Essay by Eric Worrall
WINNING: €22 Billion EU Government money spent to produce 20,000 tons of green hydrogen, at a price of €1.1 million per ton, or €1100 / kg.
What’s stopping Europe from reaching its clean hydrogen goals?
By Andrea Bolitho & Euronews
Published on 05/03/2024 – 17:00•Updated 06/03/2024 – 10:51Green hydrogen is predicted to be a leading renewable energy source in the future, but production in Europe must ramp up massively to hit targets.
While the EU has pinned green hydrogen as one of the fuels of the future and aims to generate 10 million tonnes while importing a further 10 million tonnes by the end of the decade, renewable hydrogen production in Europe was just 20,000 tonnes in 2022.
Furthermore, 96 per cent of hydrogen used across Europe in 2022 was made from natural gas, resulting in significant carbon emissions.
“We need a clear regulation and a clear permitting process, and we need access to the [energy] grid,” explained Carlos Fúnez Guerra, the Green Hydrogen Development Manager at Iberdrola.
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Can Europe still reach its goal?
“The big question behind all of this is money and funds,” reminded Malvault.
The European Commission has implemented a clean hydrogen regulatory framework and is investing heavily, so far, it has provided €22 billion and counting.
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But Malvault warned Euronews that more funding will still be needed to reach the EU’s targets.
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Read more: https://www.euronews.com/business/2024/03/05/whats-stopping-europe-from-reaching-its-clean-hydrogen-goals
What can I say? If only some of these affordable and economically viable climate goals could be achieved without spending so much taxpayer subsidy cash.
Correction (EW): h/t Scarecrow Repair – €1100 / kg, not €11,000 per kg. We’re saved!
Being innumerate seems to be a requirement for Greens.
The paper by social psychologists at U of Mount Royal on the falling IQs of undergraduates over several decades in N.Am passed peer review the other day, but was then rejected after a Twitter storm that criticized the paper on its lack of sensitivity! I guess trigger words were reaching too deeply into the bowels of the Safe Places.
I wonder which side of the 102 IQ average Naomi Oreskes, say, or, choose your own example on and how low a score gets in the door
11,000 a kilo? Well, at least it is cheaper than cocaine or heroin. Wonder if it will kill as many people as those have?
Probably not. A kg of hydrogen could easily blow up your house, but your neighbours would probably be OK.
Interestingly the hydrogen is not cheaper than Marijuana. According to the UN every European nation, including those which take enforcement seriously, dope is cheaper than green hydrogen.
https://www.unodc.org/pdf/WDR_2006/wdr2006_chap5_cannabis.pdf
My bad, €1100 / kg, not €11000 / kg.
I wrote computer diagnostics for years, my brain has been permanently warped to see bugs in everything but my own work.
Much appreciated mate, WUWT is about getting it right.
At the current prevailing retail price of €26/kg (California) they’d lose €1074 per Kg – but maybe they can make it up in volume.
See? The economics are getting better all ready.
It’s easier to take a trip with MJ than H2, that’s for sure.
The way food prices are going, dope will be very cheap soon
The government likely will massage the data to pull another rabbit out of the hat
Haha, it is called weed for a reason, just throw seeds on ground and they grow. 🤣🤣🤣 All these legalize marijuana schemes are entirely about tax revenue. If they simply allowed people to grow for personal consumption they would make zero money, hence the byzantine collection of blahblahblah all aimed at increasing tax revenue. A whole other issue, I know. 😆
Much the same can be said about legalized gambling, not that I am opposed, just pointing out it is another tax.
That would take a lot of Hindenbergs!
Sending lots more EU money to ‘green hydrogen’ is a complete waste—but that is something the EU appears increasingly adept at. These ridiculous advocates obviously have ‘endangered without lots more money’ green hydrogen jobs. Those would simply be eliminated in a rational world.
‘Green Hydrogen’ is an even worse idea than simply ‘hydrogen’ as an energy medium. I long ago covered the many reasons why in essay ‘Hydrogen Hype’ in ebook Blowing Smoke. The basic hydrogen energy math simply doesn’t work, and there is no practical storage option. Nothing has changed in the decade since.
I personally have a hard time understanding why bad ideas now get recycled as new green (but still bad) ideas. Battery electric buses go up in flames. Intermittent renewables destabilize the grid. EVs aren’t selling because we now know they are more expensive to buy, insure, and repair—never mind EV range anxiety.
I would suggest the greens might adopt the Army’s first rule of holes: ‘When in one wanting out, first stop digging’. Instead, they keep passing out shovels.
They want to use the green hydrogen, among other things, for smelting iron ore into steel. I don’t know how many kg of hydrogen it takes to produce a kg of steel, but I’m guessing it’s a lot.
EW—I was curious so looked it up.
Side note. Smelting iron ore into iron does not produce steel. Steel requires a second carbon removal step for iron to steel (which can be accomplished in the same heat batch in a modern liquid oxygen blast furnace, or theoretically via hydrogen smelting as no smelting coke is used).
Simplifying the just researched chemical stoichiometry of smelting iron ore into iron for WUWT, the answer to reducing iron ore Fe2O3 (essentially rust from the great rusting event billions of years ago when cyanobacteria started producing free oxygen) to iron Fe is simple and obvious.
If you reduce the iron ore using coke (carbon) you produce CO2 gas. If you use hydrogen you produce H2O gas. And CO2>>H2O per O by an obvious factor of 3. (For the non stoichiometrics at WUWT, 1C consumes 2O, while 2H consume only 1O. Net usage of all three reducing atoms is 3x in favor of C..2 on the Os and one on the C/H). So a LOT more hydrogen molecules needed.
Green hydrogen reduction of iron ore is another ridiculous green idea. Chemically possible, but NOT remotely practical at scale.
It gets worse, you probably need an excess of hydrogen to drive the reaction (reducing environment), then you somehow have to strip every scrap of hydrogen from the steel, while adding a few percent of carbon.
That reaction chamber would be a bomb – loads of heat and gas being emitted into a sealed pressure chamber, hydrogen pumped in at pressure to react with material which contains oxygen, with cycling to separate the water vapour, to stop it from poisoning the reaction (I suspect 3H2 + FeO3 <-> Fe + 3H2O is an equilibrium).
I wouldn’t want to be standing anywhere near the reaction vessel when the fun starts. If an attempt at scale suffered a catastrophic rupture, you could end up with a blast on the same scale as the Beirut fertiliser explosion.
Isn’t the green hydrogen a chlorine gas?
No, but iron ore frequently contains impurities such as sulphur, so you would end up with some impressively toxic byproducts. H2S toxicity is comparable to cyanide.
Good observation. In the real world of iron ore smelting, the third added reactant is some crushed limestone (for high surface area). The purpose of the limestone in the smelter is to produce a slag out of all the iron ore impurities, as the furnace reduced calcium is highly reactive with all of them. In a real smelting furnace, the lighter molten slag is always tipped off before the heavy ‘pure’ iron.
A slag useful byproduct is ‘cinder block’ (hence the name) made after crushed cold slag plus cement and water is poured into a preform. A basic construction staple is made from byproduct slag.
We have a complicated world. It evolved in many subtle but useful ways over several centuries. The effort to jam ‘green’ into it fast will NOT work.
The effort to jam “green” into it at ANY speed will not work.
“Green” (NOT) hydrogen is made using wind and solar power, windmills and solar panels are made from energy inputs that come essentially 100% from…fossil fuels.
Another monumentally stupid tail-chsding exercise concealing more wealth transfer to the wealthy and politically connected from everyone else.
It looks like the jury will out on the “ hydrogen dysconomy” for, let’s say, forever
The “hydrogen economy” is decades away. And always will be, just like “cold fusion.”
Send the hydrogen to Ukraine so they can blow up things
“The big question behind all of this is money and
fundsfrauds,” reminded Malvault.Fixed it.
“Green hydrogen is predicted to be a leading renewable energy source in the future…”
Who is predicting this? Define “future.”
Wishful thinking is no substitute for economics or engineering. Green hydrogen is impractical and has many technical problems to overcome. You can’t just miracle it into being.
I think I heard that when I was in high school and Iceland was a test case. That was over 40 years ago. This article from 2021 shows that they are asking the same questions.
https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Fuel-Cells/Can-Iceland-Become-The-Worlds-First-Green-Hydrogen-Economy.html
Hope is not a strategy.
We need a clear and concise definition of renewable.
A resource that Nature replenishes on the same or faster scale, as it is consumed.
The goal is to bankrupt Western economies so the Marxists can slip in and be the saviors. The US is doing it openly and dramatically while Europe is picking away at the edges but the results will be the same. Climate Change is just another ploy to weaken and eventually destroy Capitalism. The Greens are nothing more than useful idiots for the cause. EOR
so the Marxists can slip in and pick over the bones
they have never saved anything
The capitalists are planning on making $US trillions off of the $US200 trillion Bloomerg’s green energy research team estimates it will cost to stop warming by 2050.
They own the media and control the politicians, with their campaign contributions, that are pushing the so-called “Climate Change” agenda.
yes. far more scary is the capitalism vultures . There arent really marxists anymore , not even Russia or China – which is a Leninist-party state capitalist system. Single ruling party-state systems are common in Asia
You’re right. They’re just plain, old fascists.
Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito all figured out early on that humans like to own their own stuff. So, why waste time expropriating property when you can just bribe them into doing what you want done anyway?
Your voice of reason will not be appreciated by highly partisan crowds on these boards. It is much easier to blame “them”, be it greens, marxists, communists, chinese, russians, martians etc. than admit fault with your own party.
Rich folks from all sides are looking how to invest their $$ for lucrative returns. The green scam is created with their participation and is fueled by them. After all, If DuPont did it in a test case with CFCs, why can’t all of them do it on global scale with CO2?
So “them” can be capitalists, but not greens?
If scoobydoo had said “crony capitalists” then I wouldn’t have downvoted him. He doesn’t know the difference – like yourself according to your comment.
No, the trough feeders. None of this mass stupidity would ever emerge from capitalism.
How many PLA soldiers are slipping in already with help from the Biden regime?
All of the comments recorded over the years, my list starting circa 1975, is not so they can “slip in and be the saviors” is it to impose a one world socialist order with the already rich billionaires in charge
In capitalism, the captains of industry create and run the economic engine but with constraints imposed by politicians.
In socialism, the politicians control both the money (mostly for themselves) and the rules such that perpetuation of political economics (an oxymoron) is institutionalized.
“In capitalism, the captains of industry create and run the economic engine but with constraints imposed by politicians.”
Capitalism itself does not require any “captains of the industry”. Perhaps, you confuse capitalism in general with a specific case state capitalism.
Please! The benefit of metric is the easy movement of decimal points.
“€1.1 million per ton, or €11,000 / kg”
One of several. I was able to prove a basic electrochemical physics equation using the then not yet official (only proposed) new SI definition of the coulomb.
OTH, as a guy that mostly doesn’t think precision in life is that important (but being in the ballpark is) am fine with feet, yards, horse hands tall, and much more such old metric silliness. You get used to it.
My bad, thanks Scarecrow Repair.
H2 costs about $2/kg from natural gas reforming. Tube trailers can be painted green.
yes. Its the method behind all the proposed hydrogen production for a ‘Green Future’ where they ‘hope’ for green hydrogen in the future when electricity prices from wind become so cheap….cough.. while making money from blue hydrogen now
Yep, one of my favourite pieces of climate hypocrisy – the Victorian brown green coal to hydrogen plant… 🙂
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/12/04/aussie-brown-coal-to-clean-hydrogen-plant-will-address-carbon-capture-eventually/
If 1.1 million euros per metric ton, and 1 metric ton =1000 kg, unless I’ve had too much to drink tonight i *think* that’s 1,100 euros per kg, not 11,000. Can someone confirm or show me the error?
Lots of stupid there !
And this stuff is also still going on .
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/03/watch-massive-general-strike-takes-polish-farmers-warsaw/
Remember folks these were the same Groupthinkers that told you a few years back to switch from petrol to diesel to save the planet and oops! They and their crazy pals know what’s best for you-
The German Tesla plant fire is claimed by far-left ‘Volcano Group’ (msn.com)
Trio of Extinction Rebellion protesters arrested and charged after blocking West Gate Freeway with truck during peak-hour | Sky News Australia
You vote for Hamas you vote for their methods and outcomes.
That extinction group should lined up to a wall and shot, as a warning to wannabes.
Next will be planes
never heard of My Lai. War is full of atrocities, hubris makes people think it wont ever be them its only ‘others’
These ‘affordable and economically viable climate goals‘ are not there to make the climate better or even to reduce CO2 emissions. They are there to create large money flows that can be partially siphoned off surreptitiously into the pockets of members of the Elite and their adherents.
And there’s nothing EITHER “affordable” OR “economically viable” about any of them.
Hydrogen facts. Higher Heating Value, 141 MJ/kg. Lower Heathing Value, 120 MJ/kg. You only get energy from the LHV but thermodynamics dictated that you have to put in the HHV in energy to make H2 from H2O. 15% loss right there. Electrolysis is about 70% efficient thermodynamically, so you need 56 kW-h of energy to make 1 kg of H2. 1 Metric Ton (MT) of H2 requires 56 MW-h of energy. People talk about plants producing 1 million MT H2/yr or 114 kg/hr (continuously, not intermittently). This requires 6,391 GW-h of energy each hour or 6.39 GW of power. That is 3,195 each 2 MW wind turbines, but multiply that by 4 for the capacity factor of 25%. Now you have a lot of wind turbines but still don’t have continuous power supply. And at $4 million (and counting) cost for each turbine, that is again a lot of money. And electrolysis cells cost about $1000 to $1500/KW-h and need to be replaced every 7-10 years. Do the math and let me know who can afford even this much H2. And they want 10X that amount of H2.
My conclusion is, This Will Never Happen!
What! You use simple math to challenge the green religion. This cannot stand.
Keep in mind, the green tactic is to attack and silence the person and ignore the research since the conclusions do not perfectly align with the apocalyptic orthodoxy.
A few deadly hydrogen-oxygen explosions and green hydrogen will bite the dust. You might as well use dynamite for fuel.
It’s much more dangerous than gasoline because usually explodes when combined with oxygen and a tiny spark and burns with an invisible flame in the infrared, so you need IR goggles to see the flame.
A few deadly Li polymer ion battery bus fires did not cause EV to bite the dust.
To the religious zealots, nothing is sufficient proof to alter their beliefs.
Absolutely, Sparta. No amount of proof will change their minds, because they don’t believe the proof. “Laws of thermodynamics? Nah, never heard of ’em. And who sez dey beez laws, eh? Yew guyz jus’ don’t know enuff! We iz way smahtah.”
“Green hydrogen” ?!?
Take H2 add green food coloring. Done.
Take water and add money. LOTS of money. Result: green hydrogen.
“Green hydrogen is predicted to be a leading renewable energy source “
Does anyone know the source of this prediction?
I assume it is of similar provenance as 97% and 1.5 degrees,
and not near as entertaining as “42.”
You offer the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything.
Well met!
GMTA, Sparta. I posted before reading your comment.
Hydrogen as a replacement for natural gas has been pushed for more than thirty years, getting a major promotional boost in the Bush administration in early 2001, including rah-rah cheerleading for hydrogen from Dubya himself.
Is that 42 the answer to the ultimate question? (Hitchhiker’s Guide)
It definitely was pulled from the same orofice!
How many nuclear power plants could be built with 22 billion Euros?
Bob: “How many nuclear power plants could be built with 22 billion Euros?”
Based on current cost estimates, if the same AP1000 design (1200 Mw nameplate) as was used for Vogtle units 3 & 4 is chosen, then 22 billion Euros will get you the first AP1000 reactor plus roughly half of a second, more or less.
If the NuScale SMR design is used instead, and you are the launch customer for the very first NuScale SMR plant and must therefore pay for the costs of establishing a NuScale SMR industrial production infrastructure, then for 22 billion Euros you can buy two 6-module 462 Mw plants plus one 4-module 308 Mw plant for a total of 1232 Mw nameplate.
Look, it is so easy if you consider it from a Green energy advocates perspective.
All that is needed to ensure the hydrogen ‘energy’ revolution takes off (no pun intended) is development of those hydrogen mines.
There must be thousands of them, the Greens have been told hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, even the sun is full of it, that is how common it is…Armed with that basic truth the Greens know they are onto a…..erm winner.
So, there we have it, the most common element known to man and a Green prospector with a shovel is all you need.
Can I suggest we advertise for willing Green volunteers eager to do their bit to save the planet to come join the great hydrogen mine movement? Maybe some of those JSO activists always so desperate to do the right thing could be persuaded to get involved.
The first place to dig, in my view, is central Australia. The government there is anxious to be seen to be leading the new world energy revolution.
Forget about making hydrogen. Just go dig it up, it must be there somewhere? It is after all, the most common element in the…erm? universe.
Maybe they need a mission to the sun to mine hydrogen?
That would be practical, right?
orifice!, put all the “save the planet” idiots on a ship and send them there post haste.
How do you weigh hydrogen which is lighter than air? Oh forget it. There’s no chance of checking the Keeling Curve so it’s pointless anyway
“…What’s stopping Europe from reaching its clean hydrogen goals?…”
In a word, Thermodynamics.
To add to the insanity the EU is also planning the repurposing of 30,000kms of existing natural gas pipelines and building over 20,000kms of new hydrogen pipelines at a cost of $80 -$140 bn.
https://manhattan.institute/article/green-hydrogen-a-multibillion-dollar-boondoggle
The plan was always to make it up volume.
“What’s stopping Europe from reaching its clean hydrogen goals?”
Well I wonder, what could it be? Maybe physics, economics, a lack of common sense? For that matter, what is stopping us from repealing the law of gravity or inventing cheap time travel?