To make cheap hydrogen we need cheap THERMAL and ELECTRIC energy, such as from nuclear power at 1 cent/kwh(e) and 3 cent/kWh(t) -- possible but not with US NRC. BUT even cheap hydrogen is an awkward fuel, costly to liquify, or compress, or transport to fueling stations, or carry in a vehicle. Here's an application that requires none of those. https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2024/06/05/bury_co2_or_revive_it_1036137.html
Any evaluation of hydrogen as a clean liquid fuel requires a brief review of its history.
As the 1990s drew to a close, it became increasingly clear that electric vehicles were the way of the future. Oil majors knew that with the decline of their #1 product, gasoline, they would have nothing to sell at 50,000 U.S. gas stations; that they would have to come up with a clean alternative fuel to compete with EVs, and do it in a hurry, or their primary retail outlets would soon be converted to convenience stores.
Enter hydrogen, which could easily be manufactured from their #2 product, natural gas (methane) by a process known as steam reformation. When the resulting hydrogen was oxidized in a fuel cell vehicle (FCV), electrical energy would be produced leaving only water as a byproduct. "All that comes out of your tailpipe is a whiff of water vapor," exulted advertising from the California Fuel Cell Partnership, a non-profit organization formed by oil majors Exxon and Shell.
But is hydrogen really "clean"?
Not to anyone with a fundamental understanding of thermodynamics. Steam reformation is an endothermic reaction that emits copious quantities of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, both of which are potent greenhouse gases (GHGs). In effect, carbon emissions that would have come from your tailpipe are being "pre-emitted" at a refinery. The net effect is even more net GHGs than a comparable high-compression, internal-combustion vehicle burning gasoline.
Renewables advocates will correctly point out clean hydrogen can be made by using wind and solar energy to separate hydrogen from water. The problem is, it isn't. 95% of industrial hydrogen is made from natural gas, for the simple reason it's far more profitable to do it that way. And because it is impossible to determine the providence of hydrogen once it is made, it is safe to assume dirty hydrogen will be labeled as clean, with no way to verify which is which.
For other reasons hydrogen is an awful choice for a liquid fuel. It must be compressed and/or refrigerated to store or move it, at enormous penalty in energy and external GHG emissions. But it was never intended to be a clean fuel anyway, only as another way to market natural gas. Hydrogen, for all its contemporary buzz and allure, is Just. Another. Fossil. Fuel.
No, the way to go is to tax the net emission of CO2. If in addition one thinks that hydrogen production as an infant industry deserve additional push then the x$/ton subsidy makes sense. It is conceivable to try to do this on a case by case basis with a careful economic cost benefit analysis of the project and it's source of energy, but it might be better just to await taxation of net emissions and rely on a financial analysis of projects.
There is really only one criteria that determines whether hydrogen produced by electrolysis is "green".
"It is only "green" if it is using carbon free electricity that cannot be used anywhere on the grid to substitute for fossil fuel".
In other words, it can only be green if it using surplus carbon free energy.
Since, at this time, there is no grid that has a surplus of carbon free energy that could support a hydrogen plant, there is no such thing as "green" hydrogen. Nor is there likely to be such a surplus anytime in the near future.
Whether it is advisable to subsidize an industry to help it develop depends on whether or not the industry is likely to prove viable after the subsidies expire. In the case of "green" hydrogen that remains unproven and the danger is that we throw huge sums of money trying to start up an industry that will need subsidies for ever, or will fade away after subsidies are removed.
If new clean power is as cheap as the advocates are claiming, it will easily be backfilled in short order after the electrolyser is online and opening up a gap in the supply that would then be filled by fueled power.
This gap will be much less than the lifespan of the electrolysers…
And the tighter we need to link these different parts of the supply chain, the harder it will be to get it off the ground.
Hydrogen production and demand are already very tightly linked, so adding more challenges on having them scale together will certainly slow things down. What we really need are ‘swing users’ who can soak up the clean H2 production as it comes available, but also switch back to dirty H2 or NG if a H2 only user shows up.
DRI steel with the ability to flex between NG and supplementing with H2 seems like a good fit here.
I doubt hydrogen industry will ever take off. This is why government should not be in charge of picking technologies. Even on the most bullish case hydrogen will be only used for methanol and/or ethylene production.
Agreed. Hydrogen may be able to displace the methane used locally at refining, petrochemical and fertilizer applications. Most likely not from wind but by SMRs where the power also replaces the local gas turbine generators (enhanced HT electrolysis)
To make cheap hydrogen we need cheap THERMAL and ELECTRIC energy, such as from nuclear power at 1 cent/kwh(e) and 3 cent/kWh(t) -- possible but not with US NRC. BUT even cheap hydrogen is an awkward fuel, costly to liquify, or compress, or transport to fueling stations, or carry in a vehicle. Here's an application that requires none of those. https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2024/06/05/bury_co2_or_revive_it_1036137.html
Any evaluation of hydrogen as a clean liquid fuel requires a brief review of its history.
As the 1990s drew to a close, it became increasingly clear that electric vehicles were the way of the future. Oil majors knew that with the decline of their #1 product, gasoline, they would have nothing to sell at 50,000 U.S. gas stations; that they would have to come up with a clean alternative fuel to compete with EVs, and do it in a hurry, or their primary retail outlets would soon be converted to convenience stores.
Enter hydrogen, which could easily be manufactured from their #2 product, natural gas (methane) by a process known as steam reformation. When the resulting hydrogen was oxidized in a fuel cell vehicle (FCV), electrical energy would be produced leaving only water as a byproduct. "All that comes out of your tailpipe is a whiff of water vapor," exulted advertising from the California Fuel Cell Partnership, a non-profit organization formed by oil majors Exxon and Shell.
But is hydrogen really "clean"?
Not to anyone with a fundamental understanding of thermodynamics. Steam reformation is an endothermic reaction that emits copious quantities of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, both of which are potent greenhouse gases (GHGs). In effect, carbon emissions that would have come from your tailpipe are being "pre-emitted" at a refinery. The net effect is even more net GHGs than a comparable high-compression, internal-combustion vehicle burning gasoline.
Renewables advocates will correctly point out clean hydrogen can be made by using wind and solar energy to separate hydrogen from water. The problem is, it isn't. 95% of industrial hydrogen is made from natural gas, for the simple reason it's far more profitable to do it that way. And because it is impossible to determine the providence of hydrogen once it is made, it is safe to assume dirty hydrogen will be labeled as clean, with no way to verify which is which.
For other reasons hydrogen is an awful choice for a liquid fuel. It must be compressed and/or refrigerated to store or move it, at enormous penalty in energy and external GHG emissions. But it was never intended to be a clean fuel anyway, only as another way to market natural gas. Hydrogen, for all its contemporary buzz and allure, is Just. Another. Fossil. Fuel.
I should’ve read your post before replying to Nadim. Thanks for the improvement over my post!
No, the way to go is to tax the net emission of CO2. If in addition one thinks that hydrogen production as an infant industry deserve additional push then the x$/ton subsidy makes sense. It is conceivable to try to do this on a case by case basis with a careful economic cost benefit analysis of the project and it's source of energy, but it might be better just to await taxation of net emissions and rely on a financial analysis of projects.
There is really only one criteria that determines whether hydrogen produced by electrolysis is "green".
"It is only "green" if it is using carbon free electricity that cannot be used anywhere on the grid to substitute for fossil fuel".
In other words, it can only be green if it using surplus carbon free energy.
Since, at this time, there is no grid that has a surplus of carbon free energy that could support a hydrogen plant, there is no such thing as "green" hydrogen. Nor is there likely to be such a surplus anytime in the near future.
Whether it is advisable to subsidize an industry to help it develop depends on whether or not the industry is likely to prove viable after the subsidies expire. In the case of "green" hydrogen that remains unproven and the danger is that we throw huge sums of money trying to start up an industry that will need subsidies for ever, or will fade away after subsidies are removed.
If new clean power is as cheap as the advocates are claiming, it will easily be backfilled in short order after the electrolyser is online and opening up a gap in the supply that would then be filled by fueled power.
This gap will be much less than the lifespan of the electrolysers…
And the tighter we need to link these different parts of the supply chain, the harder it will be to get it off the ground.
Hydrogen production and demand are already very tightly linked, so adding more challenges on having them scale together will certainly slow things down. What we really need are ‘swing users’ who can soak up the clean H2 production as it comes available, but also switch back to dirty H2 or NG if a H2 only user shows up.
DRI steel with the ability to flex between NG and supplementing with H2 seems like a good fit here.
I doubt hydrogen industry will ever take off. This is why government should not be in charge of picking technologies. Even on the most bullish case hydrogen will be only used for methanol and/or ethylene production.
Agreed. Hydrogen may be able to displace the methane used locally at refining, petrochemical and fertilizer applications. Most likely not from wind but by SMRs where the power also replaces the local gas turbine generators (enhanced HT electrolysis)
I don't think SMRs will work out. They're just typical nuclear reactors but worse. I'm mildly optimistic for micro reactors though.
Aah, VSMRs… quite different!