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Hydrogen matters

88V8
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Re: Hydrogen matters

#431178

Postby 88V8 » July 29th, 2021, 11:28 am

GrahamPlatt wrote:https://www.h2-view.com/story/birmingham-receives-its-first-hydrogen-double-decker-bus/
(birmingham-receives-its-first-hydrogen-double-decker-bus)

The H part of this is made by ITM Power, ticker ITM, in whom one could actually buy a stake.

They are also involved in the UK pilot of feeding hydrogen into the gas mains in a town in the northeast. The feed is 20% which is near the maximum that can be burned in a standard gas appliance.
Somewhat negative commentary here https://www.rechargenews.com/energy-tra ... -1-1045075 In a 100% hydrogen network, not only would all gas-burning appliances — boilers, cookers, ovens, etc — need to be replaced, but the grid network would need to be upgraded to handle the smaller hydrogen molecules. All metal pipes would need to be replaced with polyethylene ones — including those ones hidden in walls and under floorboards in people’s homes — while all the valves and compressors across the network would also have to be swapped out.

Personally I will invest very little in 'green energy' at the moment as I think much of the sector is a variety of solutions looking for a viable problem. ITM for instance makes electrolisers, and in static applications one has to wonder about the wisdom of using electricity to make hydrogen to burn to make heat, when one can just create the heat directly from the electricity.

And if that comment above about the gas network is true, which I haven't seen before but hydrogen is indeed very 'leaky', then the whole idea of using the existing network falls on its face.

I think for the moment I shall leave green investment to the pros, and just hang on to their coat tails as an incidental part of IT portfolios.

V8

88V8
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Re: Hydrogen matters

#431241

Postby 88V8 » July 29th, 2021, 3:02 pm

ReallyVeryFoolish wrote:
88V8 wrote:They are also involved in the UK pilot of feeding hydrogen into the gas mains in a town in the northeast.... if that comment above about the gas network is true, which I haven't seen before but hydrogen is indeed very 'leaky', then the whole idea of using the existing network falls on its face.

As an engineer with lots of hydrogen experience, I would say, never underestimate the difficulty and safety implications of handling large quantities of high pressure hydrogen.

I did wonder after making that post... if all the pipework needs replacing to run 100% hydrogen, would one not get at least some leakage with 20% hydrogen?

V8

88V8
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Re: Hydrogen matters

#431419

Postby 88V8 » July 30th, 2021, 11:28 am

ReallyVeryFoolish wrote:New hydrogen fund flops on IPO?
https://quoteddata.com/2021/07/hydrogen ... 0m-target/

Ticker HGEN. Falling at open, but then it is a down day.

V8

spasmodicus
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Re: Hydrogen matters

#431663

Postby spasmodicus » July 31st, 2021, 11:16 am

88V8 wrote:
ReallyVeryFoolish wrote:New hydrogen fund flops on IPO?
https://quoteddata.com/2021/07/hydrogen ... 0m-target/

Ticker HGEN. Falling at open, but then it is a down day.

V8


Journalistic ignorance rules OK. The hot air balloon featured on the link is almost certainly powered by propane and symbolises the hot air that is talked about hydrogen.
S
(who nevertheless took a modest punt on Ceres Power)

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Re: Hydrogen matters

#432005

Postby Bouleversee » August 2nd, 2021, 11:47 am

Oh dear! I think I had better move quickly. Apart from the difficulties and expense of installing an electric range cooker as there is no electric cooker point in my kitchen, as my house (described as a ranch bungalow) was extended by about the same area as existed by my predecessors over 25 years ago and has 2 separate systems for gas central heating and solid floors, with one boiler in the loft and the other in the garage, at opposite ends of the house and smaller sized pipes in the new part. I can foresee huge expense and difficulties in supplying heat and hot water when gas ceases to be supplied. If hydrogen is a no-go, I would presumably need two heat pumps and I can't think where these could be situated or how all the pipes could be replaced. What about night storage heaters and immersion heaters? Will these not be viable? What is likely to happen to the supply and cost of electricity? My boilers etc. are quite old and I am not sure how much longer they will last. No doubt they will expire and have to be replaced before gas boilers are condemned. What a nightmare! This sort of scenario could have a huge effect on the values of properties and their saleability.

taken2often
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Re: Hydrogen matters

#432130

Postby taken2often » August 2nd, 2021, 11:15 pm

Hope this helps. Being a Bungalow it should be easy to run a heavy cable to ther Kitchen. I have removed all gas from my flat.Changed Hob, Oven and fitted a 80ltre Electric water heater £300. For heating I purchased the more expensive Aluminium Rointe oil filled heaters. No expensive service or parts cost. One stops working all the rest continue. Set base temp or each room and raise temp in rooms when you need them. Leave on all the time at base temp keep fabric at a base temp. I live in Scotland so I should not have a problem with the water heater. In England if you have a limescale problem I would suggest buying two, so that they can be switched and serviced say every three years. The Elements become coated and increase running cost. They also have an Anode that gets eaten away. These can be changed. Having two just makes the possible down time negligable. Mine runs all the time and seems to cost buttons. Air sourced Heat Pumps would be massivly expensive and unlikely to be effective in your age of hosue unless you have underfloor heating and very good insulation.

As to Hydrogen all the money is on it. In fact I have just invested 15K on the above mentioned HGEN. Have a look at JCB and Hydrogen it looks like all their new machines will soon be running on Hydrogen. They are now producing engines and state that battery operated large plant and trucks is just not viable. Nearly all the large car companies are developing Hydrogen Engines.

The boiler companies are developing conversion Kits and Hydrogen/natural gas boilers for the future. It is the only way to use the Pipe Grid. 100% Hydrogen for house use is a politician dream.

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Re: Hydrogen matters

#432339

Postby gryffron » August 3rd, 2021, 9:39 pm

taken2often wrote:100% Hydrogen for house use is a politician dream.

Though of course we already have biodigesters producing methane. Sure only a tiny proportion ATM. I wonder what proportion this actually needs to supply to solve the "invisible flame" Hydrogen problem?

Gryff

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Re: Hydrogen matters

#432350

Postby JohnB » August 3rd, 2021, 10:48 pm

Its like biodiesel from chip fat, no where near enough feedstock to meet demand

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Re: Hydrogen matters

#433024

Postby scotia » August 6th, 2021, 9:47 pm

Snorvey wrote:
JohnB wrote:Its like biodiesel from chip fat, no where near enough feedstock to meet demand


Only Scotland has the potential to be self sufficient in chip fat sourced biodiesel.

Sometimes we get a bit careless with it before it's transformed into biodiesel. I remember, (about 70 years ago), on holiday in Rothesay, almost every evening the Fire Brigade turned out to a chip pan fire - and all the kids used to turn out to watch the fun. One night it was the deep fat fryer in the chip shop. :D
(slightly off topic?)

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Re: Hydrogen matters

#434199

Postby Hallucigenia » August 11th, 2021, 9:36 pm

Liebreich goes into more detail on his thoughts about where demand for hydrogen will come from in a 50' audioblog :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALLJsyPjYz4

This LA Times article on the day-to-day experience of hydrogen car drivers suggests that current hydrogen technology for cars just isn't really mature yet - tales of pumps that need three hours to cool down enough before they can pump fuel, pump nozzles freezing to fuel tanks, apps that say pumps are working when they're not and so on. The director of the climate program at UC Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment is quoted as saying hydrogen for cars "started as kind of a bad bet by the state...Now it has become a legacy zombie technology".

(you can get round their paywall by View Source and then do a find on "articleBody" )

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/ ... to-nowhere

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Re: Hydrogen matters

#434283

Postby spasmodicus » August 12th, 2021, 10:13 am

Despite the negativity around the domestic use of hydrogen for cars and boilers, it seems that industrial use is becoming increasingly important. Even the Russians, not so far renowned for their green credentials, are at it:
https://rogtecmagazine.com/gazprom-neft-will-develop-hydrogen-technologies/

na zdorovye!
S

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Re: Hydrogen matters

#434293

Postby GrahamPlatt » August 12th, 2021, 10:47 am

“Blue” hydrogen likely to be worse for climate than burning natural gas directly:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... -emissions

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Re: Hydrogen matters

#434322

Postby Hallucigenia » August 12th, 2021, 12:36 pm

spasmodicus wrote:Despite the negativity around the domestic use of hydrogen for cars and boilers, it seems that industrial use is becoming increasingly important.


Not "increasingly important" - it should be the main focus, as per the Liebreich ladder in my previous post, what limited hydrogen is available should be concentrated in the chemical industry in the first instance. That's the place to develop hydrogen technology and develop infrastructure and economies of scale, the rungs immediately below should see R&D until it becomes clear what niches are available - but the bottom few rungs deserve minimal investment.

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Re: Hydrogen matters

#434575

Postby Hallucigenia » August 13th, 2021, 2:10 pm

GrahamPlatt wrote:“Blue” hydrogen likely to be worse for climate than burning natural gas directly:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... -emissions


View on this from the head of Carbon Budgets for the committee advising HMG on climate change :

https://twitter.com/david_joffe/status/ ... 2891850753

"Basically, the paper’s calculations potentially represent a case where blue H₂ is done really badly & without any sensible regulations.

And then cherry-picked a climate metric to make it look as bad as possible.

Well regulated and monitored fossil gas production can achieve much lower methane leakage rates than 3.5% - we know this.

Autothermal reforming ought to be able to achieve well over 90% CO₂ capture rates. We assume 95%, tech providers say 98%....

So, what do we think about blue H₂? We think it can potentially save emissions of up to 85%, compared with fossil gas on a GWP100 basis.

We recognise that this is not guaranteed & have therefore recommended to UK govt that savings of this order be demonstrated as a priority.
"

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Re: Hydrogen matters

#435091

Postby Hallucigenia » August 16th, 2021, 11:15 am

There seems to have been a bit of a ding-dong over the claims of this blue hydrogen study - a lot depends on what leakage rate you assume from natural gas pipelines which is apparently pretty horrendous in eg Russia.

But this is a peer-reviewed paper suggesting that 45-85% reductions in life-cycle global warming potential are possible from blue hydrogen over methane, but it does depend on a regulatory environment that comes down hard on things like gas leaks.

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/article ... d0se00222d

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Re: Hydrogen matters

#435303

Postby spasmodicus » August 17th, 2021, 9:50 am

Hallucigenia wrote:There seems to have been a bit of a ding-dong over the claims of this blue hydrogen study - a lot depends on what leakage rate you assume from natural gas pipelines which is apparently pretty horrendous in eg Russia.

But this is a peer-reviewed paper suggesting that 45-85% reductions in life-cycle global warming potential are possible from blue hydrogen over methane, but it does depend on a regulatory environment that comes down hard on things like gas leaks.

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/article ... d0se00222d


In the UK, gas leaks allegedly release 1.9% to 10.8% of natural gas produced into the atmosphere according to this
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/030142159090060H

Given that natural gas (mostly methane) is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, eliminating leaks would seem to provide a significant benefit, even without a switch to hydrogen. However, British Gas apparently believes (or wants us to believe) otherwise and says that the leakage is around 1%.

I thought that hydrogen might be more "leaky" than natural gas, but it seems that I may be wrong, according to this
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360319919347275

An earlier investigation
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/036031999290025R
gives the impression that leakage rates are poorly understood.

I suspect that the answer you get will depend on who pays for the research to be done.

S

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Re: Hydrogen matters

#435306

Postby PeterGray » August 17th, 2021, 10:06 am

Even if the true leakage rate is only 1% the impact is much greater than the number suggests. Any leakage is releases methane directly into the atmosphere. The remaining 99% should be burnt, hopefully efficiently, so releasing CO2 not methane (methane having about 25 times impact on climate). So even at 1% minimising leaks is important, as is ensuring complete combustion .

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Re: Hydrogen matters

#435353

Postby daveh » August 17th, 2021, 12:43 pm

ReallyVeryFoolish wrote:I wonder what the oxidation half life on CH4 is in the atmosphere? Once oxidised to CO2 and H2O the end result in the atmosphere of a CH4 emission is the same as burning it.

I suspect that true the CH4 emission from landfill, natural biological decomposition, wild animals /insect life, and livestock is greater than from the gas industry. I doubt anyone truthfully really knows the answers.

Regarding parasitic emission of H2 in comparison to CH4, I can assure you that in the real industrial world, H2 is really very difficult indeed to ensure leak free pressure systems. In fact, I am not even sure such a thing exists. (RVF has 48 years as an engineer in the energy and industrial gases industries).

RVF



wikipedia says 9.1 years half-life for methane in the atmosphere and this paper:
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review/ ... le_id=6097
says 8.6 years

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Re: Hydrogen matters

#435380

Postby Hallucigenia » August 17th, 2021, 1:55 pm

PeterGray wrote:Even if the true leakage rate is only 1% the impact is much greater than the number suggests. Any leakage is releases methane directly into the atmosphere. The remaining 99% should be burnt, hopefully efficiently, so releasing CO2 not methane (methane having about 25 times impact on climate). So even at 1% minimising leaks is important, as is ensuring complete combustion .


Of course - but if you're comparing blue hydrogen against methane, then pipeline losses net out, as they're experienced by methane on both sides of the equation. The only "extra" methane pipeline losses are between the end of the main methane pipeline and the additional methane pipeline feeding the blue hydrogen plant.

The thing about methane halflife is why it matters that the original study looked at global warming potential over 20 years (when significant amounts of methane would still be in the atmosphere) rather than 100 years (when it would all have decomposed to CO2)

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Re: Hydrogen matters

#435429

Postby spasmodicus » August 17th, 2021, 4:11 pm

At the same time, it seems daft to use electricity to generate hydrogen by electrolysis, efficiency 80% if you’re lucky, and then send it down pipes, where a few percent more of that energy is lost in leaks, only to burn it in a boiler where, even in the most efficient case of condensing boilers, another 1 or 2% is lost to the exhaust. OK, I know, hydrogen can be stored and used later, but the electricity could be used directly in old-school storage heaters.

Even dafter when energy falling on your roof as sunlight is converted to electricity in an expensive pv panel (efficiency maybe 25%) and stored in an even more expensive battery (charge discharge cycle loss probably around 10%?) or fed into the grid, only to be used ultimately to heat water in an immersion heater, or, wait for it, electrolyse water to make hydrogen.

It seems to me that the politicians are often so blinded by the wonders of “green” technology that they forget about simple low-tech stuff like insulating our homes properly or repairing the leaks in the existing gas distribution system.

S
PS I recently paid for improving the insulation in my roof myself, because it seemed to make sense. Needless to say, it proved impossible to access the UK gov's pathetically badly thought out and ludicrously bureaucratic Green Homes grants scheme.
PPS Despite all of the above, I bought a modest holding in Ceres Power CWR a while back. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.


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