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Saudi Arabia's Bold Plan To Rule the $700 Billion Hydrogen Market (bloomberg.com) 70

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
The kingdom is building a $5 billion plant to make green fuel for export and lessen the country's dependence on petrodollars. From a report: Sun-scorched expanses and steady Red Sea breezes make the northwest tip of Saudi Arabia prime real estate for what the kingdom hopes will become a global hub for green hydrogen. As governments and industries seek less-polluting alternatives to hydrocarbons, the world's biggest crude exporter doesn't want to cede the burgeoning hydrogen business to China, Europe or Australia and lose a potentially massive source of income. So it's building a $5 billion plant powered entirely by sun and wind that will be among the world's biggest green hydrogen makers when it opens in the planned megacity of Neom in 2025. The task of turning a patch of desert the size of Belgium into a metropolis powered by renewable energy falls to Peter Terium, the former chief executive officer of RWE AG, Germany's biggest utility, and clean-energy spinoff Innogy SE. His performance will help determine whether a country dependent on petrodollars can transition into a supplier of non-polluting fuels.

"There's nothing I've ever seen or heard of this dimension or challenge," Terium said. "I've been spending the last two years wrapping my mind around 'from scratch,' and now we're very much in execution mode." Hydrogen is morphing from a niche power source -- used in zeppelins, rockets and nuclear weapons == into big business, with the European Union alone committing $500 billion to scale up its infrastructure. Huge obstacles remain to the gas becoming a major part of the energy transition, and skeptics point to Saudi Arabia's weak track record so far capitalizing on what should be a competitive edge in the renewables business, especially solar, where there are many plans but few operational projects. But countries are jostling for position in a future global market, and hydrogen experts list the kingdom as one to watch.

The U.K. is hosting 10 projects to heat buildings with the gas, China is deploying fuel-cell buses and commercial vehicles, and Japan is planning to use the gas in steelmaking. U.S. presidential climate envoy John Kerry urged the domestic oil and gas industry to embrace hydrogen's "huge opportunities." That should mean plenty of potential customers for the plant called Helios Green Fuels. Saudi Arabia is setting its sights on becoming the world's largest supplier of hydrogen -- a market that BloombergNEF estimates could be worth as much as $700 billion by 2050. "You're seeing a more diversified portfolio of energy exports that is more resilient," said Shihab Elborai, a Dubai-based partner at consultant Strategy&. "It's diversified against any uncertainties in the rate and timing of the energy transition." Blueprints are being drawn and strategies are being announced, but it's still early days for the industry. Hydrogen is expensive to make without expelling greenhouse gases, difficult to store and highly combustible. Green hydrogen is produced by using renewable energy rather than fossil fuels. The current cost of producing a kilogram is a little under $5, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.
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Saudi Arabia's Bold Plan To Rule the $700 Billion Hydrogen Market More

Saudi Arabia's Bold Plan To Rule the $700 Billion Hydrogen Market

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  • Wow.. the $700 Billion dollar hydrogen market... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dmay34 ( 6770232 ) on Monday March 08, 2021 @03:13PM (#61137668)

    That doesn't exist at all and no one asked for or needs because anyone can make as much hydrogen as they want from renewable sources.

    • Also, Zeppelins didn't use hydrogen as an energy source. I mean, aside from that one incident.
      • You know...

        I can't possibly the the only person in the world that has, as one of their primary driving interests of getting out of oil and into renewables is...ot give the whole fscking Middle East a shove out of the way, and let them have their own world unto themselves as they wish and let them squabble and blow the fuck out of each other as much as they please in the name of whatever god they want....and leave the civilized world alone.

        The rest of the world would be a much nicer, friendly and safer pl

    • More importantly shorter distance to the pumps.

    • Hydrogen makes a lot more sense than trying to make everything electric. It's really just a way to store and transport energy from a place where it's cheap to produce to where it's needed.

      • Re:Not electricity (Score:5, Insightful)

        by GameboyRMH ( 1153867 ) <gameboyrmh@@@gmail...com> on Monday March 08, 2021 @03:42PM (#61137830) Journal

        Except that it's flammable and escapes through solids and embrittles steel on the way out and needs to be stored at terrifying pressures to be practical, so actually it's a nightmare fuel and we'd be better off with BEVs and getting over irrational range anxiety?

        Also it's currently produced almost entirely as a fossil fuel byproduct. I'd guess that this solar hydrogen production plant will be the greenwashing front for selling...act surprised now...fossil-sourced hydrogen. A better idea might actually be to produce renewably-sourced ammonia, it can be used in fuel cell vehicles or burned in ICEs and it's no harder to store or transport than gasoline. Or if you have renewable energy and want to try new things, you could instead produce "electrofuel" gasoline substitutes that also aren't a storage and transportation nightmare and can be run in existing vehicles.

        • and we'd be better off with BEVs

          Yes.

          ...and getting over irrational range anxiety

          Don't be stupid: there's nothing irrational about recognizing hard limits and, in any case, you're taking into account the fact that the entire reason we even have an EV industry is due to steady - and necessary - advances in battery energy density.

          Idiot.

          • you're taking into account

            I meant you're not taking into account.

            Signed,

            Lesser Idiot

          • Re:Not electricity (Score:4, Insightful)

            by GameboyRMH ( 1153867 ) <gameboyrmh@@@gmail...com> on Monday March 08, 2021 @04:33PM (#61138112) Journal

            There is something irrational about pretending those hard limits are a limitation relevant to most people. BEV range surpassed an average American's (!) daily driving distance long ago.

            • There is something irrational about pretending those hard limits are a limitation relevant to most people. BEV range surpassed an average American's (!) daily driving distance long ago.

              That's great for not getting stranded on an average day! However, the real statistic would be the probability of getting stranded at least once over the next five years. If one trip exceeds the range limit, then range anxiety is a real thing. The real problem is the refueling time and the proximity of refueling stations. There needs to be places to refuel everywhere so that refueling takes no forethought because a refueling place is always nearby, and that refueling needs to take no more than five minut

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by dmay34 ( 6770232 )

          The biggest problem I can personally think of with ammonia would be that it is highly acutely toxic in it's vapor form. So if it was released from a tank it would kill people in a whole different way.

          How about we just use batteries which have proven themselves to be very safe.

          • Make nitrate fertilizers with all your solar. That is a huge energy intensive existing market and would reduce green house emissions.

            The next big use of electricity is Aluminum smelting -- Aluminum is known as "solid electricity" for a good reason.

            Why would you make Hydrogen when there are better direct uses for electricity?

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by dmay34 ( 6770232 )

              I think you missed my whole point.

            • Why would you make Hydrogen when there are better direct uses for electricity?
              What is simpler?

              a) Making hydrogen in SA and shipping it around
              b) building aluminium refineries/smelters in SA, shipping ore or scrap to SA, refine it, and shipping it back out?

              Your pick

              • Transporting fertilizer and aluminum is orders of magnitude easier than transporting hydrogen.

                Making Hydrogen and then burning it to produce other products is hugely inefficient compared to just using the electricity directly.

                It is unclear whether there will ever be a large market for Hydrogen. But there is an existing market for other products. So today you would go for the low hanging fruit.

                That said, the Saudis have lot of money for others to waste.

                • Transporting fertilizer and aluminum is orders of magnitude easier than transporting hydrogen.
                  Not really. Hydrogene easily gets into a pipeline. Or can be cooled and put into a ship. And regarding Aluminium: you forget you have to ship it 2 times.

                  Making Hydrogen and then burning it to produce other products is hugely inefficient compared to just using the electricity directly.
                  No one mentioned burning. It either is used industrial or in a fuel cell.

                  But there is an existing market for other products.
                  Which is

        • I've been driving a BMW i3 for the past 5 years (almost to the day ... on the last payment now) and before that a Prius.

          I suppose the Prius which was a 2003 is now land fill. I don't say recycled, since most of the car was non-biodegradable... thank goodness, could you imagine driving a car that would eventually degrade. I suppose the metals were recovered, but I'm pretty sure the lithium is in a barrel somewhere in a country who is willing to store leaking barrels of toxic chemicals in exchange for enough

          • but I'm pretty sure the lithium is in a barrel somewhere in a country who is willing to store leaking barrels of toxic chemicals
            That is a silly idea. It is probably one of the most valuable parts of the car ... seriously?

      • Storage and transport still require way too much fragile and expensive infrastructure for it to be practical.You gotta be able to carry the stuff in a rusty old jerry can

      • transporting energy in the form of hydrogen instead of as electricity is just plain stupid. electricity to hydrogen is a process that loses 30%. you can transport electricity over thousands of kilometres for just a few percent loss.

        • transporting energy in the form of hydrogen instead of as electricity is just plain stupid. electricity to hydrogen is a process that loses 30%. you can transport electricity over thousands of kilometres for just a few percent loss.

          And transporting hydrogen in trucks or ships or train cars means there are nice, mobile bombs still running around the countryside on a regular basis. Bombs big enough to put craters into roads under the right (wrong) conditions. Whereas when a high voltage power line goes down due to a storm, you get maybe a small grass fire in the middle of nowhere and then the power shuts off.

          But yeah, $700 billion hydrogen "market". Sure.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by jusu ( 1253666 )
            Gasoline truck just as much bomb.

          • Hydrogen will dissipate quickly upwards. Meanwhile, gasoline will spill and float over water (and evaporate slowly), while diesel fuel will do that but don't evaporate.

            While both hydrogen and existing fuels are "dangerously explosive", hydrogen is not chemically dangerous (in excess to the few minutes necessary to dissipate).

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ebh ( 116526 )

        At the moment.

        Imagine (and yes, a lot of this is a stretch), a standard for battery packs that work in vehicles and in building power. It's just a matter of how they're hooked up and how many you have. When your house batteries get low, a truck comes out and replaces the depleted battery packs with freshly charged ones. Likewise, when your car battery runs low, you go to a gas-station-like place to have your battery replaced with a charged one. In both cases, the depleted batteries are trucked out to the so

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        Hydrogen is the dumbest energy source imaginable. It is not even an energy source in this design, all the renewables are.

        So why the fuck in hell, would you import hydrogen, instead of just fucking making use of your own renewable energy sources, why the fuck bother with hydrogen.

        Want to burn stuff, you use butane, easy to make from methane and methane you can make from your sewerage, put a little extra electricity into it and turn it into butane, a better burning energy store and only used in a limited fa

    • Theoretically hydrogen can come from renewable sources. Realistically, the process is so energy intensive that it makes no sense. It's much, much more efficient just to charge a battery than to use electricity to form hydrogen and then use the hydrogen to make electricity.

    • Everything you typed before the word "because" was spot-on.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dmay34 ( 6770232 )

        Don't get me wrong, yes I agree with you. I was just pointing out that even if we as a society choose the dumber route and go with a hydrogen economy to replace fuel, the Saudis still don't have a monopoly on it.

    • It does. You can dilute Natual gas up to 25% without any changes to equipment with Hydrogen if you are using a pipeline. Nope - does not work for LNG. Even your gas hob will work with no issues. Norway and Russia are chasing the same unicorn. You can go further over time (though probably not beyond 75%) as the pumping stations and the other equipment are adapted for it.

      It is interesting Saudi looking into that - they have NO PIPELINES TO THE CLOSEST MARKET - Eu.

      In fact, their shortest route to the Eu gr

    • That doesn't exist at all and no one asked for or needs because anyone can make as much hydrogen as they want from renewable sources.

      When you have practically 365 days of sunlight a year and lie closer to the equator than almost all industrialized nations, there is a competitive advantage in producing hydrogen from solar energy, don't you think?

    • Hydrogen.
      HAHAHA Hydrogen.

  • Having to ship the hydrogen will make it immediately uncompetitive.

    To the limited degree to which it makes any sense at all, hydrogen only makes sense if produced near the point of consumption.

  • Germany's prime polluter and destroyer of German landscapes in all of human history. Not even exaggerating. Google Earth offered a feature where you could see the changes through time.

    Oh well, maybe they will manage to do something good for a change.

  • Let them die out as a world power (Score:3)

    by BubbaDave ( 1352535 ) on Monday March 08, 2021 @04:13PM (#61138010)

    Anti-freedom
    Anti-women
    Anti-reforms
    Religious fascists
    Supporters of terror
    Let them have no part in the future.

  • Really, did it get cloudy in Saudi?

    And as by-product they will sell "Red Sea salt"?

  • and are the domain of paid PR shils and propagandists. *Ambitious* plans, on the other hand, might be objectively described as such, if they are in fact ambitious.

  • Does the plan include ? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by williamyf ( 227051 ) on Monday March 08, 2021 @04:25PM (#61138084)

    Chopping of the competition and hacksawing any journalysts that speak badly about Hydrogen in general and the project in particular?

  • the better. These fuckers are driving up oil prices as the world is already in a recession, probably so they can fund another shiny slave-labor-built play town with glass fronts and air conditioning in a searing hot climate. End oil dependency now and do not replace it with anything coming from that part of the world.

  • Unless, of course, the Proton tech works... (Score:3)

    by rbrander ( 73222 ) on Monday March 08, 2021 @05:25PM (#61138322) Homepage

    Proton Energies, of Calgary: https://revolution-green.com/p... [revolution-green.com] ...claim to have a process that can pull nothing but hydrogen out of a down-hole with hydrocarbons at the bottom. Mainly, they seem to be talking oil wells, old dead ones. It's "green" hydrogen if no carbon comes out of the hole, so that's how they're selling it.

    The killer app is their claim that they'll be able to do it for 70 cents per kilogram. As compared to $3, or minimum, $2, for a kg of green hydrogen via electrolysis.

    If Proton is not just dreaming, (or lying), then the sites of major oil resources will continue to be the sites of major green-hydrogen energy resources, that will have a far higher profit margin than the electrolyse-when-the-wind-turbine-isn't-needed hydrogen.

    But. Proton energies, while it's attracted a bunch of investment, and a first few customers, Proton isn't acknowledged as changing the whole world yet.

    Even $1.50/kg hydrogen would be a major kick for the whole idea of a hydrogen industry, so I'm hoping they aren't, ahem, vapourware.

  • Barely $20 worth of hydrogen was sold last year, how is this anything ?

  • Hydrogen can make sense (Score:3)

    by Elledan ( 582730 ) on Tuesday March 09, 2021 @03:40AM (#61139658) Homepage
    The use of hydrogen is a critical and irreplaceable component in some areas, primarily industrial processes. For many processes hydrogen is a good replacement (e.g. in the steel industry).

    This should be the focus of 'green' hydrogen: hydrogen produced ideally on-site to enable these industrial processes. For other applications the energy and safety balance just doesn't weigh in hydrogen's favour.

    As others have pointed out already, hydrogen is an absolute pain to store and transport. It needs either very high pressures, cryogenic temperatures or for it to be bonded to e.g. nickel (which nukes its low power density even further). This makes transporting by pipelines an unrealistic idea unless one is willing to spend significantly more on a pipeline compared to one for fossil methane ('natural gas').

    Ideally hydrogen would be kept far away from population centres. Mostly on account of its extreme volatility. It will happily detonate when mixed with anywhere between 10-80% oxygen, and has in the past few years alone led to a number of spectacular explosions: one at a distribution center in California and one at a hydrogen service station in Norway.

    Hydrogen is pretty lousy as electricity storage, too. With the round-trip from hydrolysis, compression/cooling to fuel cells you're lucky to get 30% of the electricity back you put into it, not to mention the overhead required to make such a complicated infrastructure work. Hydrogen-rated pressure vessels aren't cheap, nor do they last many cycles, requiring constant inspections.

    In cars and buses you would still need to have a battery bank as well to use hydrogen if using a fuel cell. A fuel cell cannot provide the power for bursts of demand (e.g. accelerating) and cannot be used for regenerative braking. Add to this combining a highly inflammable gas with a fuel cell which runs at 200C or more.

    Does anyone who does not have some personal stake in hydrogen really think that the gas has a use outside of said industrial processes?
  • ...stick its solar hydrogen where the sun don't shine, literally. (See what I did there? OK, I'll get my coat.)
  • ...it looked so easy when Doc Brown made it work...

  • Hydrogen fuel is just another way to continue the entrenched monopolies of energy companies. Compare that to plug-in-EV vehicles, where you don't need gas stations, tankers, and most definitely the energy companies drilling or compressing H2 gas.

    I see that there are legitimate users of Hydrogen. For example, an army unit can have in-base fuel generators, and their entire fleet can be supplied locally. This beats EV in charging speed. So, there is some real life benefits.

    But not for regular commuters, SUV ri

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