IEA Lowers Renewables Forecast For Clean Hydrogen (reuters.com) 34
Although hydrogen-dedicated renewable energy capacity is expected to increase by 45 GW between 2022 and 2028, the estimates are 35% lower than what the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasted a year ago. Reuters reports: There is growing political momentum for low-emission hydrogen but actual implementation has been held up by uncertain demand outlooks, a lack of clarity in regulatory frameworks, and a lack of infrastructure to deliver hydrogen to end users, the IEA said in an emailed response to questions. Slow progress on real-world implementation "is a consequence of barriers that could be expected in a sector that needs to build up new and complex value chains," the IEA said. Uncertainties have been exacerbated by inflation and sluggish policy implementation.
Expected renewable energy capacity for hydrogen production represents just 7% of the capacity pledged for the same period and one tenth the sum of government targets for 2030, IEA said in its report. Around 75% of expected capacity is based in three countries, with China taking the lion's share, followed by Saudi Arabia and the United States, the IEA says.
Expected renewable energy capacity for hydrogen production represents just 7% of the capacity pledged for the same period and one tenth the sum of government targets for 2030, IEA said in its report. Around 75% of expected capacity is based in three countries, with China taking the lion's share, followed by Saudi Arabia and the United States, the IEA says.
Hydrogen doesn't have to be difficult to transport (Score:4, Funny)
From TFA:
Hydrogen is hard and expensive to transport, opens new tab and store, with exceedingly low temperatures needed to create liquid hydrogen and high leakage rates for gaseous hydrogen.
They're not thinking it through: just use one oxygen atom as a handy carrying handle for two hydrogen atoms, and hey presto, it becomes really easy to transport.
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From TFA:
Hydrogen is hard and expensive to transport, opens new tab and store, with exceedingly low temperatures needed to create liquid hydrogen and high leakage rates for gaseous hydrogen.
They're not thinking it through: just use one oxygen atom as a handy carrying handle for two hydrogen atoms, and hey presto, it becomes really easy to transport.
At the same time, wear another H2O molecule as a hat because the copyright on Mickey Mouse has expired.
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They're not thinking it through: just use one oxygen atom as a handy carrying handle for two hydrogen atoms, and hey presto, it becomes really easy to transport.
Or we could use one carbon atom as a handy carrying handle for two hydrogen atoms. We can string those carbon atoms together to make all kinds of interesting fuels that would be easy to transport and store. We could get the carbon from biomass, or carbon capture, to close the carbon loop.
If not carbon then maybe nitrogen?
FOUR hydrogen atoms (Score:2)
just a technical one...
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No, I meant two hydrogen atoms per carbon, not four. They are called an "alkene" and have the general chemical formula of CnH2n.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
We'd probably want to have saturated hydrocarbons though for various reasons, these are called an "alkane".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
CH4 is an alkane, a very useful fuel, called methane, and is the primary constituent of natural gas. Because so much of natural gas is methane the terms "natural gas" and "methane" are often used interchangeab
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They're not thinking it through: just use one oxygen atom as a handy carrying handle for two hydrogen atoms, and hey presto, it becomes really easy to transport.
You need to be able to transport it in a way that can be readily used on the other end. Lighting something on fire is easier when you don't need to pump it into a proton exchange membrane in the presence of high voltage first.
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It's really more of a sploosh.
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Hmmm. I read the thegarbz's comment with a hint of biting sarcasm in the second sentence, so maybe that's a double whooosh.
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Only partially. The reality is transporting in water form and separating locally is always a consideration in any such energy project. But running electrolysers on site always presents a huge risk. In the industry there currently is large disagreement on precisely the risk presented by local hydrogen generation and compression.
E.g. one company I've worked with considers a 300m minimum exclusion radius from any manned building for an enclosed electrolyser. Then you get other companies who happily put them ri
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Whoosh...
Not a whoosh at all. Using water and doing on location conversion is literally one of the solutions considered in all hydrogen energy related projects. If you think this is a whoosh or Rosco was really making a joke, it shows that either of you don't actually understand the energy industry. This isn't a joke, this is an engineering question that is considered over and over again.
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Hydrogen energy is just an engineering problem? I don't believe so.
There's a number of engineering oriented YouTube channels that considered the engineering problems of hydrogen fuel and this is not something that engineering can solve. I'll try to recall a few YouTube channels that demonstrated how hydrogen fuel, especially from electrolysis of water, is impractical. There's Engineering Explained. Real Engineering. Maybe Practical Engineering. Then there are science and technology channels like Thiun
There is a way to easily store and use (Score:3)
I would agree that making and storing liquid hydrogen is costly and dangerous. Additionally, there's issues with leakage when it's in its gaseous form. But, there is a form available that has a proven history of ease of use as well as easily stored. Simply combine with carbon to produce chains of carbon. By using different lengths of chains, one can create anything from an easily used gas that can be liquified at room temperature as well as easily burned liquids that are liquid at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. If one is worried about carbon dioxide, the obtain the required carbon from atmospheric carbon dioxide, making the storage, transportation, and usage carbon neutral.
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the obtain the required carbon from atmospheric carbon dioxide
I think you don't understand the scale of these processes. DAC in both forms currently available requires between 6 and 10 GJ / tonne of CO2 captured, most of this in heat, with the more efficient process requiring high temperatures. You'd be burning a significant portion of the hydrogen generated just to capture the carbon needed to later convert hydrocarbons. There's no wind farm or solar panel large enough to make this a viable process, you're literally combining 3 very energy intensive processes togethe
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Hey, but burning all that extra energy and wasting the power and money TOTALLY satisfy the precepts of greenwashing!
GO GO GADGET BOONDOGGLE!
*Sigh*. Greenwashing is when you do nothing, invest nothing, and pretend you have solved the problem. Hydrogen electrolysis projects are ludicrously expensive high effort investments designed to solved a specific sub-set of environmental problems. It is the literal opposite of the definition greenwashing.
Will it work? Maybe, maybe not. But when you throw billions at any problem the term "washing" doesn't apply. Please use our language correctly.
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I believe you are mistaken on the definition of "greenwashing".
https://www.investopedia.com/t... [investopedia.com]
To be "green" means it is something sustainable. And being sustainable includes being low enough in cost that it is something we can afford to do indefinitely. Many hydrogen fuel efforts cost so much that if done as-is long term then it would bankrupt the company, community, or nation. Hydrogen fuels on their own aren't likely to be a net energy producer but as part of some larger energy production process it
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No one is claiming production of hydrogen is environmentally sound. It's part of the economy. By your definition solar panels are green washing because they are polluting to make. EVs are green washing because they require significant mining efforts. Your application of the definition is wrong, pure and simple.
The singular point of green hydrogen is to decarbonise heavy industry. That isn't false or misleading. That is actively being done right now and actively reducing carbon emissions of plants in questio
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No one is claiming production of hydrogen is environmentally sound. It's part of the economy. By your definition solar panels are green washing because they are polluting to make. EVs are green washing because they require significant mining efforts. Your application of the definition is wrong, pure and simple.
The singular point of green hydrogen is to decarbonise heavy industry. That isn't false or misleading. That is actively being done right now and actively reducing carbon emissions of plants in question.
Is that what I wrote? I believe you are replying to the wrong post.
Re: There is a way to easily store and use (Score:2)
Green hydrogen is not viable for energy storage (Score:2)
Green hydrogen is typically produced through electrolysis which is very energy inefficient, and once produced hydrogen is difficult to store. The very small size of the hydrogen molecule means that leaks are very likely, and the pressures and low temperatures required to store hydrogen in liquid form add to the costs. Converting hydrogen to Methane (CH3) or Methanol (CH3OH) introduce a troubling carbon (C) atom which needs carbon capture (CCS) when they are used which again increases costs. Converting to am
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Mostly agree with you. But for off-grid unwired transport, standard battery may not be the best choice. It may be the weather being too cold there, or it may be the battery is too heavy to carry for extreme long distance. There is a tipping point where energy density surplus (read: lighter vehicle/plane/ship) trumps the energy inefficiency in manufacturing the organic chemicals.
At that point, methane/LNG, propane/LPG, ammonia, or maybe even hydrogen can be better solution.
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NH3 conversion efficiency isn't bad at all, especially compared to all the alternatives. The far bigger problem is risk. You need big ammonia plants and that stuff is *looks up the technical term* fucking nasty on a risk of accident scale.
Forget the green hydrogen and just install grid scale batteries
No one is proposing hydrogen as a solution for where batteries can be used instead. Okay, no one other than Toyota with it's head in the tar-sands is proposing hydrogen as a solution where batteries can be used instead. The point of hydrogen is to de-carbonise heavy indust
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Maybe we should try yellow hydrogen instead.
Try pink hydrogen. (Score:2)
Huh? Yellow hydrogen? Oh, I found how it's defined...
https://www.nationalgrid.com/s... [nationalgrid.com]
Yellow hydrogen is how we define hydrogen produced from solar power. But the sun isn't yellow, it's green.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
If I understand this correctly the human eye isn't as sensitive to green light as other colors, which is especially true for people with certain kinds of color blindness. This explains why green traffic lights have a bluish tint to them, and perhaps could explain why old LCD screens
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Forget the green hydrogen and just install grid scale batteries, they are proven technology, they are cheap and getting cheaper by the day. Batteries are already very efficient for storing and retrieving energy, and electricity cables are a proven and effective way to transport electricity.
This is a pretty common misconception. "Grid scale" batteries are neither cheap, nor serving the same purpose something like a hydrogen burner presumably would.
Current grid-tied batteries are predominantly used for ancillary functions. So ensuring grid stability minute to minute, not necessarily for load shifting. Actual energy arbitrage is not even remotely profitable with current battery technology, and is only attempted in places with extreme subsidies and harsh mandates. Even then, at full discharge ca
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The proper way to address the 3rd level is with "carbon recapture" kinds of things. Hydrogen + carbon -> hydrocarbon. Well, you need some oxygen, too. This requires building some excess capacity, and the capture plants, and storage facilities. And maintaining the hydrocarbon burning plants. This will be a cost center, not a profit center, as recapturing carbon is going to be expensive. You want to avoid burning the "recaptured carbon", as part of the justification is to lower the carbon component o
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They are not competitive technologies. Batteries are great for grid storage, but not useful for shipping energy globally, as a chemical feedstock, nor for seasonal storage.
Yes, you are correct the fossil fuel industry likes hydrogen for the reasons you give, but also because shipping gases is what they do. If the fossil fuel industries and their skill sets survive while not destroying the environment that's not a bad thing.
Just go electric already. (Score:2)
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Not clear. Electric is better when you've got a generator available. This generally isn't true on, say, an airplane. There are lots of circumstances where having a stored fuel is a big benefit, and it's difficult to do that at scale with electric power.
There probably *ISN'T* a good "one size fits all" solution.
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The argument is already won, electric is better. Most hydrogen is made by splitting methane anyway, green hydrogen via electrolysis is low efficiency at this time, compared to just using that electricity to charge a battery..
Your local hospital likely has multiple diesel or NG backup generators for when the grid goes down. You are not going to run a hospital on batteries for any significant length of time, so what is your carbon neutral solution for stationary backup generation? Synfuels and H2 seem to be the only choices. Perhaps ammonia, which has just as many challenges.
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If electrolysis of water is too inefficient then consider another process, such as a sulfur-iodine cycle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Maybe in the end batteries still have a higher total end-to-end efficiency but batteries require expensive materials while sulfur and iodine are pretty cheap. Fossil fuels aren't exactly known for being efficient but they are cheap. Then comes the costs of any inconvenience of time spent charging batteries, or the problems of batteries having so much mass/weight/volume