Oil Giant BP is Killing 18 Hydrogen Projects, Chilling the Nascent Industry (techcrunch.com) 46
An anonymous reader shares a report: Tucked inside a 32-page earnings report, oil and gas giant BP revealed it was killing 18 early-stage hydrogen projects, a move that could have a chilling effect on the nascent hydrogen industry. The decision, along with the sale of the company's U.S. on-shore wind power operations, will save BP $200 million annually and help boost its bottom line. The hydrogen industry, which has relied on oil and gas companies both financially and through lobbying efforts, is preparing for a grimmer outcome.
BP has been a supporter of hydrogen. The company's venture capital arm has invested in several green hydrogen startups, including Electric Hydrogen and Advanced Ionics. Earlier this year, BP said it would develop "more than 10" hydrogen projects in the U.S., Europe, and Australia. Now, BP is scaling back those plans, saying it'll develop between five and ten projects. The company is keeping quiet about which ones will receive the green light.
BP has been a supporter of hydrogen. The company's venture capital arm has invested in several green hydrogen startups, including Electric Hydrogen and Advanced Ionics. Earlier this year, BP said it would develop "more than 10" hydrogen projects in the U.S., Europe, and Australia. Now, BP is scaling back those plans, saying it'll develop between five and ten projects. The company is keeping quiet about which ones will receive the green light.
Typical Inflated & Misleading /. Headline (Score:2)
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As if BP were the sole source of innovation & development in the hydrogen industry. GEEZ
Innovation in the hydrogen industry? They keep promising us some and then not delivering it. Seems like every year or so there's a new hydrogen storage technology we are supposed to believe in which turns out to be bullshit. Which is not a surprise, because the hydrogen industry is the oil industry.
Hydrogen fuel has already been tried in California, the place in the world where it would make the most sense. It turned out not to make any and the number of filling stations has actually contracted since the pr
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There has been innovation in greenwashing, and some innovative techniques to coax "green" subsidies out of naive (or corrupt, it's hard to tell) governments in Australia. But large-scale "hydrogen power" and "hydrogen energy storage" remain as far way as they did in the 1980s.
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Exactly, hydrogen as transportation fuel just isn't workable.
It is to difficult to store or to difficult to control/use at the temperatures and pressure where storing it becomes less of a problem. I still think BEVs are fantastically stupid from a fit for use case standpoint, they ONLY make sense because they band-aide all the other dumb automotive choices we have made to this point. Heavy, excessively dangerous, and environmentally destructive to produce. Then H2 power trains come a long and make them look
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To expand upon this a bit, hydrogen has the best energy density by mass. By volume, it actually has one of the worst. In order to fix this, you either need extreme pressure or extreme low temperature. As you mention, this imposes extra mass in the storage tanks and needs for insulation to keep the O2 from freezing.
It actually works out that a methane rocket is lighter for a given amount of useful thrust. Methane is easier to obtain, easier to liquify, won't freeze O2 (O2 is more likely to freeze methane
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With resources like space based solar mirrors for energy, and solar sails for recovery of plentiful ice from Saturn's rings, it's a wonderful long-term chemical fuel resource. Space craft will continue to need high thrust drives for some uses, even as solar sails evolve and become commonplace, so there will still be a market for it.
Re: Typical Inflated & Misleading /. Headline (Score:1)
Space Nuttery should be in the DSM.
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As long as there is a generous energy supply to produce it with electrolysis, and a generous water supply, it's a very efficient chemical fuel. But it's not a net source of energy and should not be considered as such.
Re: Typical Inflated & Misleading /. Headline (Score:1)
So except for the fact it's inefficient, it's efficient and it's not a fuel. Where do I sign up??
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If you want an example of niche uses for hydrogen, fuel cell powered forklifts are used in very cold refrigerated food warehouses where ICE engines are undesirable and batteries would perform poorly. The hydrogen is made on-site using natural gas steam reformation (so-called "gray hydrogen").
If you think back twenty-five years, the idea of using hydrogen as a medium to replace transportation fuels appeared to have a lot of merit and certainly was something that would reasonably interest the petroleum indus
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Ride out into the sunset (Score:4, Interesting)
The disruption will come from venture capital once petroleum gets expensive enough. At $72/bbl (as of now), it's still way too cheap to yield a high margin for green hydrogen.
Batteries and Solar Panels (Score:2)
We've seen the market for solar panels and batteries explode over the last decade, and that has led to much lower prices, which in turn increased the explodiness (not a word) of those markets.
I don't think we've seen anything similar in the world of hydrogen.
Good, hydrogen is dumb (Score:4, Informative)
Hydrogen as a fuel offers the best selection of the worst downsides. High fuel cost and currently almost entirely fossil-sourced like gasoline, slow filling and high up-front vehicle costs like an EV, needs to be stored at incredible pressures and passes through solids while embrittling steel on the way out like...hydrogen. It could only possibly be worse if a spill could kill a whole crowd of people like ammonia or it could cause stubborn self-reigniting fires like a li-ion/li-po battery.
If you have a process that produces extra hydrogen, the best thing to do with it is convert it to safe, convenient electricity on the spot. The only reason the hydrogen economy concept has stuck around despite being a terrible idea is, again, that currently almost all hydrogen is produced as a fossil fuel byproduct.
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If you want energy density from hydrogen you must store it cryogenically, which requires equipment which is heavy and bulky. If you have to use fuel anyway, you might as well use something more like normal jet fuel, which doesn't require that.
Why ask slashdot about the numbers, surely there are studies. But you could probably just do a back of the napkin calculation to verify that it makes no sense. Don't forget to take into account that you need new airframes.
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Battery is starting to be competitive for short haul commuter flights.
That said, we don't have to go to hydrogen even if we want to go away from fossil fuels. It might not be practical for vehicles, but ethanol, methanol (sometimes called wood alcohol), other biofuels made from various reactions such as fermentation or thermal depolymerization are all options, especially if we go almost entirely EV for land vehicles and shorter flights.
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Agreed! Hydrogen is scary as hell. NASA has problems keeping the stuff contained, I don't want my neighbor trying.
When the greenwashing wears off.... (Score:2)
BP has been doing plentt of kayfabe around green energy investment after the Deepwater Horizon disaster where they sprayed tons of the neurotoxic dispersant Corexit to disappear the problem and limit their own liability.
The "Beyond Petroleum" rebrand was of course a lie from the beginning.
Mixed feelings (Score:4, Insightful)
I still think green hydrogen makes sense for some niches, yet there has been no progress made in those areas. For example large vehicles traveling long distances such as long haul flights and international sea freight. Yet the lack of progress there makes wonder if hydrogen is a dead end even for niche applications.
In short it is a solution I would like have succeeded where it made sense, but it increasing looks like there is no applications where it makes sense.
As for BP I wonder if the ROI on hydrogen FUD is no longer worth it for them.
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I can't see it working for stationary generation as long term st
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I think the Tesla Semi and others now available mean H2 has already missed the boat on heavy trucking.
Tesla semi can only go 500 miles, a diesel truck can go three times that and fill up again in minutes. Good enough for a single driver, but not good enough for a team. Local deliveries will no doubt eventually go all electric, but long distance is still unsolved. Of course there are also trains, also running diesel in many parts of the world. That will also be one of the last things to electrify.
Battery technology has reached the point where is can replace generators as short term backup of a day or so.
I doubt that. A facility I used to work at had a whole large room full of UPSes, intended only to keep thing
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I think you will find the energy density of a modern Tesla Megapack, or similar, is going be a magnitude of bet
Re: Mixed feelings (Score:1)
How did it "make sense" 40 years ago?
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H2 cannot compete with PV and wind... (Score:2)
As simple as that...
dropping prices of PV, wind and batteries make green hydrogen uncompetitive.... and they are much easier to use...
IMO, the hydrogen source is still the problem (Score:2)
For a while it was my go-to, long-term solution for at least the "car" side of climate change problems. When I realized what the source of all of that easy-to-get hydrogen was going to be the same ol' fossil fuels, it felt more like a waste of time to consider for large-scale transportation needs.
bad for storage (Score:2)
From this, I guess its safe to say Hydrogen is less than optimal for storage. I've been looking at solar cells. I've got lots of room and to get enough power for the winter I may end up with double the capacity during the Sumner. That has me trying to think about how to save that "free" energy in something more scalable (and cheaper) than regular batteries. I don't live near a mountain, so elevated water storage isn't likely an option. Any other ideas?
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If you consider elevated water as an option, there are other possibilities if you can do the engineering work. Flywheels and pressurized air come to mind.
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From this, I guess its safe to say Hydrogen is less than optimal for storage. I've been looking at solar cells. I've got lots of room and to get enough power for the winter I may end up with double the capacity during the Sumner. That has me trying to think about how to save that "free" energy in something more scalable (and cheaper) than regular batteries. I don't live near a mountain, so elevated water storage isn't likely an option. Any other ideas?
You want to take power generated in the summer and store it all the way to winter, six months, 4380 hours?? For every DAY you shift a kilowatt from summer to winter, you'll need 105,000 kilowatt-hours of storage. One kilowatt-day is worth about $2.50
If you come up with a good solution to produce 105 megawatt-hours of electrical storage costing less than $2.50, and with a leakage rate of less than a quarter of a percent per day... patent it.
Hydrogen is a great... (Score:2)
...research project with great potential
It's NOT ready for widespread deployment in its current state
Why hydrogen? (Score:2)
Well can you name another fuel that doesn't have any Carbon in it?
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You know you can make hydrocarbons from other sources right? We have been doing so for a century by now.
But not at economicallly competitive prices, unfortunately.
Re: Why hydrogen? (Score:1)
Ammonia, boron... um.. about it...
Re: Why hydrogen? (Score:1)
And hydrazine. Getting old ovah here
Carbon free steel (Score:2)
Hydrogen doesn't seem great as a transport fuel right now, but there are other interesting projects using hydrogen such as carbon free steel production [ssab.com].
As for vehicles, there's one thing I like about the idea of hydrogen: you don't need a nasty mix of chemicals store it, and the tank doesn't wear out in the same way. In some ways it seems like simpler technology. If only hydrogen production weren't so inefficient...
Basic economics (Score:2)
Liquid hydrogen is a nonstarter for a whole bunch of obvious reasons. Compressed hydrogen's energy density is even worse. Metal hydrides have almo