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EU Canada Earth Power

Canada Plans Massive Wind-Powered Plant Producing Hydrogen for Germany (ctvnews.ca) 123

The leaders of Canada and Germany will sign a multibillion-dollar green energy agreement this month "that could prove pivotal to Canada's nascent hydrogen industry," reports CTV News: The German government on Friday issued a statement confirming the agreement will be signed August 23 in Stephenville, where a Newfoundland-based company plans to build a zero-emission plant that will use wind energy to produce hydrogen and amonia for export.

If approved, the project would be the first of its kind in Canada.

Germany is keen to find new sources of energy because Russia's invasion of Ukraine has led to a surge in natural gas prices.... Meanwhile, the company behind the Newfoundland project, World Energy GH2, has said the first phase of the proposal calls for building up 164 onshore wind turbines to power a hydrogen production facility at the deep-sea port at Stephenville.

Long-term plans call for tripling the size of the project.... "The development of large-scale green hydrogen production facilities is just starting, providing (Newfoundland and Labrador) and Canada with the opportunity and advantages of being a first mover in the green energy sector," the proposal says....

The company says construction of its first wind farm is slated for late next year on the Port au Port Peninsula.

Thanks to Slashdot reader theshowmecanuck for sharing the article.
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Canada Plans Massive Wind-Powered Plant Producing Hydrogen for Germany

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  • by mkwan ( 2589113 ) on Monday August 15, 2022 @12:34AM (#62790300)

    Producing ammonia on-site and shipping that to Germany makes sense. But shipping hydrogen is hard.

    • But shipping hydrogen is hard.

      Technically hydrogen is shipped as a liquid, not a solid.

    • by Arnonyrnous Covvard ( 7286638 ) on Monday August 15, 2022 @04:16AM (#62790492)
      You can chemically bond hydrogen to oxygen to create an easily transportable liquid and use an electrochemical process to recover the pure hydrogen from the liquid at the destination.
      • The problem with Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) is that small quantities can cause asphyxia when inhaled into a human's lungs.
        • by WallyL ( 4154209 )
          I hate to say it, but dihydrogen monoxide is also pretty heavy. My grandma once told me: "A pint's a pound, the world around." Not sure why she, a simple housewife, would know about such chemically-sounding terms, but it rhymed so I had to cut her a break.
      • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        You can chemically bond hydrogen to oxygen to create an easily transportable liquid and use an electrochemical process to recover the pure hydrogen from the liquid at the destination.

        It's actually easier if you chemically bond hydrogen with carbon - and short chains will make for a gas, longer chains make for a liquid. Bonus is that you often don't need to recover the hydrogen by itself as the hydrogen and carbon molecules can be chemically oxidized.

  • by skullandbones99 ( 3478115 ) on Monday August 15, 2022 @05:54AM (#62790654)

    An advantage of green hydrogen is it can be made locally. All that is needed is renewable or nuclear electricity, a source of water and an electrolyser.

    Fossil fuels are transported around the world because they usually cannot be made locally. This model breaks down for hydrogen because it potentially can be made locally at the point of consumption.

    What a waste of effort to transport hydrogen around the world.

    Hydrogen could make countries be energy independent.

    • This model breaks down for hydrogen because it potentially can be made locally at the point of consumption.

      Good use of the word "potentially". Potentially right now Germany is in a complete energy production crisis and any moves to introduce more green energy would be better spent shutting down some fossil fuel plant.

      If another country is ahead in the game then it makes perfect sense for them to do so. Not everything can be done everywhere at any given time. In related news Norway exports a ton of green energy to Europe. Why? They have lots of hydropower available. The same can't be said for example in the Nethe

  • by sinij ( 911942 ) on Monday August 15, 2022 @09:31AM (#62791010)
    Canada has so much existing hydroelectric power and even more potential for further development in this area that building wind-powered energy is insane.
    • by dskoll ( 99328 )

      Not really. Hydro power has a huge environmental impact and has to be built where the water is. WInd farms can be built anywhere where it's windy (which in Newfoundland, means anywhere at all) with a smaller environmental impact and no need for long and expensive transmission lines.

      • by sinij ( 911942 )
        Look at the map, "where water is" describes most provinces in Canada. As to environmental impact, there isn't an energy source that doesn't have any, and that includes wind.
  • Logical (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RobinH ( 124750 ) on Monday August 15, 2022 @10:09AM (#62791132) Homepage
    Germany got into this mess by shutting down all its coal and nuclear plants and building solar and wind capacity in a country where it doesn't blow very much and isn't very sunny, and where their peak energy demand is at night in the winter. Then they ramped up a huge dependency on Russian natural gas to power the critical parts of their industry. So instead of admitting their mistake and bringing the low carbon nuclear plants back online and investing in small modular nuclear reactors, which is about the only reasonable "green"(-ish) base load capable electricity generation they could possibly have on-site in Germany, they decide to bring the lignite coal plants back online for the short term and then make themselves dependent on a Rube Goldberg-esque chain of Newfoundland wind to electricity to hydrogen/ammonia, shipped across the ocean in diesel fueled tankers. Sounds about right. I have a lot of respect for German engineering, but their leaders seem to be insane.
    • by Uecker ( 1842596 )

      Germany got into this mess

      That depends on what mess you are talking about. Germany certainly contributed a lot to it as did other western countries. At the moment it produces 9.7 tonnes CO2 per capita per year. The US has 16 tonnes. If you talk about the war in Ukraine, that was an unprovoked attack from Russa. If you talk about German's dependency on Russian gas, this was indeed a naive political decision. If you talk about high electricity prices in Europe, than France issues with their nuclear plants are a much bigger contributin

      • Germany got into this mess

        That depends on what mess you are talking about. Germany certainly contributed a lot to it as did other western countries. At the moment it produces 9.7 tonnes CO2 per capita per year. The US has 16 tonnes. If you talk about the war in Ukraine, that was an unprovoked attack from Russa.

        Provoked? Yeah, sure, absolutely not, I'll give you that. Enabled? Hell yes. They didn't even have the decency to threaten cancellation of Nord Stream 2 when Putin was very obviously telegraphing his intention to attack (and trying to gauge what the West's reaction would be) in January or so.

      • Thank you for your detailed breakdown of the parent comment.

        It was very educational, I hope more people read your response.

  • I'm guessing that building undersea power transmission lines is harder than building signal cables. The latter exist, whereas I've never heard of a long distance undersea power line. You might only need to get as far as Ireland to sell on the the European grid. Is Ireland connected, or is even that distance too much for grid ties under salt water?

    That said, the other poster who suggested anhydrous ammonia vs. hydrogen might have a point, but as always the standard bit about armchair guys making flip comm

FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed -- it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer. -- A.J. Perlis

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