Who benefits if Hydrogen technology becomes super successfull ? (Spin off from beecee's hydrogen thread)

[studiot]

55 minutes ago, beecee said:

The crux of the matter is that our government, all governments should be backing continued research into green hydrogen power, along with solar and wind where possible.

 

I have started a new thread for this as it raises an important interesting question that is not really 'Science News'

Suppose beecee's dream is realised and one government or several governments research and develop really good hydrogen technology.

Who benefits ?

Big business ?

The people ?

[beecee]

5 minutes ago, studiot said:

 

I have started a new thread for this as it raises an important interesting question that is not really 'Science News'

Suppose beecee's dream is realised and one government or several governments research and develop really good hydrogen technology.

Who benefits ?

Big business ?

The people ?

It's not beecee's dream at all. It is simply a news item regarding research into green hydrogen power sources, as complimentary with other sources. The goal of course being a reduction in global warming.

13 minutes ago, studiot said:

Who benefits ?

Big business ?

The people ?

The environment? All of us? 

[exchemist]

10 hours ago, studiot said:

 

I have started a new thread for this as it raises an important interesting question that is not really 'Science News'

Suppose beecee's dream is realised and one government or several governments research and develop really good hydrogen technology.

Who benefits ?

Big business ?

The people ?

Both, inevitably. Energy is big business, in terms of risk*, capital investment and profits, so it will always be to a large extent the preserve of big business.

But obviously the people will also benefit, since replacement of fossil fuel by hydrogen, for transport fuel and heating, offers one way to combat climate change, which will adversely affect the whole of humanity.

Big business is run by people too.   

*The gas crisis in the UK at the moment is one illustration: the small suppliers failed to hedge. And now they are going bust. A few years ago the fashion was to whine about supposedly excessive profits made by the suppliers. Now that the gas price has shot up, everyone is making a thundering loss and only the big companies that hedged can survive, because they planned (and priced) for that risk.

Edited September 21, 2021 by exchemist

[studiot]

2 hours ago, exchemist said:

*The gas crisis in the UK at the moment is one illustration: the small suppliers failed to hedge. And now they are going bust. A few years ago the fashion was to whine about supposedly excessive profits made by the suppliers. Now that the gas price has shot up, everyone is making a thundering loss and only the big companies that hedged can survive, because they planned (and priced) for that risk.

Or is that because Centrica has many other income streams ?

Pesonally I think the whole gas market stinks and has done since privitisation. (pun intended).

A far better and safer solution would be  (have been from the 1960s) to concentrate on using electric heating and cooking rather than gas, as has been done in countries like Norway and Switzerland, and conserve the use of oil products for better purposes.
That way two sources of inefficiency would be eliminated in the generation to end user chain as electrolysis and recombustion would not be necessary.

 

[exchemist]

41 minutes ago, studiot said:

Or is that because Centrica has many other income streams ?

Pesonally I think the whole gas market stinks and has done since privitisation. (pun intended).

A far better and safer solution would be  (have been from the 1960s) to concentrate on using electric heating and cooking rather than gas, as has been done in countries like Norway and Switzerland, and conserve the use of oil products for better purposes.
That way two sources of inefficiency would be eliminated in the generation to end user chain as electrolysis and recombustion would not be necessary.

 

I'm sure other income streams also help, but the big boys do hedge - and have been undercut by the people that don't, who are now going bust as a result [cue circus music and clowns].

The rest of your post sounds a bit Irish: "If I were you I wouldn't start from here". But from a thermodynamic efficiency point of view it made no sense in most countries to use electricity for heating of any kind. Norway and Switzerland had hydro-electricity, but the rest of us were stuck with heat engines, so we wasted over half the fuel we burnt before we even switched on our electric fires. (And cooking with electricity is crap, even to this day). It is only with our current knowledge of climate change and 20:20 hindsight that we can reappraise the 60s and say we got it wrong.

As I think Charlton Heston's character says in one of the Planet of the Apes films, "We are here and it is now." The issue is what do we do, given the legacy infrastructure and the inertial effects in society we have inherited.  It is in that context that hydrogen may have a place. 

[studiot]

35 minutes ago, exchemist said:

I'm sure other income streams also help, but the big boys do hedge - and have been undercut by the people that don't, who are now going bust as a result [cue circus music and clowns].

The rest of your post sounds a bit Irish: "If I were you I wouldn't start from here". But from a thermodynamic efficiency point of view it made no sense in most countries to use electricity for heating of any kind. Norway and Switzerland had hydro-electricity, but the rest of us were stuck with heat engines, so we wasted over half the fuel we burnt before we even switched on our electric fires. (And cooking with electricity is crap, even to this day). It is only with our current knowledge of climate change and 20:20 hindsight that we can reappraise the 60s and say we got it wrong.

As I think Charlton Heston's character says in one of the Planet of the Apes films, "We are here and it is now." The issue is what do we do, given the legacy infrastructure and the inertial effects in society we have inherited.  It is in that context that hydrogen may have a place. 

Thank you for your continued responses.

I remember the 1960s/1970s quite differently.

That was the era central governments started failing us in a big way, the big banks starts playing roulette with their customers money.

Of course back then there were those voices in the wilderness (myself included) who held the same opinion I have just offered.

We are still making similar mistakes today.

Hydroelectric you say ?

Yes there is enough reliable tidal power available around our shores to power the whole of western europe if we chose.

We could have that 'bridge' to Ireland complete with motorway + railway +all the cables and pipe you wish, generating most of our own power from the exchange water between the Irish Sea and the Atlantic.

Also the 1960s/70s is the era we started pulling out of peaceful nuclear power.

 

Here in Britain we have this unseemly scamble to cobble together 'a deal' to feed ourselves.

A deal ?

Why does the government not take charge and do the job properly ?

Tory financial dogma.

 

[exchemist]

On 9/21/2021 at 1:27 PM, studiot said:

Thank you for your continued responses.

I remember the 1960s/1970s quite differently.

That was the era central governments started failing us in a big way, the big banks starts playing roulette with their customers money.

Of course back then there were those voices in the wilderness (myself included) who held the same opinion I have just offered.

We are still making similar mistakes today.

Hydroelectric you say ?

Yes there is enough reliable tidal power available around our shores to power the whole of western europe if we chose.

We could have that 'bridge' to Ireland complete with motorway + railway +all the cables and pipe you wish, generating most of our own power from the exchange water between the Irish Sea and the Atlantic.

Also the 1960s/70s is the era we started pulling out of peaceful nuclear power.

 

Here in Britain we have this unseemly scamble to cobble together 'a deal' to feed ourselves.

A deal ?

Why does the government not take charge and do the job properly ?

Tory financial dogma.

 

Hmm. I am more interested in what we can actually do, here and now, given the infrastructure we have inherited, than in revisiting what we might or might not have done differently years ago. Climate change can't wait for perfect solutions. And in my opinion (not being a man of the left) I think it would be a mistake to expect governments to pick winners. I think it is better for them to encourage different technologies, allow them to compete and over time we will see which ones turn out to have the most scope for optimisation. What I mean by optimisation, in this context, is not merely what is technically best, but all the things in society that enable a solution to gain traction.  Then again, we may find it is better to diversify and use more than one route than to put all our eggs in one basket. 

Other contributors have spoken of hydrogen being "hyped". I must say I am not aware of any noticeable hype around hydrogen. Almost everything I read seems to be about the electric car issue. Not many people are talking about HGVs and those that are starting to talk in the media about domestic heating seem preoccupied with heat pumps, even those these cost 5 times as much as a gas boiler and put out heat at only 50C max,  instead of the 65C for which most central heating system are designed. So there are huge issues to overcome to make heat pumps realistic for most householders. 

On a personal note, I have been thinking of getting a heat pump for my large Victorian house. This will  cost me a bit, and will never pay back, given that electricity costs 3-4 times as much as gas, per kWh. However I do draw the line at ripping up all the floorboards as well, to install the underfloor heating pipes required to make the low-grade heat from the pump sufficient to warm the house. Millions of others will face this issue. This is one of the reasons why I can see the logic in converting the gas network to hydrogen, either fully or at  20% dose rate as a medium term measure.

 

[dimreepr]

3 hours ago, exchemist said:

Hmm. I am more interested in what we can actually do, here and now, given the infrastructure we have inherited, than in revisiting what we might or might not have done differently years ago. Climate change can't wait for perfect solutions. And in my opinion (not being a man of the left) I think it would be a mistake to expect governments to pick winners. I think it is better for them to encourage different technologies, allow them to compete and over time we will see which ones turn out to have the most scope for optimisation. What I mean by optimisation, in this context, is not merely what is technically best, but all the things in society that enable a solution to gain traction.  

Indeed +1 

Hydrogen may not be the perfect solution, but it is a solution; we can generate far more hydrogen, however inefficiently, than we can lithium.

[swansont]

4 hours ago, exchemist said:

On a personal note, I have been thinking of getting a heat pump for my large Victorian house. This will  cost me a bit, and will never pay back, given that electricity costs 3-4 times as much as gas, per kWh. However I do draw the line at ripping up all the floorboards as well, to install the underfloor heating pipes required to make the low-grade heat from the pump sufficient to warm the house. Millions of others will face this issue. This is one of the reasons why I can see the logic in converting the gas network to hydrogen, either fully or at  20% dose rate as a medium term measure.

If electricity is more expensive than natural gas, what is the economic incentive of moving to hydrogen, even at a 20% mix? Hydrogen isn't going to be cheaper than the electricity that generates it. How is your electricity generated?

[exchemist]

22 minutes ago, swansont said:

If electricity is more expensive than natural gas, what is the economic incentive of moving to hydrogen, even at a 20% mix? Hydrogen isn't going to be cheaper than the electricity that generates it. How is your electricity generated?

Agreed, it will be more costly than the industry price for electricity. But that price won't include the cost of the distribution network, so if electrically generated it could be little more than double the industry price of gas (assuming the marginal kWh will be generated from a heat engine, for some years to come), I should have thought. Alternatively, hydrogen could be generated from pyrolysis of natural gas. The economics of these methods will be one of the things that has to be optimised by competition. But the advantage of hydrogen for heating would be that it would avoid the huge capital cost and disruption to the householder of buying a heat pump and retrofitting underfloor heating to old housing stock.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not necessarily wedded to hydrogen as the solution. I just think it has some obvious practical merits for certain applications and needs to be looked at seriously.  

 

    

Edited September 23, 2021 by exchemist

[exchemist]

A bit on methane pyrolysis here from Wiki. Apparently this is called "turquoise" hydrogen, being intermediate between "blue" and "green" hydrogen:

QUOTE

Methane pyrolysis for hydrogen[edit]

 

Illustrating inputs and outputs of methane pyrolysis, an efficient one-step process to produce Hydrogen and no greenhouse gas

Methane pyrolysis^[30] is a non-polluting industrial process for "turquoise" hydrogen production from methane by removing solid carbon from natural gas. This one step process produces non-polluting hydrogen in high volume at low cost (less than Steam reforming with Carbon sequestration). Only water is released when hydrogen is used as the fuel for fuel-cell electric heavy truck transportation,^{[31][32][33][34][35]} gas turbine electric power generation,^[36][37] and hydrogen for industrial processes including producing ammonia fertilizer and cement.^[38][39] Methane pyrolysis is the process operating around 1065 °C for producing hydrogen from natural gas that allows removal of carbon easily (solid non-polluting carbon is a byproduct of the process).^[40][41]The industrial quality solid carbon can then be sold or landfilled and is not released into the atmosphere, no emission of greenhouse gas (GHG), no ground water pollution in landfill. Volume production is being evaluated in the BASF "methane pyrolysis at scale" pilot plant,^[42] the chemical engineering team at University of California - Santa Barbara^[43] and in such research laboratories as Karlsruhe Liquid-metal Laboratory (KALLA).^[44] Power for process heat consumed is only one seventh of the power consumed in the water electrolysis method for producing hydrogen.^[45]

UNQUOTE

This looks quite promising. I'm not sure what we would do with all the elemental carbon this would produce, though. I have not looked into what applications there are for it. Maybe we just drop it down coal mines. That would be a fitting  irony. 

Edited September 23, 2021 by exchemist

[studiot]

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

Don't get me wrong, I'm not necessarily wedded to hydrogen as the solution. I just think it has some obvious practical merits for certain applications and needs to be looked at seriously.  

I can't see where you think I disagree with this.

Indeed we had a thread on hydrogen fuel cell technology for heavy plant (the heaviest possible vehicles under the Construction and Use (C&U) regulations,  about a year ago.
I only just reposted the link in beecees hydrogen thread.

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

Agreed, it will be more costly than the industry price for electricity. But that price won't include the cost of the distribution network, so if electrically generated it could be little more than double the industry price of gas (assuming the marginal kWh will be generated from a heat engine, for some years to come), I should have thought. Alternatively, hydrogen could be generated from pyrolysis of natural gas. The economics of these methods will be one of the things that has to be optimised by competition. But the advantage of hydrogen for heating would be that it would avoid the huge capital cost and disruption to the householder of buying a heat pump and retrofitting underfloor heating to old housing stock.

Again I don't see where you are coming from. Your descriptions and figures for heat pumps are way off.

We have had several in depth discussions about heat pumps here.
I freely posted costing and perfomance data for the system I fitted in 2016 in one of those threads.

But really you should start a thread of your own about heat pumps since they are nothing to do with hydrogen, and this is meant to be a politcal discussion about hydrogen.

2 hours ago, swansont said:

If electricity is more expensive than natural gas, what is the economic incentive of moving to hydrogen, even at a 20% mix? Hydrogen isn't going to be cheaper than the electricity that generates it. How is your electricity generated?

 

Great technical question again. +1

Edited September 23, 2021 by studiot

[exchemist]

12 minutes ago, studiot said:

I can't see where you think I disagree with this.

Indeed we had a thread on hydrogen fuel cell technology for heavy plant (the heaviest possible vehicles under the Construction and Use (C&U) regulations,  about a year ago.
I only just reposted the link in beecees hydrogen thread.

Again I don't see where you are coming from. Your descriptions and figures for heat pumps are way off.

We have had several in depth discussions about heat pumps here.
I freely posted costing and perfomance data for the system I fitted in 2016 in one of those threads.

But really you should start a thread of your own about heat pumps since they are nothing to do with hydrogen, and this is meant to be a politcal discussion about hydrogen.

 

Great technical question again. +1

OK, what should the relative cost for heat pumps versus gas boiler be, then? Or where do I find the thread where you posted your numbers. I was working off £2k for gas boiler and £10k for heat pump. I'd be delighted if I can get a heat pump for £4k.

[TheVat]

I can see some customer resistance to gas lines that carry hydrogen.  But agree some kind of bridge is required going from NG furnaces to heat pumps, for many homeowners.  What about converting NG furnaces to electrical resistance furnaces, as a sort of stepping stone?  Basically just remove the burners and replace with heating coils.  While the BTU cost would be higher than a heat pump, you would have just one utility for both heat and lights and therefore not have the fixed service charges from the gas company (or the safety issues that arise with leaks from pipes).  There are also heat pumps, I think they're called "mini-split" systems, that can be installed outside and just go through the wall directly into a wall-mounted unit that heats one area.  These are cheaper, and allow a gradual transition away from other heating systems, and don't require ductwork (which further enhances their efficiency).  

From my life experience, and that of others I know, getting entirely away from pipelines that carry flammable gases is something to be desired.  You rarely hear about electron explosions, or people dying in their sleep from breathing electrons. 

[studiot]

10 minutes ago, exchemist said:

OK, what should the relative cost for heat pumps versus gas boiler be, then? Or where do I find the thread where you posted your numbers. I was working off £2k for gas boiler and £10k for heat pump. I'd be delighted if I can get a heat pump for £4k.

What sort of heat pump ?

Here are the last figures I posted

 

[exchemist]

32 minutes ago, studiot said:

What sort of heat pump ?

Here are the last figures I posted

 

I had in mind air to water as well.

OK so that is £8k for the heat pump vs £3k for a gas boiler. Not as bad as my £2k vs £10k figures, then. Plus you had to add extra tanks and get bigger radiators. Or was that all part of the £8k? Seems remarkably cheap if it was all included.

And it was made feasible by a government grant of £5600 payable over 7 years. So you are out of pocket until then.

But you are right, this is now off-topic, so if I want to interrogate you further about it I'll do so on the other thread. Cheers.   

[studiot]

2 hours ago, exchemist said:

But you are right, this is now off-topic, so if I want to interrogate you further about it I'll do so on the other thread. Cheers.   

Sure.

There's lots to learn about heat pumps and variations on the theme as well as thing's your mother  (or the salesman) didn't tell you.

Edited September 23, 2021 by studiot