Essay by Eric Worrall
According to Bloomberg, the miracle fuel has some drawbacks; Hydrogen leaks could have a powerful impact on global warming.
Miracle Fuel Hydrogen Can Actually Make Climate Change Worse
If it escapes into the air, this green fuel can contribute to global warming — which is why scientists say we need to limit leaks.
By David R Baker
31 May 2022, 14:01 GMT+10A world desperate for a climate-friendly fuel is pinning its hopes on hydrogen, seeing it as a way to power factories, buildings, ships and planes without pumping carbon dioxide into the sky.
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“The potency is a lot stronger than people realize,” said Ilissa Ocko, a climate scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, a non-profit group. “We’re putting this on everyone’s radar now not to say ‘no’ to hydrogen but to think about how we deploy it.”
Hydrogen doesn’t trap heat directly, the way CO₂ does. Instead, when leaked it sets off a series of chemical reactions that warm the air, acting as an indirect greenhouse gas. And though it cycles out of the atmosphere far faster than carbon dioxide, which lingers for centuries, it can do more damage than CO₂ in the short term. Over 20 years, it has 33 times the global warming potential of an equal amount of carbon dioxide, according to a recent UK government report. Over hundreds of years, carbon is more dangerous, due to its longevity.
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“It doesn’t mean it’s not still important, it doesn’t mean we don’t need to understand more about it, but our first impression is it’s much, much smaller,” said Edwards, a director with the company and its chief hydrogen advocate in the US. Hydrogen leaks, he said, “are manageable problems to address.”
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Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-05-31/hydrogen-fuel-investments-could-risk-making-global-warming-worse
Reading further, the claim is Hydrogen extends the longevity of atmospheric methane. Although atmospheric methane concentrations are very low, according to the EPA methane is estimated to be 27-30 times more capable of trapping heat than CO2.
If there is one thing hydrogen can do, that is leak. Hydrogen attacks many metals and embrittles them – increasing the risk of fracturing and cracks. In addition, hydrogen is incredibly difficult to contain, far more difficult to methane – tiny hydrogen molecules find their way out of any defects in the containment system.
Personally I think the hydrogen economy push is an episode of lunacy which will end badly. Hydrogen is difficult to handle safely, even in an industrial setting, so any attempt to implement a large scale consumer hydrogen economy seems likely to go up with a bang.
From BOC factsheet on Hydrogen.
5. FIRE FIGHTING MEASURES
5.1 Extinguishing media
Stop flow of gas if safe to do so, such as by slowly closing the cylinder valve. If the gas source cannot be isolated, do not extinguish the flame, since re-ignition and explosion could occur. Await arrival of emergency services or manufacturer’s advisor. Drench and cool cylinders with water spray from protected area at a safe distance. If it is absolutely necessary to extinguish the flame, use only a dry chemical powder extinguisher. Avoid shock and bumps to cylinders.
5.2 Special hazards arising from the substance or mixture
Extremely flammable. Eliminate all ignition sources including cigarettes, open flames, spark producing switches/tools, heaters, naked lights, pilot lights, mobile phones etc. when handling.
5.3 Advice for firefighters
Hydrogen will form explosive mixtures in air. Temperatures in a fire may cause cylinders to rupture and internal pressure relief devices to be activated. This product will add fuel to a fire. Cool cylinders exposed to fire by applying water from a protected location. Do not approach cylinders suspected of being hot.
5.4 Hazchem code 2SE
Read more: https://www.boc-gas.com.au/en/images/Hydrogen%20SDS_tcm351-496575.pdf
2 Fine Water Spray.
S Risk of violent reaction or explosion. Wear full fire kit and breathing apparatus. Dilute spill and run-off. E Evacuation of people in and around the immediate vicinity of the incident should be considered.
Sounds like just what you want parked in your carport, right?
If I had to choose between hydrogen, lithium batteries or the distant third contender, toxic and corrosive ammonia, my choice would “none of the above”.
I find moments like this intensely frustrating. Watching the momentum gathering for a hydrogen vehicle economy is like watching a family vehicle full of kids driving full speed towards a broken bridge, and being powerless to warn them to stop. Early adopters are going to accept the assurances and park these ticking time bombs in their homes, without understanding the risks. Entire families are likely going to die because of this idiocy.
My hope is if enough of us speak up and point out the problems to our friends, and their friends, we can at least hope to mitigate the damage, to bring forward the day of awakening, and reduce the number of deaths.
The tragedy of it all is that there seems to be no reasoning with the fully committed anti-fossil fuel mentality. And just think of all that natural gas, well-understood and useful, sitting down there doing nothing for us. Insane.
It’s very hard to extinguish the flame when you cannot see it as the flame is colourless..
Just add some chlorine into the mix – that should help the color issue.
I like it.
You get a mix of chlorine gas and a whole slew of various chlorine oxides in the engine’s exhaust gas.
What’s not to like?
And in the case of a leak, you get this wonderful Happy Colored fireball.
“There are no mistakes, just Happy Accidents”
The Joy of Painting, Bob Ross (PBS)
It will certainly resolve the dilemma:
The article also does not mention that pressurized hydrogen gas suddenly released into air has the probability to spontaneously ignite without the presence of any physical ignition source. See doi 10.1080/00102200600713583 and many of the subsequent computational and experimental studies that have followed.
I seem to recall from high school chemistry that a hydrogen/oxygen mix can spontaneously ignite at -200 degC in the dark.
Hydrogen is the fuel cell of the future. It ain’t gonna happen
Let’s ban it now!
Fuel cell technology continues to evolve especially for SOFC, which can be used with multiple types of fuels.
As transportation fuel, hydrogen lacks density, even as a cryogenic liquid. Add in all the handling difficulties, and it is even more of a terrible choice
Indeed. I wouldn’t bet more than a friendly coffee, but as far as I can tell, converting electrolyzed hydrogen to ammonia is the current favorite alternative. example
It’s one of those things that might work technically, but would turn out to be an economy destroying civilization collapser.
Ammonia manufacture and pipe transport is already a VERY BIG BUSINESS in terms of supplying the world with fertilizer! Yes it is toxic, but industry has handled those issues well historically. Hydrogen is already being shipped from the middle east to Japan with the intent for use in power generation as “blue” ammonia, and very large scale PV solar is being pursued to produce green ammonia. At the same time, some are concerned similar to the carbon cycle concerns about the life cycle of nitrogen if large scale use of ammonia for both fertilizer and power were to occur,
That is why ammonia is being considered as a hydrogen carrier for the marine industry….energy density and no cryogenics are necessary. Ammonia has other problems of concern for personal use in transportation. But methanol, though low in energy density, or a higher carbon number hydrocarbon, (greater than C4) can be used as a hydrogen carrier, AS LONG AS the carbon contained is offset elsewhere. The current “hail Mary”, and it is a long one, is that CO2 can be scavenged from the atmosphere to provide the carbon. The real issues are that hydrogen on a large scale basis for use by the public in transportation or otherwise lacks key technological solutions to distribution and storage. It is not tenable to distribute cryo hydrogen on a very large scale without increasing emissions from highway transport to supply it. Moreover, storage requires constant use of the facility to keep it cool or cryo regeneration. The hydrogen “economy” on large scale is a very long way off………
What H2 lacks in density per volume, it makes up for in density per mass. But that is not nearly as useful and energy per volume. For a real comparison, look at battery energy density per mass or volume. Li-Ion batteries have about 300 W-h per kg energy content. This is about 1 MJ/kg energy density. Compare this to hydrocarbon fuels which have 44 MJ/kg energy density. And far easier handling and safety than either H2 or Li-Ion batteries.
So the question is, is H2 better to use as a fuel directly in a fuel-cell application or is it better to reduce something (CO2, or even crude oil) with H2 making a liquid transportable fuel that is a drop-in replacement for existing fuels in every way? I vote for the latter if we have to use H2 at all.
“A world desperate for a climate-friendly fuel is pinning its hopes on hydrogen,”
**********
Desperate for a climate-friendly fuel? Desperate?
Considering that the climate alarmist narrative ranks low on concern list of the public, I’m not sure that “desperate” is the right word here. With all the attention that high gasoline and diesel prices are currently getting, it might be better to say that the public is desperate for cheaper prices for current transportation fuels.
Considering that hydrogen burns invisibly (or nearly so), I am not exactly pinning my hopes on hydrogen replacing gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel. And I haven’t forgotten the Hindenburg disaster either.
The editorializing of David Baker in this piece definitely leaves something to be desired.
It’s an opinion piece by a ‘would be’ fiction novelist. I can’t call it science fiction because there is no science in the writing. Call it fantasy.
Penthouse forum.
H2……Hmmmmmm….is that the stuff produced when one of those high pressure water cooled nukes melts down?…..and accumulates in the enclosed structure until…..ignition? In other news, Popular Science mag has an article about the PETM….the last time earth was hot…very hot….and it’s a scary tale…..even though no Bad Fossil Fuel Men were around…it could happen again you know….scary scary scary. Oh, it also reveals that plants are less nutritious as more CO2 becomes available…..who knew? Therefore, you just can’t win….CO2 is bad bad stuff.
Hydrogen leaks are bad.. said the captian of the Hindenberg.
Famous last words.
Someone should inform Popular Science that the PETM ‘hot house’ had nothing to do with CO2 (it varied from 600 to 1200 ppm with little change in temperature) and everything to do with plate tectonics that allowed unimpeded ocean circulation at the equator versus no ocean circulation at the poles.
“even though no Bad Fossil Fuel white Men were around”
Fixed!
How about a car that burns boron?
Boron: A Better Energy Carrier than Hydrogen?
Boron: A Better Energy Carrier than Hydrogen? (28 February 2009) (eagle.ca)
No way, too expensive and difficult to recycle….
What doesn’t cause global warming?
CO2
Celebrities and politicians flying around talking about global warming and all COP conferences.
They are entitled and/or exempt.
“If I had to choose between hydrogen, lithium batteries or the distant third contender, toxic and corrosive ammonia, my choice would “none of the above”.”
So, I clicked on the link to toxic and corrosive ammonia. The linked article mentioned toxcity but did not discuss it. It was actually quite positive about ammonia.
Just saying that something is toxic and corrosive is dispositive of anything. Water is toxic and corrosive. Ammonia is safe enough that it is hauled around over the highways in large tanker trucks and stored at many farms and industrial facilities.
I agree that hydrogen is impossible to store or transport. The only thing it could possibly be used for is to act as a feed stock to make something useful. Ammonia is useful. It can be stored and transported.Further, the other ingredient, nitrogen, is ubiquitous.
How many of those ammonia users BURN it?
Ammonia is a key ingredient in making fertilizer – Ammonium Nitrate, which used to be freely available in very cheap 50lbs bags. Until the government decided we couldn’t be trusted with it.
Think they are going to let you get hold of large quantities of ammonia when the nitrogen part is 78% of the air surrounding us?
Walter, the link was to an article promoting ammonia, to demonstrate it is under consideration. I didn’t expect anyone to question whether ammonia is toxic and corrosive.
If you have any doubts get hold of a bottle of ammonia floor cleaner, and use a dash of it in hot water to clean a floor. I regularly use ammonia solution to clean the pet area – ammonia is great for this because it is good at dissolving biological oil and other residues. Ammonia itself doesn’t leave a residue – when the cleaning liquid dries, ammonia is a gas, it just evaporates.
But even a dilute solution, an ounce of dilute ammonia, wreaks absolute havoc on your nose and lungs, and your hands if you spill any on your skin. Those same properties which make it a great cleaner also make it good at damaging your body tissues. You would want to keep the door open and make sure the area is well ventilated while you are working. Don’t spend too long in the work area. Make sure the pets don’t get locked in the room until all ammonia cleaning fluid residue has evaporated.
Bear in mind this havoc is what probably a teaspoon of pure ammonia can do to the environment.
Now imagine a pressurised tank containing 40-50 litres of pure ammonia rupturing and filling your house. You’d all be dead, a horribly agonising death of indescribable pain, before you could reach the door.Your neighbours might survive, if they were quick – ammonia is lighter than air, but only just, so it would likely contaminate quite a large area and make the air unbreathable.
“And though it cycles out of the atmosphere far faster than carbon dioxide, which lingers for centuries“
I call BS.
Exactly. From what is known, hydrogen is actually a coolant to the atmosphere. But, like oxygen, the hydrogen molecule will be split by photons and most likely catalyzed by particulates. These hydrogen radicals will quickly react with oxygen radicals and OH radicals to make water. There is no way it would last very long.
Pile one energy conversion atop another. Each one one meant to ameliorate some problem caused by the one before. Each gives the 2nd law of thermo another little bite of available energy until our energy inputs per unit of production are many times more than what they once were. This has the potential to be a great poverty producer.
This is devoid of any understanding how Earth’s energy balance is controlled.
Deep convection rejects all energy input to open ocean surfaces once the surface temperature reaches 30C.
Open ocean surface simply cannot exceed 30C for sustained periods beyond a few days with the current atmospheric mass.
All climate models have this wrong. Actual measured compared with absurd modelled temperature for Nino4 region of the Pacific attached.
All climate models have the same warming trend for this region but the present temperature yearly average varies between the models from 27C to 29C.
The safest way to transport hydrogen is to mix it with a bit of carbon. 4:1seems to work quite well, or should I say 1:4
Beat me to it!
And me!
“Hydrogen is difficult to handle safely, even in an industrial setting.” But so are a lot of chemicals that we use everyday. The answer is to develop proper safety protocols not just to give up and claim that it will never work. Toyota for example have developed safe fuel cells that can withstand a high velocity gunshot from close range. BOC for example is confident enough that it will sell you a tank of hydrogen and deliver it anywhere.
And as for the claim that “Entire families are likely going to die because of this idiocy” I could
make the same claim about easy access to gun is the US and be proven right week after week but nobody appears to want to do anything about it. So I guess some forms of idiocy are ok.
You are allowed to post here, so I’d say yes to the last line?
Like most socialists, Izaak is only smart enough to handle one side of any given argument.
As to guns, 100 years ago, guns were much more common in the US. Other than fully automatic weapons, there were no restrictions on their purchase or ownership. You could buy one through the mail if you wanted to. Kids would routinely take guns to school, either to use in their shooting clubs, or so they could hunt on the way home.
Despite the panicked bleatings of the various liberal sheep, the incidence of people being killed through the use of guns was very, very low. Many times lower than today.
So it is quite obvious, that despite the brain dead meanderings of the modern liberal mind, guns are not the problem. People are the problem. Something has changed in society over the last 100 years that causes people to want to kill each other at a much higher rate.
Even if it were possible to eliminate guns, people would still try to kill each other.
Beyond that, it is impossible to eliminate guns. In Mexico, owning guns is outlawed with stiff penalties for those caught, yet every gang is heavily armed.
Anyone with a few thousand dollars worth of machine tools can start churning out as many guns as he wants.
Two things to note about the recent shootings.
1) Every single one of them has occurred in a place where guns are forbidden.
2) Every single one of them was ended when a good guy with a gun showed up.
The problem is that because of draconian gun laws, it takes too long for a good guy with a gun to show up.
I just love telling college students (I go to “night” classes) about when I was in high school in the 1980’s – guns were everywhere on the school property. There was skeet shooting, gun safety classes, marksmanship competitions, and several would bring rifles in their trucks to go hunting after class.
And nobody died.
I don’t care what the so-called “educated psychologists” say, but I firmly believe that the phenomenon of regular school shootings has been a direct result of the glorification (without consequence) of vigilante justice by Hollywood and the video game industry. I think that kids these days believe that the only way to solve their “problems” is to grab a gun and go “first person shooting”.
There has also been the problem of socialists telling kids that they are entitled to a world without problems, and if there is something wrong in their lives, it is someone else’s fault.
Socialists are also big on hating anyone who disagrees with them or anyone who has something that they want.
Now that’s real progress! An automaker has designed a fuel containment vessel that can survive a drive through Chicago!
I wonder how heavy those bullet proof tanks are?
Sound like they would be even heavier than a battery for a Tesla.
From what I have seen in the push for hydrogen fuels, they claim that the only residue from burning it is water or water vapour (sic – I’m an Aussie).
From Wiki:
Also from Wiki:
Once we are all using hydrogen as a fuel, human activity is going to directly affect in a more serious manner than they currently estimate.
When water vapour concentration in the atmosphere reaches the dew point, it condenses out as liquid water (rain) or the colloid known as fog or cloud. No matter how much more you add, more just rains out. The.CO2-absorbing gaseous phase cannot increase without bound, unlike the case with GHGs that do not condense at ordinary temperatures and pressures.
According to the Climate Alarm movement, we have a crisis. That crisis is based on their atmospheric warming concerns. They, are primarily anxious about the lower atmosphere warming up from the uncomfortably cool average of 15 deg. C, to the slightly less uncomfortable 16.5 deg. C.?
They have convinced themselves and too many others in positions of authority, this warming situation is a problem?
They have further advanced the hypothesis, the warming is being caused by the human habit of using energy that releases CO2 into the atmosphere.
Despite the absence of any correlation, between the increasing CO2 and the change in temperature over the past 150 years.
This absence of correlation matters.
The Alarmists have forced society to ban CO2 evolving energy sources, in favour of unreliable CO2 free energy (at the point of production) options.
Nuclear which is the only reliable alternative to fossil fuel is also to be banned by the alarmists movement, for reasons not related to climate? Let us park that for the moment.
To solve the energy crisis, (which they have generated) the alarmists want to use an energy option, hydrogen, that does not exist without humanity generating it, using yet more energy.
To produce hydrogen requires more energy that it can yield.
Perhaps the alarmists can give the ‘sceptics’ that do not believe the crisis exists, i.e. those of us who understand science and engineering, how their go to energy choice hydrogen, can possibly help power the world’s needs?
All observations and calculations show, it will make the world poorer in energy terms, also economically poorer. The unhelpful restrictions (essential for safety) placed on the use of the highly expensive/explosive hydrogen fuel, means it will only be an option in highly controlled societies.
Is that what this is all about?
The hydrogen subsidy farmers will do very well though. The technology is already proven with a AUD14.5M plant in South Australia producing 20kg/hr. Enough to heat about 400 homes in southern Australia at a capital cost of AUD36,000 per household.
Of course this excludes and operating costs and assumes no further capital is required for the W&S generators.
So the question simply gets down to what level of subsidy/transfer payment will make it profitable for the hydrogen farmers. A scale up of the plant is already in the pipeline. As are a few of similar scale in different locations.
There are already hydrogen vehicles exploding – https://energynews.biz/hydrogen-bus-catches-fire-in-the-netherlands/
An indirect greenhouse gas. As opposed to a ‘direct greenhouse gas’, whatever that is.
Methinks it is an indirection to hide the fact that the author doesn’t like hydrogen, but can’t tell us precisely why. Wonder who pays for such nonsense.
I am terrified, aren’t you?
The greens don’t want us to use any fuel. They believe they can live a 21st century lifestyle in vegan agrarian cooperatives. You know, like Pol Pot.
The problem is that they believe that THEY can live a 21st century lifestyle while the rest of us are forced into vegan agrarian cooperatives.
Are the Climate Activists brainless?
Presently the United States consumes 122 Quadrillion Btus [that is 122 with 15 zeros or 122,000,000,000,000,000 Btu] of energy per year. Easily double that for the rest of the world. Been to long since my Advanced Thermo course to do the math to determine how many BTUs are obtained by burning a mole of H2 to determine how much H2 is needed to create a Quadrillion BTUs, but that is a lot of moles of H2 that needs to be produced and then burned. And an awful lot that is needed just to obtain the H2. Then there is the necessary construction of tanks and pipelines and pumps that will withstand the pressure and not be degrades by H2 embrittlement, and their required replacement. Also, the H2 effect on whatever it is burnt in. Offhand I would say this is a lost cause!
One thing I clearly remember from my Nuclear power experience is that about every three or four years from 1964 through 2010 when I retired, they discovered another type of corrosion/embrittlement of the coolant system on the reactor vessel, piping and fuel rods. And there were many years of research before 1964. Each one of those discoveries cost the Nuclear Power Industry BILLIONS! To assume this will not occur with any new brainstorm is very naive.
I just heard an interesting piece on the news. Someone at Ford was predicting a price war for electric cars. Apparently there is a new chemistry that allows the batteries to be much cheaper. Maybe it’s this.
All the interesting, promising, new energy technologies I’ve followed in the last couple of decades have failed, mostly at the stage between a successful pilot plant and mass production. So, as far as a new battery technology goes, I’m not holding my breath. It sure sounds interesting and promising though. 🙂
Here’s a golden piece of wisdom I picked up at a seminar back in the 1970s:
There are liars.
There are damned liars.
And then there are battery chemists.
Uhh, I call bullshit on both the UK study and the author’s conclusions about hydrogen.
HELOOO! Do you not realize that hydrogen is a key ingredient in petroleum refining, and is already, for more than a century now, a massively employed industrial gas. Whatever leakage there can be, already is and has been for 120+ years now. If the writers and readers at WUWT think that global warming is all bullshit and made up – which it is – then hydrogen obviously causes no additional impacts.
When it comes to “fighting climate change” all of the policies are directed at you and me! All goods in USA, all farming equipment, all trains, all planes, all ships, all electricity rely on fossil fuel. At this point there’s nothing to transition to! Pity the “leaders” who don’t know the depth of anger they’ve caused, they won’t be in office for long!
Typical bad science reporting from Bloomberg. Saying CO2 “traps heat directly” is too nonsensical and meaningless to warrant a response. Claiming CO2 lingers for centuries in the atmosphere is simply wrong and is not even in the ballpark. The average residence period of CO2 is contentious but only bout whether it is less than 10 years or slightly longer. The assumption made by the IPCC of a 50-year life is just that, an assumption with no empirical evidence. All the empirical evidence taken together gives an average of 5.4 years.
According to Bloomberg, the miracle fuel has some drawbacks; Hydrogen leaks could have a powerful impact on global warming.
My first thought was it would have “a powerful impact” on anyone nearby when it went off having seen some videos of people playing with H2 and similar gases they certainly are powerful.
James Bull