Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Geoff Sherrington – Coal is being rehabilitated as an essential component of the clean energy future.
World-first coal to hydrogen plant trial launched in Victoria
ABC Gippsland By Kellie Lazzaro
Updated Thu at 2:03pm
A world-first trial to use brown coal to make hydrogen has been launched in Victoria’s east as a pilot ‘clean energy’ project that is expected to create 400 jobs — but critics and coal industry experts alike said new measures will be needed to tackle the carbon emissions generated.
A demonstration plant will be built in the Latrobe Valley as part of the $496 million project to develop technology to produce hydrogen from the region’s vast reserves of coal.
The hydrogen would be shipped from the Port of Hastings to Japan under the deal with Kawasaki Heavy Industries, J-Power, Iwatani Corporation, Marubeni and the Japanese Government.
The Federal and Victorian Governments are providing $100 million towards the cost of the trial.
Speaking from the launch at Loy Yang mine, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said hydrogen was a fuel of the future.
“It is critically important that we invest in energy sources of the future and that we affect the transition from older forms of [energy] generation to new forms of generation and we do so seamlessly.”
“This is about new technology, partnering with the Japanese to come up with not only carbon capture and storage, but a way of converting this into hydrogen and making it a fuel of the future,” Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison said.
…
Read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-12/coal-to-hydrogen-trial-for-latrobe-valley/9643570
Coal to hydrogen is not a new idea, the Water-gas shift reaction was discovered in 1780 by Italian Chemist Felice Fontana.
There are still some kinks to be worked out. The process to generate hydrogen from coal produces a monstrous amount of CO2 – far more CO2 per unit of useful energy than simply burning the coal would produce. But with hydrogen production, unlike hydrocarbon combustion, all the CO2 is produced in one place. This creates an opportunity for carbon sequestration, when technologies to sequester carbon on such an impressive scale are developed.
Creating a clean hydrogen economy will provide the assurance of an ongoing market demand for this potentially zero carbon product, which may spur the development of supply chain solutions like sequestration of the vast clouds of CO2 emitted when the hydrogen is produced.
I’m sure we all look forward to joining hands with and celebrating with our new green friends that coal is no longer the enemy; coal is now an essential component of our zero carbon future.
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This project is nonsensical.
Hydrogen is nothing but mobile electricity. (More expensive because mobility has a price.)
The arguments for using coal to produce hydrogen presented in this paper are equally valid for using coal to produce electricity. So why are the same people who are shutting down coal fired power plants now supporting coal for ‘mobile electricity’?
My guess is it is because they are simply clueless.
I don’t think they are clueless. I am sure they feel they need to figure out how to generate tax revenue from all that coal while looking green. They have pitched this as a magical green solution.
Whenever any project needs special government financial assistance or needs being subsidised by taxpayers, it is almost certain that project is not viable.
Boy, this all really takes me back.
Back in the 80’s, I was a full on believer in the whole End of Oil/Peak Oil meme. And this kind of Hydrogen Economy stuff was promoted as a major part of the solution along side Renewables like Wind and Solar in places like Popular Science.
Ironically here we are some 3 decades later, no closer to achieving the dream of ‘Clean’ energy, yet still pushing it as the solution to a completely different (and nearly opposite) world threatening Scare.
~¿~
It seems that this would be the most “carbon intensive” industry in Australia, i.e., the lowest income per CO2 released – while at the same time the same government is blowing up coal power plants to “lower carbon footprint.” Or am I missing something?
I love the $496m estimate. Less than half a billion, a bargain. But as RR might have said, “Half a billion here, half a billion there, pretty soon you are talking real money”.
I think it was Everett M. Dirksen who is supposed to have said “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money,”
It was indeed Everett M. Dirksen. However it was a million here….
Even compressed to 700 bar (10,290 psi), hydrogen has only 1/4 the energy density of conventional diesel fuel. Thus the volume required to motivate a vehicle has to be much larger than needed with conventional hydrocarbon fuels. This and the much higher complexity of using hydrogen as a fuel make it impractical. A hydrogen fuel cell vehicle needs both a fuel cell and a battery storage as the fuel cell is not available instantly. It must first heat up to operational temperature before it can convert H2 to electrons. Fuels cells are constant load devices that don’t work well in variable load applications, especially short trip scenarios where heating and cooling cycles predominate. Plus they are not yet reliable nor cost effective. I would put the fuel cell/battery hybrid vehicle engine cost at 5-8X that of a gasoline engine of similar power output.
The storage system for hydrogen for mobile transportation uses metal hydrides, which, I believe results in an energy density for storage similar to liquid fuels.
Don’t worry about Chinese problems. At U.S. universities, Asians are top students.
But what about all that water vapour you get when you burn hydrogen? Isn’t that a very potent greenhouse gas? I’m so confused 🙂
/sarc
Are they planning to burn it???
Back in July 2010 I was flying on a helicopter from Heron Island to Gladstone. As we approached the coast, we saw several Chinese carriers moored off-shore and the pilot announced “We sell most of our coal to the Chinese and thereby lower our carbon footprint.” We were still pretty high above the water, it would not be wise to agitate the pilot – so I didn’t ask him “What do you think that the Chinese do with this coal?”
My guess is that Mr. Turnbull can actually convince such voters that his coal to hydrogen plant is another way of lowering Australia’s carbon footprint.
Being a pilot one would surmise that he was an educated person. Yet he is still very ignorant. This stuff is closer to a religion than real science.
Don’t worry fellow world citizens, we here in California have it all figured out! You see, this month on our PG&E utility bills we will receive a “climate credit”, which is our share of the loot from extorting carbon credits from industry. Making a small group of customers pay more for electricity while allowing most others pay less, with tax dollars to administer the program, will surely solve the dreaded climate change problem.
Reasonable isolation from the environment, and a reduced “green” blight factor.
the NAZIs tried this in WWII? They were desperate
“coal is now an essential component of our zero carbon future”
I shudder in horror at that statement.
Carbon Dioxide is THE ‘essential component’ of the Carbon Cycle of Life.
Why would carbon based life forms yearn for a ‘zero carbon future’?
“Yes, anti-pipeline Vancouver really is North America’s largest exporter of coal
A city dead set against expanding petroleum exports is decidedly less irked about another type of fossil fuel”
Link here:
http://nationalpost.com/news/politics/yes-anti-pipeline-vancouver-really-is-north-americas-largest-exporter-of-coal
I support electric cars, but for reasons that have nothing to do with the CO2 warming hoax.
1. Electric cars are less polluting (not even considering CO2)
– They is much less pollution at the point of use.
– The pollution at the point of electricity generation is concentrated and thus easier to deal with.
2. Electric cars are more energy efficient, including the step of electricity generation. The question is to not lose this advantage in storage and transportation.
3. Electric cars enable diversification of the primary sources of energy for transportation. Virtually any primary source can be used for electricity generation.
The major impediment to the broad use of electric cars (and trucks) is the cost of infrastructure. The cost of charging stations and power systems will be higher than the cost of the cars themselves. Thus, I believe that hydrogen will necessarily be required as the method to reduce the infrastructure costs to transport and store the electricity.
And I seriously doubt that electric cars will doom the oil and gas industry. At best it will slow down the growth of oil and gas usage as developing countries realize the benefits that energy consumption brings to the well-being of their populations.
The problem that I have with this paper is the hypocrisy: the same people that demonize coal now want to spend hundreds of millions for the exact same use.
There are also many ways to produce hydrogen that would make more sense, such as methane reforming. Producing hydrogen using wind and solar power would also seem to make more sense than trying to force-feed the electric grids with unreliable green-power.
Would you stop supporting electric cars if this old engineer explained why your 3 reasons are bogus?
‘Less polluting’ is only good if you have pollution problems. Those problems have been solved in the modern world.
Electric cars are not more efficient. Never will be if you follow the laws of thermodynamics rather than the laws of cherry picking data.
Finally, why do we need a more diverse supply of transportation fuel? If it is not broke, don’t fix it.
The first step in problem solving is checking to see if there is a problem.
Until EVs can be proven economical and practical with a supporting infrastructure on a scale equivalent to current ICE transportation they will remain a niche. You can legislate their use but you can’t legislate using new technology that has yet to be implemented or created. That won’t stop the green weenies from trying though. Pity those that are forced into it without proper preparation.
I noticed you didn’t discuss batteries.
Interesting devices when you know what goes into making them; their limited life and what happens to them thereafter.
Sorry, but I think you have this backwards. The only reason gas powered cars need such a large infrastructure (with gas stations, tanker trucks to haul the gasoline, etc) is because gasoline only has the one real use in our modern civilization. But Electricity is already everywhere, being used for everything. Almost every home in the US or any other 1st world nation has an Electric service. And so does every Commercial or Industrial site. Frankly, if gasoline was as easily accessible as Electricity there wouldn’t BE any gas stations. Why go to a independent dealer, with the necessary mark up in price, when you could just top up at home.
The real problem is that current EV’s just can’t HOLD that much energy. A battery that could hold as much energy as a standard 10 gallon gas tank would weight as much as a normal gas powered CAR. So EV’s instead run around with batteries that hold the equivalent of a gallon or 2, necessitating a ‘refueling’ after nearly every trip, or even during for a lengthy one. And the reality of current battery and charging tech is that it will take 10’s of minutes to several HOURS to do so.
Frankly, once the battery problem is solved I expect EV’s to completely change not just the auto industry but how we commute itself. But until then they are mostly a joke that needs to be constantly propped up with incentives like tax credits and ‘supercharger’ stations just to pretend they can compete.
~¿~
This is purely a political card trick to segue back into coal. Hydrogen is a terrible fuel in comparative volumetric quantities vs all other fuels. Compressed H2 is ~1/20th the energy density of gasoline and diesel. Cooled H2 is about 1/4 but you better have a fail safe way to keep it cold.
A litre of gasoline itself holds 64% more hydrogen than a litre of liquid hydrogen! Metal hydrides hold more hydrogen in a unit volume but the metal weight itself is a confounding consideration for mobile use and overall the cost is an issue. Indeed, gasoline is the best hydride of them all.
In a process patented invention of mine (much perfected by others in feasibility research and construction of a demonstration plant) using membrane electrolysis to produce lithium hydroxide monohydrate (preferred Li-ion battery chemical) from a lithium solution extracted from hard rock Li sources, we initially entertained the idea of using the H2 from the cathode for heat in the process but rejected it after considering capital and operating costs of equipment to collect and utilize it – we mix it with air and vent it.
We do make lithium carbonate (the other battery chemical) by bubbling atmospheric CO2 through some of the hydroxide and through its high-soda impurity containing LiOH crystallizer purge solution – another patented process of mine. It won environmental awards and a fat grant for my client (fancy uber sceptical me generating environmental prizes). The world’s largest LiOH.H2O plant and 40million tonne lithium ore mine are now under construction.
Anyone interested in the hydrogen as a simple off-take on site might get a supply.
This all seams like a 0 sum game. And as we know, with every reaction there is loss, so actually a negative sum game. But oddly, it seems the greens are loving it. Anything that has a green label and waists taxpayer’s money is declared good.
Let’s see the track record and audits of the other large-scale demonstration projects in Australia like solar concentrators.
It’s always good to go all in on an unproven technology. I suspect the Japanese government is subsidising this on the other end. Expect a total failure.
The best way to sequester Carbon is to not burn it in the first place. The chemical processes that create carbonate rock and plant life are the best ways of extracting CO2 from the atmosphere. One of the most compact and safe ways of transporting Hydrogen is to oxidize it into H2O first. Japan has plenty of H2O off their cost. They do not need to transport it from Australia. In Japan, they can use electricity generated by nuclear plants to extract Hydrogen directly from sea water without producing any CO2.
The reality is that the climate change we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control. Despite the hype, there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and plenty of scientific rational to support the idea that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is really zero.
It would be far safer for them to transport the brown coal fuel to Japan and use it in Japan to generate Hydrogen.
What is left of that lump of brown coal once the (good) hydrogen is captured and that (bad, nasty) CO2 is sequestered? Does that lump simply disappear? Is there nothing left? Where will that waste be used or buried?
An earlier post explained how South Africa is running this sort of process to produce jet fuel and many other compounds.
A while back I read that China has over a dozen coal-to-gas and coal-to-liquids projects under way. In the right circumstances this process works – but it is very CO2-intensive.
“There are still some kinks to be worked out” = Government Subsidies! But hey, GO FOR IT!
Liberal Heads exploding like Popcorn in a microwave.
Ha ha
http://www.sciencecartoonsplus.com/images/miracle_sharris.gif