RUSSIA
The Hydrogen Economy- a path towards low carbon development
Wednesday, April 21, 2021
Hydrogen power: the sleeping giant of clean energy?
Thomas Wintle
Is hydrogen the sleeping giant of European energy? If the European Commission's strategy to achieve climate neutrality is anything to go by, it could indeed be the fuel that drives the EU's Green Deal and the economic bloc into the 21st century.
But despite July's announcement of plans to boost hydrogen power to 14 percent of the bloc's energy mix by 2050, the gas has received relatively little public attention until recently.
So what exactly is hydrogen energy, how does it work, and what does it hold for the future?
Read more: EU energy plans prioritize hydrogen strategy
What is hydrogen energy and why is it green?
Hydrogen, much like batteries or combustion engines, has the potential to power pretty much anything: cars, steel production, household heating, even planes or everyday laptop.
"Potentially, it's an extremely versatile fuel," says Professor Paul Ekins, a specialist in environmentally sustainable economy formerly at University College London.
Hydrogen is typically generated with a fuel cell, a device that combines oxygen with hydrogen to generate electricity and heat. The only other direct byproduct from the fuel cell process is water, and this is what gives hydrogen the potential to be "clean fuel" - unlike burning fossil fuels, it doesn't produce any carbon emissions. In fact, according to the European Commission, clean hydrogen has the potential to reduce carbon emissions in European industries by 90 million tons per year by 2030.
While electric batteries also have low-carbon possibilities, the big difference is that hydrogen fuel cells do not run down as long as they are supplied with fuel. /Getty Creative / VCG
While electric batteries also have low-carbon possibilities, the big difference is that hydrogen fuel cells do not run down as long as they are supplied with fuel: "With a battery, you're always stuck with whatever charge you have onboard," says Professor Robert Steinberger-Wilckens, a fuel cell research specialist at Birmingham University:
"The owner of an iPhone will know that for whatever reasons, they're just always running out of battery and you have to recharge all the time. With hydrogen, you just have a small tank and that could last you anything between a day, five days, a month."
The other bonus is that there aren't any moving parts in a typical fuel cell, meaning they are more reliable in comparison to today's combustion engines and can operate in relative silence. On average, they are also 2.4 times more energy efficient than a standard diesel engine.
Watch: Researchers claim they've developed cheap and clean hydrogen fuel
How is hydrogen sourced and why is it a problem?
While fuel cells themselves don't produce carbon emissions, sourcing hydrogen can and often does. In the EU, where hydrogen currently accounts for 2 percent of the bloc's energy mix, it is produced almost exclusively from fossil fuels.
The most common production method separates hydrogen from natural gas and coal and accounts for the release of 70 to 100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year.
For Ekins, what is dubbed as "black hydrogen" production is "not at all a low carbon way of producing it because the carbon dioxide is not currently captured and stored."
Even if the CO2 were to be captured, - part of the EU's plans - this would mean storing it for thousands or tens of thousands of years: "Effectively, it has to be stored away forever," he says, "and forever is quite a long time."
VIDEO 03:36 Hydrogen power: the sleeping giant of clean energy? - CGTN
Thomas Wintle
CGTN 20-Aug-2020
Is hydrogen the sleeping giant of European energy? If the European Commission's strategy to achieve climate neutrality is anything to go by, it could indeed be the fuel that drives the EU's Green Deal and the economic bloc into the 21st century.
But despite July's announcement of plans to boost hydrogen power to 14 percent of the bloc's energy mix by 2050, the gas has received relatively little public attention until recently.
So what exactly is hydrogen energy, how does it work, and what does it hold for the future?
Read more: EU energy plans prioritize hydrogen strategy
What is hydrogen energy and why is it green?
Hydrogen, much like batteries or combustion engines, has the potential to power pretty much anything: cars, steel production, household heating, even planes or everyday laptop.
"Potentially, it's an extremely versatile fuel," says Professor Paul Ekins, a specialist in environmentally sustainable economy formerly at University College London.
Hydrogen is typically generated with a fuel cell, a device that combines oxygen with hydrogen to generate electricity and heat. The only other direct byproduct from the fuel cell process is water, and this is what gives hydrogen the potential to be "clean fuel" - unlike burning fossil fuels, it doesn't produce any carbon emissions. In fact, according to the European Commission, clean hydrogen has the potential to reduce carbon emissions in European industries by 90 million tons per year by 2030.
While electric batteries also have low-carbon possibilities, the big difference is that hydrogen fuel cells do not run down as long as they are supplied with fuel. /Getty Creative / VCG
While electric batteries also have low-carbon possibilities, the big difference is that hydrogen fuel cells do not run down as long as they are supplied with fuel: "With a battery, you're always stuck with whatever charge you have onboard," says Professor Robert Steinberger-Wilckens, a fuel cell research specialist at Birmingham University:
"The owner of an iPhone will know that for whatever reasons, they're just always running out of battery and you have to recharge all the time. With hydrogen, you just have a small tank and that could last you anything between a day, five days, a month."
The other bonus is that there aren't any moving parts in a typical fuel cell, meaning they are more reliable in comparison to today's combustion engines and can operate in relative silence. On average, they are also 2.4 times more energy efficient than a standard diesel engine.
Watch: Researchers claim they've developed cheap and clean hydrogen fuel
How is hydrogen sourced and why is it a problem?
While fuel cells themselves don't produce carbon emissions, sourcing hydrogen can and often does. In the EU, where hydrogen currently accounts for 2 percent of the bloc's energy mix, it is produced almost exclusively from fossil fuels.
The most common production method separates hydrogen from natural gas and coal and accounts for the release of 70 to 100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year.
For Ekins, what is dubbed as "black hydrogen" production is "not at all a low carbon way of producing it because the carbon dioxide is not currently captured and stored."
Even if the CO2 were to be captured, - part of the EU's plans - this would mean storing it for thousands or tens of thousands of years: "Effectively, it has to be stored away forever," he says, "and forever is quite a long time."
VIDEO 03:36 Hydrogen power: the sleeping giant of clean energy? - CGTN
To make hydrogen energy environmentally friendly, the EU plans to replace the carbon-heavy process over time with "green hydrogen" production. This means using electrolysis - passing electricity through water - which only produces hydrogen and oxygen, with non of the unwanted carbon emissions.
However, the process is currently much more expensive than processing natural gas and it still needs something to provide the electricity that powers it. Until electrolyzers can be run on renewable energy like wind and solar power on a mass scale, this means burning more fossil fuels.
Currently green hydrogen production accounts for one gigawatt of power in the EU, but the bloc is counting on the cost of electrolysis coming down dramatically in the next five years. On that basis, the Commission aims to roll out renewable hydrogen production facilities with a capacity of at least 6 gigawatts by 2024, and between 2025 and 2030, this will be expanded to 40 gigawatts.
But for the foreseeable future, hydrogen will likely be reliant on natural gas, prompting concern among environmentalists. European Parliament member Ville Niinisto warned the commission's hydrogen strategy "must not be allowed to become a green-washing exercise used to subsidize obsolete gas pipelines."
Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk famously described fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) as "mind-bogglingly stupid." Aly Song/Reuters
How do fuel cell cars compare to electric battery vehicles?
Concerns around production notwithstanding, the EU is banking on hydrogen power to achieve its net-zero emissions goal of 2050, particularly in the area of transport, which currently accounts for around 30 percent of the EU's total CO2 emissions.
But up until recently, the gas has largely been eclipsed in public discourse:
"We're currently always talking about hydrogen, which about five or six years ago in England, we were essentially not allowed to," says Steinberger-Wilckens: "Nobody wanted to hear anything about hydrogen."
This is in part because of the growing buzz around the use of electric batteries, especially in the mobility sector. But despite Elon Musk's famous statement that fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) are "mind-bogglingly stupid," there are many benefits to using hydrogen in cars over electric batteries.
Hydrogen-powered cars have a better range than battery powered vehicles, making average distances of 320-405km per hit of hydrogen, to a BEV's range of 160-500km. /Getty Creative / VCG
Both FCEVs and the battery-operated electric vehicles (BEVs) prized by manufacturers like Tesla have zero tail-pipe emissions, but the former are similar to petrol engines in that they are quick to refuel, taking a matter of minutes. In comparison, BEVs can take up to 12 hours to charge.
Hydrogen-powered cars also have a better range than battery powered vehicles, making average distances of 320-405km per hit of hydrogen, to a BEV's range of 160-500km. The main problem is that starting prices for FCEVs like Toyata's Mirai, released in late 2014, are almost three times higher than their electric counterparts.
Professor Ekins says that this is in part because electric vehicle technology has been around a lot longer, and that hydrogen is currently quite expensive.
"Certainly battery electric vehicles seem to have the edge," he says, in part because there is already an easily accessible electricity grid, but adds that it's possible we will see a mixture of these vehicles on the road in the future:
"Musk may be right, he may win the vehicle race, but it's not by any means a foregone conclusion."
Read more: Hydrogen vehicles to play major role in greening the auto industry
Currently green hydrogen production accounts for one gigawatt of power in the EU, but the European Commission aims to roll out renewable hydrogen production facilities with a capacity of at least 6 gigawatts by 2024. / Bim / Getty Creative / VCG
So where is hydrogen energy most applicable?
While the EU appears to be focusing more on battery powered vehicles for personal mobility, the advanced range and quick filling times of hydrogen fuel cells make them useful for vehicles that need to go far and don't have much down time.
That means public transport like local city buses and long-haul vehicles such as lorries, shipping, and even planes.
In China, where the government spent about $12.4 billion in 2018 on supporting the expansion of FCEVs, Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province, has recently replaced its entire bus fleet with hydrogen models. In January, Wuhan inaugurated the country's first fleet of hydrogen powered commuter shuttle buses.
"One of the issues with hydrogen is that you need quite a large fuel tank in order to store enough so that you're not having to fill up all the time," says Ekins: "Therefore, these large applications may be more appropriate than trying to get a large hydrogen fuel tank at very high pressure into a rather small motor vehicle."
The advanced range and quick filling times of hydrogen fuel cells make them useful for vehicles that need to go far and don't have much down time likes buses. / oasis2me / Getty Creative / VCG
The EU also references the potential use of hydrogen to drive aviation, using liquid synthetic kerosene or other synthetic fuels made from hydrogen to power planes, solving the problem of electric batteries' short lifespan.
However, Ekins says there could be problems with this because concentrating hydrogen could create heavy tanks, where planes need to be light: "There's still a lot of uncertainty about how much hydrogen we're going to be using in the future."
One area where hydrogen definitely will be expanded in the EU is in carbon intensive industrial processes, particularly in areas like chemical, steel and cement production, where "black hydrogen" is already in use.
But hydrogen power has the potential to go much further. In 2021, Toyota will begin constructing Woven City – a prototype city for 2000 people in Japan powered almost exclusively by hydrogen fuel cells.
However, there is a big difference between rolling out hydrogen power for 2000 people and the EU's population of 445 million, and this hints at some of the problems the rollout of hydrogen energy faces.
Read more: China's installed capacity of hydrogen fuel cells soars sixfold in first seven months
What are the main hurdles in switching to hydrogen?
The first obstacle is the massive operation involved in switching energy infrastructures, with the relative newness of hydrogen power meaning the overhaul will cost much more.
The price tag for the EU's hydrogen plans over the next 30 years currently stands at between $203 and $530 billion, and amid a historic economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, critics will likely want to see the proposed funding slashed.
However, for Ekins, "any major change of fuel or energy source is going to have significant infrastructure implications," and will come up against opposition, particularly from those that currently profit from fossil fuel exports.
This hints at another problem: while the EU is promising to move towards 'green hydrogen', Professor Steinberger-Wilckens says there is little motivation for oil and gas companies to do so under the current strategy.
"They have zero incentives or a negative incentive to change to anything that is environmentally more benign," he adds, pointing out that firms are unlikely to discard their assets while hydrogen production continues to rely on fossil fuels.
"There are lots of misconceptions about how dangerous hydrogen is," says Professor Ekins: "Everyone always thinks of hydrogen airships, the Hindenburg disaster and all that kind of thing." /Wikicommons
This is particularly worrying when the European Clean Hydrogen Alliance, in charge of investment for the hydrogen projects under the commission's plans, is heavily represented by gas and carbon-heavy industry companies.
Finally, there is the difficulty in changing consumer behaviour and soothing public concerns about storing hydrogen, which is highly flammable.
"There are lots of misconceptions about how dangerous hydrogen is," says Ekins: "Everyone always thinks of hydrogen airships, the Hindenburg disaster and all that kind of thing."
He says that in in principle, hydrogen is much, much safer than petrol, in that if it does ignite, it explodes upwards, as opposed to outwards: "I'm absolutely certain that we could find ways of using hydrogen safely."
Read more: Commercialization remains challenging for hydrogen power in China
What do we stand to gain from making the switch?
If the EU is able to move away from reliance on natural gas production to source its hydrogen, and start creating its own through renewables, Ekins say that "Europe could become more or less energy independent."
With natural gas sources coming from countries like Russia, Ukraine, and the Balkan states, this will allow Europe to be essentially energy self-sustainable. This also means relative security for energy prices, as opposed to the fluctuations seen in the fossil fuel market.
And by diversifying the source of hydrogen production through localized renewables, Professor Steinberger-Wilckens says a new decentralized supply chain will be far more resilient than our current model.
"The different methods of obtaining hydrogen are so varied that you just have a much larger bandwidth of sources," he says: "You wouldn't necessarily have the large utilities owning everything. You would have more of a brokerage company pulling all these loose ends together."
By diversifying the source of hydrogen production through localized renewables, hydrogen could offer a new decentralized supply chain more resilient than our current model. /polesnoy / Getty Creative
However, he stresses that hydrogen power will not solve all ills: "We need to ramp up renewable energy input, but at the same time, we have to reduce energy demand."
He points to plans in the UK to replace natural gas with hydrogen instead, "which will lead nowhere because the energy efficiency standards of housing in the UK are just so tremendously bad."
He says instead energy use must be cut by some 70 percent through efficiency in houses and on roads, a figure he considers economically viable: "There's no point covering today's energy demand with something like renewable energies, and exactly the same applies to hydrogen."
If hydrogen power is to be economically viable in effectively lowering green house gases, Steinberger-Wilckens says there must be a rethinking of how we use fuel: "[hydrogen] has a different mindset altogether."
Video/animation: James Sandifer
However, the process is currently much more expensive than processing natural gas and it still needs something to provide the electricity that powers it. Until electrolyzers can be run on renewable energy like wind and solar power on a mass scale, this means burning more fossil fuels.
Currently green hydrogen production accounts for one gigawatt of power in the EU, but the bloc is counting on the cost of electrolysis coming down dramatically in the next five years. On that basis, the Commission aims to roll out renewable hydrogen production facilities with a capacity of at least 6 gigawatts by 2024, and between 2025 and 2030, this will be expanded to 40 gigawatts.
But for the foreseeable future, hydrogen will likely be reliant on natural gas, prompting concern among environmentalists. European Parliament member Ville Niinisto warned the commission's hydrogen strategy "must not be allowed to become a green-washing exercise used to subsidize obsolete gas pipelines."
Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk famously described fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) as "mind-bogglingly stupid." Aly Song/Reuters
How do fuel cell cars compare to electric battery vehicles?
Concerns around production notwithstanding, the EU is banking on hydrogen power to achieve its net-zero emissions goal of 2050, particularly in the area of transport, which currently accounts for around 30 percent of the EU's total CO2 emissions.
But up until recently, the gas has largely been eclipsed in public discourse:
"We're currently always talking about hydrogen, which about five or six years ago in England, we were essentially not allowed to," says Steinberger-Wilckens: "Nobody wanted to hear anything about hydrogen."
This is in part because of the growing buzz around the use of electric batteries, especially in the mobility sector. But despite Elon Musk's famous statement that fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) are "mind-bogglingly stupid," there are many benefits to using hydrogen in cars over electric batteries.
Hydrogen-powered cars have a better range than battery powered vehicles, making average distances of 320-405km per hit of hydrogen, to a BEV's range of 160-500km. /Getty Creative / VCG
Both FCEVs and the battery-operated electric vehicles (BEVs) prized by manufacturers like Tesla have zero tail-pipe emissions, but the former are similar to petrol engines in that they are quick to refuel, taking a matter of minutes. In comparison, BEVs can take up to 12 hours to charge.
Hydrogen-powered cars also have a better range than battery powered vehicles, making average distances of 320-405km per hit of hydrogen, to a BEV's range of 160-500km. The main problem is that starting prices for FCEVs like Toyata's Mirai, released in late 2014, are almost three times higher than their electric counterparts.
Professor Ekins says that this is in part because electric vehicle technology has been around a lot longer, and that hydrogen is currently quite expensive.
"Certainly battery electric vehicles seem to have the edge," he says, in part because there is already an easily accessible electricity grid, but adds that it's possible we will see a mixture of these vehicles on the road in the future:
"Musk may be right, he may win the vehicle race, but it's not by any means a foregone conclusion."
Read more: Hydrogen vehicles to play major role in greening the auto industry
Currently green hydrogen production accounts for one gigawatt of power in the EU, but the European Commission aims to roll out renewable hydrogen production facilities with a capacity of at least 6 gigawatts by 2024. / Bim / Getty Creative / VCG
So where is hydrogen energy most applicable?
While the EU appears to be focusing more on battery powered vehicles for personal mobility, the advanced range and quick filling times of hydrogen fuel cells make them useful for vehicles that need to go far and don't have much down time.
That means public transport like local city buses and long-haul vehicles such as lorries, shipping, and even planes.
In China, where the government spent about $12.4 billion in 2018 on supporting the expansion of FCEVs, Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province, has recently replaced its entire bus fleet with hydrogen models. In January, Wuhan inaugurated the country's first fleet of hydrogen powered commuter shuttle buses.
"One of the issues with hydrogen is that you need quite a large fuel tank in order to store enough so that you're not having to fill up all the time," says Ekins: "Therefore, these large applications may be more appropriate than trying to get a large hydrogen fuel tank at very high pressure into a rather small motor vehicle."
The advanced range and quick filling times of hydrogen fuel cells make them useful for vehicles that need to go far and don't have much down time likes buses. / oasis2me / Getty Creative / VCG
The EU also references the potential use of hydrogen to drive aviation, using liquid synthetic kerosene or other synthetic fuels made from hydrogen to power planes, solving the problem of electric batteries' short lifespan.
However, Ekins says there could be problems with this because concentrating hydrogen could create heavy tanks, where planes need to be light: "There's still a lot of uncertainty about how much hydrogen we're going to be using in the future."
One area where hydrogen definitely will be expanded in the EU is in carbon intensive industrial processes, particularly in areas like chemical, steel and cement production, where "black hydrogen" is already in use.
But hydrogen power has the potential to go much further. In 2021, Toyota will begin constructing Woven City – a prototype city for 2000 people in Japan powered almost exclusively by hydrogen fuel cells.
However, there is a big difference between rolling out hydrogen power for 2000 people and the EU's population of 445 million, and this hints at some of the problems the rollout of hydrogen energy faces.
Read more: China's installed capacity of hydrogen fuel cells soars sixfold in first seven months
What are the main hurdles in switching to hydrogen?
The first obstacle is the massive operation involved in switching energy infrastructures, with the relative newness of hydrogen power meaning the overhaul will cost much more.
The price tag for the EU's hydrogen plans over the next 30 years currently stands at between $203 and $530 billion, and amid a historic economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, critics will likely want to see the proposed funding slashed.
However, for Ekins, "any major change of fuel or energy source is going to have significant infrastructure implications," and will come up against opposition, particularly from those that currently profit from fossil fuel exports.
This hints at another problem: while the EU is promising to move towards 'green hydrogen', Professor Steinberger-Wilckens says there is little motivation for oil and gas companies to do so under the current strategy.
"They have zero incentives or a negative incentive to change to anything that is environmentally more benign," he adds, pointing out that firms are unlikely to discard their assets while hydrogen production continues to rely on fossil fuels.
"There are lots of misconceptions about how dangerous hydrogen is," says Professor Ekins: "Everyone always thinks of hydrogen airships, the Hindenburg disaster and all that kind of thing." /Wikicommons
This is particularly worrying when the European Clean Hydrogen Alliance, in charge of investment for the hydrogen projects under the commission's plans, is heavily represented by gas and carbon-heavy industry companies.
Finally, there is the difficulty in changing consumer behaviour and soothing public concerns about storing hydrogen, which is highly flammable.
"There are lots of misconceptions about how dangerous hydrogen is," says Ekins: "Everyone always thinks of hydrogen airships, the Hindenburg disaster and all that kind of thing."
He says that in in principle, hydrogen is much, much safer than petrol, in that if it does ignite, it explodes upwards, as opposed to outwards: "I'm absolutely certain that we could find ways of using hydrogen safely."
Read more: Commercialization remains challenging for hydrogen power in China
What do we stand to gain from making the switch?
If the EU is able to move away from reliance on natural gas production to source its hydrogen, and start creating its own through renewables, Ekins say that "Europe could become more or less energy independent."
With natural gas sources coming from countries like Russia, Ukraine, and the Balkan states, this will allow Europe to be essentially energy self-sustainable. This also means relative security for energy prices, as opposed to the fluctuations seen in the fossil fuel market.
And by diversifying the source of hydrogen production through localized renewables, Professor Steinberger-Wilckens says a new decentralized supply chain will be far more resilient than our current model.
"The different methods of obtaining hydrogen are so varied that you just have a much larger bandwidth of sources," he says: "You wouldn't necessarily have the large utilities owning everything. You would have more of a brokerage company pulling all these loose ends together."
By diversifying the source of hydrogen production through localized renewables, hydrogen could offer a new decentralized supply chain more resilient than our current model. /polesnoy / Getty Creative
However, he stresses that hydrogen power will not solve all ills: "We need to ramp up renewable energy input, but at the same time, we have to reduce energy demand."
He points to plans in the UK to replace natural gas with hydrogen instead, "which will lead nowhere because the energy efficiency standards of housing in the UK are just so tremendously bad."
He says instead energy use must be cut by some 70 percent through efficiency in houses and on roads, a figure he considers economically viable: "There's no point covering today's energy demand with something like renewable energies, and exactly the same applies to hydrogen."
If hydrogen power is to be economically viable in effectively lowering green house gases, Steinberger-Wilckens says there must be a rethinking of how we use fuel: "[hydrogen] has a different mindset altogether."
Video/animation: James Sandifer
Hydrogen homes is a terrible idea
Simon Pirani | 3rd November 2020 |
Creative Commons 4.0
Insulating homes is a proven technology that reduces carbon emissions at low cost.
Pikist
Creative Commons
A plan to pipe hydrogen, instead of natural gas, into millions of UK homes is being pushed hard by the fossil fuel industry
Oil and gas companies support switching the gas grid to hydrogen, as a survival option in case of decarbonisation, as hydrogen is usually fabricated from gas.
But the hydrogen strategy stands opposed to the approach recommended for years by housing policy experts and architects: to use insulation to slash the amount of heat needed, and install electric pumps which work like fridges in reverse.
Leeds Trades Union Council (TUC) last month launched a campaign in favour of retrofitting homes with high-quality insulation and heat pumps.
Decarbonise
It’s an issue many people can unite around – those fighting for better housing and tenants’ rights, campaigners against fuel poverty, trades unionists fighting building industry cuts, and all of us who want to tackle climate change.
And there’s a choice to be made we cannot avoid.
If the gas grid is switched to hydrogen, that will block for good the electrification-and-insulation approach, that heats homes better, more cheaply, with technology that we know works, and is truly zero-carbon. We cannot have it both ways.
We will be locked into extra dependency on fossil fuels, instead of speeding the shift away from them.
That gas-to-hydrogen switch is being planned in north-east England by Northern Gas Networks (NGN): its H21 project would convert 3.7 million homes and businesses by 2035, and 15.7 million by 2050. NGN is asking the government to fund an engineering study for it.
This article is a guide to the debates and to more information. It covers:
hydrogen and its drawbacks;
whole system solutions: existing technologies to decarbonise heating
the government’s no-strategy strategy and how we could resist it; and
industry lobbying.
Hydrogen and its drawbacks
Hydrogen is touted as a “green” fuel internationally, because governments seek industry-friendly paths to decarbonisation, and oil and gas companies offer this false solution.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) last year published a report on hydrogen, which noted active support for it by the Chinese, Brazilian, Indian, Australian - and by many European - governments.
In July this year, the European Commission published its “hydrogen strategy for a climate-neutral Europe”, which advocates state support for hydrogen to replace gas in industry and transport.
It also mention household heating as a possible use - as does the European Hydrogen Alliance’s declaration.
Much of this is based on a totally unproved assumption: that technology to produce zero-carbon hydrogen can be made to work at scale. That is a long way off, and may never happen.
Transport
There are two supposedly carbon-free types of hydrogen: “blue” hydrogen made from natural gas, from which the carbon is removed and stored; and “green” hydrogen made by electrolysing water. Neither has ever been used at large scale.
At the moment, about 70 million tonnes of hydrogen is produced per year globally, and 98 percent of it is “grey” hydrogen, made from natural gas … without carbon capture. So it emits a huge amount of greenhouse gases – almost as much as the aviation industry.
Large-scale “blue” or “green” hydrogen production is far away for three main reasons.
Cost: The European Commission estimates that “blue” hydrogen would cost €2 a kilogramme at today’s prices, and “green” hydrogen €2.50-€5.50/kg, compared to €1.50/kg for existing “grey” hydrogen.
Technology: “Blue” hydrogen needs carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology that does not yet work at scale anywhere. Transporting hydrogen might not be the walk in the park that some companies claim, either, this presentation suggests.
Resource use: “Green” hydrogen uses huge quantities of electricity and water.
Electrolyser
Let's ake the NGN project. It would by 2050 need 8 million tonnes of hydrogen per year, equivalent to 300 Terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity.
To supply that amount of “green” hydrogen, Friends of the Earth says, would need 140 Gigawatts (GW) of wind-powered electrolyser capacity – compared to a current total UK wind capacity of 22 GW.
Plus the same amount of water as is used by 1.2 million homes.
If “blue” hydrogen were used instead, 60 plants, as big as the world’s biggest, would have to be built … fitted with that CCS technology that is still in development.
Game-changer
I am not arguing that hydrogen – especially “green” hydrogen – could never be used during and after the transition away from fossil fuels. But now, it is not a priority or a game-changer.
Today, most hydrogen is used in oil refining and fertiliser manufacture. Hopefully, much of this current use will disappear, along with fossil-fuelled industries.
There may well be new uses, because low- or zero-carbon hydrogen might be the best substitute for fossil fuels in some cases, such as to make steel. Hydrogen is also good for storing energy.
But why, in any sane world, would you start by searching for new ways to use hydrogen, as governments are trying to do now?
Why would you even think about using hydrogen to heat people’s homes – when technologies that work, that are already in use - retrofitting, electricity and heat pumps - could do the job better?
You wouldn’t. Unless you were seeking ways of wringing the last few bits of profit out of oil and gas production.
Whole-systems solutions
There is nothing radical about proposing insulation and electric heat pumps to replace gas for households.
Recent reports by the Institute for Public Policy Research (advocating a national investment programme), Friends of the Earth (reiterating the value of heat pumps against hydrogen) and the Carbon Trust (on London, arguing that “heat pumps are the primary technology choice”) make the case.
For a working retrofitter’s view, see the Sure Insulation site.
Government and parliamentary reviews, too, have found that heat pumps and insulation are the way to go.
They have also looked at a hybrid heat pump system, in which a heat pump provides heat for 85 percent of the time, but switches to a gas boiler during colder periods.
The government’s business and industry department (BEIS) did a big review of home heating options in 2018. It concluded that, first, there should be a “growth in no- or low-regrets low carbon heating” measures.
Smart
This would include heat pumps, biomass boilers and solar water heaters.
But BEIS said that, long term, all technologies had to be looked at – and kept the hydrogen option open, by commissioning the engineering company Arup to do a feasability study.
The parliamentary Committee on Climate Change also did a big study on hydrogen in 2018, and concluded that it is “best used selectively, where it adds most value alongside widespread electrification” – and providing CCS could be got to work properly.
Most urgent, the CCC pointed out, is “strategic certainty about how the decarbonisation of heat will be delivered in the UK”.
The detailed analysis for the CCC was done at Imperial College. It showed that a hydrogen-based approach would be more expensive, especially if the aim were zero carbon, and that up-front investment makes more sense to stop emissions. There is more from Imperial on “smart and flexible heat” here.
Neoliberal
All this paperwork underlines that an integrated approach is needed.
Buildings need to be upgraded and insulated; different types of heat pumps and different installation methods are called for; expertise and training have to be developed; in some areas, district heating networks make sense.
This is exactly the sort of thing local government has always done, but the neoliberal assault on local government makes it harder.
That’s discussed in research of heat systems governance by Janette Webb, in some of her articles, including “New Lamps for Old”, “Emerging linked ecologies for a national-scale retrofitting programme” and one on why heat decarbonisation cannot be done by markets).
The no-strategy strategy
In the face of this pile of evidence that, more than anything, home heating needs a strategy – the government has avoided adopting a strategy.
It “has yet to make any firm decisions about which pathways it prefers”, this report on the Renewable Technology site explained in July.
The politics of this is very clear.
In the face of climate crisis, the government must choose between an integrated strategy, best implemented through local government, relying on existing technology … or a no-strategy strategy that takes the lead from powerful private companies with unproven technology.
The no-strategy strategy fits with this government’s maniacal, neoliberal hatred of the public sector – one of its few ideological principles.
Trade union
That was what motivated its no-strategy strategy on coronavirus testing and tracing, with devastating results, costing tens of thousands of lives.
A heat decarbonisation strategy will have to be fought for in opposition to the government – just as health workers, scientists and others have had to fight for a coronavirus strategy.
This is why the Leeds TUC initiative, which appeals to local government to act, is welcome.
The Leeds TUC has recognised a techno-fix for what it is – damaging to society and the labour movement. Its campaign could be a focus for all who want to tackle dangerous climate change.
If you are in a trade union, an environmental campaign group or a community organisation, please discuss the Leeds TUC’s document and the actions it proposes.
Just
If you are in a union, you could challenge trade union leaders’ support for the oil and gas industry’s hydrogen initiative.
Instead of such support, the labour movement should do the following three things:
Embrace technologies that are in society’s best interests – which for heat decarbonisation means retrofitted insulation and heat pumps.
Demand that firms producing filthy-dirty “grey” hydrogen take action to reduce the horrendous levels of greenhouse gas emissions they produce.
Urge that future hydrogen use be limited to applications that are socially useful and don’t add to the climate crisis.
This approach could and should be part of a broader perspective of just transition, now starting to be discussed by workers on the North Sea where the gas is produced.
Lobbying on steroids
The H21 project is at a crossroads.
The companies who sponsor it – NGN, the gas network firm Cadent and the Norwegian oil company Equinor – got state funding for a series of initial reports.
This included £9 million from the Ofgem Network Innovation Competition (NIC) in 2017, mainly to fund safety assessments; and another £6.8 million in 2019 to test the technology at a specially-built site at Spadeadam.
But H21’s plea for a much larger dollop of state funding £125 million has not so far been heeded, despite the “urgency” explained in the H21 North of England report.
This would have covered half the cost of a Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) study, originally scheduled to start this year.
Boilers
Meanwhile, the government has announced another project – to support an industrial complex on Teesside, making “blue” hydrogen for transport.
This could be an alternative source of demand for natural gas being pumped from the North Sea - but has as little as H21 to do with tackling the climate emergency.
Despite the question marks over H21, the oil and gas industry’s lobbying machine in support of hydrogen for heat decarbonisation is trundling on, with greater force than ever.
In July, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Hydrogen issued a report urging “more ambitious” support for hydrogen, including “mandating hydrogen-ready boilers by 2025”.
And in August, the gas industry “scored a success in persuading the Environmental Audit Committee [of the House of Commons] to back its plans for using hydrogen […] in domestic heating”, the 100% Renewable UK blog reported.
Bandwagon
The committee chair, Philip Dunne MP, went as far as to suggest that hydrogen is “the most cost-effective option” for “parts of the UK energy system”.
It is not clear how he could have reached such a conclusion. Tom Baxter, a chemical engineering researcher, questions the pro-hydrogen arguments in this article.
Gas network companies have also jumped on the post-Covid financing bandwagon, asking for a huge state hand-out for conversion to hydrogen.
Incumbants
And cement manufacturers – who, like energy companies, need carbon capture and storage – have joined the queue for state funding.
These relentless lobbying efforts are funded by a range of companies including hydrogen, transport, carbon capture, gas network, engineering and chemical firms as well as oil and gas.
Their greenwash proliferates through the Decarbonised Gas Alliance and Hydrogen Strategy Now.
Some good research on these lobbyists’ methods, by academics at Exeter University and Imperial College, warns of “the capacity that incumbents have to promote their storyline”.
Quick technological catch-up
Hydrogen is the most common, and lightest, element in the universe, but only exists on earth combined with other elements.
People started fabricating hydrogen from compounds and using it for things like balloons in the nineteenth century. Today there are three main types of hydrogen:
■ “Grey” hydrogen. Fabricated by removing the hydrogen (H) from methane, usually natural gas (CH4), or from coal.
This is how 98 percent of hydrogen is currently made. It is extremely emissions-intensive. For every tonne of hydrogen made from gas, 10 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) goes into the atmosphere; for every tonne from coal, 19 tonnes of CO2.
The 70m tonnes of hydrogen produced in 2018 caused 830m tonnes of CO2 emissions, the IEA calculated.
That’s a healthy chunk of the world total of 42 billion tonnes – about the same as total emissions from Indonesia plus the UK – and nearly as much as the global aviation industry, which emitted 915m tonnes in 2019.
Most hydrogen produced now is used for oil refining, and ammonia production to make chemical fertilisers. Some is used as part of synthetic gas products, mainly for manufacturing steel, or methanol.
■ “Blue” hydrogen. In this process, instead of CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere, it is captured and stored.
The capture process, steam reformation, is straightforward for about 70 percent of the emissions and gets really tricky above and beyond about 85 percent.
Steam reformation splits methane into CO2 and synthetic gas (carbon monoxide plus hydrogen); in the second stage, the synthetic gas is mixed with steam; more CO2 is removed and hydrogen produced.
Other similar processes are partial oxidation, which uses oxygen in the air as an oxidant instead of steam, and autothermal reforming, which combines both methods.
■ “Green” hydrogen. Produced by electrolysis of water. The electricity could come from fossil fuels (in which case it would not be green), nuclear power or renewables.
The process is proven, but is very energy intensive and very inefficient.
If electricity from renewables were to be used, this could be the most “carbon light” way of producing hydrogen.
But huge targets for “green” hydrogen production are sometimes published without being reconciled with other huge targets for renewably-produced electricity.
Is producing hydrogen ever going to be the best way to use this electricity?
The IEA says that just to produce the 70m tonnes of hydrogen the world economy uses annually would need 3600 TWh of electricity, more than total European consumption.
The electrolysis also needs huge amounts of water – 9 litres for each kilo of hydrogen.
Gazprom, the Russian gas company, sees potential in producing hydrogen by methane pyrolysis, a related technology. GL, 30 October 2020.
This Author
Simon Pirani is an energy researcher and historian. His most recent book is Burning Up: A Global History of Fossil Fuel Consumption (Pluto 2018). He blogs at People and Nature and tweets as @SimonPirani1. This article originally appeared under the pseudonym Gabriel Levy.
Find out more
Retrofit Leeds homes with high-quality insulation and heat pumps: a plan and call to action, by Leeds TUC
Leeds trade unionists: zero carbon homes can help tackle climate chan
Simon Pirani | 3rd November 2020 |
Creative Commons 4.0
Insulating homes is a proven technology that reduces carbon emissions at low cost.
Pikist
Creative Commons
A plan to pipe hydrogen, instead of natural gas, into millions of UK homes is being pushed hard by the fossil fuel industry
Oil and gas companies support switching the gas grid to hydrogen, as a survival option in case of decarbonisation, as hydrogen is usually fabricated from gas.
But the hydrogen strategy stands opposed to the approach recommended for years by housing policy experts and architects: to use insulation to slash the amount of heat needed, and install electric pumps which work like fridges in reverse.
Leeds Trades Union Council (TUC) last month launched a campaign in favour of retrofitting homes with high-quality insulation and heat pumps.
Decarbonise
It’s an issue many people can unite around – those fighting for better housing and tenants’ rights, campaigners against fuel poverty, trades unionists fighting building industry cuts, and all of us who want to tackle climate change.
And there’s a choice to be made we cannot avoid.
If the gas grid is switched to hydrogen, that will block for good the electrification-and-insulation approach, that heats homes better, more cheaply, with technology that we know works, and is truly zero-carbon. We cannot have it both ways.
We will be locked into extra dependency on fossil fuels, instead of speeding the shift away from them.
That gas-to-hydrogen switch is being planned in north-east England by Northern Gas Networks (NGN): its H21 project would convert 3.7 million homes and businesses by 2035, and 15.7 million by 2050. NGN is asking the government to fund an engineering study for it.
This article is a guide to the debates and to more information. It covers:
hydrogen and its drawbacks;
whole system solutions: existing technologies to decarbonise heating
the government’s no-strategy strategy and how we could resist it; and
industry lobbying.
Hydrogen and its drawbacks
Hydrogen is touted as a “green” fuel internationally, because governments seek industry-friendly paths to decarbonisation, and oil and gas companies offer this false solution.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) last year published a report on hydrogen, which noted active support for it by the Chinese, Brazilian, Indian, Australian - and by many European - governments.
In July this year, the European Commission published its “hydrogen strategy for a climate-neutral Europe”, which advocates state support for hydrogen to replace gas in industry and transport.
It also mention household heating as a possible use - as does the European Hydrogen Alliance’s declaration.
Much of this is based on a totally unproved assumption: that technology to produce zero-carbon hydrogen can be made to work at scale. That is a long way off, and may never happen.
Transport
There are two supposedly carbon-free types of hydrogen: “blue” hydrogen made from natural gas, from which the carbon is removed and stored; and “green” hydrogen made by electrolysing water. Neither has ever been used at large scale.
At the moment, about 70 million tonnes of hydrogen is produced per year globally, and 98 percent of it is “grey” hydrogen, made from natural gas … without carbon capture. So it emits a huge amount of greenhouse gases – almost as much as the aviation industry.
Large-scale “blue” or “green” hydrogen production is far away for three main reasons.
Cost: The European Commission estimates that “blue” hydrogen would cost €2 a kilogramme at today’s prices, and “green” hydrogen €2.50-€5.50/kg, compared to €1.50/kg for existing “grey” hydrogen.
Technology: “Blue” hydrogen needs carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology that does not yet work at scale anywhere. Transporting hydrogen might not be the walk in the park that some companies claim, either, this presentation suggests.
Resource use: “Green” hydrogen uses huge quantities of electricity and water.
Electrolyser
Let's ake the NGN project. It would by 2050 need 8 million tonnes of hydrogen per year, equivalent to 300 Terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity.
To supply that amount of “green” hydrogen, Friends of the Earth says, would need 140 Gigawatts (GW) of wind-powered electrolyser capacity – compared to a current total UK wind capacity of 22 GW.
Plus the same amount of water as is used by 1.2 million homes.
If “blue” hydrogen were used instead, 60 plants, as big as the world’s biggest, would have to be built … fitted with that CCS technology that is still in development.
Game-changer
I am not arguing that hydrogen – especially “green” hydrogen – could never be used during and after the transition away from fossil fuels. But now, it is not a priority or a game-changer.
Today, most hydrogen is used in oil refining and fertiliser manufacture. Hopefully, much of this current use will disappear, along with fossil-fuelled industries.
There may well be new uses, because low- or zero-carbon hydrogen might be the best substitute for fossil fuels in some cases, such as to make steel. Hydrogen is also good for storing energy.
But why, in any sane world, would you start by searching for new ways to use hydrogen, as governments are trying to do now?
Why would you even think about using hydrogen to heat people’s homes – when technologies that work, that are already in use - retrofitting, electricity and heat pumps - could do the job better?
You wouldn’t. Unless you were seeking ways of wringing the last few bits of profit out of oil and gas production.
Whole-systems solutions
There is nothing radical about proposing insulation and electric heat pumps to replace gas for households.
Recent reports by the Institute for Public Policy Research (advocating a national investment programme), Friends of the Earth (reiterating the value of heat pumps against hydrogen) and the Carbon Trust (on London, arguing that “heat pumps are the primary technology choice”) make the case.
For a working retrofitter’s view, see the Sure Insulation site.
Government and parliamentary reviews, too, have found that heat pumps and insulation are the way to go.
They have also looked at a hybrid heat pump system, in which a heat pump provides heat for 85 percent of the time, but switches to a gas boiler during colder periods.
The government’s business and industry department (BEIS) did a big review of home heating options in 2018. It concluded that, first, there should be a “growth in no- or low-regrets low carbon heating” measures.
Smart
This would include heat pumps, biomass boilers and solar water heaters.
But BEIS said that, long term, all technologies had to be looked at – and kept the hydrogen option open, by commissioning the engineering company Arup to do a feasability study.
The parliamentary Committee on Climate Change also did a big study on hydrogen in 2018, and concluded that it is “best used selectively, where it adds most value alongside widespread electrification” – and providing CCS could be got to work properly.
Most urgent, the CCC pointed out, is “strategic certainty about how the decarbonisation of heat will be delivered in the UK”.
The detailed analysis for the CCC was done at Imperial College. It showed that a hydrogen-based approach would be more expensive, especially if the aim were zero carbon, and that up-front investment makes more sense to stop emissions. There is more from Imperial on “smart and flexible heat” here.
Neoliberal
All this paperwork underlines that an integrated approach is needed.
Buildings need to be upgraded and insulated; different types of heat pumps and different installation methods are called for; expertise and training have to be developed; in some areas, district heating networks make sense.
This is exactly the sort of thing local government has always done, but the neoliberal assault on local government makes it harder.
That’s discussed in research of heat systems governance by Janette Webb, in some of her articles, including “New Lamps for Old”, “Emerging linked ecologies for a national-scale retrofitting programme” and one on why heat decarbonisation cannot be done by markets).
The no-strategy strategy
In the face of this pile of evidence that, more than anything, home heating needs a strategy – the government has avoided adopting a strategy.
It “has yet to make any firm decisions about which pathways it prefers”, this report on the Renewable Technology site explained in July.
The politics of this is very clear.
In the face of climate crisis, the government must choose between an integrated strategy, best implemented through local government, relying on existing technology … or a no-strategy strategy that takes the lead from powerful private companies with unproven technology.
The no-strategy strategy fits with this government’s maniacal, neoliberal hatred of the public sector – one of its few ideological principles.
Trade union
That was what motivated its no-strategy strategy on coronavirus testing and tracing, with devastating results, costing tens of thousands of lives.
A heat decarbonisation strategy will have to be fought for in opposition to the government – just as health workers, scientists and others have had to fight for a coronavirus strategy.
This is why the Leeds TUC initiative, which appeals to local government to act, is welcome.
The Leeds TUC has recognised a techno-fix for what it is – damaging to society and the labour movement. Its campaign could be a focus for all who want to tackle dangerous climate change.
If you are in a trade union, an environmental campaign group or a community organisation, please discuss the Leeds TUC’s document and the actions it proposes.
Just
If you are in a union, you could challenge trade union leaders’ support for the oil and gas industry’s hydrogen initiative.
Instead of such support, the labour movement should do the following three things:
Embrace technologies that are in society’s best interests – which for heat decarbonisation means retrofitted insulation and heat pumps.
Demand that firms producing filthy-dirty “grey” hydrogen take action to reduce the horrendous levels of greenhouse gas emissions they produce.
Urge that future hydrogen use be limited to applications that are socially useful and don’t add to the climate crisis.
This approach could and should be part of a broader perspective of just transition, now starting to be discussed by workers on the North Sea where the gas is produced.
Lobbying on steroids
The H21 project is at a crossroads.
The companies who sponsor it – NGN, the gas network firm Cadent and the Norwegian oil company Equinor – got state funding for a series of initial reports.
This included £9 million from the Ofgem Network Innovation Competition (NIC) in 2017, mainly to fund safety assessments; and another £6.8 million in 2019 to test the technology at a specially-built site at Spadeadam.
But H21’s plea for a much larger dollop of state funding £125 million has not so far been heeded, despite the “urgency” explained in the H21 North of England report.
This would have covered half the cost of a Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) study, originally scheduled to start this year.
Boilers
Meanwhile, the government has announced another project – to support an industrial complex on Teesside, making “blue” hydrogen for transport.
This could be an alternative source of demand for natural gas being pumped from the North Sea - but has as little as H21 to do with tackling the climate emergency.
Despite the question marks over H21, the oil and gas industry’s lobbying machine in support of hydrogen for heat decarbonisation is trundling on, with greater force than ever.
In July, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Hydrogen issued a report urging “more ambitious” support for hydrogen, including “mandating hydrogen-ready boilers by 2025”.
And in August, the gas industry “scored a success in persuading the Environmental Audit Committee [of the House of Commons] to back its plans for using hydrogen […] in domestic heating”, the 100% Renewable UK blog reported.
Bandwagon
The committee chair, Philip Dunne MP, went as far as to suggest that hydrogen is “the most cost-effective option” for “parts of the UK energy system”.
It is not clear how he could have reached such a conclusion. Tom Baxter, a chemical engineering researcher, questions the pro-hydrogen arguments in this article.
Gas network companies have also jumped on the post-Covid financing bandwagon, asking for a huge state hand-out for conversion to hydrogen.
Incumbants
And cement manufacturers – who, like energy companies, need carbon capture and storage – have joined the queue for state funding.
These relentless lobbying efforts are funded by a range of companies including hydrogen, transport, carbon capture, gas network, engineering and chemical firms as well as oil and gas.
Their greenwash proliferates through the Decarbonised Gas Alliance and Hydrogen Strategy Now.
Some good research on these lobbyists’ methods, by academics at Exeter University and Imperial College, warns of “the capacity that incumbents have to promote their storyline”.
Quick technological catch-up
Hydrogen is the most common, and lightest, element in the universe, but only exists on earth combined with other elements.
People started fabricating hydrogen from compounds and using it for things like balloons in the nineteenth century. Today there are three main types of hydrogen:
■ “Grey” hydrogen. Fabricated by removing the hydrogen (H) from methane, usually natural gas (CH4), or from coal.
This is how 98 percent of hydrogen is currently made. It is extremely emissions-intensive. For every tonne of hydrogen made from gas, 10 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) goes into the atmosphere; for every tonne from coal, 19 tonnes of CO2.
The 70m tonnes of hydrogen produced in 2018 caused 830m tonnes of CO2 emissions, the IEA calculated.
That’s a healthy chunk of the world total of 42 billion tonnes – about the same as total emissions from Indonesia plus the UK – and nearly as much as the global aviation industry, which emitted 915m tonnes in 2019.
Most hydrogen produced now is used for oil refining, and ammonia production to make chemical fertilisers. Some is used as part of synthetic gas products, mainly for manufacturing steel, or methanol.
■ “Blue” hydrogen. In this process, instead of CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere, it is captured and stored.
The capture process, steam reformation, is straightforward for about 70 percent of the emissions and gets really tricky above and beyond about 85 percent.
Steam reformation splits methane into CO2 and synthetic gas (carbon monoxide plus hydrogen); in the second stage, the synthetic gas is mixed with steam; more CO2 is removed and hydrogen produced.
Other similar processes are partial oxidation, which uses oxygen in the air as an oxidant instead of steam, and autothermal reforming, which combines both methods.
■ “Green” hydrogen. Produced by electrolysis of water. The electricity could come from fossil fuels (in which case it would not be green), nuclear power or renewables.
The process is proven, but is very energy intensive and very inefficient.
If electricity from renewables were to be used, this could be the most “carbon light” way of producing hydrogen.
But huge targets for “green” hydrogen production are sometimes published without being reconciled with other huge targets for renewably-produced electricity.
Is producing hydrogen ever going to be the best way to use this electricity?
The IEA says that just to produce the 70m tonnes of hydrogen the world economy uses annually would need 3600 TWh of electricity, more than total European consumption.
The electrolysis also needs huge amounts of water – 9 litres for each kilo of hydrogen.
Gazprom, the Russian gas company, sees potential in producing hydrogen by methane pyrolysis, a related technology. GL, 30 October 2020.
This Author
Simon Pirani is an energy researcher and historian. His most recent book is Burning Up: A Global History of Fossil Fuel Consumption (Pluto 2018). He blogs at People and Nature and tweets as @SimonPirani1. This article originally appeared under the pseudonym Gabriel Levy.
Find out more
Retrofit Leeds homes with high-quality insulation and heat pumps: a plan and call to action, by Leeds TUC
Leeds trade unionists: zero carbon homes can help tackle climate chan
The future of nuclear: power stations could make hydrogen, heat homes and decarbonise industry
Frédéric Paulussen/Unsplash, CC BY-SA
November 4, 2020 8.43am EST
Nuclear power has provided low-carbon electricity to the UK for over 60 years and today it generates 17% of the country’s electricity. Until mid-2018, 15 nuclear reactors were the country’s largest source of low-carbon energy. Of these, only Sizewell B is planned to remain operating in 12 years’ time. The only new plant under construction is Hinkley Point C, and with a total generating capacity of 3.26 gigawatts, it would provide just 8% of the UK’s current electricity demand.
The Committee on Climate Change advises the UK government on the effort to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Its proposals are strangely silent on nuclear power, occasionally lumping it in with “other low-carbon generation”. It supports a massive increase in renewable energy generation and continued burning of natural gas, using carbon capture and storage technology to mop up the CO₂ emitted. Elsewhere, the plan is to electrify transport, heating and industrial processes, meaning batteries in cars, and heat pumps powered by electricity in homes and factories.
While reducing the amount of gas and oil burned, this would at least double the amount of electricity the national grid will need by 2050. Perhaps this could be met with renewables and electricity storage in batteries, to cover those moments when the Sun isn’t shining and there’s no wind to generate green energy. But sadly, battery technology isn’t currently powerful enough to store energy at that scale.
Even today’s largest battery stores can only provide back-up electricity for a few hours, which is not always enough to cover extended periods of low wind or shorter daylight hours during winter. Battery technology is improving all the time, but it may not do so fast enough to meet rising electricity demand. Rolling out lots of electric vehicles could squeeze the supply of batteries even further, potentially even increasing their cost.
Nuclear power has provided low-carbon electricity to the UK for over 60 years and today it generates 17% of the country’s electricity. Until mid-2018, 15 nuclear reactors were the country’s largest source of low-carbon energy. Of these, only Sizewell B is planned to remain operating in 12 years’ time. The only new plant under construction is Hinkley Point C, and with a total generating capacity of 3.26 gigawatts, it would provide just 8% of the UK’s current electricity demand.
The Committee on Climate Change advises the UK government on the effort to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Its proposals are strangely silent on nuclear power, occasionally lumping it in with “other low-carbon generation”. It supports a massive increase in renewable energy generation and continued burning of natural gas, using carbon capture and storage technology to mop up the CO₂ emitted. Elsewhere, the plan is to electrify transport, heating and industrial processes, meaning batteries in cars, and heat pumps powered by electricity in homes and factories.
While reducing the amount of gas and oil burned, this would at least double the amount of electricity the national grid will need by 2050. Perhaps this could be met with renewables and electricity storage in batteries, to cover those moments when the Sun isn’t shining and there’s no wind to generate green energy. But sadly, battery technology isn’t currently powerful enough to store energy at that scale.
Even today’s largest battery stores can only provide back-up electricity for a few hours, which is not always enough to cover extended periods of low wind or shorter daylight hours during winter. Battery technology is improving all the time, but it may not do so fast enough to meet rising electricity demand. Rolling out lots of electric vehicles could squeeze the supply of batteries even further, potentially even increasing their cost.
Can renewables and battery storage alone make up the soaring demand for green power? Petrmalinak/Shutterstock
Carbon capture and storage is not a proven technology either, so it would be unwise to put too many of eggs in that basket. Aside from other technical issues – storing the CO₂ produced by burning natural gas is a potential safety hazard – the unexpected release of gas stored underground could suffocate life at the surface. While plans are afoot to make “green hydrogen” the new lifeblood of the economy, producing enough of the low-carbon fuel would take a lot of electricity. Can renewables generate enough to do that while having enough left over for the surge in electricity demand elsewhere?
Simply put, we need to start rebuilding the UK’s capacity to generate nuclear power.
A new generation of reactors
Future nuclear reactors will not just be big kettles making steam to drive turbines that generate electricity. The heat produced during the nuclear reaction can be diverted to power processes that are currently difficult to decarbonise.
Take heating in buildings, for example. Heat cooler than 400°C can be extracted after the turbine, and pumped into district heating systems, replacing fossil fuels like natural gas. This is a process that is already carried out daily from municipal waste incinerators across Europe.
High-temperature heat (between 400 and 900°C) could be diverted from nearer the reactor, before it reaches the turbine in a nuclear plant. It could be used to power processes that produce low-carbon hydrogen fuel, ammonia and synthetic fuels for ships and jets. This heat could also supply industries such as steel, cement, glass and chemical manufacturing, which often otherwise use burners powered by fossil fuels.
This flexibility links perfectly with renewables. While the sun is shining and the wind’s blowing, nuclear reactors can continue generating hydrogen or other fuels that serve as an energy store – a standby source that can be burned to generate additional energy when needed. That energy could also heat homes or produce aluminium, steel, bricks, cement and glass. When it’s cloudy and still, the reactor can still generate electricity for the grid.
Carbon capture and storage is not a proven technology either, so it would be unwise to put too many of eggs in that basket. Aside from other technical issues – storing the CO₂ produced by burning natural gas is a potential safety hazard – the unexpected release of gas stored underground could suffocate life at the surface. While plans are afoot to make “green hydrogen” the new lifeblood of the economy, producing enough of the low-carbon fuel would take a lot of electricity. Can renewables generate enough to do that while having enough left over for the surge in electricity demand elsewhere?
Simply put, we need to start rebuilding the UK’s capacity to generate nuclear power.
A new generation of reactors
Future nuclear reactors will not just be big kettles making steam to drive turbines that generate electricity. The heat produced during the nuclear reaction can be diverted to power processes that are currently difficult to decarbonise.
Take heating in buildings, for example. Heat cooler than 400°C can be extracted after the turbine, and pumped into district heating systems, replacing fossil fuels like natural gas. This is a process that is already carried out daily from municipal waste incinerators across Europe.
High-temperature heat (between 400 and 900°C) could be diverted from nearer the reactor, before it reaches the turbine in a nuclear plant. It could be used to power processes that produce low-carbon hydrogen fuel, ammonia and synthetic fuels for ships and jets. This heat could also supply industries such as steel, cement, glass and chemical manufacturing, which often otherwise use burners powered by fossil fuels.
This flexibility links perfectly with renewables. While the sun is shining and the wind’s blowing, nuclear reactors can continue generating hydrogen or other fuels that serve as an energy store – a standby source that can be burned to generate additional energy when needed. That energy could also heat homes or produce aluminium, steel, bricks, cement and glass. When it’s cloudy and still, the reactor can still generate electricity for the grid.
Nuclear reactors have evolved to achieve more than just electricity generation. Royal Society, Author provided
The smaller reactors currently being developed worldwide typically generate about 300 megawatts of electricity each. They’re much cheaper to build than the current fleet of larger reactors which generate over 1,000 megawatts, such as the UK’s Hinkley Point C. Because they burn the fuel more efficiently, this new generation of reactors also produces much less nuclear waste.
Many contain passive safety measures too, which can flood an overheating reactor with cool water or remove the fuel source if there’s a problem. They’re designed to serve multiple purposes, either making electricity for the grid when renewable generation is low or making hydrogen and other fuels when it’s high. Because they’re smaller, these reactors can even be placed in industrial parks, providing a guaranteed electricity and heat supply to neighbouring factories.
We don’t believe that reaching net-zero emissions within the time we have left is possible without building new nuclear reactors. Fortunately, the new models awaiting construction can do so much more than just generate electricity.
Authors
The smaller reactors currently being developed worldwide typically generate about 300 megawatts of electricity each. They’re much cheaper to build than the current fleet of larger reactors which generate over 1,000 megawatts, such as the UK’s Hinkley Point C. Because they burn the fuel more efficiently, this new generation of reactors also produces much less nuclear waste.
Many contain passive safety measures too, which can flood an overheating reactor with cool water or remove the fuel source if there’s a problem. They’re designed to serve multiple purposes, either making electricity for the grid when renewable generation is low or making hydrogen and other fuels when it’s high. Because they’re smaller, these reactors can even be placed in industrial parks, providing a guaranteed electricity and heat supply to neighbouring factories.
We don’t believe that reaching net-zero emissions within the time we have left is possible without building new nuclear reactors. Fortunately, the new models awaiting construction can do so much more than just generate electricity.
Authors
Bill Lee
Ser Cymru Professor of Materials in Extreme Environments, Bangor University
Ser Cymru Professor of Materials in Extreme Environments, Bangor University
Bill Lee receives funding from Welsh Government and the European Union, and has previously received funding from the EPSRC. He also serves on an advisory board for Tokamak Energy, a company developing miniature nuclear fusion reactors.
Michael Rushton
Senior Lecturer in Nuclear Energy, Bangor University
Michael Rushton receives funding from Welsh Government and European Union and has previously received funding from the EPSRC.
Senior Lecturer in Nuclear Energy, Bangor University
Michael Rushton receives funding from Welsh Government and European Union and has previously received funding from the EPSRC.
THE CONTINUING DISTRACTION OF CCS
Carbon Capture in Germany: are industry, government and innovators starting to move?
For two years there was little movement after German Chancellor Angela Merkel put carbon capture, removal, and storage back on Germany’s agenda. But the past few months have seen pressure build for a launch of CCS that may model itself on Germany’s success with solar, explains Lee Beck writing for Atlantic Council. Political voices both within and outside government, as well as investments by giants like Heidelberg Cement and Linde, are giving shape to policies and funding mechanisms. In February Germany announced a funding directive for commercialising capture technologies, while scoping out CO2 transport infrastructure options. Funding for large demonstrations will be crucial to building first-of-a-kind facilities. It will provide certainty to the private sector and pave the way for deployment at scale. Germany’s advantages are that it is an industry (a sector with big emissions, of course) and innovation leader. It’s close to the North Sea where CO2 can be stored, and central enough to act as a hub for other European nations. Beck points at efforts being made in other countries, including Norway, the Netherlands, the U.S. and others. So, thankfully, Germany shouldn’t be alone.
It has been close to two years since German Chancellor Angela Merkel put carbon capture, removal, and storage back on the German policy agenda. However, for quite a while there was virtually no movement, even as Norway, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Germany’s own industrial giants moved ahead with funding and projects. The lack of progress was jarring, as the support for carbon capture technologies from the scientific community grew rapidly. Fortunately, over the past few months momentum has slowly built.
About a quarter of German emissions stem from industry, with the lion’s share generated by cement, steel, and chemicals production. Germany is also the European Union’s (EU) largest cement and steel producer. The industrial sector employs some 5.5 million people, accounting for about a quarter of Germany’s gross domestic product.
Related Posts:
Industry needs Carbon Capture
While overall emissions from the sector have dropped over the past thirty years, its share relative to total emissions has remained relatively constant, signalling that the low-hanging fruit of efficiency gains have long been harvested. To achieve further reductions, Germany has to innovate.
SOURCE: IEA
With the European Commission tightening the European Emissions Trading System and devising a carbon border adjustment mechanism, emissions reductions and industrial transformation pathways through innovation are necessary to ensure industrial competitiveness and continued viability of these sectors in a carbon-constrained world.
While comprehensive pathways will require multiple technologies—including hydrogen and renewable energies—mitigation of process emissions will be dependent on carbon capture, removal, and storage technologies. As a world leader in innovation, Germany is also well positioned to commercialise carbon removal technologies, which will be required to deliver negative emissions.
Pressure is building on the German government…
Over the past six months, momentum for this sort of shift in approach has slowly built.
During a panel with Heidelberg CEO Dominik von Achten, Fridays for Future (FFF) activist Luisa Neubauer argued that a carbon capture debate needs to happen, and pointed to a study prepared for FFF that also considers the potential role of carbon capture, removal, and storage in Germany’s decarbonisation pathway. Around the same time, the German Greens told the press that all technologies must be on the table to reduce process-related industrial emissions.
A new paper, which is the result of a decarbonisation dialogue with Germany’s industrial giants, outlines the necessary components of industrial decarbonisation; carbon capture, removal, and storage technologies form one of five key decarbonisation pillars. Heidelberg Cement, which is pursuing carbon capture in multiple countries outside of Germany, recently announced that its second LEILAC Demonstration plant—now four times bigger than the first one —would be built in Hannover, Germany. And the results from the first round of the EU Innovation Fund application also show that multiple projects in Germany applied for support.
SOURCE: “Statistics of the proposals received for the first large-scale call of the Innovation Fund in October 2020” / European Commission
Just last week, politicians from German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU/CSU alliance, which is also known as Union and some of whose members have been vocal on the need for carbon capture, formed a climate group, the so-called “Climate Union” to push their parties towards a climate-aligned policy pathway.
…and within the government
At the same time, there has also been some activity from the German government.
The government approved its 2030 Climate Action Program, which stated that carbon capture technology offers “a comparatively low-cost reduction possibility for unavoidable emissions from industrial processes in the mid-term.” At the beginning of February, Germany announced a funding directive for commercialising capture technologies, while scoping CO2 transport infrastructure options.
The directive also refers to a second stage, which includes funding for large demonstrations. This development is welcome and signals the realisation that Germany is unlikely to reach its climate goals without carbon capture, removal, and storage.
Now, German policymakers must think ahead
The country is already in an ideal position. It is home to some of the world’s best ecosystems of academia and private partnerships. German industrial giants like Heidelberg Cement and Linde are carbon capture technology leaders.
The innovation policy lessons from how Germany led the commercialisation of solar photovoltaics will be relevant to the development and deployment of the next generation of decarbonisation technologies. It is also strategically located in the heart of Europe, with access to CO2 storage under development in the North Sea via Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Belgium.
The way forward
What should happen next?
First, the German government must further understand what industry needs in order to deploy carbon capture, removal, and storage technologies at scale while also learning lessons from its peers. Funding for large demonstrations, as suggested in the directive, will be crucial to building some first-of-a-kind facilities.
Feed study grants are generally seen as an essential but relatively small investment to overcome upfront barriers and lead to a raft of promising projects. Yet, with dozens of carbon capture, removal, and storage facilities under development in Europe, it is time to provide certainty to the private sector and pave the way for deployment at scale.
Second, policy needs to be designed to make these projects economical through both capital and operating support. Grants, like the one provided by the Norwegian government for the Longship project, in addition to funding from the EU Innovation Fund, will help with the former. Deployment mechanisms rewarding ton-for-ton emissions reductions are important for the latter.
Contracts for the difference could be as effective as the feed-in tariff was for solar deployment and could make up the difference between actual project costs and the EU emissions trading system. The Greens reference a carbon contract for difference and procurement policy to propel industrial decarbonisation in their election program. The ongoing experience with the Dutch SDE++ could provide helpful lessons and insights. The US 45Q tax credit, an inverted price on carbon, coupled with generous Front End Engineering Design study grants, have led to a healthy pipeline of proposed projects.
Transport and geologic storage of CO2 is unavoidable
At the same time, an ecosystem for CO2 disposal must be created. While utilisation of CO2 is an option, it is limited and its climate impact uncertain. Hence, to achieve at-scale decarbonisation via carbon removal and capture, geologic storage of CO2 is unavoidable.
As a first step, since it is expected that Germany will rely on CO2 storage in neighbouring countries, government leaders could voice support for including multiple CO2 transport modalities and geologic storage in the Trans-European Energy Network revision negotiations at the EU level. Moreover, funding could be provided for identifying business model options such as CO2 transport providers, with front-end engineering support for CO2 transport routes preceding more comprehensive policies such as loans and grants for CO2 transport creation.
The path to net-zero becomes steeper as the low-hanging fruit is harvested. We need to plan for the harder-to-abate sectors like heavy industry today. Successful industrial decarbonisation means securing strategically and culturally important industries. German policymakers should seize the opportunity to chart a path for carbon capture technologies critical to meeting national climate goals.
***
Lee Beck is a Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center. She also leads the Clean Air Task Force’s work on carbon capture policy in the US and Europe.
This article was written for the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center’s blog, EnergySource, and is published with permission.
SEE
THE REALITY IS THAT CCS IS NOT GREEN NOR CLEAN IT IS GOING TO BE USED TO FRACK OLD DRY WELLS OR HEAVY OIL LIKE IN THE BAKAN SHIELD
https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-myth-of-carbon-capture-and-storage.html
ALSO SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=CCS
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