Essay by Eric Worrall
Leaks from Hydrogen storage and pipelines will apparently slow down the destruction of atmospheric methane.
New climate chemistry model finds ‘non-negligible’ impacts of potential hydrogen fuel leakage
by Nancy W. Stauffer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
…
But while burning hydrogen won’t emit GHGs, any hydrogen that’s leaked from pipelines or storage or fueling facilities can indirectly cause climate change by affecting other compounds that are GHGs, including tropospheric ozone and methane, with methane impacts being the dominant effect. A much-cited 2022 modeling study analyzing hydrogen’s effects on chemical compounds in the atmosphere concluded that these climate impacts could be considerable.
…
Regardless of the process used to make the hydrogen, the fuel itself can threaten the climate. For widespread use, hydrogen will need to be transported, distributed, and stored—in short, there will be many opportunities for leakage.
…Here’s how that feedback works: As the hydrogen decreases the concentration of OH, the cleanup of methane slows down, so the methane concentration increases. However, that methane undergoes chemical reactions that can produce new OH radicals.
“So the methane that’s being produced can make more of the OH detergent,” says Chen. “There’s a small countering effect. Indirectly, the methane helps produce the thing that’s getting rid of it.”
That’s a key difference between their 66-equation model and the four-equation one. “The simple model uses a constant value for the production of OH, so it misses that key OH-production feedback,” she says
…
Read more: https://phys.org/news/2024-12-climate-chemistry-negligible-impacts-potential.html
The referenced study;
On the chemistry of the global warming potential of hydrogen
Candice Chen*Susan Solomon Kane Stone
- Department of Earth Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States
Hydrogen (H2) is considered a promising fuel to contribute to net-zero carbon emission goals. While hydrogen itself is not a greenhouse gas, leakage of hydrogen fuels causes indirect warming due to hydrogen’s influence on methane, tropospheric ozone, and stratospheric water vapor, with the methane term dominating the impact. Some studies consider a simple four-equation box model to explore the climate consequences of leakage from hydrogen fuel use relative to methane, while others have employed much more detailed global photochemical models. Here we use a comprehensive photochemical box model including 66 reactions to show and quantify how the analogous four-equation system is missing a critical OH feedback, leading it to overestimate the time-integrated methane response to a pulse of hydrogen by over 100%. We estimate a hydrogen global warming potential (GWP) relative to carbon dioxide of 28−11+18 on the 20-year time horizon and 10−4+7 on the 100-year time horizon based on the 66-reaction model and information from the literature. GWPs provide a measure of the relative global warming impact of emission of one gas compared to a selected reference gas per unit mass emitted. While CO2 is generally chosen for the reference, any gas can be used. We present the GWP of H2 using CH4 as the reference, as this choice cancels out some uncertainties that are common to both H2 and CH4. The GWP for H2 relative to CH4 from fossil fuel sources is 0.35−0.06+0.13 on time horizons beyond 15 years; put differently, we find that relative to an equivalent mass of emission of fossil CH4, hydrogen emission has a climate impact about three times smaller. These global warming potentials underscore that hydrogen leakage does contribute to climate change, emphasizing the importance of limiting both hydrogen and methane leakage if global net-zero greenhouse gas emissions are to be achieved by 2050.
Read more: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/energy-research/articles/10.3389/fenrg.2024.1463450/full
Good luck stopping hydrogen leaks. Hydrogen is literally the most leak prone substance on Earth, hydrogen molecules are so small they slip through cracks nothing else can escape. You can’t even reliably add odourants to hydrogen to make leaks more obvious – the smelly chemicals which are added to most gasses to provide early warning of leaks get trapped by in the pipe, the larger odourant molecules can’t pass through holes in pipes which freely pass hydrogen.
And of course, hydrogen leaks are a major safety hazard. When hydrogen leaks in quantity it almost instantly catches fire. Though utterly lethal, such fires are almost invisible, because hydrogen in free air burns so hot much of the energy is radiated as pale blue, purple and ultraviolet light.
There is a reason in industry you need a special license to handle industrial hydrogen – handling bulk hydrogen is crazy dangerous.
What can I say? Is there any “green” solution which at scale would not cause a humanitarian or environmental disaster? This latest finding further confirms hydrogen as yet another green non-solution.
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And even if one solves the leakage and embrittlement problems, hydrogen lacks sufficient density to be practical transportation fuel, even as liquid hydrogen, a cryogenic liquid. Which has other minor little problems.
To be fair if it wasn’t for the safety and cost issues I would prefer filling up with hydrogen to recharging a battery.
But I’ve played with hydrogen enough to
be frightened of it. As a kid I used to make hydrogen UFOs which exploded in mid air – hydrogen filled party balloons with a lit party candle or firecracker attached. Around a third of the balloons spontaneously exploded while I was filling them.
No way I would want 10s of kilos of compressed hydrogen parked next to anything I care about.
I read an account of Lockheed’s Skunk Works trying to get hydrogen fueled early versions of the SR71 to work, and they gave up on it.
SR71 “fireball”? 🙂
As I recall, the killer issue was range. Midair refueling was out.
Here’s some info about the Toyota Mirai.
It covers a respectable 402 miles/tank that only takes minutes to fill. Here’s a kicker. “True Zero is currently the lead hydrogen supplier in California, and currently charges $36 for a kilogram. The Mirai accommodates 5.6 kg of hydrogen in its 142.2-liter tank, meaning you’ll have to spend $201.60 to refuel. This is an obscene amount that both fossil fuels and electricity drastically outprice.”
Also, the Mirai sells for a price about double that of a comparable gasoline powered model.
But, But, But, the DOE says that H2 will be available for $3/KG. Must be price gouging. Get Gavin to look into this!
I will never get closer than 50 feet to a car with a Lithium Ion or Lithium Ion Polymer Organic battery. I know too much about them.
That I have to have them in my cell phone and laptop provides the full measure of risk I am willing to take in my lifetime.
“I will never get closer than 50 feet to a car with a Lithium Ion or Lithium Ion Polymer Organic battery. I know too much about them.”
Sensible.
I try not to park close to an electric vehicle but I can’t prevent an electric vehicle parking next to me.
There are a couple of production H2 powered cars on the market (California has a few stations that sell H2). A major problem, aside from technical issues concerning vehicles themselves, is that the H2 is produced from natural gas. This causes more FF to be consumed than otherwise would be. Energetically, it makes no sense.
Greenies would counter that “excess” renewable electricity could be used to electrolyze water and thus H2 could serve as renewable energy storage. Rube Goldberg would be proud.
The reactions for producing H2 from CH4 are:
High temperature steam reforming:
H2O + CH4 —> 3H2 + CO
After separation, the shift reaction is used to produce additional H2:
CO + H2O —> H2 + CO2
H2 produced by these reactions is used for the hydrogenation of N2 to produce
NH3.
N2 + 3H2 —> 2NH3.
The same process is used in refineries to make hydrogen atom that plug the ends of “cracked” hydrocarbon chains.
I forgot to mention that the reactions require lots of energy. Up-graders that process heavy crude oils use lots of CH4 for H2.
The Texas DMV report to the legislature for 2023 showed there was 1 hydrogen powered vehicle registered in Texas. That’s out of almost 26 million vehicles. In fact, the total number of Alternate Fueled Vehicles was 591,794 (2.28%). It is always funny when people talk about the increase in BEV sales. Double very little and it still very little. The net zero disciples would be more productive if they tried to find/invent and magic wand to make green power sources workable.
I remember a number I heard a few years back from a Toyota executive: even when compressed to 10,000 psi (a pressure significantly higher than typical compressed gasses such as oxygen), hydrogen’s volume is 7 times greater than the volume of gasoline having the same energy content. This number does not include the volume of the thick-walled tanks required to hold the hydrogen.
0
Reminds me of an old engineering caution (paraphrased): You can never do just one thing.
“We estimate a hydrogen global warming potential (GWP) relative to carbon dioxide of 28−11+18 on the 20-year time horizon and 10−4+7 on the 100-year time horizon based on the 66-reaction model and information from the literature.”
Using no computations at all, and having never consulted the literature, the real atmosphere demonstrates such a high degree of self-regulation in respect to its own energy-driven circulation and in respect to the formation and dissipation of clouds, that ANY estimate of the “global warming potential” of CO2 – or CH4 or N2O or any other non-condensing GHG – differing from zero can be reasonably disregarded.
https://youtu.be/Yarzo13_TSE
And by the way, promoting H2 as a fuel is nuts in any case.
Proposed by nuts with an IQ estimate of 200-150+10.
Hydrogen atoms attached to enough carbon atoms make easily transportable liquid fuels with high energy density….also low vapor pressure for storage in low cost metal or plastic containers…and low volatility and high enough flash point such that accidental fires are rare. These should be important objectives for fuel researchers.
There is a /s in there somewhere.
Eureka!! We have found carbon to be the miracle fuel stabilizer we’ve been looking for!
That’s good marketing that could be used as a basis to sell some new fuels.
“Unlike carbon dioxide, the carbon in our fuels produces lots of power when you fill your tank. It stabilizes energetic hydrogen for greater power boost and it’s so green that it even yields food for all plants from the Aloe vera to California redwoods to the beautiful zinnia flower.”
And at least 96% of the carbon atoms are naturally recycled by the environment.
Thanks, Eric. Any thoughts on hydrogen pellets?
Lab toy. And I’ve got real problems with the ammonia version.
They are used in inertial confinement reactors to force fusion, leading to so much heat that the machine gets melted should the reaction continue. Research continues.
“Is there any “green” solution which at scale would not cause a humanitarian or environmental disaster?”
Nuclear power.
Virginia is starting a fusion reactor based on R&D done at MIT. Looks promising, but as the saying goes, the proof of the pudding is in the tasting.
As far as the ecoloons are concerned as long as the car doesn’t burn fossil fuel directly then it’s OK and blessed by them. How that energy gets to the combustion chamber is of no concern to them.
The other day I saw a EV utility vehicle owned by a nearby town- on it it bragged that it had no CO2 emissions. But of course, “green” energy as of now is a small party of the grid in Wokeachusetts- so, it was a big lie. I should have photographed it- next time I will and I’ll send it that town and ask them to remove the lie from their vehicle.
” But while burning hydrogen won’t emit GHGs,…”
Opps! Hello water vapor.
I made that comment a long time ago when I first encountered hydrogen fuel cell technology.
“Hydrogen is literally the most leak prone substance on Earth,”
Figuratively, the U.S. government employee is more so.
LOL. While you make a valid point, I think you give the U.S. government employee more credit than is due.
We estimate a hydrogen global warming potential (GWP) relative to carbon dioxide of 28−11+18 on the 20-year time horizon
_______________________________________________________________________________
28−11+18 ????? What is that exactly?
35
35.000000
35.000000 +/- 70.000001 GiaUnits
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ! Thank you Captain Obvious. I skipped by your IQ of 60 earlier because I thought it was just an ordinary insult. But yeah, I’m guessing it’s some sort of way of hiding how ridiculous it is. More ridiculous than the GWPs that are inversely related to their concentration in the atmosphere as follows.
CH4 1932 ppb GWP 86
N20 337 ppb GWP 273
CFC 4 ppb GWP ~8000
SF6 0.007 ppb GWP 17500
Dunno, maybe a GWP in the millions. Anyway considering that the Duck Test says that the GWPs are inversely related to the concentration of CO2 one has to wonder what the GWP of water vapor is. I’m guessing it would be less than one and approaching zero. Yeah H20 is not a non-condensing GHG so it’s not included in the GWP numbers. Some more guessing says H2O is excluded because if it were it would show how ridiculous the GWP numbers are.
For me at least the question remains: What does 28−11+18 mean? It’s sort of like undefined acronyms. It’s definitely mumbo jumbo. I’m sure, I’m not the only one who doesn’t know what it means.
The purpose of words is communication for some and camouflage for others. I agree with your sentiment, and expect 28−11+18 means little to anyone who does not accept a boatload of assumptions that enable that sciencey-seeming syntax.
But I thought 42 was the answer to everything!
A ratio with specified tolerance.
The H2 warming potential is between 17 and 46 (nominal 28) times that of CO2.
If it’s not 42, it’s not the right answer. 😎
Well mixed radiative gases with saturated absorption bands cannot cause warming. IOW, methane does not cause warming.
“As the hydrogen decreases the concentration of OH”
Its almost as if the person quoted doesn’t want to say what nasty evil product H + OH could produce.
“Here’s how that feedback works: As the hydrogen decreases the concentration of OH, the cleanup of methane slows down, so the methane concentration increases. However, that methane undergoes chemical reactions that can produce new OH radicals.
“So the methane that’s being produced can make more of the OH detergent,” says Chen. “There’s a small countering effect. Indirectly, the methane helps produce the thing that’s getting rid of it.”
That’s a key difference between their 66-equation model and the four-equation one. “The simple model uses a constant value for the production of OH, so it misses that key OH-production feedback,” she says”
____________________________________________________________________________
I am my own Grandpa
“uses a constant value for the production of OH, so it misses that key OH-production feedback”
one might ask, key to what?
Notice that every tweaking of atmospheric chemistry increases Global Warming threats?
I just read papers about CERES (New Scientist) and the global decrease in cloud cover. Interestingly, the immediate reaction was that it was CAUSED by Global Warming. And it accounted for the “missing” 0.2C of identified recent warming. There was no suggestion that the decrease was the CAUSE of warming …. until the last 2 paragraphs.
At the end, it was noted that the decrease COULD be from the recent reduction in atmospheric aerosol pollution, OR Global warming OR a part of a natural cycle. But the title was
We finally have an explanation for 2023’s record-breaking temperatures
while the body assumed CO2 was responsible.
Confirmation bias at work.
If the Climate Change headline says,
“Worse than previously thought”
Historical data has been re-written.
The IPCC assume that almost all methane is oxidised by the hydroxyl radical, OH, but methane is oxidised in a number of other ways. Lightning, open flames, internal combustion engines, and methanotrophic bacteria to name a few, all remove methane from the atmosphere.
It is very difficult to quantify how much of the atmosphere’s methane is removed by these other processes. If other processes are removing a significant proportion of atmospheric methane (and there are reasons to think they are), then the residence time of methane is less than the currently accepted value of 9.1 years(IPCC AR6 p.302). If the residence time is less, the total emissions are more and so the proportion of methane from human sources is less.
The IPCC, on p.9 of FAR, estimate “ an atmospheric lifetime for CH4 of
between 8 and 11.8 years” They reference Prinn et al.1987 ,who in “Atmospheric Trends in Methylchloroform and the Global Average for the Hydroxyl Radical” were looking into the oxidation of an halocarbon called Methylchloroform (CH3CCl3) and deducing its destruction rate. In the last paragraph they say that using this rate, which is similar to that of methane, they calculate a lifetime for methane of 9.6 (+2.2.-1.5)years. Prinn et al. also say “The uncertainty in this lifetime does not include uncertainty in the rate constants.”
Without knowing the uncertainty in the rate constants it is not possible to know the total uncertainty.
The IPCC acknowledge that “Considerable uncertainty exists as to the lifetimes of methane and many of the halocarbons, due to difficulties in modelling the chemistry of the troposphere.”(IPCC WG1 FAR p.59)
Lassey et al. 1992 in “A Source Inventory for Atmospheric Methane in New Zealand and its Global Perspective “ say “Prinn et al. [1987] calculated a methane destruction rate of
0.104 +/- 0.21 /yr (lifetime = 9.6 yr) based on their estimates of OH.” This is a much greater uncertainty. It is possible they have included the uncertainty of the rate constants.
.
This means the destruction rate (aka removal rate) could be as high as 0.314/yr which would be a CH4 lifetime of 3.19 years. (The removal rate is the inverse of the lifetime)
In practice, the residence time (aka turnover time, aka lifetime) could be anywhere from 3 to 12 years.
If the residence time is in fact 3 years (and it could be) then total emissions of methane are about 1775 million tonnes (Mt) and not about 400 to 600 Mt as reported by the IPCC on p. 19 of FAR.
If this is the case, then human emissions are only about 20% of total emissions and therefore attempting to control atmospheric methane by reducing humans will have very little effect.
The concentration of CH4 in air is ca. 1.929 ppmv. The reason for the low concentration of CH4 in air is due to the initiation of its combustion by discharges of lightning. Everyday there are thousands of lightning discharges of lightning, especially in the tropics.
CH4 is slightly soluble in cold water. One liter of ice-cold water can contain ca. 35 mls of CH4. That is not very much, but cold polar oceans are quite large. The CH4 slowly diffuses to to ocean floor. There in the cold and under high pressure CH4 forms a solid clathrate known as methane ice.
Jet planes with their large engines are vacuum cleaners for CH4. We really do not have to worry about CH4.
Quite so Harold.
Very people seem to understand that so much about methane is uncertain.
The lifetime is used to calculate total emissions, but it the value for lifetime is wrong, then the value for total emissions is wrong.
The value for the lifetime is dependent on the assumption that almost all of the oxidation of methane is done by OH.
If lightning and or other processes are significant, then the value for the lifetime will be too lhigh.
LT=(CH4 content)/RR
or
RR = (CH4 content)/LT
where LT = the Lifetime
(CH4 content) = the amount of methane in the atmosphere
and RR = the Removal Rate.
The larger the lifetime, the smaller the global emissions value.
And vice versa.
In the IPCC AR3 WG1 2001 assessment report page 244, they give a Lifetime for methane global mean atmospheric lifetime (LT) of 8.4 years and a global emissions value of 600Tg.
In 2001AD the CH4 concentration was 1771.20 .
In 2000AD it was 1773.33
This would be 1771.2 x 2.77 / 8.4 = 584 Tg CH4/yr total global emissions.
In the IPCC AR6 WG1 2021 assessment report p.302 they give a lifetime for methane of 9.1 years and an atmospheric concentration of 1866.3 ppbv.
So 1866.3 x 2.77 / 9.1 = a total global emissions of 568Tg CH4/yr in 2021.
I think the main factor controlling atmospheric methane concentration is temperature, not human emissions.
Check out the graph below. Note, I have used a 5 year running mean to smooth out the temperature variation that can obscure the trend.
The temperature data is from
https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.1/tlt/uahncdc_lt_6.1.txt
I used the Globe temp anomaly and calculated the annual average value for each year.
The methane annual mean values come from
https://gml.noaa.gov/webdata/ccgg/trends/ch4/ch4_annmean_gl.txt
When temperature rises a small amount, the bacterial decomposition under anaerobic conditions that produce methane , increase.
When temperature rises, methane rises. When it stops rising, methane stopped rising.
The processes that remove methane like lightning or OH are not significantly influenced by a rise in temperature.
At the GML, the concentration of CH4 is reported as 1,929 ppb, whereas for CO2 is reported as 422 ppm. Why did they do this for CH4? Using ppb for CH4 makes it look like a much more abundant “menacing molecule” than it really is. Presently, one cubic meter of air contains 0.0014 grams of CH4.
I wonder: How much of the CH4 in air is from natural sources such as swamps, bogs, muskeg, wild ruminate animals, decaying vegetation, seeps from oceans and bodies of fresh water, and termites, especially tropical termites? Probably a lot.
CH4 can also be readily oxidized by O3.
Hopefully, President Trump can terminate funding for not only the IPCC, but also the UNFCCC and the UN COP.
Is that before or after Bill Gates claims his tax credits?
I had one politician suggest hydrogen would replace natural gas in the current distribution system. These are the people making decisions on the development of our energy future.
GWP, global warming potential, is a discredited, non-physical, meaningless metric.
But, for the sake of argument, let’s assume it is credible.
The latest GWP for H2 is ~33 compared to 1 for CO2. Net Zero 2050 supports the production of 500 million tons of H2 annually to decarbonize the globe. The fugitive H2 rate will be as large as 30%, meaning that we would have exchanged H2 for CO2 as the greenhouse gas proposed as the control knob on the climate!
Can you see now that it is ALL a scam?
First, CO2 did not work, so CH4 went through the same gyration, as the CH4 GWP increased steadily from one IPCC Report to the next. Now, H2, which is an INDIRECT greenhouse gas, will be the culprit. The ideologues are simply interested in freezing and starving humanity. Nothing less.
AND, the 500 million tons of H2 is not 10% of the amount that would be required for decarbonization. NOTHING has to add up in the ideologue’s playbook.
Yes!
“Hydrogen (H2) is considered a promising fuel to contribute to net-zero carbon emission goals”
yeah …. by IDIOTS …
😉
Hence the people who don’t live in the la-la land 24/7 worry about attempts to overhaul infrastructure in stupid ways when it’s already barely maintained at all. And are trying to slow down those wild horses by turning the same buzzword theology around.
No, the most leak prone gas is Helium.
Not that this makes the whole thing much less of a fool’s errant. Between storage problems, producing very little gas when it burns (thus being a poor choice for internal combustion engines), inconveniently high flame temperature…
Those musings on hydrogen as utility fuel were tossed around for over 40 years, and won’t go anywhere practical anytime soon. Hydrogen was tried in space rockets enough that handling is well
understood, it’s just too inconvenient for any applications less huge and expensive than that.
I still stay the using hydrogen as a large scale fuel is a thermodynamic crime.
Look at thermodynamic cost of producing hydrogen from natural gas or electricity.
Look at how much energy is generated from hydrogen use.
Look for charts of energy density, SI units J/ cu. meter.
One can use BTUs as well.
“And of course, hydrogen leaks are a major safety hazard. When hydrogen leaks in quantity it almost instantly catches fire. Though utterly lethal, such fires are almost invisible, because hydrogen in free air burns so hot much of the energy is radiated as pale blue, purple and ultraviolet light.”
And yet that didn’t happen when town gas was supplied to houses for about one hundred years!
The escaped hydrogen will not only destroy the free radicals in the troposphere but also the ozone in the ozone layer.