Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Most UK households use natural gas for home heating, largely because green policy inflated electricity costs are so high. But the Carbon Worriers in the British Government have a plan to fix this.
Does the Committee on Climate Change want to blow us all up? by CHRISTOPHER BOOKER.
Some publicity has alighted on the latest brilliant idea from the “greenies” as to how we can comply with the Climate Change Act by “decarbonising” our economy. Ofgem paid £300,000 for a study suggesting that, instead of cooking with CO2-emitting natural gas, we should switch to carbon-free hydrogen. A £2 billion pilot project for Leeds would show how natural gas, or methane, could be converted to hydrogen by piping away all its nasty CO2 to be buried in holes under the North Sea.
This scheme has already been smiled on in principle by the green zealots of the Committee on Climate Change, run by Lord Deben (aka John Gummer), their only real reservation being that it would be rather expensive. But there are one or two other practical problems that would have to be taken into account. One is that the technology to bury the CO2 under the North Sea has not yet been invented, and probably never will be. Another is that, extrapolating from the £2 billion needed to convert 320,000 homes in Leeds by requiring them all to buy new cookers, the cost of extending the scheme across Britain could be a staggering £162 billion.
More details on the plan;
Meeting the Challenge of the Climate Change Act
A practical answer for decarbonising heat presented to date.
Minimal Impact on Customers (85% use gas)
Maximising the use of existing infrastructure.
Understanding lessons of the past and investments of today to influence options of the future
Read more: http://www.praseg.org.uk
Christopher Booker has a point about the risks. Pure Hydrogen is dangerous. In my opinion, Hydrogen is not something you would want to pipe into a normal home. The slightest leak could present a lethal risk of explosion.
Hydrogen possesses the NFPA 704’s highest rating of 4 on the flammability scale because its elemental form of H2 hydrogen gas risks autoignition when mixed even in small amounts with ordinary air; hydrogen gas and normal air can ignite at as low as 4% air due to the oxygen in the air and the simplicity and chemical properties of the reaction. However, hydrogen has no rating for innate hazard for reactivity or toxicity. The storage and use of hydrogen poses unique challenges due to its ease of leaking as a gaseous fuel, low-energy ignition, wide range of combustible fuel-air mixtures, buoyancy, and its ability to embrittle metals that must be accounted for to ensure safe operation. Liquid hydrogen poses additional challenges due to its increased density and the extremely low temperatures needed to keep it in liquid form.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_safety
When I was a kid, I went to a party, where someone had filled some balloons with hydrogen – cheap floating balloons. Just popping the balloons, without any flame, was usually enough to trigger an explosion.
Lord Deben, and the other people pushing this plan, must surely be aware of the potential risks.
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Are existing pipes and appliances approved to safely transport and burn hydrogen, which burns with a colorless flame? Hydrogen embrittlement should be the kiss of death for this scheme. But not before
1. They milk it for $$$.
2. Something blows up.
No, the pipework isn’t designed to transport hydrogen and our stoves, ovens and boilers aren’t designed to burn it. Hydrogen embrittlement isn’t relevant since this occurs during heat related manufacturing processes such as welding where it is a problem for stressed joints. It seems that in the climate change world everyday is April 1.
No, sorry. A high proportion of British households have always used gas. Earlier coal gas and then during the 1970s we switched to “Natural Gas” , mostly from the North Sea fields and everyone had to have a refit.
This has nothing to do green lunacy of the last couple of decades. Please check you facts rather than just guessing.
Greg, many have access to natural gas as you say, but that is nothing to do with the choice of cooker or heater. They can choose gas or electric. Electric is much too expensive to heat with.
Heat speeds up the process of embrittlement.
A bigger problem will be the rate at which hydrogen escapes from pipe joints that weren’t designed to contain it.
While hydrogen embrittlement is accelerated by high temperatures, it will still occur at low temperatures as long as the hydrogen remains in contact with the metal. It just takes longer. NASA has some very good tables showing the rate of embrittlement even at the temperatures found in outer space.
Low-temperature hydrogen embrittlement might be negligible if the hydrogen exposure were only during use but transmission lines, valves and fittings remain filled with fuel at all times. And since we generally expect our gas lines to last for the life of the house (if not longer), even a low rate of embrittlement can cause non-negligible damage eventually.
You’re not thinking about the bigger picture. Because of the expense, only the true greenies will adopt it and subsequently they’ll be blown sky high. So, who will really benefit from this scheme? Oh, the humanity.
“Hydrogen embrittlement isn’t relevant since this occurs during heat related manufacturing processes…”
I’m pretty sure it’s caused by exposure to gaseous hydrogen, not just a heat treat issue.
Paul,
You need heat to give enough speed to any reaction between (mainly atomic) hydrogen en carbon in the carbon steel or cast iron pipes. That transforms the carbon to methane and the steel/iron loses its strength.
Something that happened at a reformer in the Antwerp Exxon refinery at ~700°C with as result a broken pipe and fuel entering the oven followed by an explosion and one person killed.
At lower temperatures with molecular hydrogen the speed of reaction (and migration through the steel wall) is practically non-existent.
What I do fear is that the joints will be the largest problem: it was already a problem when they changed from (wet) coal gas to (dry) natural gas, where the joints (in the past made of hemp cord and fat) started leaking because getting too dry. Then they added water vapor to natural gas too.
Hydrogen will multiply that problem a hundredfold, as it creeps through the smallest openings. The only way out is 100% tight welding all over the distribution network and inside houses. That will be extremely costly, as they have to break all lines out of the walls/floors/basements/streets…
“You need heat to give enough speed to any reaction…”
Thanks for clearing that up.
Well that Hindenburg explosion was actually a “thermite” skin explosion. Hydrogen would not show a big ball of fire like that. Even a Helium filled Hindenburg, would have exploded, with its aluminum powder skin, and static electric discharge upon dropping a ground connection.
G
I’m still waiting for the first greenie to educate me on ANTHING! Am I alone in this educational wilderness?
When you burn hydrogen don’t you get water vapour as a by product? Uh right, THE greenhouse gas but I doubt if they will account for it much less measure it. Hydrogen is a very interesting energy carrier. It has problems that have been around, some solved and some not.
Explosions: Yes the Hindy was a spectacular “blowed up real good” kind of event. Current hydride tanks can take armour piercing incendiary bullets without blowing up. Just a short 6-12 inch flame coming out until pressure dies.
Embrittling: Haven’t solved that one yet. Whatever it is kept in at any pressure wears out.
Evaporation: Being the lightest element guess what it wants to do. Dissipate.
When you burn natural gas (90% CH4) you get CO2 and water vapor.
The real funny thing is they get most of the commercial H2 from CH4.
And you lose some energy in the process. Which translates into less calories per British pound.
The two byproducts of burning natural gas, CO2 and water vapor, are two of the several parts that plants require to live.
VERY good point TRM about water vapour. And what’s more, they give methane such an unrealistically high greenhouse rating, not because of the effectiveness of the methane itself, but because of the total effectiveness once it has burned and been converted to water! So if we emit straight methane, that’s bad, even though it won’t self-ignite at realistic atmospheric concentrations, so that the only way it gets converted to water is by lightning, in storms where that extra water will be a drop or two of extra rainfall.
But if we let OUR MASTERS do part of this reaction, and let us do the rest at great danger and expense, that’s GOOD. What absolute b. f. hypocrites.
Wailing against methane is just a green-anarchist agenda to stop more energy efficient alternatives and shut everything down. Live in a primitive world of sublime happiness, like they do in Somalia. Somalia is decarbonaized. I suspect these people are real happy.
Ron House – No, that’s not why they give CH4 such a high rating; it gets the rating on its own, never mind about water vapor; and no, TRM’s point is not a good one, as I explained at 7:43 pm. If the warmist position could be so easily refuted as you, TRM, and many others believe, it would have been blown out of the water many, many years ago – it would not even have gotten started. Some scientists are willing to bend the evidence, but not so far as to make utter fools of themselves
Smoking frog, look at the absorption spectrum – a barely discernible blip where CH4 goes. Because it decays so fast it is hardly possible to bump that up. So the effect of the decay by-products is used.
@Donald Kaspar…Pardon, Somalia is not decarbonized. They burn wood for fuel… Or gasoline or propane or whatever they can burn to do what they need.
Funny, I remember that almost every house 30 or 40 years ago had an incinerator in the backyard or wherever, for burning whatever leftover waste you didn’t want to throw in the garbage cans, so they wouldn’t be so heavy. Even most apartment buildings had them. Just throw the trash down to the incinerator.
In the mid 1960s I remember my Dad took us on a trip from north of Los Angeles, through it to San Diego. Los Angeles was absolutely horrible with smog and it stunk hell. Eyes burning bad. They outlawed incinerators and now LA air is pretty damned clean, with all the other changes, etc. It seems so silly now to be splitting hairs over a fairly insignificant addition to the atmosphere from what it was. But then again, population and newly industrial countries are a fact. Burning the rain forests is a shame and idiotic for the small good for society and mostly for the profit for the individual farmer.
The whole green thing is mostly BS now and aimed in the wrong places and at the wrong people. It is political correctness BS, political showmanship, power tripping on hurting big business, who are trying, while letting the real problems go without a thought. I’m mostly talking about the polluters in other countries. The Government agencies in the U.S. who regulate pollution no longer have much to do any longer, and now justify their jobs by harassing everyone. But the problems here in the U.S. are very minor to the huge polluters and environmental destroyers in other places. BS
If the only thing that converted atmospheric methane to CO2 and water was lightning strikes, there would be a heck of a lot more methane in the atmosphere. Methane can and does oxidize, even at room temperatures. It’s just a lot slower.
Besides what Ric Werme said (see below), the atmosphere contains on the order of 100 times as much water vapor as CO2, so even if liberating hydrogen from a hydrocarbon and then burning the hydrogen created more water vapor than simply burning the hydrocarbon, it would hardly matter.
I meant “see above.”
The atmosphere contains about 230 times as much CO₂ as CH₄. So what?
http://employee.heartland.edu/rmuench/graphics/atmospheric_spectral_absorption.bmp
Greenhouse absorbtion
“can take armour piercing incendiary bullets ”
Not relevant as there is no oxygen inside the tank to fuel an explosion.
The problem has always been when the hydrogen leaks from the tank (or pipes) and then collects somewhere.
Well I have been around plenty of Hydrogen plumbing in my day, and there was nothing leaky about it; and none of it was welded, just standard SS fittings (of the correct design of course).
So you could take it apart, and reassemble it all day. In fact we had to take it apart to change a gas cylinder.
Now OUR concern for safety, was NOT related to the hydrogen, but what else was IN the hydrogen.
Truly nasty things, like Silane (SiH4), or Phosphine (PH3) or worse yet Arsine (AsH3).
And for the really bad stuff Diethyl Telluride.
Fortunately those obnoxious things were in low concentration; specially the DET, which is just a standard N-type dopant in GaAs, and GaAsP.
Once in a great while somebody wouldn’t follow the purge process properly, and a little hydrogen borne something else, would escape. It usually just went up in the rafters and crackled as it caught fire.
The gunk that was in the Hydrogen simply caught fire on exposure to air, and burned up the hydrogen leak along with it.
In almost twelve years of successful operations, we NEVER ever had one operator ever test positive for Arsenic contamination. And everybody in that department was tested every month.
People who use hazardous things for valid technological reasons (you can’t make water out of anything besides Hydrogen and Oxygen; both of them quite dangerous; especially the Oxygen) employ safety experts who fully understand how to properly contain, use, and dispose of potentially harmful chemical substances. And it is always a zero tolerance system.
In all of our wafer fabs, it was a written rule posted everywhere, that ANY liquid appearing on any lab bench (in the wafer fab area) was HF, hydrofluoric acid, and the hazmat team must be called immediately to come and properly decontaminate the area. That applied even if a careless wafer fab operator turned on the water faucet in the sink too hard, and splattered water on the bench, and then had to call the hazmat team. If the person did not call the team, that was grounds for immediate termination. Accidents are caused by persons not following directions properly.
G
…Well, that’s one way to reduce the population, just blow everybody up !! ( I guess the terrorists aren’t doing it fast enough )
They are also working on WWIII with China and Russia.
So all one need is new (non-existent, must be dicovered)pipes, new appliances, and a new supply system. Comes across as really plausible for a green scheme 🙂
The interesting thing about the pipework is that hydrogen is used in leak testing joints due to its ability to find the smallest gaps. And in my experience with explosive atmospheres, we used hydrogen when testing flameproof enclosures because it gave the highest pressure when it exploded. And the likely cost – should anyone be so stupid as to try this but then never misunderestimate the stupidity of politicians – would be approaching £400 billion!
Helium is generally used for leak testing at least I have never used hydrogen for that. We had a hydrogen reactor system at work, the biggest drawback to using it was the cost every few years to have all the joints in the piping system radiographically inspected. All the tanks also had to be stored outside so we ended up with a rather long run of pipe, plus the cost of maintaining all the detector systems. Hydrogen tends to pool in high places in a room, so it can get trapped in complex ceilings.
Surprisingly the hydrogen was far from the most dangerous issue with the system.
“Helium is generally used for leak testing at least I have never used hydrogen for that.”
I think Gerry was intentionally blowing up (not leak testing) enclosures as part of the testing.
Please sir, is not Hydrogen actually H2 molecules, while Helium is simply He atoms, since it does not like to form compounds, even with itself.
And I believe that the complete shell elements (the noble gases) are actually the smallest atoms, while the alkali metals; Li, Na, K,Sr, Rb, Fr are the largest of atoms.
So a He atom is way smaller than a H2 molecule, and moreover is not disposed to pay any attention to any other elements around it, so if there is a hole to get through He will get through it.
Hydrogen would not be a good leak detector.
G
To illustrate the principle that george e. smith has brought up, the following are scaled molecular sizes and shapes: Note that H2 is not “way bigger” than He, but both H and H2 are slightly larger than He because of the double proton attraction of the He nucleus.
http://chemkerala-std9.blogspot.com/2010/09/blog-post_13.html
https://www.google.com/search?q=hydrogen+molecule+size&biw=1363&bih=966&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwiv_KTO_qzMAhWIyyYKHQRrBu8Q_AUIBigB&dpr=0.8#imgrc=YMvtCA83D3aMgM%3A
“Plausible” not so much. Typical? YUP.
That’s an interesting way to reduce populations, which is a longtime goal of greens.
It’s a twofer. Get rid of carbon and people! What’s not to like?
..Great minds think alike !! ( see above )
Carbon R Us
Perhaps Britain should go back to burning cattle dung. However, since that may not be politically correct, perhaps they could substitute politician brains for the dung. Since the politicians obviously are not using their brains at all, it shouldn’t harm them.
Insufficient energy in politician brains. Similar to glow worms.
Without the light
I see the problem in your statement – the supposition that politicians have brains when there is no evidence of this being true.
Some other people need to preserve it as one of their staple energy sauces.
g
I suggest the pilot study is to fit out the British parliament buildings with hydrogen gas.
That way when it blows up, it takes out the idiots that caused the problem.
A self correcting system.
Would it be appropriate to conduct the experiment on Nov. 5?
Guy Fawkes, call your office.
Why wait that long?
Time to order and deliver sufficient hydrogen?
One pro, three cons.
The pro: hydrogen has a low flame speed which makes it less dangerous as far as potential explosions are concerned. Somewhere in the distant past I saw a film (predated video!) of a test firing bullets through cans containing hydrogen and hydrocarbons (liquid and gas). The latter exploded. The hydrogen did not.
The three cons: hydrogen has an extremely low viscosity and therefore pipeline integrity is absolutely essential; it produces water (only water), which far exceeds the “greenhouse” effect of CO2; all gas appliances would have to be modified to be able to burn hydrogen. The cost is likely to be prohibitive.
Of course, it is all unnecessary anyway, isn’t it?
Your second con is wrong. Extra water will precipitate as rain or condensation in a matter of hours or days. the overall greenhouse warming is unimportant compared to CO2 or methane that persist for years. The “extra” water produced by burning hydrogen is infinitesimal compared to the amount of water already in the atmosphere. The other cons are correct and more than enough to make using H2 in domestic cookers impractical.
I’d suggest that the extra CO2 from burning gas was infinitesimal compared to the H2O produced from combusting Hydrogen, but hey your mileage may vary.
Well the permanent concentration of H2O that is in the atmosphere at ALL times, is way in excess of the amount of CO2, at least in the real atmosphere where weather and climate exist.
It matters not a jot, if Mother Gaia, happens to know of a CO2 molecule with a serial number, that she knows has been in the atmosphere for a billion years. The coming and going of CO2 molecules in the atmosphere is quite irrelevant.
The only thing that matters; to the extent that CO2 even matters at all, is how many CO2 molecules there are at any time, in a sample of the atmosphere.
What the serial numbers of those molecules are, is known only to Mother Gaia, and she knows the serial numbers don’t matter, just how many of them are there all the time.
And their number goes up and down between 6 ppmm at Mauna Loa, and 18-20 ppmm at the north pole. Or maybe only -1 ppmm at the south pole.
Both CO2 and H2O are permanent resident species in the atmosphere, with H2O always more than CO2.
G
Well no more petting the house pets. (static electricity-here kitty kitty)
Also a rather drastic cure for smoking.
These people are danger to everyone around they. They should not be trusted with any tasks that go beyond asking “you want fries with that?”
michael
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++ x 10
Isn’t that what the engineer and the physicist said to the Climate Science graduate?
Let these idiots near hot liquids and deep fat friars ? You must be joking !
Not to mention the chip monks.
I remember well working with a black body cavity decades ago. It was mounted in an electric furnace with Molybium windings. To keep those windings from burning up, the whole furnace volume was continuously flooded with hydrogen gas at standard pressure. With the furnace heated up to as much as 1000 degrees C and the hydrogen continuously leaking out into the room, we always wore large gloves while working around the furnace. The constant discharge areas were only a problem because you couldn’t see the flames, but when we would open the furnace, visible flames would billow out, and the whole furnace looked like it was on fire. Not really any problem, though, as long as there was nothing flammable near those flames to ignite from their heat. The point is that there was never any danger of explosion. Except for the heat from the various flames, the hydrogen was very dramatic, but it was actually fairly safe. The concern would be what might be in the immediate vicinity to mix with the hydrogen.
We had tanks of hydrogen gas next to the furnace for our supply. I would expect that when hydrogen gas is put into an aging pipeline, little or none will ever come out into the houses connected to that pipeline. Hydrogen gas is extremely difficult to contain.
I would expect that when hydrogen gas is put into an aging pipeline, little or none will ever come out into the houses connected to that pipeline.
That was never a problem when distributing town gas to houses before.
Phil.
“Town gas’ or “coal gas” from the old gasifier plants is NOT Hydrogen, and it was NOT distributed at the higher pressures needed to pump the hydrogen long distances (even tens of miles, much less the hundreds and thousands of miles needed to serve the nation’s fuel needs.
Even today’s “simplest” gasses such as nitrogen (N2) and methane (CH4) are sufficiently “larger” than H2 to not leak automatically through the pipeline walls into the surrounding soil, rock, houses, and buildings. Hydrogen embrittlement is both a pipe wall problem, AND a pipe weld problem. Both end up causing the pipes to split apart.
NASA’s hydrogen embrittlement, storage, and loading problems were made much, much more troublesome by their need for cryogenic storage, but those pressure vessels and pipes were only exposed to hydrogen (gaseous and cryogenic) for very very short times prrior to each rocket motor and tank test firing or launch. And they (NASA) never really solved the problem, only made it manageable by distance and repeated inspections of every inch of piping.
Hydrogen is usedd – with a GREAT deal of trouble and expense! – as a cooling gas inside today’s very-high energy generators. But also at low pressures 15-18 psig (1.0 to 1.2 bar) with special oil seals oil-air oil-hydrogen separators and coolers and pumps. And, even then, the seals need 1/10000 of an inch seal clearances around shafts and pumps.
Internally within the pressure vessels or pipelines, hydrogen has less ‘air resistance” to the rotating shafts of high-power generators, but that even that difference is a net negative: it means “hydrogen line pumps” are LESS efficient than methane or other service devices.
So, to distribute hydrogen, you CANNOT use high pressures, or the hydrogen leaks through the pipe walls.
You lose hydrogen through seals, through welds, and through the “pump” seals and walls – all such leaks viciously flammable when trapped in air or buildings or enclosures. (Yeah. It leaks out of sealed pipes where you want it pressurized as pure hydrogen, but then is perversely trapped dangerously explosive conditions in near-open rooms at room air pressures inside buildings or pipeline runs. Go figure, eh?)
The energy content PER TOTAL MASS of pressure vessel and pipes and burners is very, very low.
If you need it, you had better get used to NASA-like rocket fuel prices. And rocket-like explosives.
RACook,
I’d heard about hydrogen making metals brittle. Thanks for expanding on that problem.
Hydrogen is a small molecule. I’m not a chemist, but IIRC, only helium is smaller. And it’s a fact that helium escapes right through many materiels. A helium filled mylar balloon deflates in only a few days.
And of course, hydrogen is very dangerous, much more so than methane. The whole push for hydrogen comes from the same crowd that pushes all “alternative” fuels. Now they’ve latched on to hydrogen, thinking they’re so smart.
They’re not smart; they’ve never even really investigated it. Or more likely, they looked into it, but they don’t care — because this is just another scam to get government funding, like Solyndra and dozens of similar failures.
Follow the money. We’ll see who’s behind this, and we’ll also find out: cui bono? That will tell the story, as usual.
Wasn’t a hydrogen explosion also responsible for some of the Fukushima damage??
RACookPE1978 April 24, 2016 at 8:23 am
I would expect that when hydrogen gas is put into an aging pipeline, little or none will ever come out into the houses connected to that pipeline.
Phil.:
“That was never a problem when distributing town gas to houses before.”
“Town gas’ or “coal gas” from the old gasifier plants is NOT Hydrogen, and it was NOT distributed at the higher pressures needed to pump the hydrogen long distances (even tens of miles, much less the hundreds and thousands of miles needed to serve the nation’s fuel needs.
Town gas was ~50% hydrogen and contrary to James’s assertion it did make it to the houses without loss. When it was replaced by natural gas the same pipes were used, it was then that explosions started to be a problem.
RACookPE1978,
As far as I remember, steel embrittlement is mainly the reaction of (atomic) hydrogen with carbon in steel/cast iron at high temperatures forming methane and thereby reducing the strength of the steel as it loses its carbon. Molecular hydrogen is already larger and doesn’t pass steel at lower temperatures, neither reacts with carbon.
Phil.,
The move from coal gas to methane did give a lot of troubles because coal gas was wet and natural gas was dry, drying out the old hemp/grease joints between the cast iron pipes. Later they wetted the natural gas too and the problem was largely over. These joints with hydrogen is waiting for disaster after disaster…
Many newer gas lines nowadays are from (HDPE) plastics, which are far more porous than metals. No problem for methane, but for hydrogen?
Ferdinand Engelbeen
Going to disagree with you there, although some forms of hydrogen embrittlement do get worse at high temperatures. Usually, the hydrogen bake-out and post-weld heat treatment, constant heating of potential hydrogen-absorbing (water retentive) welding electrodes, and the proper choice of pipe and machinery metals mitigate the dangers. But when hydrogen is IN the pipe, it immediately becomes “inside” the pipe walls as well. From Wikipedia, a remarkably accurate description follows:
What you are likely thinking of is a related process, also briefly discussed in that same article:
Dr Namboodhiri has additional information in his slide presentation on this and 13 other forms of hydrogen metallurgical damage here:
http://www.slideshare.net/tkgn/hydrogen-damage
Ferdinand Engelbeen April 25, 2016 at 8:26 am
Phil.,
The move from coal gas to methane did give a lot of troubles because coal gas was wet and natural gas was dry, drying out the old hemp/grease joints between the cast iron pipes. Later they wetted the natural gas too and the problem was largely over. These joints with hydrogen is waiting for disaster after disaster…
Many newer gas lines nowadays are from (HDPE) plastics, which are far more porous than metals. No problem for methane, but for hydrogen?
Hi Ferdinand, good to hear from you. I posted somewhere that the dryness of the natural gas was a factor. Following the natural gas conversion the outbreak of explosions led to a national program of pipe restoration, lining them with plastic etc. I doubt very much whether any of the original pipes are still in use, although that is a problem in the US which leads to explosions with methane. It’s quite possible that the long distance pipelines dating from the 60/70s will need some work if Hydrogen is used although the local low pressure pipes probably won’t, this wouldn’t happen until 2030 in any case. Not many of the iron pipes will remain by then, mostly MD Polyethylene.
The main problem here is dealing with the mythology being promoted by the likes of Cook who believes that H2 segregates under ceilings and the exceptionally high diffusion rate of H2 has no effect! Also that hydrogen doesn’t need oxygen to explode! Knowledge of the history of town gas distribution tells us that in low pressure, local distribution of gas leaks did not cause explosions, likely because H2 diffuses so fast that a flammable mixture can’t be sustained. When the conversion to natural gas took place many consumers were concerned about the safety of natural gas!
Hydrogen is NOT the second smallest atom.
He, Ne, Fl, O are all smaller than Hydrogen, and Nitrogen is the next biggest only slightly larger than H.
But the first three are stable as atoms, whereas Oxygen, Hydrogen, and Nitrogen are unstable as atoms, so form diatomic molecules that are way larger than those two noble gases Helium and Neon.
Yes good luck on keeping that Fluorine atom unattached for any length of time; it will eat almost anybody else in the neighborhood.
G
See my essay Hydrogen Hype. The whole hydrogen thing is energy nonsense. You want hydrogen heat, use fracked natural gas CH4. You want hydrogen fuel cell vehicles? Better to buy a Toyota Prius. The essay lays out the chemistry and thermodynamics. Very devastating irrefutable facts.
Who needs the Hindenburg when the Brits authored their own tragic spectacle, the R101.
Manfred —
I had never heard of the R101 and googled it. It turns out the disaster had an upside. Lord Thomson, the air minister who had initiated the program, senior government officials and almost all of the dirigible’s designers were aboard.
Eugene WR Gallun
In Engineering that ‘s called a self-correcting mechanism
The R101 was the Labour Gov backed version and the R100 the private industry made one the R101 had many faults some of which were known about before it was even finished the frame was too heavy so the gas bags were filled with more hydrogen making them rub on sharp edges of the frame. As a result the better designed R100 – designed by Barnes Wallis, was never allowed to last long even though it was a far better craft.
James Bull
and we are back in business- Good old Brits, brings a tear to the eye, I love airships.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/7918762/Airships-a-second-age.html
In Culinary School, it is known as eating your misteaks !
g
There is some evidence that it was not the hydrogen that did in the Hindenburg, but the “dope” impregnating the envelope.
True for the initial ignition. Not true for the subsequent conflagration.
the envelope was absolutely the guilty element, after that, a huge quantity of gas that mixed with the air and burn fast(not really an explosion).
Because most of the gas went up many people have not being killed.
Hydrogen can be use as an efficient electricity storage it is a very interesting gas, but if it can be contain in adapted reservoir, it’s a bad candidate for pipeline, at least for the pipeline that we are able to build today. Since 0% mistake is not possible, longer the pipeline, bigger the probability of mistake, hydrogen is a “smart” object that will find the slightest weakness.
ristvan,
I think you have it backwards. The leaking H2 from the rip mixed with air and was ignited by spark. Then it set fire to the skin of the zeppelin. Undoubtedly, H2 fed the resulting fire, but what is seen in the pictures must be the skin burning, since burning H2 produces a smokeless, nearly invisible flame. I think that what is at issue is the relative importance of the two effects: Did the burning skin just provide visible effects? Or did it make the accident a lot worse than it otherwise would have been?
One thing that is indisputable is that the photo caption “Hindenburg Hydrogen Explosion Disaster” is nonsense. There was no explosion, and pure H2 can not explode.
That “dope” was essentially thermite. Aluminum powder paint.
I’m with Lescanne. Look at the picture and you can see that there is NO hydrogen explosion down in the hul, just a big hydrogen fed fire up above the tail, due to the Hydrogen simply venting to the atmosphere.
The visible fire in the hydrogen cloud was burning skin debris.
I can’t quite remember whether I was there that day, but I remember seeing it at the movie theatre when it happened. Probably the Gaumont British News, or maybe the RKO radio News.
Wazzat 1937 ??
G
Yeah, it was powdered aluminium suspended in the dope, which is super flammable.
If you watch the film the skin of the airship is well alight before the hydrogen inside explodes.
The whole history of the Hindenburg cover up has been thoroughly exposed on History Channel, and Science Channel.
It turns out that pieces of the Hindenburg fabric material are in the company archives, and a small piece of that original material the skin was made of, was actually used to show the electric discharge ignition and very rapid burn rate of the skin.
The bulk of the Hydrogen did not even ignite, and was in fact responsible for the semi-soft landing that miraculously allowed some of the folks aboard to walk away from it.
But the window of escape was very small once the skin spread the fire all the way up front. without igniting the main hydrogen stores.
I believe the Zeppelin Company eventually admitted that the skin appeared to be the cause.
G
I remember Lord Debden as John Gummer pushing a hamburger down his daughter’s throat to make the point that British beef was not all riddled with Mad Cow Disease. Pushing hydrogen through the ageing gas pipe system seems par for the course.
Standard household gas has a scent added so that people will notice if it has been left on or if there is a leak. I can think of a very appropriate scent to add to hydrogen, and it would be a good reminder of Gummer’s support for British cattle.
In the USA they are using a lot of plastic pipes for NG They have also “Upgraded a lot of laterals with a plastic liners. All of these will be rendered worthless unless designed for H2 and require replacement. I have been told that some cites have so many small leaks it is hard to find the ones that people smell and call about.
Imagine what would blow up if any major city had an earthquake such as Tokyo, San Francisco, LA, etc.
No need to imagine it, the fires burned for over three days after the 1906 LA earthquake and it took 2.5 hrs to shut off the city’s gas supply. Water mains were broken too so the fire department couldn’t do much about it. I understand that LA now requires automatic seismic cut-off valves.
No doubt a quick check would reveal Gummer’s directorship of several companies or bodies that would stand to benefit from Hydrogen Research or implementation. He was always very cunning that way.
He was right about the Mad Cow thing though!
Yet another ‘millennial’ scare, though it didn’t stick around as long as Global Warming.
When you donate blood, they still ask if you spent time in England between certain dates.
The scare isn’t over.
I read a wonderful article about the EU referendum telling how the Britain Stay in Europe campain has been shortened to BSE.
James Bull
Mercaptan
Need to ask Gummer (good name) what`s in the burgers he`s currently eating!
How to identify Mad Cow disease
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=mad+cow+animation+humor&view=detail&mid=0D4BC56C4DEB97578C280D4BC56C4DEB97578C28&FORM=VIRE
I have been watching ammonia as a transportation fuel for a while. link It was first used as motor fuel in WW2, so it’s practical.
The beauty of ammonia is that it can be made with hydrogen and air. The hydrogen can be electrolyzed from water. In other words, it is an easy way to store energy generated by solar cells and wind turbines.
Every now and then I google for ammonia fuel stories posted in the last month. There are always lots so that means that work on ammonia fuel is ongoing.
Here’s an interesting application. Ammonia can be used to almost eliminate nitrogen oxide emissions from diesel engines.
Ammonia is way easier to deal with than hydrogen. It is commonly used and the distribution network is already in place. Some folks also think it could be used for home heating.
Ammonia is also a good refrigerant, but it is not generally used in domestic refrigeration, because of concerns about its toxicity.
http://www.goodway.com/hvac-blog/2009/08/ammonia-as-a-refrigerant-pros-and-cons/
Toxicity is a big problem for sure. On the other hand, ammonia is not nearly as explosive as gasoline, natural gas, or hydrogen. We currently make a lot of ammonia.
Given the production it is obvious that it is possible to handle it safely (given the low annual accident rate). If it isn’t handled safely the death toll can be large. A leak in Shanghai killed 15 people and injured 26. On the other hand, gas explosions can cause hundreds of fatalities.
Toxicity. Exactly. They actually used ammonia in domestic refrigerators prior to World War II. It was replaced by much safer Freons when they started making refrigerators again around 1950. It is nasty stuff.
Using hydrogen for domestic heating, etc isn’t necessarily a stupid concept — especially if a way can be found to extract H2 in situ from low grade coal and other hydrocarbon deposits without “mining” them. But this plan is incredibly naive. And my bet would be that the existing natural gas distribution network is far too leaky to permit its use for Hydrogen. Hydrogen is notorious for the ability of its tiny molecules to leak through tiny holes and even the atomic matrices of materials that appear to be solid.
I suspect that oderants like the mercaptans used to give natural gas a smell may not always leak in much volume through holes that are oozing Hydrogen.
Ahh the fun we used to have going round and round the pipes and fittings of the Ammonia plant with little strips of white test paper dampened so that it would turn a beautiful shade of pink when we found the leak.
The room where the cylinders of liquid Ammonia were stored had 9 inch solid concrete walls and roof with special blow out vents in the roof in case of explosion.
The pipework had to be sealed with special goo as most sealants were attacked by the Ammonia.
Now we have liquid Ammonium Sulphate much safer….it just eats things.
James Bull
commieBob April 24, 2016 at 12:11 am
On the other hand, ammonia is not nearly as explosive as gasoline, natural gas, or hydrogen…….
Given the production it is obvious that it is possible to handle it safely (given the low annual accident rate). If it isn’t handled safely the death toll can be large. A leak in Shanghai killed 15 people and injured 26. On the other hand, gas explosions can cause hundreds of fatalities.
You make a compelling case for why natural gas is too dangerous to be transmitted to homes and should be replaced by the much less dangerous gas, hydrogen.
Lest we forget how we come by most of our ammonia: the Haber–Bosch process, that just takes a wee bit of energy to run (and an H2 source, to boot)!
Well a problem with Hydrogen, is that the nearest hydrogen mines are too far from ready markets, and the work conditions in those mines are not exactly OSHA kosher.
Forget Hydrogen as an energy supply.
G
But methane/ethane can just come bubbling out of the ground sometimes.
Too toxic! Not practical.
Commercial odorants for natural gas, such as mercaptan, are also toxic, but concentrations are minuscule. If you wish to use hydrogen in a fuel cell, such odorant is a bad choice, as sulphur-based compounds kill fuel cells. Therefore you must replace traditional odorants with ketone or something else.
There are already initiatives for adding a portion of H2 into natural gas pipelines, but energy value of such mixture is worse than natural gas on its own.
I can’t start imagining the total leakage of such pipelines.
Think of the nitrous oxides it would emit. The Green Blob would have a fit.
Nitrous oxide would be a laugh though HAHAHA
“… its stellar octane rating of 120 and low flame temperature allows the use of high compression ratios without a penalty of high NOx production.” link
“Jon on April 23, 2016 at 11:44 pm
Nitrous oxide would be a laugh though HAHAHA”
I use this as a test when mentioning to individual believers the various things we have been told are dangerous to the climate.
I finish up with:
“…and nitrous oxide – but we laughed at that.”
If they don’t get the joke I know they are probably a science-free zone.
Well the purpose of high octane rated fuels for ICEs is to permit high compression ratios that give both high combustion Temperatures and pressures, both of which are required to get high thermal efficiency.
And high compression engines produce very high static and dynamic bearing loads in ICEs.
Which is why turbo engines are more popular.
And it is those high temperatures and pressures that cause ICEs to burn the air, and create NOxs, which is exactly why such high octane fuels and compression ratios are allowed in the USA.
Ordinary automobiles for sale for use on US roads, have to operate normally on 87 octane rated gasoline, and in some mountain zones, the normal gas is only 85 or 86 Octane.
The manufacturer can recommend using premium gas, but they can’t require it. They do recommend it because it helps perpetuate the myth that these fancy autos can go, 50,000 or 100,000 miles without a tuneup.
If you spend extra for the premium gas, you don’t notice the pinging, once the engine starts carboning up inside, so you think it is running ok.
G
I doubt whether it would emit any nitrous oxide at all.
With a heating value less than a third of that of CH4, H2 is a poor fuel. With their complete lack of anything resembling logic, I am surprised that these ninnies didn’t suggest building a pipeline from the sun. An unlimited supply of the stuff. That shouldn’t be too difficult do you think?
Build it at night.
When I was young, our gas appliances (England) used “town gas”, produced by heating coal.
It contained hydrogen, along with carbon monoxide, methane, and a bunch of other gasses. It was generally lighter than air.
I remember when the gas board switched over to natural gas, and visited every home, changing the jets on every appliance. Of course, they never worked as well after conversion, but they did work.
This is a switch that has been done once. It could be done again.
However, using pure hydrogen seems like a somewhat vain hope to me. It would have to run at higher pressure to be able to deliver the higher volume required, and is notoriously difficult to store. Hydrogen atoms are small, and so then to diffuse through almost anything you care to use to try to contain it.
Not impossible, but a difficult engineering task, and probably not at all cheap. But, then that isn’t a problem for these guys,mis it?
It’s an idiotic notion. Idea is too strong a word.
Many years ago I played with it by making the H2 through electrolysis. Used mason jars, water and a 6 volt car battery. One of the jars exploded. Luckily all I got was a minor cut (did not need stitches). This, I explained to my mom as happening when I fell down the steps while carrying the jars to the to the basement. Never tried that experiment again.
Sorry, getting to old, that was done 60 years ago. All I got with the Battery was yellow foam. (Too much salt?) The home experiment that exploded was when I used Lye and Aluminum chips in a jar with a funnel taped to the top to collect the hydrogen, pass it through a hose and expel the water in an inverted jar with the H2 gas. I think I used to many chips of aluminum as it got rather hot. and quickly expelled the water and kept making lots of gas. Used to read my older brother’s chemistry book and try the stuff in there. Even tried making gun powder from the stuff in that Amateur Chemistry set kids got for Christmas back in the 50’s.
I was reading a can of lye I had bought and got to “do not use in aluminum containers,” thought about it a bit, made little thing with aluminum foil and a piece of lye, then a little bigger setup in order to get enough gas to see if it ignited. Yep.
Years later, I discovered a coworker who made a fairly elaborate setup with 2 liter soda bottles and drying stages who could collect enough for balloons and related toys that needed to be blown up.
My favorite book used to be “The Boy Electrician” by Morgan. (various editions are available on the web)
In the later edition, one of Morgan’s favorite components was the Model T spark coil. Because it had a buzzer, it supplied a constant supply of high voltage AC. You could use the voltage to discourage dogs from peeing on your garbage cans.
He showed how to build an X-ray machine using a spark coil, some foil and an old vacuum tube. Yes, it did indeed work. Nobody in their right mind would write such a book today.
Caustic soda and another common household material produces large quantities of hydrogen.
I was partial to a coke bottle [rest pruned] A few close calls tempered our enthusiasm…
Mods you might like to redact this… should easy bomb making instructions be posted here?!
I think I have a better idea about where strange lights (UFOs) reports originate.
“Most UK households use natural gas for home heating, largely because green policy inflated electricity costs are so high.”
What!!!!
gas has always been used for heating since natural gas was available.
Cheap electric heating in the late 20th C was off peak *economy 7″ but it was still more expensive than gas central heating. This has nothing to do with green tariffs.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gFqMyW_sbC8/UrXre7DHoPI/AAAAAAAABTI/30rtYHRAIcc/s640/fuel+price+uk.jpg
to 2013 I cannot see electricity price rising excessively compared to other fuels from which it is derived
Glad you said that, when I read that I moved strait past the article to the comments!
It’s an age thing, I think: those of us who predate ‘natural gas’ all remember gas fires in our student rooms, fed by coin meters etc. All rented places in the UK had gas fires, many homes too. I remember being sad in the late 1950s when my mother got tired of the coal fire and had a ‘log fire effect’ gas one installed in our living room.
The big change when we all changed to natural gas was that putting your head in the gas oven, a la Sylvia Plath in Yorkshire, was no longer the UK default way of killing yourself.
Yeah Sam, I well remember having to crawl into the space under the stairs to feed the meter for Mum. 🙂
I remember the conversion process both in my lab and at home (cooker and central heating). Glass blowing in the lab. required a learning curve and some practice after years of experience with town gas. Also due the the high flame speed of hydrogen burners sometimes ‘blew back’ but never ‘flamed out’ whereas that was always happening with natural gas.
There’s another aspect of this about which I haven’t read any comments.
Even if we completely ignore the dangers and costs of retro-fitting noted above there’s a massive inefficiency to this scheme. They are not proposing hydrogen created using electrolysis from some “renewable” resource. They are proposing converting fossil fuel methane into hydrogen which is inherently an energy loss vs just burning the methane directly where needed. They then propose the still unproven fantasy of carbon capture and storage, CCS, to hide their sins.
I can’t imagine, that after, first the chemical conversion, and then the subsequent CCS that the energy efficiency of this scheme exceeds 33%. There’s really no way to know for sure, since CCS on a commercial scale does not exist. People like Rud could weigh in with better estimates. But if my estimate is close, this would automatically triple the base energy costs, not even counting the cost of retrofitting. And given how costs are marked up and passed along to the consumer, the end user costs would automatically MORE than triple.
I have read hundreds of comments on that very issue, are you living in a bubble? by bubble I mean a quantum time dilation caused by climate change of course.
Reply: Sorry, I’m not active on British news sites, so I just hadn’t seen it. I’m glad others are taking note. -mod (really ctm, tee hee)
I suppose they could run the CO2 into greenhouses. Need lots of them but but still cheaper than a nonexistent pipe under the sea. Get some tomatoes out of it too.
I seem to recall from college chemistry that just storing hydrogen is problematic because the molecule is so small.
This is mentioned above but not explained — here is a start:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_embrittlement
Hydrogen gas is notoriously good at leaking out of anything not specially designed to hold it. Right through the walls. I would be astonished to learn that the town gas distribution system is up to it. The basic problem is people looking for magic beans/silver bullets/one simple fix. This idea is going nowhere, but expect a lot of money to be wasted on it anyway.
It worked very well for about 100 years in the UK, it was the methane that replaced it that had leak problems.
Phil, as always, you are wrong !! A Hydrogen ATOM is a much smaller than a Methane MOLECULE !
[But with gasses at Standard temperatures and Pressures, you must compare molecule (H2) to molecule (CH4). The CH4 is still much larger. .mod]
Marcus April 25, 2016 at 5:21 am
Phil, as always, you are wrong !! A Hydrogen ATOM is a much smaller than a Methane MOLECULE !
I believe I said that in reference to it’s high rate of diffusion? What I referred to is that leakage of the hydrogen in town gas was not a problem and gas explosions in houses were unknown, following the conversion to natural gas the occurrence of explosion greatly increased leading to a nationwide campaign to stop the leaks of natural gas in the distribution system.
..Phil…They are talking about using PURE Hydrogen, not town gas !! BIG DIFFERENCE !!
Thanks MOD, I stand corrected..kinda, sorta ?? LOL
Marcus, town gas is ~50% hydrogen and as far as combustion energy is concerned much higher than that. The safety issues are the same, explosion was not a hazard, unlike with methane where it is the main hazard.
No it’s a problem because the molecule is NOT so small.
g
Susssh, My evil plan for world domination by piping hydrogen into every home will happen!
Be all over in a flash will it?
Actually, there is an upside to the entire use of hydrogen as a fuel idiocy.
In order to produce all the electricity that will be required to produce the volumes of hydrogen required, we will have to build huge numbers of power plants; all fueled by coal.
After the population is culled by all the hydrogen explosions, we will have a huge excess of electricity generating capacity.
Therefore, the survivors will have lots of cheap electricity.
So, a huge reduction in the number of greenies, and lots of cheap power.
So what’s not to like?
William. Another plus is that the kids could have a lot of fun with explosive balloons filled at home.
update to latest (2015) data for fuel prices from:
Consumer prices index: fuel components
Publication date: 31-Mar-2016
Data period: New real terms data for Q4 2015 and annual 2015.
http://s25.postimg.org/gp4tgepin/fuel_price_real_terms.jpg
I think Wikipedia is confusing the terms “auto-ignition” and “lower flammability limit.” The auto-ignition temperature for hydrogen is actually high at 585C.
Otherwise, the hazards are pretty well stated. I would add that hydrogen burns with an invisible flame. Like an odorant is added to natural gas to impart odor, and odorant and flame colorant would need to be added to hydrogen for residential usage. It also has a negative Joule-Thompson coefficient, so the temperature of leaking hydrogen increases as it expands, although not typically to a temperature above where it will ignite.