Reposted from NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
MARCH 20, 2021
By Paul Homewood
h/t Patsy Lacey
Starry eyed Rachel Millard forgets to ask how much this will cost the taxpayer:
BP is planning to build a vast hydrogen factory in Teesside to provide energy for local industry and homes.
Its H2Teesside could be producing hydrogen from natural gas – so-called ‘blue’ hydrogen – by 2027 or earlier with a target of generating 1GW of hydrogen by 2030.
The Government wants to develop 5GW of hydrogen production by 2030 as part of its effort to cut carbon emissions.
Hydrogen does not emit carbon when burned, although making it from natural gas as opposed to via electrolysis (dubbed ‘green’ hydrogen) does produce vast amounts of carbon dioxide.
How hydrogen output could expand in the coming decades, using carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS):
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/03/18/bp-develop-uks-largest-hydrogen-factory-teesside/
I can guarantee one thing – this investment will only go ahead on the back of massive subsidies, probably via a Contracts for Difference type scheme, similar to the way offshore wind farms are subsidised.
In short, BP will be paid a guaranteed price for all the hydrogen it produces, which will probably be triple the price of natural gas. The cost of this will be passed back to energy consumers.
Based on that BEIS document I wrote about yesterday, a 1 GW plant will cost in the region of £529 million, excluding any carbon capture plant:
The steam reforming process uses 1.355 times as much natural gas as it converts; ie the process wastes about a quarter of the energy input. When operating expenses are thrown in such a plant would lose BP in the region of £250 million a year, if its output was sold at the market price for natural gas, which is £14/MWh.
When do the blimps arrive?
A) Under normal accounting rules under IEA and EIA, cost of construction and costs of operation will be described as subsidies attributed against fossil fuels.
B) BP will be allowed to sell “carbon credits”.
C) BP’s record for drilling, pumping or refining fossil fuels is highly tarnished. As is their complicity in human rights abuses.
e.g.;
The production or hydrocarbons and subsequent conversion into useful fuels and products in a safe and efficient manner requires enormous resources and attention to detail. Any entity that truly believes that it is “beyond petroleum” should be proscribed from participating in such activities.
You omitted memorable Texas City Refinery Explosion
…or we could use the 100% natural energy source that mother nature already provides by using it directly. Of course I refer to Mother natures own energy storage solution – hydrocarbons. Trying to find a better solution than Gaia has developed over many millions of years is pure folly, and of course virtue signalling.
This technology simply moves emissions from one location to another while using a lot of energy to do so. Advocates seek to have ill-informed bureaucrats virtue signal by “investing” taxpayer money, hoping to profit in the process.
Time to move to east of the Pennines.
I think it might be safer to stay west of them. They might act as a blast deflector when the whole of Teesside goes up.
Meanwhile back at reality……
China is refining more oil than the US for the first time — Quartz (qz.com)
Making hydrogen takes more energy input than the finished product contains. It costs more to make than the finished product sells for.
Using fossil fuels to make hydrogen fuel makes less sense than using fossil fuels to make electricity to power electric cars as a means of getting off fossil fuels. Expensive virtue signaling that contradicts the stated purpose.
Turn Natural Gas into Hydrogen…Why? You are far better off just burning the natural gas.
How about something both practical and beneficial, like turning coal into electricity?
What is the life insurance position of workers on this site versus other sites? Perhaps someone might ask BP who is carrying the insurance? My understanding is that a hindenburg is quite possible.
Essentially all of the Biden administration’s initiatives are insane or close to it — this would fit right in as well.
I just despair really ! This will increase CO2 emissions by 35.5% for the same amount of energy.
That is, unless there is a use for the massive amount of carbon monoxide, apart from burning it. There are indeed industrial uses, for example, It is used in the USA to keep old meat looking red (banned in EU). Not much is used
But I can’t see there are valid uses for the millions of tonnes of CO if this process takes off on a big scale.
At least someone sees the future of cars. Hydrogen fuel cells.
Yes I agree, but producing the hydrogen by the method this article is counter productive. It would actually be better to fuel cars directly with the methane, the CO2 production would be lower !
Why are they calling this a “factory?”
Sounds like a chemical plant to me.
The Northern Hemisphere is going to get very cold soon. Masses of people in the first world who are lower income will literally die from hypothermia. Die, as a direct result of their own Governments deliberate policy. The Texas disaster (35-40 died of cold in a “Wealthy State”) is a tiny example of the wave to come.
Hydrogen is a road to nowhere.
No it’s not. Even if you are a climate skeptic, the fact remains that oil and gas are finite resources. Sooner or later we need to find a substitute, and lithium-ion batteries are not it. Nuclear produced hydrogen (likely being converted to synthetic hydrocarbons) is the only hope for jetliners.
Different pig, same trough.
“Starry eyed Rachel Millard forgets to ask how much this will cost the taxpayer” … Reporters never ask the important questions these days – most ‘news articles’ sound like press releases or propaganda from Pravda circa 1980.
Removing CO2 from the atmosphere is very difficult however water vapor is a more powerful greenhouse gas and can be removed easily by simply increasing rainfall. A worldwide cloud seeding effort would halt AGW thereby saving the planet. Where do I go to collect my Nobel Prize?
In my defense my idea is less insane than processing natural gas to produce a different flammable gas.