Renewable + conventional trends

[johnhemming]

Could hydrogen not be stored centrally in large , safe containment facilities and used to generate electricity using hydrogen/gas turbo generators. Solves the localised containment issues and would be good for peak lopping ?

The problem is that you have decided that the solution is hydrogen and are now looking for a problem which you can solve with it. What we should do as society is to identify problems and then find the best solutions.

The "Hydrogen Econonomy" is a good example of why communism does not work.

[tjh290633]

tjh,
Please explain the system you are proposing, as opposed to dining a la carte. Then it can be reasonably critiqued in both technical and investment terms, which is the point of this board. Otherwise we are are reduced to "yes, but" commentary which is tedious;

as in, yes but, those gasometers leaked like sieves, and were introduced as part of town-based coal-derived gas, with gas composition depending on coal feedstock and reformer conditions, and with low volumes and low flowrates and high costs ....... which is why they were converted to first become buffers on the network and then deleted as buffering was done through high pressure linepack, all at lower cost, and in a way that cannot be done at high pressure with 50% H2 in a cost-effective manner.

regards, dspp

The system being proposed is to use the surplus wind power, when the electrical netwotk cannot cope with excess generation, instead to generate hydrogen. The principal use for this will be for transport, where battery power is unsuited to long distance transport for heavy good and also coach operation.

Gas holders did not leak like sieves. They were used to balance out peak demand. For example, at Meadowhall Sheffield there were two very large gasholders which would be used to balance out the industrial and domestic demand over weekends, being normally at minimum capacity on Friday evening, being refilled with gas over the weekend from the coke ovens and retorts, ready for the high demand on Monday morning, at which stage the Water Gas and Oil Gasification plants woud be on stream to provide the extra gas required. Of necessity they worked at low pressure, because that was how the gasification processes worked. That low pressure was boosted to raise the mains pressure to drive it into the gas holders and around the mains locally.

In Germany the "Ferngas" network distributed coke oven gas to the various regions and a similar network operated in the UK. When the Severn Railway Bridge was brought down by a ship collision it ruptured the gas pipeline serving the Forest of Dean, and my mother was provided with bottled gas for some time until a new pipeline could be laid.

Some of you are far too young to remember how things worked before natural gas came in during the 1970s.

TJH

[TheMotorcycleBoy]

Natural gas is mainly methane (CH4). It's a far larger molecule. Also, it's usually at low pressures. Most hydrogen applications require very high pressures. At those pressures and given the smaller molecule (H2, one-eighth of the molecular weight), the hydrogen will leak.

I am not talking about Natural Gas. I was referring to Town's Gas, either made by carbonising coal or by the carburetted water gas process. You might like to educate yourself by looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_gas where you will find:

The composition of coal gas varied according to the type of coal and the temperature of carbonisation. Typical figures were:

hydrogen 50%
methane 35%
carbon monoxide 10%
ethylene 5%

Water Gas is a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, produced by the reaction C+H20=>CO +H2, i.e. equimolecular proportions, and was used for peak demand, mixed with coal gas. As you can see, both are 50% hydrogen.

TJH

Thanks for the Wikipedia link.

I’m not sure that coal gas (which I was aware of) is what most people have in mind when they think of the modern hydrogen economy. As I said, the problems with leaks arise when hydrogen is at higher pressures. Because of its low specific energy, most of the modern applications do require these pressures.

Actually the fuel cells developed by Ceres Power, can be powered by various substrates, H2, Nat Gas, Alcohol (I think!). I think the point being, that they are fluids which can be oxidised.

It's certainly possible that, for some solutions, H2 is just a component in a pathway.

Matt

[tjh290633]

Thanks, much as I thought, local gas generation and distribution.

I don't believe there to be a single nationwide high pressure hydrogen gas transmission network anywhere in the world? (The largest system that I know of is in the industrial area around Rotterdam/Europoort).

The turbines and compressors used typically in today's gas pipeline transmission systems cannot work on pure hydrogen.

RVF

Obviously it makes more sense to use the existing electricity network to take the power to local hydrogen generators than to generate the gas centrally.

Just because something does not yet exist is not a reason to postulate that it is either impossible or impracticable. It just requires an engineering solution to make it practicable.

TJH

[johnhemming]

The system being proposed is to use the surplus wind power, when the electrical netwotk cannot cope with excess generation, instead to generate hydrogen. The principal use for this will be for transport, where battery power is unsuited to long distance transport for heavy good and also coach operation.

I accept that there is a capacity limit to batteries. Whether, however, that is best resolved by having a dangerous system with about half the energy efficiency instead of a system which enables long distance vehicles to rent batteries and hence quickly swap batteries rather than recharging is doubtful.

[dspp]

The system being proposed is to use the surplus wind power, when the electrical netwotk cannot cope with excess generation, instead to generate hydrogen. The principal use for this will be for transport, where battery power is unsuited to long distance transport for heavy good and also coach operation.

I accept that there is a capacity limit to batteries. Whether, however, that is best resolved by having a dangerous system with about half the energy efficiency instead of a system which enables long distance vehicles to rent batteries and hence quickly swap batteries rather than recharging is doubtful.

I don't accept the assertion that there is a capacity limit to batteries. You just rack em and stack em. GWh scale is perfectly feasible, and much more cost-effective than any hydrogen scheme I have ever seen mooted.

That is not to say that hydrogen may not have a value. I accept that it is likely to feature around the major petrochem complexes. Beyond that, perhaps, though I am very doubtful it will spread far. Spiking 22% electrolysis-derived hydrogen into the existing gas network in many countries as well, would be good for transitional reasons and might perhaps in time serve as a stepping stone to high pressure (or cold) storage.

This is what a BEV heavy goods vehicle looks like, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Semi and indications are that another 4 are now in build, now using the 4680 cell, with one destined for cold weather testing in Alaska. That indicates that production will probably start late 2021 / early 2022 I suspect.

Try running a gasometer at high pressure and it will leak (actually it would go into orbit), even at medium pressure. Even at low pressure you could smell the reek of the gas coming off them. Sieves they were, they would struggle with modern acceptable leak rates. Mind you so does most of the US gas gathering network, which is why methane leakage is not (has not) been something the US wanted on the agenda. Anyway gasometers are hugely costly, so too is hydrogen electrolysis - you only do those things and accept those costs, and inefficiencies, if you have no alternative.

regards, dspp

[johnhemming]

I don't accept the assertion that there is a capacity limit to batteries. You just rack em and stack em. GWh scale is perfectly feasible, and much more cost-effective than any hydrogen scheme I have ever seen mooted.

I think we are looking at a different capacity. If you are using battery power to travel then the battery you are using for power has a capacity limit. Recharging takes time. Obviously you can stack batteries, but in a static environment.

[dspp]

I don't accept the assertion that there is a capacity limit to batteries. You just rack em and stack em. GWh scale is perfectly feasible, and much more cost-effective than any hydrogen scheme I have ever seen mooted.

I think we are looking at a different capacity. If you are using battery power to travel then the battery you are using for power has a capacity limit. Recharging takes time. Obviously you can stack batteries, but in a static environment.

john,
What is the particular use case you think is a) not possible now, or b) not possible soon or c) not possible ever ? ............. and which hydrogen might be better suited for ?
regards,
dspp

[johnhemming]

I don't accept the assertion that there is a capacity limit to batteries. You just rack em and stack em. GWh scale is perfectly feasible, and much more cost-effective than any hydrogen scheme I have ever seen mooted.

I think we are looking at a different capacity. If you are using battery power to travel then the battery you are using for power has a capacity limit. Recharging takes time. Obviously you can stack batteries, but in a static environment.

john,
What is the particular use case you think is a) not possible now, or b) not possible soon or c) not possible ever ? ............. and which hydrogen might be better suited for ?
regards,
dspp

I may have typed something in a rather garbled manner, but I indicated that I did not think hydrogen was the best solution for long distance HGV travel, but that a rented charged battery may be bettter than waiting for a charge (although at 30 mins that may not be necessary)

I must admit although I don't write hydrogen off I don't really seem that much use for it.

[dspp]

I think we are looking at a different capacity. If you are using battery power to travel then the battery you are using for power has a capacity limit. Recharging takes time. Obviously you can stack batteries, but in a static environment.

john,
What is the particular use case you think is a) not possible now, or b) not possible soon or c) not possible ever ? ............. and which hydrogen might be better suited for ?
regards,
dspp

I may have typed something in a rather garbled manner, but I indicated that I did not think hydrogen was the best solution for long distance HGV travel, but that a rented charged battery may be bettter than waiting for a charge (although at 30 mins that may not be necessary)

I must admit although I don't write hydrogen off I don't really seem that much use for it.

Thank you - I wasn't sure you were trying to say - now I understand. I happen to agree, but that's a different matter.

regards, dspp

[tjh290633]

Try running a gasometer at high pressure and it will leak (actually it would go into orbit), even at medium pressure. Even at low pressure you could smell the reek of the gas coming off them.

The smell usually originates from the water seal around the base of the gas holder. Mercaptans from the gas dissolve in the water and so release a small. It is not due to leakage of gas, on which subject the Gas Board were very strict.

The tar separators were a more pungent source of smell.

TJH

[TheMotorcycleBoy]

Back in my earlier post (w/ the piccies of the gas holders) I was reasonably careful with my wording, I said:

We rejuvenate these gasometer things:

I deliberately didn't describe how exactly that would be done. Perhaps only the land assets and basic concept would be reused.

I don't know how the H2 economy will pan out, if at all. It is currently being explored I guess, and investments are being made in the field. Possibly in refinements to PEM and so on. I'm certainly milking the speculation, and will be ready to top up more, should it become more mainstream.

Matt

[TheMotorcycleBoy]

Off the top of my head here, but I think it’d be between five and a half to six times the volume of hydrogen cf methane.

Not as much as that. You have to multiply the weight by the CV to make the comparison.

Hydrogen 2*150=300
Methane 16*55= 880

So on a volume basis about 3 times.

TJH

I was speaking of volumes. Methane has a MW of 16, H is 1. So a cubic meter of methane weighs 16 times that of a cubic meter of Hydrogen. Ah, hang on, it’s H2 in its gaseous state... 8 times then. Then you divide by the relative CVs, ~3:1. So yes, Spet was right.

The interesting thing is that there is no need to fixate on H2 necessarily. Ceres Power Steel Cell can operate on a number of substrates, which can be made from H2, e.g. CH4 a constituent of natural gas.

https://www.greencarcongress.com/2016/0 ... power.html

And quite apart from all of this tech being old hand, there are continuing improvements in related fields:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 114523.htm

some of which capture carbon, making the possible solutions carbon neutral, whilst, potentially transporting the same gases (i.e. ones with greater density and stability than H2) as our current natural gas infrastructure carries. As such it seems sensible to consider leveraging parts of existing gas distribution assets.

Matt

[dspp]

Not as much as that. You have to multiply the weight by the CV to make the comparison.

Hydrogen 2*150=300
Methane 16*55= 880

So on a volume basis about 3 times.

TJH

I was speaking of volumes. Methane has a MW of 16, H is 1. So a cubic meter of methane weighs 16 times that of a cubic meter of Hydrogen. Ah, hang on, it’s H2 in its gaseous state... 8 times then. Then you divide by the relative CVs, ~3:1. So yes, Spet was right.

The interesting thing is that there is no need to fixate on H2 necessarily. Ceres Power Steel Cell can operate on a number of substrates, which can be made from H2, e.g. CH4 a constituent of natural gas.

https://www.greencarcongress.com/2016/0 ... power.html

And quite apart from all of this tech being old hand, there are continuing improvements in related fields:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 114523.htm

some of which capture carbon, making the possible solutions carbon neutral, whilst, potentially transporting the same gases (i.e. ones with greater density and stability than H2) as our current natural gas infrastructure carries. As such it seems sensible to consider leveraging parts of existing gas distribution assets.

Matt

All of these pathways have the same problems. The more C in the start point, the more processing to get it out so as to get to the clean H2. That processing costs money and costs energy, capex and opex. Then having gotten the C out, along with any other stuff, you need to dispose of it in a way that doesn't cause a bigger problem than simply combusting it in air. So basically you need to stick the C deep in the ground. More energy, more cost - capex and opex again. Oh, and having done all that there is still this H2 stuff to do something with. But before you do something with it, you need to store it and transport it. More energy, more cost - capex and opex again. And a lot of these steps have various non-trivial risks associated with them. And $bn minimum scale requirements to run an experiment (just like fusion). Then finally haven gotten your H2 to its destination you can either co-combust it with natural gas (CH4) which is non-sexy but cheap & easy, or do other sexier stuff that is difficult & expensive.

vs

Just going electric, using lithiums + wind + solar.

I remember being at a renewables conference a few years ago where a big presentation was about a wind/solar/hydrogen project (cars, fuel cells, electrolysis, tanks, the lot). They spent a serious amount of money, we all knew that, but they didn't mention the costs once. In fact they didn't even have much to say about technical successes, but they all drove nice cars and got PhD theses and greenwash funding from corporates (this was a £m's project). At the end of the presentation I dared to raise the matter of cost vs benefit, and got a very evasive answer. The next questioner raised the same topic. And the next. And the next, it was quite embarrassing really. We were all hard-bitten pro-renewables people : this was not an onslaught by anti-wind/etc types. We are/were all doing this stuff for real and we know/knew the issues, vs the base case of straight-electric. The presenters practically fled the stage to avoid our questions.

Drill into these problems and what you will find are the same people running the same start-ups, recycling hopium. Not progressing fast enough vs the mainstream adoption of straight electricity, but by spinning and marketing they can get another gig, another grant, another investor, another round, and another pay cheque.

Benchmark everything against pure electric. Ask yourself - is it cheaper both in $$ terms and in kW / % efficiency terms. Ask yourself what you are missing (normally they cut the bad part of the system out of their definition). Pretty soon you will start to recognise the problems yourself.

regards, dspp

[johnhemming]

Then having gotten the C out, along with any other stuff, you need to dispose of it in a way that doesn't cause a bigger problem than simply combusting it in air. So basically you need to stick the C deep in the ground.

I have always been sceptical about intentional carbon capture.From time to time there is incidental carbon capture (where reinjection just so happens to capture CO2 and the like) but I wonder if it has been made to work more generally.

There was great enthusiasm from the Unions for this about 10 years ago, but I always though it was more like wishful thinking than a practical solution (much like using Hydrogen really).

[johnhemming]

WRT carbon capture and storage, I worked on the design of the world's largest CCS and storage facility.

I don't know what you mean by this, but:

https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/featur ... -projects/

Century Plant – 8.4mtpa
Owned by Occidental Petroleum, the Century natural gas processing facility in West Texas, US, is the world’s single biggest CCS plant.

Sandridge Energy and Occidental Petroleum entered an agreement to build and operate the Century CCS facility in 2008. Built with an investment of aprpoximately $1.1bn (£880m), the plant captures CO2 that is used for Occidental’s enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects in the Permian Basin.

This is what I was referring to in the sense of using CO2 to get more oil out of the ground.

If we really want carbon capture then we need to grow more trees. Alternatively algae can do this. (which is probably more of a technological solution to CO2 levels).

I don't think it works as pure CCS. (without using the CO2 for something else normally getting more hydrocarbons).

[dspp]

Then having gotten the C out, along with any other stuff, you need to dispose of it in a way that doesn't cause a bigger problem than simply combusting it in air. So basically you need to stick the C deep in the ground.

I have always been sceptical about intentional carbon capture.From time to time there is incidental carbon capture (where reinjection just so happens to capture CO2 and the like) but I wonder if it has been made to work more generally.

There was great enthusiasm from the Unions for this about 10 years ago, but I always though it was more like wishful thinking than a practical solution (much like using Hydrogen really).

What dspp says is true and actually if anything underplays the practicalities of doing lots of stuff with hydrogen.

WRT carbon capture and storage, I worked on the design of the world's largest CCS and storage facility. It took around ten years from first start up to overcome the problems with the plant but today, it runs fine 24x7. The technology is there as is the operating experience. In fact, some of the more difficult to overcome issues with the CCS plant was entirely due to decisions made in design to reduce capital cost that had to be reversed after start up. (Anyone with experience of such massive projects will understand that capital cost is sacrosanct and actually has to be so, unless many projects would never proceed). However, it is extremely common that cost cutting then results in huge issues and massive consequences in start up and operation of the facility once built. It costs at least 10x as much to solve issues resulting from design cost cutting once the plant is built and commissioned. Anyway, yes the technology works and is reliable if the plant designed and built properly.

RVF

Thank you RVF. Were you on one of the Norway projects ?

Like RVF I have had experience of carbon capture, from my O&G days, so I too know whereof I speak. I've run amine plants and mole-sieves (though the latter for other stuff). As we all know, we can do it, but we cannot do it cost effectively, either $$-cost, or energetic-cost (kWh/mole-sequestered). And even the wildest carbon-taxes will not close that cost-gap vs the alternatives of going direct-electric.

The unions thought they wanted it - in various countries - because it preserved 'old' core-industry jobs in coal. You can see this even back in the 70s if you go back and look at the GW-scale UTC fuel cell designs (yes, GW) for coal with CCS attached. However hard we have tried in 50-years we have never been able to make the numbers add up for CCS. And, except in very niche cases, I don't think we ever will.

One of the CCS niches may be primary iron/steel, another cement. I don't see economically viable CCS in any other applications, perhaps just as demonstrators to prove the stupidity of the numbers.

(The EOR plants you see are, er, EOR plants. They are working on the basis that the CO2 will not get produced back to surface - which is a fair assumption for some situations, but not for many others where considerable cycling occurs.)

regards, dspp

[88V8]

Oooh look, another use for hydrogen https://newatlas.com/energy/socalgas-hy ... -blending/
'... gas stations could simply separate it out and suck it back out of the gas pipelines to fill their tanks.'

Well I suppose some good may come out of these ideas.

V8

[TheMotorcycleBoy]

I was speaking of volumes. Methane has a MW of 16, H is 1. So a cubic meter of methane weighs 16 times that of a cubic meter of Hydrogen. Ah, hang on, it’s H2 in its gaseous state... 8 times then. Then you divide by the relative CVs, ~3:1. So yes, Spet was right.

The interesting thing is that there is no need to fixate on H2 necessarily. Ceres Power Steel Cell can operate on a number of substrates, which can be made from H2, e.g. CH4 a constituent of natural gas.

https://www.greencarcongress.com/2016/0 ... power.html

And quite apart from all of this tech being old hand, there are continuing improvements in related fields:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 114523.htm

some of which capture carbon, making the possible solutions carbon neutral, whilst, potentially transporting the same gases (i.e. ones with greater density and stability than H2) as our current natural gas infrastructure carries. As such it seems sensible to consider leveraging parts of existing gas distribution assets.

Matt

All of these pathways have the same problems. The more C in the start point, the more processing to get it out so as to get to the clean H2. That processing costs money and costs energy, capex and opex. Then having gotten the C out, along with any other stuff, you need to dispose of it in a way that doesn't cause a bigger problem than simply combusting it in air. So basically you need to stick the C deep in the ground. More energy, more cost - capex and opex again. Oh, and having done all that there is still this H2 stuff to do something with. But before you do something with it, you need to store it and transport it. More energy, more cost - capex and opex again. And a lot of these steps have various non-trivial risks associated with them. And $bn minimum scale requirements to run an experiment (just like fusion). Then finally haven gotten your H2 to its destination you can either co-combust it with natural gas (CH4) which is non-sexy but cheap & easy, or do other sexier stuff that is difficult & expensive.

vs

Just going electric, using lithiums + wind + solar.

I remember being at a renewables conference a few years ago where a big presentation was about a wind/solar/hydrogen project (cars, fuel cells, electrolysis, tanks, the lot). They spent a serious amount of money, we all knew that, but they didn't mention the costs once. In fact they didn't even have much to say about technical successes, but they all drove nice cars and got PhD theses and greenwash funding from corporates (this was a £m's project). At the end of the presentation I dared to raise the matter of cost vs benefit, and got a very evasive answer. The next questioner raised the same topic. And the next. And the next, it was quite embarrassing really. We were all hard-bitten pro-renewables people : this was not an onslaught by anti-wind/etc types. We are/were all doing this stuff for real and we know/knew the issues, vs the base case of straight-electric. The presenters practically fled the stage to avoid our questions.

Drill into these problems and what you will find are the same people running the same start-ups, recycling hopium. Not progressing fast enough vs the mainstream adoption of straight electricity, but by spinning and marketing they can get another gig, another grant, another investor, another round, and another pay cheque.

Benchmark everything against pure electric. Ask yourself - is it cheaper both in $$ terms and in kW / % efficiency terms. Ask yourself what you are missing (normally they cut the bad part of the system out of their definition). Pretty soon you will start to recognise the problems yourself.

regards, dspp

Hi dspp,

TBH I agree with a lot of what you are saying. I know, broadly speaking, all of the chemistry and physics involved. You are completely right to assert that the simplistic electricity to battery (and back) scenario has massive advantages. There are only 2 things in find in favour of H2 pathways, those being the potential of vast scale (i.e. plentitude of H20 vs Li scarcity), and problems currently posed by cars in full adoption of electricity (charging time and infrastructure).

Of course getting hydrogen into the vehicle fuel scenario, would be immensely challenging. Off the top of my head I can only think of two possibilities: methanol and hydrazine. However both of these would have immense issues CH30H for the carbon capture capex point, and N2H4 is presumably far too dangerous to ever be let loose on the public.

I currently fascinated with the bubble in CWR share price. The firm haven't booked profit yet, though they are making less of a loss each year. I'm certainly handling my small investment carefully, i.e. topsliced enough to cover huge reversion in trend, and maintain high STP loss price. I imagine that at some stage they will run out of backers and then the price will collapse.

However, I'm equally curious to know whether we will be continue to be able to mine enough Li to maintain a growing demand for batteries. Or will we slowly transistion to other types? Was at Nottingham Uni a year ago, with one of my daughters and chatted to a PhD guy about the possibility of using Na instead.

Matt

[johnhemming]

Of course getting hydrogen into the vehicle fuel scenario, would be immensely challenging.

It is nice to have people like dspp and RVF who know their stuff and have practical experience. I had an intuitive view about CCS and I am pleased that dspp confirms this to be accurate. In the end, however, these issues are driven by the laws of physics.

Sadly he died recently, but:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=25&v=0x ... e=youtu.be

Which of course is ironic because the whole programme assumed changes to the laws of physics.

We have the second law of thermodynamics which impacts on changing energy from one form to another. That means energy losses.

In the end these things will come out.

My view informed by some experience of politics is that people won't like the changes that are necessary to really move to net zero and will vote for politicians who say that it is not needed. Hence they will instead by hit by the scarcity as oil production hits a peak.

From a practical point of view travel around cities if powered will probably need to move towards electrically powered scooters and bikes rather than electrically powered cars. The energy consumption is a lot less and unless the fusion conundrum is solved I don't think we will have that much spare power.

Hydrogen, of course, unless used in our favourite fusion plant which has run for millions of years and will run for more, is not a source of power.