click to expand...

It works well from an energy to weight standpoint, providing a lot more storage than batteries, which makes it an interesting alternative for battery powered drones. 2-3x flight duration from systems with roughly the same weight as the battery they replace.


LittleInch said:
Pity it kills people if it escapes and no one seems to be sure how to turn ammonia back into hydrogen, But crack that and that will be the way forward.
Click to expand...

The link I posted a few months ago in this thread showed Amogy turning ammonia into hydrogen to feed a fuel cell.
 
Josh, no I'm talking about Steam Methane Reforming. Strips the carbon off as CO2 to leave Hydrogen. Put forward a the way to generate large quantities of Hydrogen before excess green electricity becomes available.

Bradrs
I'm talking about large scale electricity generation using Gas turbines.

Ammonia engines now look like a thing, though they note that it needed three times as volume.

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.
 
JoshPlumSE said:
Isn't what you're describing similar to "FuelCell" energy production? Though, it thought fuel cells were more like stripping off an electron from a natural gas molecule.
Click to expand...

The fuel cell is at the end user end of the process. It takes hydrogen and oxygen in, and turns that into electricity and water (and waste heat) using an electrochemical process analogous to a battery being discharged.

Electrolysis is that process running the other direction analogous to charging a battery - electricity and water in, chemical energy out in the form of hydrogen and oxygen. It is an electrochemical process. If the electricity came from renewable sources, that's "green" hydrogen. It accounts for a very small part of hydrogen produced today. (Expensive.)

The common industrial method is steam reformulated of methane. Steam + natural gas in, hydrogen + CO2 out. This is so-called "black" hydrogen, and is basically fossil fuel in disguise. This is why the fossil fuel industry promotes it. But, if the objective is CO2 emission reduction, it gets us nowhere.

 
Here is the word according to the UK's premier body for wrecking the country


The potential of hydrogen as a zero-carbon energy source has always been recognised, yet in previous assessments it has been impractical or overly expensive to roll out at scale
... and needless to say those are still valid objections. Here's what the hydrogen peeps at IEA say

image_2024-04-29_113635930_bubugq.png


and somehow we are going from 2 GW in 2023 to 400 by 2030

image_2024-04-29_114002300_tmrju2.png



Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
 
Green hydrogen is extremely important to achieve climate targets, but not for putting into lots of new applications, but to replace the hydrogen currently generated by steam reforming. Only when we have achieved this replacement we should start to think about hydrogen or hydrogen derivates for ships, trucks, aircrafts, cars or room heating.
 
BMW pushing hydrogen cars. About the only sensible thing is they've dropped H2 ICE in favour of H2 FCV

BMW has revealed a timeline for when hydrogen cars are likely to become available in Australia, but one of the German marque’s executives says they will not replace electric vehicles.

The company – which also owns Rolls Royce and Mini – has sent two hydrogen vehicles to Australia to undergo testing in local conditions and assess market appetite.

BMW has been working on hydrogen technology for the past four decades. But Juergen Guldner, the executive in charge of developing the alternative fuel for the group, says about 15 years ago the company switched its strategy from working on a hydrogen combustion engine to fuel cell ­technology.

This means that BMW’s hydrogen cars are effectively EVs, with a chemical reaction taking place in the fuel cell between hydrogen and oxygen from the air, through which power for an electric motor is generated.

But Guldner says there are two key differences that should bode well for the Australian market, which involves drivers travelling long distances and towing heavy loads such as caravans, boats and horse floats. Developing hydrogen is more about offering customers choice rather than superseding battery EVs.

“With hydrogen, you drive to a fuel fuelling station. It’s the same set-up in a fuelling station, like with gasoline: you just drive there, and in three to four minutes, you’re full, 100 per cent and keep going,” he says.

This compares with fast chargers taking about 30 minutes to recharge an EV from empty.

“Towing also is a use case where you have a lot of energy consumption in the car, which means in an electric car, you have to charge often,” he says. “And to be honest, the main advantage of a hydrogen car is that you can refuel it very, very quickly. It is an electric car because it’s driven by the same electric motor. But in addition to all the advantages of electric driving, you have the advantage that you can refuel it in just three to four minutes.”

It also avoids tricky parking arrangements at charging stations that aren’t equipped for motorists towing loads. Guldner says in Europe – like some stations in Australia – people had to park elsewhere, uncouple their load, and then drive to an EV charger. “It’s simply impractical,” he says.

But to take advantage of the technology, more manufacturers need to produce hydrogen vehicles at scale, and more service stations need to stock the fuel.

Australia is making some progress in this regard. After receiving $34m from the Australian Rewable Energy Agency and $1m from the Victorian government, Viva Energy — which owns Shell branded service stations — is building a “new energies service station” in Geelong which offers hydrogen refuelling and electric charging for heavy fuel cell vehicles.

The entire project is estimated to cost $61.2m and also includes the deployment of 15 commercial hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles.

“We, of course, need hydrogen fuelling station infrastructure. And I was really happy to see this week here in Australia that there are several projects popping up to actually build this infrastructure, bit by bit,” Guldner says.

BMW expects it won’t be until the early 2030s – at least – that hydrogen vehicles enter the mainstream.

“When we started with the electric vehicles, we had a pilot fleet of minis and BMW electric vehicles … that we kind of used very clearly to understand how people use electric cars. Based on that, we developed our first all-battery electric vehicle. That was only 10 years ago – we introduced it to Australia in 2014,” Guldner says.

“From that, we kind of rolled out the battery electric powertrains into all of our model line-ups. And now we have in the minis, the BMWs and the Rolls Royce, basically in every model, we have battery electric cars or battery electric powertrains with the hydrogen. We are still at this pilot phase.

“(The aim is with the pilot fleet) really to understand which countries are developing infrastructure, where is there an interest to use vehicles in the future, and based on the feedback, we will as a company make the decision – maybe this year or next year – whether it is the right time for us to actually go into mass production.”

Guldner says a similar process to the EV rollout will follow. While a hydrogen powertrain in one BMW could be developed within this decade, it would take until the early 2030s for it to become widespread across the marque’s range.

“That is kind of the three steps that we want to go through,” he says. “Pilot fleet now, gathering all kinds of information about it, how the vehicles behave, and also, especially getting feedback about the different countries, and then a one-off – the first market introduction vehicle – and the rollout later on.”

Despite being at the opposite side of the globe to BMW’s headquarters in Munich, Australia is a key market for the company, particularly given the Albanese government’s new vehicle efficiency standard, which takes effect next year, Guldner says.

“Australia is a key focus for our program, firstly because of the important steps the country is taking in decarbonising its vehicle fleet. However, the country is also an interesting study due to its varied driving conditions and the long distances covered between towns and cities. With the appropriate infrastructure, an FCEV (fuel cell electric vehicle) would make a strong mobility case due to its range capability and short refuelling time.”

Asked why BMW switched from developing a hydrogen combustion engine to a fuel cell vehicle, Guldner says it was all about range.

He says the pilot vehicles in Australia can achieve more than 500km of driving range from six kilograms of hydrogen versus 300km from a hydrogen combustion engine with the same sized fuel tank.

“We cannot sell a car that has 300km (driving range), so that’s why we abandoned the combustion engine. Combustion engines might be OK for trucks because they operate at a steady state — driving at the same speed for hours and hours on end, where the efficiency can be optimised,” he says.

“The difference in a passenger car is we have a lot of transient behaviour, so we would get in a passenger car only 300km.”

In the pilot vehicles, the hydrogen fuel cell system and a high-performance battery combine to generate a maximum output of 295kW. Two carbon-fibre-reinforced plastic tanks together hold about six kilograms of gaseous hydrogen, enabling quick refilling.

The pilot vehicles will be in Australia until November.



Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
 
If only we had some hydrogen:)

The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand
 
Francis Menton sinks his boot into even the most optimistic estimates for the cost of green hydrogen in the USA

The government of course didn’t quantify it, but my post cited a guy named Jonathan Lesser who had done a work-up that concluded that they could get to “green” hydrogen in a price range of $2.74 – $5.35 per kg of hydrogen provided they could buy the wind/solar-generated electricity for $40 per MWh. Anyway, that’s the goal.

Does $2.74 – $5.35 per kg of hydrogen sound cheap? I love the way they quote prices for hydrogen in different units from the normal units used for natural gas, in order to make it so no one can easily make the comparison. Natural gas prices are generally quoted in $ per MMBtu. What you need to know is that it takes 8 kg of hydrogen to produce 1 MMBtu of energy. So $2.74 – $5.35 per kg of green hydrogen translates to $21.92 to $42.80 per MMBtu. In the past 5 years, U.S. natural gas prices have been under $4/MMBtu for most of the time, and have never reached as high as $10/MMBtu. And to achieve the green hydrogen prices of $20 – 40/MMBtu requires a cost of wind/solar electricity of $40/MWh. Recent contracts for wind and solar generators have been requiring guaranteed prices of $150/MWh and up. So adjust the $20 – 40/MMBtu accordingly. The green hydrogen is going to cost you at least 10 times the cost of natural gas, and perhaps as much as 20 times.

Current estimates are ~$10/kg (mostly electrode/capital I suspect), so even to reach the middle of the range is a factor of 3, then you've got a factor of 4 for the actual price of electricity, and about 10 to reach cost equivalency to NG. So, anybody volunteering for a factor of 120 cost reduction program?

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
 
Origin drops out of centrepiece (not really more like posterchild) of Labor's hydrogen plans. It is duff tech at the moment.



Origin Energy drops Hunter Valley hydrogen plans
Kate Ainsworth profile image
By Kate Ainsworth

Origin Energy is abandoning its hydrogen project in the Hunter Valley, saying it was too expensive and risky for the company to push ahead.

The energy giant first announced plans for a potential hydrogen hub on Kooragang Island in 2022, which was expected to play a key role in Australia's energy transition away from fossil fuels.

The project was set to cost more than $200 million, with production expected to start in 2026.

Origin had also signed an agreement with Orica to supply its nearby ammonia manufacturing plant as it transitioned away from gas.

Despite pulling the plug on the project for now, Origin CEO Frank Calabria says the company is still open to exploring commercial hydrogen options in the future.

"We have worked hard to evaluate the investment case for hydrogen and are grateful for the strong government support," he said in a statement.

"We continue to believe hydrogen could play a role in the future energy mix. However, it has become clear that the hydrogen market is developing more slowly than anticipated, and there remain risks and both input cost and technology advancements to overcome.

...
Origin's decision to drop its hydrogen plans comes after Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest's Fortescue abandoned its own green hydrogen ambitions earlier this year.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
 
Apparently the greeny hive mind hates green hydrogen

Hydrogen, as an energy carrier, is attractive to many stakeholders based on the assumption that the extensive global network of natural gas infrastructure can be repurposed to transport hydrogen as part of a zero-carbon energy future. Therefore, utility companies and governments are rapidly advancing efforts to pilot blending low-carbon hydrogen into existing natural gas systems, many with the goal of eventually shifting to pure hydrogen. However, hydrogen has fundamentally different physical and chemical properties to natural gas, with major consequences for safety, energy supply, climate, and cost. We evaluate the suitability of using existing natural gas infrastructure for distribution of hydrogen. We summarize differences between hydrogen and natural gas, assess the latest science and engineering of each component of the natural gas value chain for hydrogen distribution, and discuss proposed solutions for building an effective hydrogen value chain. We find that every value chain component is challenged by reuse. Hydrogen blending can circumvent many challenges but offers only a small reduction in greenhouse gas emissions due to hydrogen's low volumetric energy density. Furthermore, a transition to pure hydrogen is not possible without significant retrofits and replacements. Even if technical and economic barriers are overcome, serious safety and environmental risks remain.


Curiously the UK's archaic gas distribution system used town gas up until about the 1970s, with the demon compound h2 forming about half the mixture.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
 
Cost of hydrogen storage. Ouchy. Not helped because if you are storing energy for a once per year event, you get to amortize the cost of storage on that one event for the year.




Summary
Green hydrogen has emerged as a potentially important pathway in decarbonizing the hard-to-abate sectors, including freight, dispatchable power, and industry. Many organizations predict that green hydrogen will become cost competitive with fossil fuels as production costs fall. However, most published green hydrogen cost estimates do not consider storage and distribution costs and how they vary across sectors. We estimate the carbon abatement cost of green hydrogen across major sectors in the United States, considering each sector’s storage and distribution requirements. At current delivered prices, green hydrogen is a prohibitively expensive abatement strategy, with carbon abatement costs of $500–1,250/tCO2 across sectors. If production costs reduce to $2/kgH2, low-cost carbon abatement opportunities will remain limited to sectors already using hydrogen (e.g., ammonia) unless storage and distribution costs decrease. Our findings suggest that green hydrogen’s potential is narrower than suggested, emphasizing the need for diverse technological options to decarbonize hard-to-abate sectors.


Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
 
BP pulls out of some hydrogen projects

Tucked inside a 32-page earnings report, oil and gas giant BP revealed it was killing 18 early-stage hydrogen projects, a move that could have a chilling effect on the nascent hydrogen industry.

The decision, along with the sale of the company’s U.S. onshore wind-power operations, will save BP $200 million annually and help boost its bottom line. The hydrogen industry, which has relied on oil and gas companies both financially and through lobbying efforts, is preparing for a grimmer outcome.

BP has been a supporter of hydrogen. The company’s venture capital arm has invested in several green hydrogen startups, including Electric Hydrogen and Advanced Ionics. Earlier this year, BP said it would develop “more than 10” hydrogen projects in the U.S., Europe, and Australia.

techcrunch.com

Oil giant BP is killing 18 hydrogen projects, chilling the nascent industry | TechCrunch

The hydrogen industry, which has relied on oil and gas companies both financially and through lobbying efforts, is preparing for a grim outcome.
techcrunch.com techcrunch.com
 
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