Tom Baxter, University of Aberdeen
The UK’s long-awaited hydrogen strategy has set out the government’s plans for “a world-leading hydrogen economy” that it says would generate £900 million (US$1.2 million) and create over 9,000 jobs by 2030, “potentially rising to 100,000 jobs and £13 billion by 2050”.
The strategy document argues that hydrogen could be used in place of fossil fuels in homes and industries which are currently responsible for significant CO₂ emissions, such as chemical manufacturing and heavy transport, which includes the delivery of goods by shipping, lorries and trains. The government also envisages that many of the new jobs producing and using “low-carbon hydrogen” will benefit “UK companies and workers across our industrial heartlands.”
On the face of it, this vision of a low-carbon future in some of the most difficult to decarbonise niches of the economy sounds like good news. But is it? And are there other options for delivering net zero that will be better for the public?
Let’s examine some of the claims.
A heated debate
The government prefers what it calls “a twin track approach”, meaning both blue and green hydrogen will be used to phase out fossil fuels. Blue hydrogen fuel is produced from natural gas – a fossil fuel which currently provides most of the UK’s water and space heating – but the CO₂ that would usually be emitted is captured and stored underground.
Read more: Blue hydrogen – what is it, and should it replace natural gas?
A recent report cast doubt on the green credentials of blue hydrogen, though. The research suggested that, because of methane emissions throughout the supply chain, blue hydrogen may actually be 20% worse for the climate than simply burning natural gas for heat and power. It doesn’t appear that the government’s strategy has recognised these issues or explained how they might be avoided.
Green hydrogen meanwhile is produced by splitting water molecules using electricity. A lot of energy is lost in this process, and so on average, the cost of hydrogen per kilowatt-hour (kWh) will be greater than the electricity it is derived from.
Is green hydrogen a better option for UK households than electrifying the heating system with heat pumps in homes? Green hydrogen bills are likely to be three to five times higher than this alternative. That’s because heat pumps take 1 kWh of electricity and convert it to around 3 kWh of heat, whereas green hydrogen takes 1 kWh of electricity and converts it to around 0.6 kWh of heat.
The strategy also proposes blending natural gas supplies to home central heating systems with 20% blue or green hydrogen. This, it’s reported, will help reduce CO₂ emissions from heating by 7%. No bad thing, but are there better ways to use that blue or green hydrogen?
Around 1 kg of hydrogen blended into the natural gas supplying a boiler could save 6 kg of CO₂. The UK currently produces around 700,000 tonnes of grey hydrogen a year, used to make fertiliser production and to remove sulphur from oil. This type of hydrogen is produced from natural gas too, but unlike blue hydrogen, the CO₂ emissions aren’t captured. For every kg of grey hydrogen produced, the resulting emissions are around 9kg. So roughly, grey hydrogen produces six million tonnes of CO₂ annually. Would it not be better for the UK to use that blue or green hydrogen to replace current grey hydrogen production than using it less effectively in blends with natural gas?
The strategy claims that hydrogen could be providing between 20% and 35% of the UK’s energy by 2050. That is at odds with the Climate Change Committee – a body of experts which advises the government on climate policy. In their most recent carbon budget, which projected UK progress towards net zero emissions in the 2030s, their main pathway forecast around 14% of total energy demand being satisfied by hydrogen by 2050.
By comparison, the EU’s modelled pathways for reaching net zero by 2050 range from zero hydrogen use to 23%, with the average around 12%. Even industry projections like Shell’s forecast only 2% hydrogen use by 2050. The upper range of the UK government’s projected hydrogen use in 2050 lacks credibility, in my opinion.
Then there are influential groups lobbying parliament on behalf of hydrogen, such as the Hydrogen Taskforce, which represents members with a vested interest in the fuel who are set to receive a significant amount of business from this strategy. But is what is good for business good for UK consumers and taxpayers?
The UK government has failed to provide comparative evidence that hydrogen is a preferred net-zero route in many applications. Only by comparing the paths to net zero in a way that considers the complete life cycle of hydrogen fuel, quantifying the impacts on people, profit and the environment can the case for hydrogen be made accurately. That evidence is lacking in this strategy.
Tom Baxter, Honorary Senior Lecturer in Chemical Engineering, University of Aberdeen
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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H2 is a leaky, sneaky, expensive, explosive fuel. Why not add some C atoms to improve it? We could call it gas…..
IIRC using hydrogen as a fuel in cars leads to significant amounts of nitrogen oxides in the exhaust.
The use of AdBlue In the most modern diesel engines apparently results in virtually no NOx emissions and should also produce less CO2 per mile, which is why diesels were promoted in the first place.
I doubt very much that it would have an effect on NOx levels. Do you have the evidence.
BTW, I once worked in and managed a vehicle emission testing lab.
Actually one of the easiest things to make is ammonia…air plus water plus electrical energy .
It’s way safer than hydrogen and can be turned into hydrogen when needed.
It is also toxic and corrosive, which is why it was originally discontinued as a refrigerant in favour of CFCs.
Ammonia is real nasty stuff. Just sniff the bottle and you will quickly understand.
I’d much rather breathe 500ppmv of CO2 !!
We need to stop all this insanity of stupid, dangerous, highly expensive strategies to solve a NON EXISTENT PROBLEM.
I’ve done that. 1500 litres of propane in my storage tank 40% sustainable and 60% feeding the planets plants.
i would rather have the Taliban running the parish council than a H2 supply in the village
I wonder if they have added in the cost of compressing the CO2 to get it underground. along with all the other costs? Old gas wells do not have “zero” pressure, they just don’t produce enough gas to be economic. Blue hydrogen is not a good process and wastes much of the heating value of the LPG used, silly idea really. Electrolysis of water is also pretty difficult and inefficient, the figure in the article od 60% electricity to H2 is too high, but then it sounds good!
UK projected power requirement 300 GW.
Supplied by 40% capacity factor wind turbines with maximum output 10 MW
Which must also during their 40% up time generate enough energy to put into Hydrogen storage at say 50% rfficiency ti power the nation during the 60% of the time when wind turbines dont produce ..
Do the sums and that tells you you need 1200 GW of power.
That is 120,000 big wind turbines .
There are about 10,200 days between now and 2050 . we need to build 10 behemoths every day to be carbon free in 2050 .
This is a monumental impossibility of gargantuan proportions and makes the whole AGW shennanigans the biggest scam ever perpetrated on the world..
Better to rely on flatulent unicorns
Or frack, then fusion.
There is already 30GW of offshore wind firmly in the UK development/build pipeline.
to avoid constraint, there will need to be an application for it at times of low demand (overnight, Sunday morning, etc)
My point exactly 30 GW planned for the next 5 years That is 3000 of the 10 MW size turbines I refered to. So we should have that lot installed and working in 1 year. Now 30 GW is about 1 fortieth of the total wind capacity that we need to install. to be carbon free oin 2050 . Now of course if we junk all that wind nonsense and go nuclear using small Modular Reactors of 0.5 GW power rating we would need to install 600 of them within the next 30 years . That is a target of about 1.5 per month . Kwarteng at BEIS assures me that by 2035 we may have 16 of them so we are moving forward to the brave green new world at a glacial pace.
Now Griff I dont ex[pect you to appreciate that but the morons in charge of energy policy in teh UK should demonstrate some kindergarten grasp of numbers . But why? You dont actually need much in the way of numerical or basic scientific literacy to get an Oxbridge PPE and the keys of the kingdom..
If we allow ourselves to be ruled by dross then we deserve the consequences
Remember there are in fact two energy policies in the UK. One is the Nutnutz Green one that griff thinks is happening, which is toted for public consumption and virtue sigmalling, while behind the scenes with as low a profile as possible, the government knows it needs to build 60GW or more of nuclear power PDQ.
For when the public finally realises what an enormously expensive mistake renewables have been.
Most of the public still ‘believes in climate change’ but they are falling out of love with unreliables very fast indeed.
When the time is right nuclear power will be announced.
Precisely. It’s a massive bait and switch scam.
In 2017 the UK experienced 7 consecutive months of windless days. There is no battery technology that can hold charge for 7 months but if there was it would cost beyond £32 trillion. Those who promote renewables still labour under the misapprehension that the wind blows 24/7 at the right speed and solar works at night. This is where we are this morning. G. B. National Grid status (templar.co.uk) Demand 30.11GW’s, Wind 1.38GW’s, Turbines needed to meet demand 193,600 or 484GW’s of capacity. This is a good day for wind a few weeks ago we needed 1.3 million turbines to meet demand. In 2017 the UK experienced 7 consecutive months of windless days. If there was a battery that could hold charge for 7 months it would cost at least £32 trillion. Good luck with green hydrogen. See below for full 2021 wind turbine historical performance.
Lord Deben says an all electric UK could have a peak winter demand of 150GW’s which means just to get close to supplying that you would need to spend £720 billion on turbines but as this mornings performance indicates you could still not guarantee to boil and egg for breakfast.
Before any of this nonsense the whole UK would need to be rewired with every road and path dug up at a cost of £500 billion just to fantasise about saving the planet by choking off 0.0002% of atmospheric Co2.
For America to be Zero Co2 by 2030 Joe Biden would need to build 2X2.25 GW nuclear power stations every week for 454 weeks.
G. B. National Grid status (templar.co.uk) Demand 23.11GW wind 1.09, turbines needed 184,800 or 462GW’sof capacity, 30.27GW’s wind 0.20GW’s turbines needed 1,328,800 or 3322GW’s, 32.59GW’s wind 0.10GW’s turbines needed 2,868,800 or 7172GW’s, 33.02GW’s wind 1.02GW’s, turbines needed 290,400 or 726GW’s, 36.58GW’s wind 0.90GW’s turbines needed 360,800 or 902GW;s, 25.60GW’s, wind 0.34GW’s, turbines needed 660,000 or 1650GW’s, 28.06GW’s wind 0.50GW’s, turbines needed 492,800 or 1232 GW’s, 31.64GW’s wind 1.27GW’s turbines needed 220,000 or 550GW’s, 33.38GW’s wind 1.25GW’s turbines needed 237,600 or 594GW’s, 32.25GW’s wind 0.75GW’s, turbines needed 378,400 or 946GW’s, 35.72GW’s wind 0.76GW’s, turbines needed 413,600 or 1034 GW’s, 36.34GW’s wind 1.38GW’s, turbines needed 228,800 or 572GW’s, 34.10GW’s wind 0.86GW’s turbines needed 352,000 or 880Gw’s, 34.54GW’s wind 2.13GW’s turbines needed 140,800 or 352GW’s, 33.38GW’s, wind 2.38GW’s turbines needed 105,600 or 264GW’s.
How many of these turbines will be built within the London metropolis?
I think I can guess…
Date (Cameron) did have one on his house in Notting Hill. Didn’t work very well though, and I think he took it down despite the greenswill attached
And our current 24GW of wind capacity is producing a paltry 1.26GW of electricity at the moment. When will you realise that it doesn’t matter how many turbines you have – if the wind is not blowing you don’t produce any electricity.
“to avoid constraint, there will need to be an application for it at times of low demand (overnight, Sunday morning, etc)”
Don’t worry there are plenty of “applications for it”
The most important will be to recharge the massive electricity storage system we will need to fill the electricity generation shortfall whenever the wind does not blow. The recorded data now shows this is a very significant portion of the year and will probably mean we need to double the number of windmills just to meet this shortfall plus spend substantial amounts on batteries or something not invented yet. UK is regularly generating only 3% of total demand via current Windmills for 1 to 3 day periods. If you double the windmills you will still only generate 6 percent hence the need for back up from who knows where?
There is no economic way of storing the quantities of power involved. You need to have substantially 100% backup capacity from dispatchable sources. Which rather invalidates installing the wind turbines in the first place.
The plan is, EVs on charge will load-share. Millions of EV batteries does give a large buffer capacity in the system, but it could be difficult if you actually expect to use your car after charging….
AC to DC converters do no work in reverse. Separate DC Grid? Add the DC to AC converters? Cost? Grid instability?
[fix the misspelled email address cached in your browser and you’ll stop going into moderation–cr]
That is true, you need two separate power circuits, AC to DC for charging, and DC to AC for discharging.
The AC to DC is by far the easier and cheaper.
AC to DC you just have to rectify, filter and regulate. This can be done in a number of ways. In the old days you would use an analog regulator, but those gave off a lot of heat and were inefficient. But they were dirt cheap.
The newer way is to use digital regulation. To make a long story short, basically whenever the voltage on the output line drops below the regulated value, the switch opens up to allow current to flow from the high side to the low side. With protections built in to prevent over current conditions. Trickier and more expensive, but much more efficient.
Going the other way is much harder. You have to somehow create a 60Hz signal and it has to be a perfect sine wave, no harmonics allowed. Then you have to synch up your sine wave with the sine wave provided by the grid. Then you have to make sure that your sine wave tracks the grid’s sine wave whenever it wanders, even if by just a tiny amount.
From the grid side, you also have the problem of trying to manage millions of independent energy sources, all of which are trying their best (with varying degrees of success) to track to the frequency put out by the grid.
For that matter, what do those who run the grid do, when one of those discrete sources fails, and starts dumping energy onto the grid at whatever frequency and phase it wants to? Are they going to put some kind of circuit breaker and monitoring circuitry at every single garage in the country?
Liberals love to come up with ideas, then wait for someone else to figure out a way to make their ideas work.
You can say all this, but the EV load balancing I described is actually happening now. So it is definitely possible to do it !
You say battery charging requires ac to dc, if charging is from the grid, and battery discharging requires dc to ac, to feed into the grid, which as you show is difficult.
Do this make batteries on electric grids even less efficient?
In Vermont, we get electricity from Hydro Quebec.
It arrives out of phase with the US grid.
The ac is converted to digitized dc, and converted to a synthetic sine wave that matches the US phase.
That station has been in operation over 15 years.
please comment
Why would you want to discharge your battery into the grid? What reduces the life of a battery, charge/discharge cycles. So you buy an expensive car (actually, expensive battery) and you purposely reduce it’s effective life by discharging into the grid. Only true greenies would be so daft.
But, what if?….what if CO2 is not a problem but a benefit?….then all this H2 stuff is not needed…and is wasteful…..like tilting at windmills.
The problem is trhat in the case of Britain, and indeed Japan and many other countries – we do not have access to easily exploitable coal any more, nor really gas, ex of fracking, and that is a political hot potato, so transitioning away from fossil fuel makes economic and security and political sense.
Of course renewables are useless, so it will have to be nuclear.
And gradually greens with half a brain (there are, incredibly, a few) are clamouring for nuclear power.
With electric cars everywhere, I suspect that 30GW and much more will be needed to charge them at night and other off-hours.
I love it when you post these silly arguments, it gives me the chance to post this taken at 14:20, 21/08/21
Enjoy, Griff, mate
As long as the wind is blowing.
You are making the assumption that those periods where the turbines are producing excess energy will be long enough to make a difference.
Griff,
you cannot run any industry, particularly one as demanding on power for the manufacture of hydrogen, it’s just not economical or productive.
It is crazy to build so much wind genertaion to supply a grid that can only accept a limited amount of asynchronous generation.
By the way, this morning (8 am 22nd August) our 25Gwatts wind fleet is producing 1.25 Gwatts of power
“wind fleet is producing 1.25 Gwatts of power”
Ah, more than enough for Doc Brown’s needs. 😉
Where do you get the 40% capacity factor from, that’s only for the best off shore sites. Land based are typically 25% and the majority are currently land based.
40% is BS for offshore as well. Historically my site which monitors these things show that the metered stations – and most of them are now offshore – average about 27%.
Renewable UK always claims 40%, policy is made on that basis, but the reality is, it’s simply a lie. Perhaps in the first year of running in a good wind year the newer ones may reach that, but after a time they break down and fail and the wind drois and and… and…they end up averaging 27% or thereabouts.
They claim one site made 60% load factor just recently.
Over what time frame? It’s possible that for a day or two it was really windy at one location. That’s why load factor has to be calculated over long time periods. Month at a minimum. Year, better.
Yes I gave them 40% which is what you might get offshore. My case is even stronger at 25%, and 50% conversion efficiency Electric to Hydrogen to Electric is optimistic. At these figures the economics look just awful, and they are the best you can get. Real world is much worse
No I think water electrolysis can be 70% efficient at producing hydrogen. You could also use the waste heat for heating buildings nearby so that would be near to 100% efficient use of energy.
There is a question in my mind about this though, and that is the hydrogen has to be compressed to 700psi for vehicle use. It takes a lot of work to compress a gas to that pressure, and I don’t know if they’ve accounted for it.
YES! 100% efficient!! Just 1 % more and this stupid plan will produce EXCESS energy, the proverbial perpetual “energy” machine.
And you only need 1% more so that should be easy enough!
The heat given off is at low temperatures. Capturing and transporting that heat is never easy, and usually isn’t even possible.
You might be able to heat the control room during winter, but that’s about it.
PS: Even during the winter, most control rooms still need to be air conditioned because of all the heat being given off by the equipment.
That’s a very American response if I may say so. Aircon is still not common in the UK. Simple ventilation for most of the year is sufficient in our climate.
Even without the use of waste heat, electrolysis can be 70% efficient. Look it up on Wikipedia.
Offshore wind in the north sea has a larger capacity factor than land-based turbines. It’s averaging 41% if I recall correctly. They say this will increase as technology advances, and a load factor of 51% is built in to the models of future electric supply.
To improve efficiency by 25% for a typical generator would require super conductors, no friction bearings, zero turbulence blades, magic 0% loss transformers and conductors to the point of use and/or other unrealistic NEW technology. Since the MODELS say it will happen, then IT WILL HAPPEN!!.
All they need is a 5 year plan.
So how did they achieve 60% then?
The load factor is mainly governed by the weather, not the technology. If you have the wind blowing within the optimum range of velocities for 60% of the time you will have a c. 60% load factor. Simple as.
First, I trust actual data over your “recollection”.
Second, they say a lot of things, few if any of which have ever come true.
They can build whatever they want into their models, but until they actually produce it, it’s still just make believe.
OK but with this, you are arguing that having a 41% load factor instead of a 51% load factor is a show stopper. It works at 51% but it is completely unfeasible at 41%. It isn’t like that is it.
There is another angle to this Alastair, that would be reducing the population of the UK to numbers that make these figures feasible. Perhaps that is the plan!
If hydrogen is produced using conventional means then it is hugely not “low carbon”. CH4 is used to create hydrogen. It is actually “lower carbon” intensive to burn CH4. Mindless madness, bit like the window tax.
Mind you BoJo does not have his thinking head on right now.
Brains in his bum for what they are. Corbyn would have been better Vote Labour
There is no scenario in which Corbyn could have been better!
agreed . But at least t]a parliamentary opposition would have been howling for his blood and holding him to account
Wow, Griff, we agree on something!
Who hijacked griff’s account?
I think he would strain a gallows less, or a guillotine
Corbyn isn’t in the Labour party is he?
Not sure he’s in charge. Seems to be Princess Nut Nut, the history of Art grad.
Oh yes. I think roasted winter nuts are on the BoJo menu.
Rule by ArtStudent™ is ruining the West
We’ll see.
both blue hydrogen with CO2 storage and renewably generated green hydrogen will be in first phase/ongoing trials.
and under normal circumstances will fail
with subsidies they will still fail but it’ll cost more
CO2 storage is really helping oil companies increase field production and they are even producing “carbon negative” oil. But the subsidies do cost taxpayers more.
Crony capitalism through and through.
Boris started with square eggs, strait bananas, graduated to the Thames estuary airport, London garden bridge, Irish sea tunnel, all long forgotten, hopefully his UK Hydrogen City will end up the same way.
There is no end to genius of our ‘tonto Boris’ the Leonardo of 21 century, who couldn’t tie his own shoelaces properly.
https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/london-mayor-boris-johnson-stops-lace-up-his-shoes-after-meeting-with-picture-id471814630
Whenever a politician claims to be forward looking, he likely has his nose in someone’s ass.
If the use of hydrogen becomes widespread, we can look forward to being entertained by a dense series of James Band scale explosions across the country caused by hydrogen’s unique characteristics.
As I’ve said before, I know a man whose front door was blown off by an exploding oil depot…
Says griff from his prison cell.
Saying that something is possible says nothing about the likelihood! It is what is called an anecdote.
I know a man whose front door was blown off by an exploding oil depot…
I knew three men who were killed by H2S in a settlement tank, so what?
And thats three more than died from radiation at Fukushima, so it must have been a real ‘disaster’ heh?
Three more than died from radiation at Fukushima and Three Mile Island combined.
and more people died at Chappaquiddick than died in Guantánamo.
Both oil and hydrogen can explode, therefore they are equally dangerous.
Is that really the logic you are being paid to push?
I call B.S. griff. Link to the story or we’ll assume this is yet another in a long line of lies from you.
Indeed. History shows you can’t go wrong with assuming anything griff says is a lie until proven otherwise. 99% of the time your assumption will be right (and the other 1% is just blind chance that he happened to accidentally get something correct).
“On the face of it, this vision of a low-carbon future “
Is nuts.
The “hydrogen economy”: the only thing dumber than wind & solar. And of course, that is why it needs lobbyists and government funding. Real economies don’t need government subsidies.
I think the blue hydrogen report referenced covered the US industry?
I note this:
‘Green steel’: Swedish company ships first batch made without using coal | Climate change | The Guardian
The UK is intending to replace 20% of natural gas with hydrogen injected into the natural gas grid. This is already being trialled, all UK boilers built after 1996 can cope with this.
If you look at govt documents, all the hydrogen projects are currently research and trials to see best approach.
The best approach is using CH4 for heating, cooking etc
Efficient and affordable
You’ve been told this before, but why listen to a metallurgist?
Hybrit has produced 100 tonnes of steel using a hydrogen reduction process. Worldwide steel production was 1.87 billion tonnes in 2019.
Hybrit plan on ramping their process up to a piddling 1.3 million tonnes. Others are trying too, but they will all fail to get anywhere near the economies of scale from a blast furnace/basic oxygen furnace (BF/BOF) route.
The thermodynamics are against the hydrogen reduction process and there will never be enough hydrogen produced to meet demand for iron and steel making until nuclear fusion is up and running.
I think nuclear fission is certainly good enough for hydrogen…lets not run before we can walk
The problem is it’s still too expensive with current nukes. Fission is great for base load and we should certainly have more of it in the UK, but using to extract hydrogen from say sea water is still too costly.
If we could get the regulatory cost and build costs down then it might work.
Just what is carbon-free steel? By definition, steel contains carbon and it is the carbon that gives it properties uniquely different from wrought iron.
I read an article about this yesterday, and had the same thought. From what I recall, it’s a different way of processing iron using hydrogen (possibly?) and it creates a spongy iron or something. It sounds dodgy, but apparently works. Volvo are testing it in a prototype.
But no, it’s not actually steel. I wondered why they hate the idea of just using coke to manufacture actual steel, but not burning coal to make it. Carbon in steel is sequestered pretty much forever.
Best approach is to consign the whole plan to the garbage bin along with all the other antiocs of teh climate change committee
Ignore him, people who talk about making steel with hydrogen have never been to a primary or secondary steel mill. They can’t go to a factory and learn something because industry is evil.
So everyone just stop feeding this troll.
There aren’t many steel mills in the UK now.
And the UK Health & Safety Executive has advised that blending hydrogen into the gas grid will cause serious problems for all of our gas-fired power stations. Their recommended “solution” was to install “de-blending” stations on the pipeline to each power plant to remove the hydrogen.
They also commented that, at the higher blending levels, hydrogen would change the flame characteristics in domestic boilers such that regular burner replacement may be necessary.
Simply fairy tales. Reality in the way of the laws of physics will put this to bed. It won’t stop the wasting of huge amounts of taxpayers money on it mind you.
I would say ” will teh last sensible person to leave please turn the lights off” But there is no need . The lights will go off all over europe and America . And they will never come back onm again
On the face of it, this vision of a low-carbon future in some of the most difficult to decarbonise niches of the economy sounds like good news. But is it? And are there other options for delivering net zero that will be better for the public?
The entire notion of a low-carbon future is foolish! We are carbon-based lifeforms, carbon is ubiquitous on Planet Earth, fear of carbon or carbon dioxide is a baseless fear promulgated by twits and nutters who are using fear to further their own treacherous agendas.
There is absolutely nothing about net zero that is a benefit for the public. It is simply a waste of tax money.
Pamela,
New life forms will invented, based on breathing in CO2, and exhausting O2.
The more we burn, the more fuel to breathe, and the more oxygen for burning.
Foolproof?
NO the aim of net zero is to drastically curtail the numbers and well being of the Public . The idea that you can go net zero currently and preserve even a vesige of our society is ludicrous.
First, British L900 million is U$D 1.2 billion (not million), and if you add hydrogen blue/green jobs somewhere else you eliminate methane jobs, and probably not one for one. Natural gas, please, it’s clean enough and produces plant food.
Natural gas is great! And very abundant and cheap. Frack on!
Move the decimal point 3 places here, 3 places there, and pretty soon you’re talking ‘Government Economics’.
What is ‘low carbon hydrogen’?
‘low carbon hydrogen’, not so ‘low carbon hydrogen’ and ‘high carbon hydrogen’ /sarc
I knew a guy who liked to add some iso-octane (2,2,4 Trimethylpentane) to his motorbike’s petrol tank.
Funnily enough, every now and then the gaskets blew.
Branched alkanes give the best bang for the buck.
More catchy phrases to delude the uninformed. We can add it to the list of things like Ocean Acidification.
Tom Baxter’s claim that “Climate Change Committee – a body of experts which advises the government on climate policy” is mistaken. The Climate Change Committee actually dictates policy to the Government, and the Government is legally obliged to obey
The Climate Change Committee is not a body of experts. It’s a body of science denying climate alarmists.
As far as I am aware, the Climate Change Commitee’s recommendations have no legal force.
Yes, they are an advisory body only, but what Selwyn Gummer is qualified to advise anybody on is a mystery.
It sounds like another discussion on whether unicorns are causing huge damage in the world’s forests or whether most of the damage is caused by natural occurrences.
Warmists need lukewarmists to give them the credibility they don’t deserve.
Don’t forget that the level of CO2 in the atmosphere doesn’t matter a toss
Something that isn’t mentioned is that using hydrogen trades H2O for CO2. That means that in urban areas one can expect the relative humidity to increase. In warm weather that means a higher heat index, and in cooler weather, a tendency for mildew to form. One has to look at the big picture and not just focus on removing that ‘evil’ CO2!
And water vapour is a strong greenhouse gas, unlike CO2.
Hydrogen does have some really useful properties. For example, it has the highest thermal conductivity of any gas. It has the highest heat capacity of any gas. This makes it the best gas available for heat transfer. That’s why it’s used in large electric generators for rotor cooling.
The hydrogen tank ‘farm’ where I work is one of those places where we have special rules for working on equipment. For example, you aren’t allowed to use iron or steel tools, as they can produce an inadvertent spark. Instead, all work is done with copper or brass tools. The H2 tank farm is also located far away from anything else, so that if it does go boom damage is limited.
Pure hydrogen will not explode. Hydrogen /air ratios less than about 3% will not explode. Hydrogen /air concentrations between 4% – 75% can explode.
It’s dangerous stuff, people. The molecules are so small they can sift through just about anything. Leaks are hard to find and hard to fix.
Hydrogen is useful for many things, but energy source is not one of them. Any use of pure hydrogen as an energy source is a net loss process. Of course, all energy sources are net loss, but hydrogen is more so. You won’t find hydrogen just laying around, free to use. It’s always locked up in some compound. Ask yourself why. The best compound to use for hydrogen energy is methane. Period. Lots of it is available.
-BillR
South Africa just blew up several billion dollars worth of generator because of the super critical hydrogen cooling.
This by engineers who were supposed to know what they were doing – they had failed to fully purge the Hydrogen before adding air for leak testing.
Putting hydrogen in the hands of the average Joe citizen is foolish and extremely dangerous.
It will all end in tears and a monstrously large series of very deadly bangs.
Reference, please.
https://allafrica.com/stories/202108100671.html
Fortunately nobody died.
Here you go:
https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/limpopo/medupi-power-station-explosion-caused-extensive-damage-says-eskom-3afcef42-cdfd-4637-85e1-612454c9ee7d
Thanks to Peter Barrett and D J Hawkins for answering.
Here’s another one they blew up just using steam power :-
http://nolstuijt.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/duvha-powerstation-turbine-blowup-sa/
A safety test gone wrong (so was Chernobyl).
And that was the second time they had done it.
And we gave these incompetent idiots Hydrogen to play with ?
The outcome was almost guaranteed.
The idea was to overstress the system, and see whether the generator destroyed itself, or if the safety systems prevented that. Which is utterly insane in itself. But then there is this:
“the dude with his finger on the manual trip button wasn’t at his post”
Not to mention there are 6 generators in a row, with no shielding between them, so the first one going boom could have taken out all 6 !
Seriously?
“The strategy also proposes blending natural gas supplies to home central heating systems with 20% blue or green hydrogen. This, it’s reported, will help reduce CO₂ emissions from heating by 7%. “No bad thing”, but are there better ways to use that blue or green hydrogen?”
No bad thing? Spending billions to fart about with 0.0000028% of atmospheric Co2 that must make a difference. What all of this nonsense proves beyond reasonable doubt the difficulty and impossibility of even marginalising 1% of gross Co2 emissions or 0.5% after 50% re absorption. Either Boris is mad or he thinks we are.
26 million UK gas boilers represent 0.00004% of residual atmospheric Co2 whilst all electricity generation in the UK equates to 0.00004% of residual Co2. Only 4.7 million homes in the UK can be retrofitted with ground or air source heat pumps at – according to BBC Panorama – £110,000/home which represents 0.0000072% of residual atmospheric Co2. Maybe 3.2 million homes could use hydrogen which would represent 0.000004% of residual Co2. Together this absurd nonsense would cost billions but would it influence the UK or global climate not a snowballs chance in hell. This is bare faced virtual signalling at our cost with no conceivable benefit to 66 million people in the UK or the environment. We cannot measure the influence of mitigating 0.0000112% of atmospheric Co2.
Why not hydrogen, because the only viable method is steam reformation of methane which is finite like coal and oil. Then we get to hydrogen and the parasitic load. The only viable method of generating hydrogen on a commercial scale is by steam reformation of methane. If you burn 1 ton of methane you emit 2.5 tons of Co2. To get 1 ton of hydrogen by steam reformation you need to burn 3.5 tons of methane and emit 12.5 tons of Co2. If you get frenetic about the myth of Co2 causing apocalypse then you need to deploy CCS at huge expense. To cope with the parasitic load of capture sequestration compression transit and storage under pressure for all time you need to burn another 1.5 tons of methane which makes 5 tons of methane to get 1 ton of hydrogen. At best we have 60 to 100 years of finite methane so if every decided to use hydrogen instead of methane what might have lasted 100 years now lasts 20 years. Boris is nuts, Code Red is nuts, Lord Deben is nuts. This whole climate change fantasy is nuts as the solar example shows we could never do enough because Co2 does not cause climate change. Hydrogen: The once and future fuel (thegwpf.org)
Then we have the nonsense about Cows and Methane. Cows and CH4. Cut meat consumption by 40%. Data tells the truth and numbers do not lie. Total methane emissions from all sources including wetlands and fossil fuels are about 614,000,000 tons/year. Residual atmospheric methane is 0.00018%. 1.4 billion cows emit 86 million tons of methane annually which is 14% of total emissions. Therefore 14% of – residual CH4 – 0.00018% is 0.0000238% that is 2.38 trillionths of atmospheric CH4. Atmospheric methane needs to be at least 100 times more prolific to have even the slightest influence on climate. Insofar as UK cows are concerned which are 0.69% of the global total at 0.0000000229908% of 0.00018%. Methane The Irrelevant GHG. Methane The Irrelevant GHG. (CH4) has narrow absorption bands at 3.3 microns and 7.5 microns (the red lines). CH4 is 20 times more effective an absorber than CO2 – in those bands. However, CH4 is only 0.00018% (1.8 parts per billion) of the atmosphere. Moreover, both of its bands occur at wavelengths where H2O is already absorbing substantially. Hence, any radiation that CH4 might absorb has already been absorbed by H2O. The ratio of the percentages of water to methane is such that the effects of CH4 are completely masked by H2O. The amount of CH4 must increase 100-fold to make it comparable to H2O. Because of that, methane is irrelevant as a greenhouse gas. The high per-molecule absorption cross section of CH4 makes no difference at all in our real atmosphere. It cannot contribute to atmospheric warming or climate change. The UN and the climate cult use ground up emissions without mentioning what happens to Co2 and CH4 after emission.
Then we have the solution carpet the environment supposedly at risk from Co2, that will work? Energy expert Juliet Phillips “Hydrogen makes much less sense where demand can be met by UK’s growing supply of renewable energy with direct electrification”. Especially on those days when the wind doesn’t blow – 1.3 million turbines needed – and a battery to cope with 7 months of consecutive windless days at a cost of £32 trillion does not exist. One more erroneous statement and e3g gets another cheque from Siemens. Another lie. Example: Germany has spent Euros 150 billion on solar panels. If you relate that number to UN beliefs about Co2 then 150 billion might avert the climate crisis for 1 hour. Therefore you could spend Euros 25 trillion to avert the crisis for one week, 100 trillion to avert it for one month or 1.2 quadrillion to avert the crisis for one year. The problem with solar and wind is that they both consume huge acreages of land. 1.2 quadrillion spent on solar panels would carpet 6 quadrillion acres of land but the planet has only 16 billion acres. Amelia Womac green party says “we are not doing enough”. The reality is absurdly obvious now as Boris scurries around clutching at straws just to try and mitigate a thimble full of Co2 is next to impossible. A fully worked Net Zero plan for Australia would cost A$1.13 trillion. Lord Callanan did not refute a cost of £90,000/home for 32 million homes in the UK or £2.9 trillion to pretend mitigation of a fraction of 1% is possible and viable. Germany has already spent at least Euros 1 trillion on wind and solar which in 2020 generated 3.4% of their gross energy demand. Most of the energy generated by wind is given away because it is generated most of the time when Germany cannot use it.
West Australian scientist and versatile expert author David Archibald very effectively pricks the hydrogen balloon as one of 23 authors in Unchain Australia, free to download for all readers of WUWT at http://www.michaeldarby.net/UnchainAust.pdf
Oh dear David You are scientifically literate There is no place for you in our coming world and I fear no one in power is listening to you or me or any of our cohorts. They will learn the futility of it all but I fear that then it will be too late for arguably the best civilization we ever had.
David – it’s actually a bit less effective than you state, surprisingly.
On the attached diagram, where the absorption is already almost 100%, adding more gas that absorbs in those bands will not make very little further difference – it’s already at saturation. Thus adding more CO2, Methane, or Nitrous Oxide will change the absorption from almost 100% to slightly nearer 100%.
About the only thing that will affect the overall absorption on that plot would be Ozone, which is currently absorbing (and thus also sending back to the ground) around 50% at around 10.6 micron wavelength. There’s maybe a slight change at around 2 microns where the water and CO2 bands don’t quite overlap enough (so a slight difference there with changing CO2 level). Maybe you’d also get a bit of Döppler broadening of the 4.2 and 15 micron bands for CO2 too, but that would be hard to measure.
The net result, though, is that adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will make very little difference to the downwelling radiation from the greenhouse gases. The only parts of the bandwidth where you’ll be able to see any difference will be where the absorption is currently less than 100%.
Thus reducing CO2 emissions will not measurably change the greenhouse effect, and will have no measurable effect on the warming. It will have just as much effect as King Canute had in ordering the tides to stay out.
Willis?
The one problem with that chart is that it treats H2O concentrations as an average.
In the tropics, H2O levels in the atmosphere are high, so the H2O absorption is even higher than presented here.
At the poles and over deserts, H2O in the atmosphere is almost non-existent, so the overlap does not occur.
MarkW – good point. I could have been fooled by the average. I know however that some deserts have moisture in the air, just not enough to condense out.
At the poles, humidity is very low, so over this area at least the CO2 change will make a difference. Given the relative areas involved, this would at least reduce the effect by a lot. Thanks for pointing out the error.
This has a lot of truth in it, but you fail to notice that as the IR range is shortened by increased CO2 concentration, more of the IR energy is absorbed in the lower atmosphere. So it does indeed lead to surface warming.
kzb – given that the absortion length is somewhere around 20m at ground level, most of the absorption will happen in the first 100m or so anyway. Not really a lot of practical difference between 100m and 99m.
Doing a proper analysis of this gets a lot more complex than I originally thought, since we’d need to take into account the surfaces and the quantity of water vapour above them, and do that at a high-enough spatial resolution to cover the Earth. There would still need to be average values involved, for example average local water vapour, so still a lot of room for inaccuracies.
Where I started here is with the temperature records since around 1700 and that I can’t see any CO2 signal in that, so that experimentally the CO2 doesn’t have a noticeable effect even though theoretically we ought to be seeing some effect. There’s thus a good chance we’ve missed some important point about what’s happening.
I figure that bringing this up here means more people will think about it and either find errors (as MarkW did) or build on it to produce a useful new idea. I think it’s fairly obvious that the overlapping bands will result in a smaller heating effect for CO2 than the IPCC (and GCMs) expects, but precisely how much smaller needs to be determined.
One thing that dropped out of this was the influence of Ozone, where a variation will have an effect because it is not overlapped and where the current absorption is around 50% (obviously averaged). Thus if we use a lot of Hydrogen, we’re going to have more leaks, and that will rise and reach the Ozone layer. Pretty obviously it will react with the Ozone, too. Thus using Hydrogen could produce larger problems.
One of the major contributors on this site (Wills…?) told us a few weeks back the mean free path of IR is about 300 metres at sea level. A big difference from 20 metres.
Also, it is already built into the climate models, so I don’t know what you are doing different to them.
I do not know what is the effect of hydrogen on the ozone layer. Is there any reason that parts per trillion increases will have any effect one way or the other?
kzb – the mean free path depends on which wavelength you use. It also varies of course with pressure. For the 4.3 micron band it’s down to a few metres at ground level. See https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844018324605 (no paywall and you can download the .pdf, and it’s only 20 pages).
“Absorption coefficients in the band centered at 4.3 mm subject to a chosen optical path length of 10^4 m increase from 0.04m^-1 and 0.165 m^-1 at the tropopause to 0.11 m^-1 and 0.44 m^-1 at the Earth’s surface for carbon dioxide concentrations of 100 and 400 ppm, respectively.” (from the abstract)
Thus at ground level, for the 4.3 micron band, the mean free path would be the inverse of the absorption per metre and be around 2.3 metres. Quite a bit different from 300 metres.
Thus, as MarkW pointed out to me about averages, there’s a problem with just saying the mean free path of IR is x metres. It depends on the wavelength, and whatever you state overall will be an averaged number and thus misleading (and basically wrong). I don’t yet understand enough of the paper I quoted to translate their data into the heating effect. I still need to find out how long the excited states at those bands last before re-radiating the photon they’ve absorbed, since there will be the collisions with other gases to consider, which at sea-level on average happens in around 0.14ns (around a 7GHz rate) so if the collision happens before the decay, the IR photon will be converted to heat in the gas with a certain probability, but if the decay happens first then it won’t. Then we get into statistical maths, which I don’t have any competence in, so I wouldn’t trust my results anyway. Thus useful to flag it up to people who hopefully are competent.
Thus the reason for bringing this up is that there’s obviously some bits missed in the standard treatments, given the variation of absorbance length with wavelength. Stating that the absorbance length for LWIR is 300m is not correct, even though I generally accept what Willis says as being the best-thought-out ideas. Even he can miss things sometimes. In this case, that 300m is an average over the whole band from 70 microns to 2 microns, but within the absorption bands it’s very much shorter.
For the Ozone, given that the current quantity absorbs around 50% within its band, and that band is not much covered by other gases (water absorbs around 10% at that wavelength), changes in Ozone concentration will have an effect in that band, which is pretty close to the maximum power of ground emissions. An interesting point here is that the natural geological process of Olivine changing to Serpentine when exposed to water also releases Hydrogen. Thus with tectonic movements, and possibly random exposures of Olivine to water sources, there’s maybe a natural reason for variations in the Ozone layer apart from solar variations. To find out whether the Ozone variations are actually relevant, we’d need to find out the density measurements and calculate what that translates to as energy reflected back down from the Ozone layer and thus added to the downwelling radiation. It may be irrelevant, but at least it’s been flagged up as something else to consider.
But the griffter wants to experiment…some green and blue…maybe add some pink and purple? He is very generous….wants to conduct this giant H2 experiment to show the world…..give griffter a chance.
In the magic land of Climate Belief, one side of the Energy Mushroom makes you tall, and the other, small. But none of it has anything to do with reality.
Magic land?
Magic mushrooms work better
A review of hydrogen as a fuel by Ulf Bossel et. al. of ABB evaluated the energy requirements of a hydrogen economy from source to consumer and found that the physical properties of hydrogen make a very inefficient system, possibly even negative. Read it at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232983331_The_Future_of_the_Hydrogen_Economy_Bright_or_Bleak
I think we have already seen in posts at this site that wind and solar are net negative for “energy” from manufacture to installation to “production” to decommissioning.
So another “green” energy proposal that is energy negative, what a surprise!
Can you show me the references for this assertion please?
I think that ultimately engineering reality will assert itself over Princess Nutrz gold on Boris balls, and renewable energy will be phased out in favour of nuclear – probably masses of low cost factory produced small modular reactors.
Now there are some interesting adjuncts to nuclear power that are being toted: nuclear power is cheapest if you run the asset flat out 24×7 but that doesn’t match the consumption profile. In the past in the UK we built a few pumped storage stations that would take us through times of peak consumption, but now two other methodologies ae being linked to nuclear.
One is to use gas cooled reactors so the working temeperature is very high, and build a heat bank out of molten salt, which could provide boost power in excess of the reactors rated outpout for a short time, and the second is to dump surplus power into hydrogen production.
I am not a great fan of hydrogen – it’s pretty dangerous and slippery stuff that needs much more care in handling and using than methane or butane, and you still have the problem of Nox production if you use it in a heat engine. And fuel cells have efficiency issues.
Nevertheless with a large amount of the worlds lithium and rare earths having been ceded to China by Sleepy Joe via the Taliban, the future of mass battery cars is looking bleak and hydrogen may be an answer. I think its a rotten answer as hydrocarbon fuels have a far better risk/density/energy profile, but there you are…
Production of hydrogen using reactor heat directly and a catalytic chemical cycle is feasible. Such reactors are on the market. The combined efficiency, i.e producing electricity and hydrogen at the same time, is higher than producing either singly.
Very powerful observations:
The fundamental flaw in the idea of a hydrogen-based energy economy. Being highly reactive, elemental hydrogen, H2, is found in only small quantities in nature on the earth’s surface but is present in a very wide range of compounds. In other words, the hydrogen is not free for the taking, but rather is already combined with something else; and to separate the hydrogen so that you have free hydrogen to use, you need to add energy. Once you have added the energy and you have the free hydrogen, you can burn it. But that’s where the Second Law of Thermodynamics comes in. Due to inevitable inefficiencies in the processes, when you burn the hydrogen, you get back less energy than you expended to free it up. No matter how you approach the problem, the process of freeing up hydrogen and then burning it costs more energy than it generates.
heat pumps take 1 kWh of electricity and convert it to around 3 kWh of heat,
Sounds like a violation of conservation of energy.
It isn’t. They aren’t creating energy, just moving it from one place to another.
As MarkW says, they move the heat around. In some instances they can be very economical. My pool heat pump will generate 6x the power input as long as it’s in air over 10C. Since my shed gets to 30C when it’s sunny in winter, I easily get 6x. It’s way cheaper than a gas heater.
Unfortunately, in the bitter cold of a UK winter, they are almost useless. Underground ones are worse because they cool the ground until they become useless, but for days or weeks, because the thermal inertia of the ground is tremendous.
Heat pumps to not convert electricity, the move heat. Typically from outside your house to inside your house. Unfortunately, it is a low density system with lowish temperatures.
“That’s because heat pumps take 1 kWh of electricity and convert it to around 3 kWh of heat…”
Looks like perpetuum mobile to me.
Music to my ears!
What do you think your fridge and your air conditioning is doing? Heat pumps at so-called “300% efficiency” are not breaking any of the laws of thermodynamics. Please do some research to educate yourself.
No it would not be better to quibble over the economics of hydrogen as fuel in order to minimize CO2 emissions. It WOULD be better to acknowledge CO2 as a life-giving resource to the biosphere of our planet, and accept all emissions thereof, as a good thing, especially since there is not one single credible scientific study that proves CO2 causes near-surface catastrophic warming or that water and water vapor are NOT the drivers of the Earth’s climate.
And it would be particularly bad to artificially pump CO2 underground and store it under pressure. An accidental release of such gas could kill every living thing in the path of an accidentally released CO2 bubble. Such a bubble occurred at Lake Nyos in Cameroon in 1986 due to a limnic eruption from a volcanic lake, causing the suffocation deaths of around 1800 humans and 4000 cattle..
Raise hands:
Who wants a hydrogen pipe into their home?
Griff. Griff does.
Not to mention, the thought of millions of marginally skilled drivers running round with tanks of Hydrogen compressed to 700bar – what could possibly go wrong!!
(Can’t approve this post as you are violating copyright laws by posting more than 20% of the article) SUNMOD
THE HYDROGEN ECONOMY WILL BE HIGHLY UNLIKELY
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/the-hydrogen-economy
As part of the quest of having energy sources that produce near-zero CO2 emissions, energy systems analysts have looked at hydrogen as one such source. They see hydrogen as a possible fuel for transportation.
In California, the hydrogen economy movement has received support, in the form of subsidies and demonstration projects, from the state government and environmental groups, often supported and financed by prominent Hollywood actors.
Current Hydrogen Production: Hydrogen is used by the chemical, oil and gas industries for many purposes. The US produces about 11 million short tons/y, or 19958 million kg/y.
At present, about 95% of the H2 production is by the steam reforming process using fossil fuels as feedstock, mostly low-cost natural gas. This process emits CO2.
Hydrogen for Transportation: Proponents of H2-powered fuel cell vehicles, FCVs, in California think the hydrogen economy will be the future and a good place to start to reduce CO2 emissions from internal combustion vehicles, ICVs, would be to have near-zero-emission vehicles.
Here are examples comparing the fuel cost/mile of an FC light duty vehicle, an E10-gasohol IC vehicle, and an EV:
– Honda Clarity-FCX, using electrolytic H2 in a fuel cell, mileage about 68 mile/kg, or 14.8 c/mile, at a price of $10/kg at a fueling station in California. About $7/kg is electricity cost, and $3/kg is station cost. The H2 is not taxed. The average commercial electricity rate in California is 13.41c/kWh, which ranks 7th in the nation and is 32.9% greater than the national average rate of 10.09 c/kWh.
http://www.airproducts.com/Company/news-center/2017/03/0306-air-products-california-fueling-stations-offering-hydrogen-below-$10-per-kilogram.aspx
http://www.electricitylocal.com/states/california/los-angeles/
– Honda Accord-LX, using E10-gasohol, mileage about 30 mile/gal, or 8.3 c/mile, at a price of $2.50/gal at a gas station in California; this price includes taxes, surcharges and fees.
– Tesla Model S, using 0.38 kWh/mile, includes charging and vampire losses of batteries, at user meter, or 7.6 c/mile, at a price of 20 c/kWh at user meter; this price includes taxes, surcharges and fees.
Electrolytic H2 Production: H2 fueling stations can produce electrolytic H2 at high pressure on site with electricity at commercial electric rates, or H2 can be produced by central plants with electricity at industrial rates (typically lower than commercial rates) and delivered by truck to fueling stations.
The turnkey cost of fueling stations is well over $1 million per site, whereas a multi-bay EV charging station costs about $200k. In early 2017, there were (25) H2 fueling stations in California. FCV drivers must go to an H2 station to refuel. EV drivers have flexibility, as they mostly charge at home, or at work, or at public places, such as shopping malls.
Battery and H2 Storage: California generates significant solar electricity from about 10 am to 2 pm, almost every day, which stresses the electric grid and other generators. The state government has mandated utilities install battery storage systems to store some of that electricity for distribution during peak demand hours later in the day. The round-trip loss of this set-up is up to 20%.
Central H2 plants likely would increase their H2 production from 10 am to 2 pm, if the state would mandate a low electric rate, of say 5 c/kWh, during those hours. This would reduce the need for expensive battery systems and provide lower-cost H2 to FCVs.
NOTE: Whereas EVs and FCVs do not have CO2 emissions, the grid electricity for charging the batteries and producing H2 does have CO2 emissions.
NOTE: The H2 lower heating value is 113819 Btu/kg, which is comparable to the E10-gasohol LLV of 112114 – 116090 Btu/gal. A kg of H2 is about equal to a gallon of E10-gasohol, on a Btu basis. However, H2-powered vehicles have about 2 times the mileage of ICVs, i.e., to displace 1.0 gallon of E10-gasohol, about 0.5 kg of H2 is needed.
NOTE: The purchase price of FCVs and EVs are significantly higher, than of equivalent ICVs, because they are produced in very small quantities per day, whereas ICVs are produced in the thousands per day.
NOTE: In 2015, about 140.43 billion gallons of gasoline were consumed in the United States, a daily average of about 384.74 million gallons.
Lay people are being led to believe the hydrogen economy, i.e., producing H2 by electrolysis from near-CO2-free sources, such as hydro, wind, solar, and nuclear energy, will be a reality in the near future. For that to be true, for this analysis, it is assumed mass production of H2 at a rate of about 375/2 = 187.5 million kg/d would be required.
Replacing Gasoline with Hydrogen For Light Duty Vehicles: Electricity required would be about 187.5 million kg x 60 kWh/kg = 11250 million kWh per DAY, or 4107 TWh/y, at H2 production plant meters, plus 7% for transmission and distribution losses, plus 4.5% for self-use, for a gross generation by power plants of 4107 x 1.07 x 1.045 = 4592 TWh/y, which would be in addition to the current US gross generation of about 4000 TWh/y. The US would need several times that quantity of electricity to produce H2 for powering many other such energy needs! Generating all that electricity with hydro, wind, solar, and nuclear energy would require enormous investments.
Future Production of Hydrogen: Replacing gasoline with hydrogen, just for light duty vehicles, would require an additional H2 production of about (187.5 million x 365)/19958 = 3.43 times existing production; it is highly unlikely this will happen.
Replacing Gasoline With Electricity For Light Duty Vehicles: Electricity required would be about 2,664,445 million miles/y x 0.38 kWh/mile = 1,012,489 million kWh/y, or 1012 TWh/y, at user meters, plus 7% for transmission and distribution losses, plus 4.5% for self-use, for a gross generation by power plants of 1012 x 1.07 x 1.045 = 1132 TWh/y, which would be in addition to the current US gross generation of about 4000 TWh/y. Generating all that electricity with hydro, wind, solar, and nuclear energy would require enormous investments, but much less than using electrolytic H2.
NOTE: At present, the A-to-Z electricity input (not just the process) for electrolytic H2 is up to 60 kWh/kg, depending on the efficiency of the system. The future wholesale prices of the electricity from hydro, wind, solar, and nuclear energy* likely would be 2 – 3 times current prices. That means, the efficiency of the electrolysis process would need to be significantly increased to reduce the cost of the electricity input.
*Those, mostly variable, energy sources would require greatly expanded, nationwide transmission system build-outs, plus distributed energy (thermal and electrical) storage system build-outs to ensure electricity and other energy supply throughout the US, 24/7/365, year after year.
Conclusion: Battery-powered EVs likely will be the dominant mode for light/medium duty vehicles, and for mass transit busses, delivery vehicles, like UPS, etc., in the future. China is building multi-billion dollar battery plants, similar to Tesla’s. H2-FCVs likely will be suitable in certain areas with favorable conditions, such as low-cost electricity.
I wrote this article a few years ago.
No one else owns any copyright
Feel free to use my article on WUWT, as you see fit