Essay by Eric Worrall
Who could have guessed than an absurdly expensive and suicidally dangerous green vanity fuel would falter in the face of other vanity fuel projects?
Hydrogen and net zero dream at risk without financial help: report
By Shane Wright
February 24, 2023 — 12.01am…
Australia last year set itself the goal of being one of the world’s three largest hydrogen exporters over the coming decade, with a further aim of using the energy source to supply clean and green power to an emerging manufacturing sector. Many of the gains are expected to flow to regional areas now dependent on fossil fuels.
…
But the Deloitte analysis shows many of the expectations around an Australian hydrogen industry have been dealt a blow by US President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act passed last year, which contained $580 billion in support for clean manufacturing.
The various subsidies in the new laws are expected to make renewable US hydrogen the cheapest in the world while drawing in investment that otherwise could have flowed to nations such as Australia.
…
Read more: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/hydrogen-and-net-zero-dream-at-risk-without-financial-help-report-20230223-p5cmvd.html
None of these projects make economic sense. If they made economic sense, they wouldn’t need government money.
But this hasn’t stopped a bizarre fantasy economy from developing, an international subsidy give-away war, in which politicians compete to make their green energy export plans seem more credible. I mean, everyone is going to end up looking pretty stupid, if after the subsidised factory is built, the politicians who bet their reputations on the project can’t even give the hydrogen away.
Having said that, I doubt the hydrogen automobile revolution will be a part of our lives for very long. From the US Government Occupational Health and Safety Administration;
Hydrogen Fuel Cells: Fire and Explosion
Hydrogen used in the fuel cells is a very flammable gas and can cause fires and explosions if it is not handled properly. Hydrogen is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas. Natural gas and propane are also odorless, but a sulfur-containing (Mercaptan) odorant is added to these gases so that a leak can be detected. At present, it is hard to tell if there is a hydrogen leak because it has no odor to it. Hydrogen is a very light gas. There are no known odorants that can be added to hydrogen that are light enough to diffuse at the same rate as hydrogen. In other words, by the time a worker smells an odorant, the hydrogen concentrations might have already exceeded its lower flammability limit.
Hydrogen used in the fuel cells is a very flammable gas and can cause fires and explosions if it is not handled properly. Hydrogen fires are invisible and if a worker believes that there is a hydrogen leak, it should always be presumed that a flame is present. When workers are required to fight hydrogen-related fires, employers must provide workers with necessary protective gear to protect them from such invisible flames and potential explosion hazards. There are several OSHA standards that may apply to employers who produce or use hydrogen.
Source: https://www.osha.gov/green-jobs/hydrogen/fire-explosion
The plan is, vehicles containing 10s of litres of compressed gas which is capable of leaking through the tiniest crack, has no smell, cannot be reliably odourised to warn people of leaks, burns with a flame so hot that it is invisible, ignites and explodes violently with a very low activation threshold, over a wide range of hydrogen / air mixtures, will be parked adjacent to and sometimes inside the builtin carports in people’s homes.
If you suspect an automobile hydrogen leak, you are supposed to what? Call the fire brigade and explain you have a bad feeling? Because you won’t be able to see the fire, or even tell for sure it is there, unless you get close enough to be incinerated. Do you don specialist safety equipment whenever you want to go for a drive, just in case? Who is going to provide the training in the use of the safety equipment? Do you inspect your vehicle every morning using infrared or ultraviolet goggles, or whatever is required to make those terrifying hydrogen fires visible?
And whatever you do, don’t let your husband or wife’s EV be parked next to your hydrogen car. No insurance policy will cover that, at least, not after the first few “incidents”.
We surely live in interesting times.
Gee! Hydrogen almost makes large Lithium batteries seem safe.
from CNN today:
I remember being told how great the F-150 Lightning was going to be. Maybe wait on reality instead of buying the hype?
French so called “far right” (RN, Rassemblement National) party doesn’t like electrochemical energy storage, but ostensibly supports… hydrogen!
If they want to “supply clean and green power” they won’t get it from hydrogen.
They won’t get any energy FROM Hydrogen, period. It’s an energy sink, not an energy source. And not a good substitute for any fuel, given its characteristics.
There may, in fact, be large natural subterranean hydrogen reservoirs.
https://www.science.org/content/article/hidden-hydrogen-earth-may-hold-vast-stores-renewable-carbon-free-fuel
This would be significant, if real. But the best use of it would be to convert coal into gaseous or liquid hydrocarbon fuels, and nitrogen into ammonia and other amines.
Green vehicles for the future: Europe and USA good old horse power carts, for Australia perhaps kangaroo carts.
I;m not sure the suspension could handle a kangaroo leap, Vuk 😉
Well, we already have Leftist kangaroo courts.
Care to beat this?
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2023/02/charges-dropped-for-head-slam-victoria-police-andrews-enforcer.html
I didn’t understand much of the Australian slang. It appears there is a dispute about the amount and extent of the loopy (off his meds) guy’s irrational behavior and his screaming and bluff-rushing of police lines. Exactly what happened to provoke the tackle is not mentioned. I’d go for disciplining the LEO for violation of standard practice. Firing and prosecution seems a stretch … pobody is nerfict.
Good advice, Eric, “stay away from these rolling hydrogen MOAB’s”.
ROFL 🙂
There are a variety of sensors that are useful for detecting hydrogen leaks and flames. Sometimes a hydrogen flame will atomize some metal and this will help in its visual detection in low light, but not in sunlight. Water can be seen to condense on cold surfaces if a hydrogen flame is present.
I use hydrogen for several analyzers and also for glassblowing quartz. An oxygen/hydrogen flame is needed to get hot enough to melt quartz.
What scares me most is that a hose will rupture or otherwise fail and lead to accumulation of an explosive atmosphere. It doesn’t take much volume of hydrogen to pack a lot of potential and kinetic energy.
Years ago I had a gas cigarette lighter that it was said used a platinum wire as an ignition source. How about wrapping all the pipes and hoses in platinum wool with embedded sulfur sparklers to warn of any leaks? :<) (/s if needed)
But it diffuses away so rapidly that it doesn’t remain a combustible mixture for very long. Hydrogen gas used to be supplied to houses in the UK in the form of ‘town gas’ for many years without issue, methane in the form of ‘natural gas’ which replaced it was more of a hazard.
Town gas was a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen in roughly equal quantities by volume. Thus, town gas was highly toxic.
As the saying goes to put ones head in the gas oven…
I had an on farm experience many years ago, having to leave a bin before getting gassed by an improperly ventilated grain loader engine.
It is amazing to me that anyone would hold up the original ‘Town Gas’, a mixture of H2 and toxic CO, as an indication of how safe H2 must be!
One “tech point” here is that it is apparently possible to produce “town gas” that is mostly natural gas with maybe just a bit of hydrogen, https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Town_gas . Since this is basically just getting usable methane from crude oil, this probably won’t encourage any hydrogen fuel proponents however.
Town gas ended the lives of many people, mostly because of its carbon monoxide content as strativarius mentions.
Mercaptan odorants were eventually added to natural gas to aid leak detection. I seem to recall an explosion in a Texas school in the 1930’s that killed many students, which accelerated efforts to improve safety.
Added: the New London School explosion occurred in 1937 and killed 300 students.
https://www.odorizationbymrr.com/new-london-school-disaster-and-natural-gas-odorization/#:~:text=When%20Did%20We%20Start%20Odorizing,leak%20caused%20a%20huge%20explosion.
An old hydrogen plant operator’s trick is to hold cardboard in front of you so you don’t inadvertently walk through or put your arms through a hydrogen flame while doing your equipment maintenance or inspection rounds.
I was somewhat aghast seeing a relatively small flame shooting out of a refinery unit for the first time, whereby the temperature of the product inside the unit exceeded its autoignition temperature.
Such leaks were usually of little concern and would be taken care of during turnarounds.
Similarly, Navy steam boiler technicians used broom handles to locate the invisible steam leaks. The steam would cut the handle in half.
You have re-ignited (pun intended) my memories of performing electrical rounds through boiler rooms when I was in the navy. The thought of losing body parts from high pressure, super-heated steam made the job very interesting, especially when having to stick an arm into an out-of-sight space to feel if a motor is overheating or not.
It’s a bit ironic that water vapor is a potent GHG. You have wonder the effect on a dense urban area run mostly on hydrogen?
in reality, i doubt if the effect of burning hydrogen would be much more than burning HC based fuels today (most are predominately Hydrogen combined with less Carbon..i.e. CH4, C3H8, C4H10 etc) or, for tat matter, the amount of water vapour added to the local atmosphere with the evaporation of overnight dew in the morning..All well within the natural variation of water vapour in the atmosphere
Dear kevd114,
The answer is we need less hype about H2 and more hype about CO2.
Carbon dioxide captured by plants produces cellulose and lignin. These can be compressed very tightly in the paddock or in a factory using renewable energy, cooked a little in the process to remove water, so it comes out looking like an energy-dense black rock.
The rock can then be burned in a furnace to produce heat. (Mr Green don’t eye-off Greta, she’s boring and not for the daring, and you need to follow this.)
The heat of combustion of the rock can be used to produce steam, which in-turn turns turbines hooked to generators and the resulting electricity fed into the grid, where some can be used to compress cellulose and lignin, produced by plants, using CO2 and water …..
So, what is so hard about that?
Dr Bill Johnston
(www.bomwatch.com.au)
The elephant in the room, for my money, is hydrogen embrittlement.
Who has an answer for that? And what exactly is it?
There is no answer. Hydrogen embrittlement occurs in steels because hydrogen molecules are small enough to enter the metal between crystal boundaries where it reacts with the iron to produce very weak bonds. The metal gradually becomes much weaker, and stresses (such as internal pressure in pipes) cause structural failure.
David CEng.
There are alloys that are less sensitive to hydrogen embrittlement, although they tend to be more expensive than carbon steel. Aluminum is also a good material though its use is rated for lower temperature and pressures.
IMO, vessel leaks are less problematic than human process error.
Plastics.
Not much good, of course, if you want a material requiring metal properties.
There are a couple more problems rarely mentioned with hydrogen.
Firstly, it is not a ‘clean’ source of energy for vehicles. Used in an internal combustion engine lubricants from the cylinder bores, valve trains etc. will be burned in the combustion process just as it is with a petrol or diesel car. Not much admittedly but its still there.
Secondly, the combustion of hydrogen is more violent than the ‘burn’ of petrol or diesel and shortens the lives of engines quite considerably. The solution, of course, is to make the engines more robust and heavier, but that’s counter productive.
Were hydrogen the solution to anything, don’t we imagine big oil would have been all over it generations ago?
Hydrogen is valuable and needed for hydrotreating, amazingly enough, e.g., to remove sulfur, nitrogen and oxygen from fuel feedstocks. In fact, there are hydrogen pipelines in heavy petrochemical areas, e.g. Pasadena, Texas.
Nearly all of it comes from steam methane reforming.
Add to your list of problems:
During the fueling process with pre-cooled hydrogen, cold hydrogen flows through the fueling nozzle at a temperature of -40°C. In warm regions with high humidity, condensation forms in the process. If the fueling nozzle is used again, frost forms due to the cold hydrogen. The formation of ice can lead to an inability to remove the nozzle from the receptacle after fueling, or the necessity of waiting until the nozzle warms up before it can be removed.
https://www.weh.com/general-news/preventing-the-fueling-nozzle-from-freezing-when-refueling-with-pre-cooled-hydrogen
“Were hydrogen the solution to anything, don’t we imagine big oil would have been all over it generations ago?”
Yes and no, IMO.
Big oil has never had much incentive to do so in the past. Today, however, they do have a large carrot being dangled in front of them. If regional large scale hydrogen storage and use could be used for electricity storage then there is a huge amount of money to be made. That would avoid most of the issues arising in transportation and other small scale hydrogen uses.
Moving large amounts of hydrogen around right next to all of the population will probably never work well enough from a safety and economic point of view.
But having a large hydrogen storage facility on the electrical grid at the location of current power stations seems much more tractable to me with regard to technical issues. The energy, and thus economic, losses in the storage cycle are probably the biggest hurdle. I wonder if doubling, or trebling the size of the electricity market could make such things closer to economic. And who is going to pay for the grid-expansion costs to get us there?
Maybe I’m being a bit romantic in hoping for such a thing and I don’t see it being talked about in serious circles.
Ah, Hydrogen. Trotted out again and again as another non-solution to the imaginary “climate crisis.”
Hydrogen is an ENERGY SINK, NOT AN ENERGY SOURCE, once you expend all the energy required to divorce the “Elizabeth Taylor of elements” from whatever it is “married” to, then compress it and attempt (since it will leak through nearly any container) to transport or store it.
At the end of the day, nothing but a poor, low density, high cost and dangerous alternative to gasoline, diesel fuel, natural gas or propane that is a net consumer of energy, thereby doing nothing but relocating and increasing “emissions” of CO2, etc.
Next!
There is an exception. “Hydrogen fields” have been reported on, but no producing wells as far as I know.
https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2022/04/20/natural-hydrogen-how-the-potential-wellspring-works-and-why-companies-are-pouncing/
As for hydrogen burning with an invisible flame: Almost Half True at best, more like Mostly False. Hydrogen flames are somewhat dimmer than blue flames of methanol and natural gas. Hydrogen flames are not much dimmer than those of old style “town gas” (AKA “water gas” and other names), and that was said to burn with a blue flame rather than an invisible flame. Even a blue propane flame (which is brighter than a blue natural gas flame) is often invisible in direct sunlight.
As for diffusion making hydrogen go where an odorant mixed with it won’t go along: Diffusion is (at least generally) not significant compared to turbulent mixing or advection on a scale large enough for an odorant to be useful.
As for flammability and explosiveness of hydrogen: Acetylene is worse than hydrogen for flammability and explosiveness.
As for economics: I see hydrogen actually not being economic in a practical way as a vehicle fuel, because of need to use energy to produce hydrogen, especially when the feedstock is water and not natural gas, also because hydrogen has low energy density. However, I consider it counterproductive overstatement of a case to make half true to mostly false statements of how dangerous hydrogen is
Suggesting hydrogen is “suicidally dangerous” is complete nonsense.
Try making some and see for yourself. I used to fill party balloons with hydrogen as a kid. Half the balloons exploded on filling because the friction of filling and a trace of air which got in was enough to cause detonation. The rest, containing only a fraction of an ounce of hydrogen, went off with a terrific bang. Poor man’s fireworks.
I have used hydrogen and acetylene decades ago in my youth for explosive noisemaking. (Although only one of these at any particular time). I have also looked up flammable / explosive mixture ranges of hydrogen or acetylene mixed with air, ignition temperature, spark energy required for ignition (static electricity is an issue, especially with balloons), and severity of explosion (according to energy yield and detonation rate). Acetylene is worse than hydrogen in every way, except tied with hydrogen for upper explosive limit (richer mixture) with air at official average sea level atmospheric pressure (and beating hydrogen at higher pressures). And I’m not hearing that acetylene is too dangerous to be useful.
Scotland, among others is investigating the use of hydrogen powered trains. An article in Rail Engineer discusses developments and the trade off between cheaper hydrogen production from remote large plants and the higher costs of production at more localised smaller sites.
“Transport by road in a hydrogen tube trailer carries about 1 tonne of hydrogen which is 130bn joules of energy. In contrast a diesel tanker carries typically 40,000 litres of diesel which is 1800bn joules of energy. Hence if hydrogen was not produced on site, a depot with a hydrogen fleet would require 14 times as many road deliveries than one with the same sized diesel fleet to fuel their trains”
The UK’s Network Rail, responsible for the country’s railway lines, also looked at hydrogen and decided it was unsuitable for long distance high speed passenger trains which can travel up to 1000 miles a day and for freight trains.
https://www.railengineer.co.uk/scotlands-hydrogen-train-supporting-the-hydrogen-economy/
This is the same issue I have with EVs in integral garages.
The solution is adding one carbon atom to each four hydrogen atoms. The resulting gas has been proven to be an easily handled source of energy and is compatible with much of our present infrastructure.
Oh, you want something that actually works.
Anyway, natural hydrogen does appear to be real. I’m crossing my fingers that it becomes practical. The more energy available for our use the better.
https://www.science.org/content/article/hidden-hydrogen-earth-may-hold-vast-stores-renewable-carbon-free-fuel
I hope most readers of WUWT get the CH4 proposal.
Yes, the solution (not that I believe one is necessary BTW) is to produce green methane by anaerobic digestion where possible and using the Sabatier process to produce methane (CO2 is taken from the air) to convert hydrogen produced from electrolysis into green methane. The Sabatier process is 80% efficient and I do wonder if this loss of 20% is worth it when all the advantages of using methane over hydrogen are taken into account.
Apparently, Siemans thinks there is a future for electrolytic hydrogen, but what do they know. “That’s why we have joined forces with Air Liquide to create a joint venture dedicated to the series production of industrial-scale renewable hydrogen electrolyzers. In 2023, production of electrolysis stacks will begin at our multi-gigawatt electrolyzer facility in Berlin and ramp up to an annual production capacity of three gigawatts by 2025″
Green hydrogen production | Renewable Energy | Siemens Energy Global (siemens-energy.com)
Platinum group metals, iridium most recently, are used in PEM stack membranes. The engineering challenge is to use the least amount necessary due to their high cost. Can’t get a way from Russian influence, however, as it’s the world’s largest supplier of these materials.
What they know is that the government subsidies (and the free PR) are too good to pass up.
Air New Zealand is looking at inflicting hydrogen-powered planes on us…
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/480721/air-nz-partnering-with-aircraft-makers-to-develop-zero-emission-demonstrator-flights
I gather that flying is currently one of the safest ways to travel. Is there much chance that hydrogen-powered planes will ever be deemed as safe as the ones currently carrying us around the planet?
Is St Jacinta of Ardern going to be the test dummy passenger? At last, a job to match her abilities.
The safest way to store and transport hydrogen is to mix a little carbon with it. 4:1 seems to work quite well.
C2H5OH is better.
Those pretty ring shapes with the methane hanging off are safer still…
Australia last year set itself the goal of being one of the world’s three largest hydrogen exporters over the coming decade, with a further aim of using the energy source to supply clean and green power to an emerging manufacturing sector. Many of the gains are expected to flow to regional areas now dependent on fossil fuels.
How does Australia, a large island nation, plan on exporting hydrogen? Do they plan on building underwater pipelines to Indonesia? Indonesia is a net exporter of petroleum, so it doesn’t need to use hydrogen for fuel.
Or do they plan to liquefy it and load it into tankers like is done with natural gas? Hydrogen, in addition to being the lightest (lowest density) substance on earth in the gas phase, also has the second lowest boiling point of any substance on earth (only helium is lower). What will the Aussies use as a refrigerant to condense liquid hydrogen? How much compression power is needed to liquefy hydrogen, and does the cost of compression outweigh the benefits of exporting hydrogen?
Maybe they’ll vent it to keep it cold. Either way, hilarious.
Oh, and we’re also going run an extension cord from Oz to Asia to supply them with electricity. Considering nobody is willing to stump up the cost of putting another cable just from Tasmania to Victoria because of the prohibitive cost, this has a snowball”s chance of being built.
Well done Eric, this is really important information and needs wide distribution.
Thanks Bob.
There are many other problems that come along with hydrogen as a fuel. It requires about 10% of hydrogens energy content to compress it to typical compressed gas pressures. To liquify hydrogen will consume roughly 40% of the remaining energy which dismisses the thought of liquifying hydrogen as is done for natural gas. NASA uses liquid hydrogen to fuel their space rockets but with them, as well as with most other branches of Government it seems, cost is not an issue. Additionally, it would require a dozen or more semi trucks of hydrogen to deliver to a “gas” station as much energy as does a single gasoline tanker because by the cubic foot, hydrogen contains much less energy than natural gas or gasoline. Also the “gas” station would have to have a hydrogen compressor to transfer the gas to the stations tanks chewing up yet more energy. Gravity won’t work as with gasoline. Further, the energy consumed by the transfer tanker will consume another big chunk of the cargo’s energy content depending on the distance traveled of course.
Such problems could be addressed by converting hydrogen to ammonia and distributing the liquid ammonia as fuel. The Haber process could to that, but it requires energy as well. Altogether, hydrogen as an industrial and household fuel is an idea is seems whose time will never come.
Aren’t nitrogen compounds in the naughty corner as well?
There are quite a few articles online about using ammonia as a fuel. This one seems quite readable – https://newatlas.com/energy/green-ammonia-primer-clean-fuel/
It appears that ammonia only has around 1/6 the energy density of diesel, which limits its usefulness.
While green hydrogen may not be much use as transport fuel, it may be a useful stationary “battery” if used for turbines and generators, where pumped hydro isn’t an option.
Ammonia scares me worse than hydrogen. It’s hydrophilic and really good at chemically attacking fat and oil, which is why dilute ammonia is a useful household cleaner.
Since humans are mostly made of water with cell membranes made of fat, humans struck by a blast of gas from an ammonia leak tend to dissolve.
At least ammonia is smelly, so you will know what the problem is, in the last agonising seconds of your life.
Hydrogen is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas.
Doomed for sure by the apopleptic Greenies before it gets off the ground you’d reckon.
The logical thing to do with hydrogen is to combine it with nitrogen, freely available in the air, to make ammonia (NH3). Ammonia can be liquefied at ambient temperatures under moderate pressure. It can be used as a fertilizer and can be used as a fuel. There would be an efficiency hit in doing this but it might not be a big one when you consider the lower cost of compression, storage, and liquifaction.
Yes but ammonia is toxic and highly corrosive to organic material in the presence of water.
If gaseous ammonia was safe to use in home appliances it would be the gas of choice for refrigerators.
Eric: I don’t want to go down this rabbit hole. Ammonia sucks. but, it doesn’t suck as much as H2. It can be handled safely. It can be transported as a liquid without extraordinary cryogenic machinery. A very large number of farms all across these fruited plains have big tanks of liquid anhydrous ammonia. It is far less likely to leak than H2. Leaks are easily detected.
I don’t believe in global warming. I think that wind and solar have absolutely no chance of being able to provide enough energy to power a technological civilization. I also think that batteries are useless and dangerous for anything larger than a laptop.
Humor me. Just assume that we are stuck with win/solar pumping out large quantities of electricity at times and places where they are useless. Then what are you going to do?
Suffer in silence?
“Chemical Safety Data Sheet MSDS / SDS
Hydrogen”
“Label elements
If you suspect a hydrogen leak, you should put as much distance between yourself and your car.
Definitely don’t shuffle feet on the carpets to build a charge.
H₂ air mixtures are so explosive that car engine compartments are technically enclosed spaces and will explode when ignited.
Jack Nicholson’s Hydrogen Car, 1978: CBC Archives | CBC – YouTube
From California ha! – 1978 – The elite – Who would have thunk it!! – You mean its all been done before??