Advanced New Catalysts for More Efficient Clean Hydrogen Production

By OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY DECEMBER 17, 2021

Oregon State University research into the design of catalysts has shown that hydrogen can be cleanly produced with much greater efficiency and at a lower cost than is possible with current commercially available catalysts.

A catalyst is a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without itself undergoing any permanent chemical change.

The findings are significant because the production of hydrogen is important for “many aspects of our life, such as fuel cells for cars and the manufacture of many useful chemicals such as ammonia,” said the OSU College of Engineering’s Zhenxing Feng, a chemical engineering professor who led the research. “It’s also used in the refining of metals, for producing man-made materials such as plastics and for a range of other purposes.”

Producing hydrogen by splitting water via an electrochemical catalytic process is cleaner and more sustainable than the conventional method of deriving hydrogen from natural gas via a carbon-dioxide-producing process known as methane-steam reforming, Feng said. But the cost of the greener technique has been a barrier in the marketplace.

The new findings, which describe ways to design catalysts that can greatly improve the efficiency of the clean hydrogen production process, were published in Science Advances and JACS Au.

Zhenxing Feng, OSU. Credit: OSU

In facilitating reaction processes, catalysts often experience structural changes, Feng said. Sometimes the changes are reversible, other times irreversible, and irreversible restructuring is believed to degrade a catalyst’s stability, leading to a loss of catalytic activity that lowers reaction efficiency.

Feng, OSU Ph.D. student Maoyu Wang and collaborators studied the restructuring of catalysts in reaction and then manipulated their surface structure and composition at the atomic scale to achieve a highly efficient catalytic process for producing hydrogen.

An active phase of a catalyst based on amorphous iridium hydroxide exhibited efficiency 150 times that of its original perovskite structure and close to three orders of magnitude better than the common commercial catalyst, iridium oxide. 

“We found at least two groups of materials that undergo irreversible changes that turned out to be significantly better catalysts for hydrogen production,” Feng said. “This can help us produce hydrogen at $2 per kilogram and eventually $1 per kilogram. That’s less expensive than the polluting process in current industries and will help achieve the United States’ goal of zero emissions by 2030.”

Feng notes that the U.S. Department of Energy Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office has established benchmarks of technologies that can produce clean hydrogen at $2 per kilogram by 2025 and $1 per kilogram by 2030 as part of the Hydrogen Energy Earthshot target of cutting the cost of clean hydrogen by 80%, from $5 to $1 per kilogram, in one decade.

The water electrolysis technology for clean hydrogen production that Feng’s group is focused on uses electricity from renewable sources to split water to make clean hydrogen. However, the efficiency of water splitting is low, he said, mainly due to the high overpotential – the difference between the actual potential and the theoretical potential of an electrochemical reaction – of one key half-reaction in the process, the oxygen evolution reaction or OER.

“Catalysts are critical to promoting the water-splitting reaction by lowering the overpotential, and thus lowering the total cost for hydrogen production,” Feng said. “Our first study in JACS Au laid the foundation for us, and as demonstrated in our Science Advances article we now can better manipulate atoms on surface to design catalysts with the desired structure and composition.”

References:

“Lattice site–dependent metal leaching in perovskites toward a honeycomb-like water oxidation catalyst” by Yubo Chen, Yuanmiao Sun, Maoyu Wang, Jingxian Wang, Haiyan Li, Shibo Xi, Chao Wei, Pinxian Xi, George E. Sterbinsky, John W. Freeland, Adrian C. Fisher, Joel W. Ager, Zhenxing Feng and Zhichuan J. Xu, 10 December 2021, Science Advances.
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abk1788

“The Restructuring-Induced CoO_x Catalyst for Electrochemical Water Splitting” by Maoyu Wang, Qingbo Wa, Xiaowan Bai, Zuyun He, Widitha S. Samarakoon, Qing Ma, Yingge Du, Yan Chen, Hua Zhou, Yuanyue Liu, Xinwei Wang and Zhenxing Feng, 2 November 2021, JACS Au.
DOI: 10.1021/jacsau.1c00346

The National Science Foundation supported Feng’s research through the Northwest Nanotechnology Infrastructure site at OSU, and the Department of Energy provided funding as well.

Collaborating with Feng and Wang were researchers from Argonne National Laboratory, the University of Texas, Peking University, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Northwestern University, South China University of Technology, the University of Cambridge, the University of California, Berkeley, and Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.

Blue hydrogen driving Equinor’s renewed search for gas in Norwegian waters

Energy giant is redoubling its exploration efforts to boost its big plans


Explorer: Jez Averty, Equinor’s E&P chief in Norway wants to find more natural gas

Photo: Equinor

 16 December 2021 13:42 GMT
By Ole Ketil Helgesen
in Stavanger

Equinor plans to drill 25 exploration wells in Norway next year — up from 16 this year — in its drive to build a Norwegian energy hub, with hydrogen at its heart.

The energy giant’s hub concept is based on large-scale production and export of hydrogen, with plans to include both blue hydrogen, produced from natural gas, and also green hydrogen, produced with renewable energy. Investment plans include the use of carbon capture and storage technology to mitigate or eliminate emissions on gas production.


World's largest offshore wind farm 'unprofitable' for Equinor, say government-funded researchers

The energy transition has become core to Equinor’s business strategy, and this is reflected in an exploration strategy, both globally — promising a retreat from all but the very best plays in terms of profitability and opportunities for lower-carbon intensity — but also in Norway, where the state-controlled company forms part of a social and economic backdrop that demands a decarbonised future.

Equinor’s senior vice president for exploration and subsurface production in Norway, Jez Averty, gave Upstream an insight into the exploration plan that will be launched next year.

“We are planning to drill about 25 exploration wells off Norway in 2022. Two-thirds of the wells are Equinor-operated. In comparison, we drilled 16 wells in 2021,” Averty said, adding that some of the wells had yet to be approved by all partners.

According to the head of Norwegian exploration, most of the wells are located in the North Sea, a few in the Barents Sea and the rest in the Norwegian Sea.
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“In line with our strategy to prioritise value over volume, 80% of the wells are infrastructure-led exploration, which means that we aim to take advantage of infrastructure built over 40 years,” Averty said.

Resources that can be tied back to existing installations tend to allow for fast project execution, with lower capital expenditure and faster payback time, he noted.

Yet, Averty classified 20% of next year’s exploration wells as the “testing of new ideas” which means planning for higher-risk and higher-reward wells.

Most of these pure exploration wells are aimed at natural gas, as Equinor has high ambitions to produce and export blue hydrogen, made using natural gas and carbon capture and storage.

“When we are testing new ideas, our focus will mostly be to search for gas. We see that gas will have an important role in the energy transition. It is an enabler for blue hydrogen.”


Hydrogen success must overcome transportation challengesRead more

Averty did not provide additional detail about which parts of Norway's continental shelf will be targeted for wildcatting.

“I can’t reveal that at this time,” Averty said, added that over 50% of the company’s exploration programme is aiming for either natural gas or a combination of natural gas and oil.

Averty stressed that the 25-wells plan also forms part of the company’s strategy to maintain its production level of 1.5 million barrels per day in Norway to 2030, and beyond.

Equinor plans to build its future business around three pillars: developing oil and gas projects, increasing offshore wind production and creating new low-carbon businesses such as carbon capture and storage and hydrogen.

“These are interconnected. Oil and gas are of critical importance for society, which is evident in Europe where lack of gas has caused an energy crunch. In addition, the oil and gas industry will be a key driver for an energy transition based on knowledge, technology and, not least, investment,” Averty said.

Equinor plans to invest $23 billion in renewables until 2026. Continued production of oil and gas production will be a key enabler of the huge investments needed.

“The Norwegian shelf generates a significant cash flow, and we will use this to finance the transition. However, the cash flow depends on continued value creation, and exploration is the single most important measure to ensure continued value creation and cash flow,” he said.

A geologist by training, Averty believes the Norwegian continental shelf is highly competitive in an international perspective.

In 2021, Equinor discovered 119 million barrels of oil equivalent in Norwegian waters, with 16 exploration wells drilled.

Although the volumes are relatively small, in a regional and historical context Averty said Equinor’s exploration results between 2019 and 2021 are worth four times more than the investment in the exploration programme, with an average break-even oil price of $30 per barrel.

“We believe that having a significant but constant and predictable investment frame is an important part of ensuring the Norwegian continental shelf remains competitive. It avoids the peaks and troughs in activity that we often seen in the industry and provides a line of sight and predictability for our suppliers,” Averty said.

Internationally, Equinor plans to drill around 10 to 13 exploration wells next year, including in the US Gulf of Mexico, offshore Canada, Angola and Brazil, as well as in East Siberia, onshore Russia, a spokesperson for the company said.(Copyright)

INSIGHT-Too cold to handle? Race is on to pioneer shipping of hydrogen

Hydrogen is touted as an inevitable green fuel of the future. Tell that to the people who'll have to ship it across the globe at hyper-cold temperatures close to those in outer space.

CONTRIBUTOR
Jonathan Saul Reuters
PUBLISHED MAY 11, 2021

CREDIT: REUTERS/YUKA OBAYASHI

LONDON, May 12 (Reuters) - Hydrogen is touted as an inevitable green fuel of the future. Tell that to the people who'll have to ship it across the globe at hyper-cold temperatures close to those in outer space.

Yet that is exactly what designers are attempting to do.

In the biggest technological challenge for merchant shipping in decades, companies are beginning to develop a new generation of vessels that can deliver hydrogen to heavy industry, betting plants worldwide will convert to the fuel and propel the transition to a lower-carbon economy.

There are at least three projects developing pilot ships that will be ready to test transporting the fuel in Europe and Asia within the next three years, the companies involved told Reuters.

The major challenge is to keep the hydrogen chilled at minus 253 degrees Celsius - only 20 degrees above absolute zero, the coldest possible temperature - so it stays in liquid form, while avoiding the risk that parts of a vessel could crack.

That's almost 100 degrees Celsius colder than temperatures needed to transport liquefied natural gas (LNG), which required its own shipping revolution about 60 years ago.

Japan's Kawasaki Heavy Industries 7012.T has already built the world's first ship to transport hydrogen, Suiso Frontier. It told Reuters the prototype vessel was undergoing sea trials, with a demonstration maiden voyage of some 9,000 km from Australia to Japan expected in coming months.

"There is the next phase of the project already running to build a commercial-scale hydrogen carrier by the mid-2020s, with an aim to go commercial in 2030," said Motohiko Nishimura, Kawasaki's vice executive officer.

The 1,250 cubic-metre tank to hold the hydrogen is double-shelled and vacuum-insulated to help maintain the temperature.

Kawasaki's prototype, a relatively modest 116 metres long and 8,000 gross tonnes, will run on diesel on its maiden voyage but the company aims to use hydrogen to power future, larger commercial vessels, Nishimura said.

SUPER-STRENGTH STEEL

In South Korea, one of the world's major shipbuilding hubs, another project is in the works.

Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering 009540.KS is the first company in the country working on building a commercial liquefied hydrogen carrier, a company spokesperson said.

To tackle the hyper-cold challenge, the company said it was working with a steelmaker to develop high-strength steel and new welding technology, along with enhanced insulation, to contain the hydrogen and mitigate the risks of pipes or tanks cracking.

On the other side of the world, in Norway, efforts are also underway to build a hydrogen supply chain on the west coast of the country, with one group looking to pilot a test ship that could transport hydrogen to planned filling stations, which would be able to service ships as well as trucks and buses.

Norwegian shipping company Wilhelmsen Group is working on the latter project with partners to build a "roll-on/roll-off" ship that will be able to transport liquid hydrogen by way of containers or trailers that are driven onboard, said Per Brinchmann, the company's vice president, special projects.

The ship is expected to be operational in the first half of 2024, he added.

"We believe once we have this demonstration vessel operational the intention will be to build up bunkering hubs on the west coast (of Norway)," Brinchmann said, referring to the filling stations.

Other companies are exploring a different route to avoid the cold conundrum and what may happen when hydrogen atoms interact with metal.

Canada's Ballard Power Systems and Australia's Global Energy Ventures, for example, are working together to develop a ship to transport compressed hydrogen in gas form.

"The earliest timeframe would be 2025/26," said Nicolas Pocard, vice president marketing and strategic partnerships with Ballard.

The advantage of this gas approach is that it does not require any extreme temperatures. But the downside is that less hydrogen can be transported in a cargo than liquid hydrogen, which is why some of the early movers are opting for the latter.

Wilhelmsen's Brinchmann said that a 40-foot container would carry about 800-1,000 kg of pressurized hydrogen gas, but up to 3,000 kg of liquid hydrogen.

COMPLEX AND COSTLY

Such endeavours are far from risk free.

They are expensive, for a start; none of the companies would comment on the cost of their vessels, though three industry specialists told Reuters that such ships would cost more than vessels carrying LNG, which can run to $50-$240 million each depending on size.

"The cost of a vessel transporting hydrogen will mainly be driven by the cost of the storage system. Storing liquid hydrogen could be very expensive because of its complexity," Carlo Raucci, marine decarbonisation consultant with ship certifier LR, added separately.

The pilot projects, which are still in experimental stages, must overcome these technical challenges, and also rely on hydrogen catching on as a widely used fuel in coming years.

None of this is certain, though the state support being thrown behind this cleaner-burning fuel suggests it does have a future in the global energy mix.

More than 30 countries, including several in Europe such as France and Germany as well the likes of South Korea and Australia, have released hydrogen rollout plans.

Total planned investments could reach over $300 billion through to 2030 if hundreds of projects using the fuel come to fruition, according to a recent report by the Hydrogen Council association and consultants McKinsey.

The role of shipping would be important to unlocking the potential to convert industries such as steel and cement to hydrogen.

Those two heavy-industry sectors alone are estimated to produce over 10% of global CO2 emissions, and overcoming their need for fossil fuels is one of the key challenges of the global transition to a lower-carbon economy.

FASTER THAN LNG?

Tiago Braz, VP energy with Norwegian marine technology developer Hoglund, said the company was working with steel specialists and tank designers on engineering a ship cargo system that can be used for transporting liquid hydrogen.

"We are at the early stages with hydrogen carriers. But unlike when LNG was first rolled out, the industry is more flexible to change," Braz said.

"It should be a faster transition," he added.

Specialists say the development of LNG took decades before it was fully rolled out, partly due to the infrastructure and ships required and the few companies willing to invest initially.

Companies active in wider shipping markets are also looking at the possibility of diversifying into transporting hydrogen in the future.

Paul Wogan, chief executive of GasLog Partners GLOP.N which is a major player in LNG shipping, said it was "open-minded" about moving into hydrogen, while oil tanker owner Euronav EUAV.BR said it was examining future energy transportation.

"If that energy is hydrogen tomorrow, we would certainly like to play a role in the emerging industry," Euronav's CEO Hugo De Stoop said.

Others such as leading ship-management company Maersk Tankers said they would be open to managing hydrogen shipping assets.

Johan Petter Tutturen, business director for gas carriers with ship certifier DNV Maritime, said his company was involved in concept studies for the transport of hydrogen in bulk at sea.

"It'll be some years before these projects come to fruition, but if hydrogen is to be a part of the future fuel mix then we have to begin exploring all possibilities now."

(Additional reporting by Yuka Obayashi in Tokyo, Heekyong Yang and Joyce Lee in Seoul; Editing by Veronica Brown and Pravin Char)

The lesser-known hydrogen roadblock: safety concerns

By Nikolaus J. Kurmayer | EURACTIV.com
Oct 13, 2021

“For the successful development of an EU hydrogen economy, high safety standards must be established,” says Angelika Niebler, a German lawmaker from the European People's Party (EPP). [Jackthumm / Shutterstock]

The high flammability of hydrogen – a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas – has prompted EU lawmakers to ensure that potential safety issues do not stymie the market uptake of this rather novel energy carrier.

The European Commission sees clean hydrogen as “a vital missing piece of the puzzle” to decarbonise heavy industries like steelmaking and help the EU meet its 2050 climate neutrality objective.

One key issue though is safety: the gas is highly flammable meaning transport and use must follow strict protocols.

“For the successful development of an EU hydrogen economy, high safety standards must be established,” says Angelika Niebler, a German lawmaker from the European People’s Party (EPP), the centre-right political group in the European Parliament.

Technologies must first be safe if they are to be trusted, she told EURACTIV.

Niebler is one of the lawmakers behind an EU parliament report on the European Commission’s proposed hydrogen strategy tabled in July last year.

The European Parliament is “strongly convinced that public acceptance is key to the successful creation of a hydrogen economy,” the report states, calling for measures to promote a strong safety culture in the hydrogen value chain.

Other EU lawmakers seem less worried. “The industry has produced and handled hydrogen for decades,” says Jens Geier, a German lawmaker from the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) who was the lead author of the Parliament report.

“Hence, the expertise for security and safety standards with regard to hydrogen use already exists,” the German MEP told EURACTIV.

Hydrogen is not a new technology. But it has suffered from image problems due to its high flammability and its association with the hydrogen bomb and the Hindenburg airship disaster – the famous zeppelin that was caught on camera bursting into flames during a 1937 air show in Germany.

Given the importance of hydrogen in the decarbonisation of industry, policymakers have launched various initiatives to ensure hydrogen production, transport and use is kept as safe as possible.

Bringing safety to the industry

To tackle safety aspects, the European Commission tasked its public-private partnership, the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU), with establishing an expert panel to ensure that “hydrogen safety is adequately addressed and managed.”

The European Hydrogen Safety Panel (EHSP), founded in 2017, has two main objectives: addressing hydrogen safety as well as disseminating knowledge and a safety culture in the hydrogen value chain.

While large companies usually have strong safety protocols, the FCH JU aims to develop safe handling protocols that will be freely available to anyone handling hydrogen – including small businesses.

The EHSP cooperates with the Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) to better understand hydrogen safety. To that end, the two have established a database which records hydrogen related-incidents from even before 1990.

The European Hydrogen Incidents and Accidents Database (HIAD 2.0) had almost 600 events recorded as per its last report on 21 September.

The immense agglomeration of data and its subsequent analysis has provided valuable insights. One of the key takeaways is that better training and education could have prevented more than one quarter of hydrogen related accidents.

The cost question

Education and training is also seen as a cost-effective solution in the debate opposing safety and market viability.

“There is always a trade-off between safety and cost,” said Garcia Hombrados, who noted that those pushing for the strictest possible safety rules would make hydrogen too expensive to commercialise.

“This is a classic conflict for optimisation,” added Georg Mair, a member of the EHSP. Preventing accidents at all cost was not an economically viable solution, he said, calling for a more effective “safety-first” approach.

[Edited by Frédéric Simon]

Hydrogen in Buildings: The Poster Child of Tech-Crastination

September 07, 2021 Rachel Fakhry  Merrian Borgeson 

Tech-crastination refers to cases where the promise of a future technology diminishes interest in the deployment of existing, reliable, and cost-effective technologies. Tech-crastination is an appropriate characterization of the gas industry’s claims around the suitability of hydrogen as a solution to decarbonize buildings, even though heating homes with hydrogen is one of the least-efficient and most costly options available.

Credit: iStock/ audioundwerbung

Green hydrogen has emerged as the darling of the gas industry and those considering pathways to reach aggressive climate targets. It is a promising solution to clean up the most challenging sectors of the economy—aviation, maritime shipping, and steelmaking—where electrification faces technical hurdles. However, it is an inefficient and costly solution outside of those narrow applications where it’s uniquely suited for the task.

For example, green hydrogen is a woefully inefficient and risky solution to decarbonize buildings relative to proven and readily available high-efficiency electric heat pumps. Despite this reality, and to protect and perpetuate their business model, some in the gas industry are increasingly broadcasting the merits of hydrogen’s widespread use in buildings and setting up the foundations for its deployment. This could derail investments in building efficiency and electrification, undermine climate progress, and lock customers into expensive and illusive hydrogen-heavy pathways. Burning hydrogen in homes could also worsen indoor air pollution.

Policymakers should cut through the industry noise and decisively pursue widespread electrification as the lower-cost and lower-risk solution to decarbonize buildings.

Hydrogen use to heat buildings receives a meagre “F” grade on the now-famous Liebreich “hydrogen ladder.”

Source: Liebreich: ‘Oil sector is lobbying for inefficient hydrogen cars because it wants to delay electrification’, Recharge News, 2021

Hydrogen use in buildings creates harmful air pollution

Burning hydrogen generates harmful air pollutants, and the extent to which those could be mitigated remains uncertain. This reality is acknowledged by California gas utilities; they recognize that, due to hydrogen’s chemical characteristics, blends of hydrogen and methane may even yield higher emissions of health-damaging nitrogen oxides than methane alone. In contrast, heat pumps produce zero indoor air pollution by eliminating combustion, and provide a robust pathway towards zero-emission buildings as the electricity supply transitions away from fossil fuel generation.

An inefficient and risky solution relative to direct and efficient electrification

Hydrogen can hypothetically substitute for methane gas in heating buildings. However, a range of studies (here and here) estimate that heating a home with green hydrogen would require 5 to 6 times more renewable electricity than heating that same home with a highly efficient heat pump. More than 20 percent of the electricity is lost in producing the hydrogen and readily available high-efficiency heat pumps can be 4.5 times more efficient relative to the still pre-commercial hydrogen boilers (figure below). Opting for hydrogen instead of a high-efficiency heat pump is akin to choosing to take your car to work, spend 30 minutes in gridlock traffic and pay $35 for parking to boot, instead of biking 10 minutes from home.

Relative Efficiency of Heating Electricity in Heat Pumps vs. Electrolytic Hydrogen in Boilers from a study conducted by the U.K. Climate Change Committee

Source: Hydrogen in a Low-Carbon Economy, UK CCC, 2018

This wide efficiency differential has important implications on both the costs and risk profile of hydrogen-heavy pathways.  Achieving the U.S. climate goals will require a substantial increase in wind and solar deployment. An unnecessary fivefold multiplier on this renewable buildout would massively increase the difficulty of cleaning up our economy. It also raises potential hydrogen supply risks, which must be aptly considered in evaluating the suitability of an extensive hydrogen agenda. A diverse group of European stakeholders has urged their governments to steer clear of pursuing hydrogen as a widespread solution in buildings on account of those critical limitations. Policymakers across the globe should heed this recommendation.

The “no-disruption” slogan is a myth: hydrogen requires modified or entirely new pipelines and appliances

Some in the gas industry argue that using hydrogen to heat buildings is a “no-disruption” solution relative to electrification, owing to the potential to utilize the existing gas network to transport the hydrogen. But this claim ignores some critical challenges.

Hydrogen is a fundamentally different gas relative to methane gas:

• When blended at high shares with methane, its chemical properties cause embrittlement to steel gas pipelines and diminish their integrity;
• It’s a much smaller molecule than methane and is thereby more prone to leakage, with important implications on the required pipe materials.

Hydrogen could be blended with methane in low proportions with minimal investments into the existing gas system—perhaps up to 7 percent by energy, although this is subject to ongoing investigations. However, any quantity of hydrogen exceeding the 7 percent threshold is likely to require either major network repurposing measures or the buildout of an entirely new dedicated hydrogen pipeline network. 

Our appliances are also not made to run on a high mix of hydrogen;  gas boilers, furnaces and cookstoves would have to be replaced with hydrogen-compatible alternatives, which are not currently available to consumers.

The high costs and effort associated with a large-scale conversion to hydrogen therefore decidedly impugn the glossy “no disruption” marketing claim.

Risks of expensive energy system “supersizing”

Some claim that widespread hydrogen use in buildings would deliver huge savings on electric transmission and distribution infrastructure relative to the electrification of buildings. However, this premise is questionable as it selectively overlooks the broader picture. While it may deliver some savings on electricity distribution infrastructure, a hydrogen-heavy pathway would require large incremental infrastructure elsewhere on the system due to its much lower efficiency relative to direct electrification and the need for a hydrogen-compatible network.

A study by the European Climate Foundation found that the savings on electric network infrastructure in a high hydrogen case would be much smaller than the increased costs in renewable projects, electrolyzers, and storage facilities to produce and store green hydrogen, and in the upkeep and refurbishing of the gas network to transport the hydrogen. This energy infrastructure “supersizing” sharply increases energy system costs and household energy bills relative to high electrification cases.

Source: Towards Fossil-Free Energy in 2050, European Climate Foundation, 2019.

The high hydrogen case reflects more expanded hydrogen use and moderate electrification in both buildings and transportation. The study estimates a net 36% increase in infrastructure costs in the high hydrogen case. The 22% reduction in electricity network investments is largely outweighed by the 248% increase in expenses on electrolyzers, storage facilities, and refurbishing gas networks. The study also estimates a 16% increase in investments in renewable energy projects in the high hydrogen case.

Misleading claims are intended to delay electrification and could produce expensive lock-in effects

Marketing claims around the merits of the future, widespread hydrogen use in buildings could dull support for electrification among decision makers and reduce related investments. It seems likely that these dubious claims are often made with the intention of delaying crucial investments in the transition away from fossil infrastructure. This tech-crastination risks undermining climate progress, as numerous studies (here and here) have concluded that rapid building electrification and efficiency retrofits in this decade are critical to meeting both the new U.S. 2030 Paris target and the 2050 net-zero greenhouse emissions target. In addition, continuously pouring investments into the existing gas system with future repurposing to hydrogen in mind (an attractive proposition to gas utilities) risks locking customers into an expensive pathway to deep decarbonization. It could also result in the stranding of gas or hydrogen networks, following an ultimate switch to electrification, the costs of which would be shouldered by customers.

Recommendations for Policymakers: Ignore the Noise and Prioritize Building Electrification and Efficiency

Policymakers should prioritize building electrification and efficiency as the demonstrably more cost-effective widespread solution for buildings. More specifically:

• Policymakers should cut through the noise and decisively proceed with the widespread roll-out of high-efficiency heat pumps in buildings, energy efficiency upgrades, and the development of smart demand management policies. Hydrogen may have a supportive role in niche contexts, and such a proposition could be investigated based on independent assessments.

• Policymakers should exercise caution with efforts to keep pouring money into maintaining and expanding the gas network, premised on the future repurposing to hydrogen, and instead deploy a planning process for its gradual decommissioning in a manner that protects customers and workers. Repurposing portions of the gas network is a compelling proposition to serve challenging sectors that may require priority access to hydrogen—such as steelmaking and maritime shipping—and this targeted opportunity should be examined further.

The “code red” flashed by the newest UN climate report confirms we cannot afford to give credence to delay tactics and derail proven actions on climate that are necessary today. Green hydrogen has the potential to play a pivotal role in reducing emissions in hard-to-electrify sectors. But buildings are not the place for it.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

RACHEL FAKHRY

Policy Analyst, Climate & Clean Energy Program

MERRIAN BORGESON

Senior Scientist, Climate & Clean Energy Program

IAEA Modelling Shows High Natural Gas Prices Shift Optimal Hydrogen Production to Nuclear Energy

Nicholas Watson, IAEA Department of Nuclear Energy
Jeffrey Donovan, IAEA Department of Nuclear Energy

Several countries are looking to nuclear processes to generate low-carbon hydrogen on a massive and cost-competitive scale. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Nuclear energy will be the most cost-effective means of producing clean hydrogen when natural gas prices are well above the generally low levels seen over the last decade, according to a new IAEA study that underscored the importance of having a diverse mix of low-carbon sources for a successful clean energy transition.

Using the IAEA’s new FRAmework for the Modelling of Energy Systems (FRAMES), the study found that as gas prices increase, the optimal mix of technologies for producing low-carbon hydrogen shifts in favor of nuclear and renewable energy and away from natural gas with or without carbon capture and storage. While the study focused on a particular country, its results can be generally applied to other energy markets.

“This shift happens at natural gas costs that are substantially lower – around $10-$15 per million British thermal units – than those observed in recent days in the European Union, United Kingdom and parts of Asia,” said Francesco Ganda, an IAEA nuclear engineer who conducted the study, referring to recent record high spot prices in these markets of between $35 and $40 per million British thermal units, a globally used measure for the energy content of natural gas.

The FRAMES study comes ahead of next month’s UN Climate Change Conference, where the IAEA will hold several events to underscore nuclear energy’s contribution to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement and Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development. Clean hydrogen is increasingly seen as having a key role in the clean energy transition as part of a reliable low-carbon energy mix.

As a baseline reference for the average natural gas price, the FRAMES study used $6 per million British thermal units, which was the approximate price in markets such as Europe as recently as last spring before the recent price surge. That was also the price used in a recent URENCO/Aurora study of the United Kingdom market in the year 2050, “Decarbonising Hydrogen in a Net Zero Economy”, which showed that nuclear energy partnered with renewables can lower the overall system costs of hydrogen production.

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe but producing it in pure form for industrial processes – ranging from producing synthetic fuels and petrochemicals to manufacturing semiconductors and powering fuel cell electric vehicles – is energy intensive and currently done almost entirely by using fossil fuels, mostly natural gas, in equipment called steam methane reformers. To reduce the environmental impact of the 90 million tonnes of hydrogen that is produced annually, and with an eye to further scaling up production to meet climate goals, several countries are looking to nuclear processes to generate low-carbon hydrogen on a massive and cost-competitive scale.

When natural gas prices rise above $20 per million British thermal units, the FRAMES study showed that the optimal method of hydrogen production becomes a mix of electrolysis-produced hydrogen from electricity supplied by a combination of renewables and conventional nuclear power plants and thermal processes that can eventually be supplied by advanced high temperature nuclear reactors (HTRs).

International interest in HTRs is increasing as they are expected to provide cost-effective electricity as well as high-temperature heat for industrial applications. HTRs, which were pioneered in Germany in the 1970s, are now under development in several countries, with significant progress being made in Japan and China recently starting up its first HTR unit in Shandong province. China plans to eventually deploy several more HTRs at that site and in other provinces to combine the generation of power and process heat for industry and other applications, including hydrogen production.

FRAMES is currently being used for internal IAEA analyses of integrated energy systems. It provides quantitative analyses on nuclear power’s potential benefits to present and future electricity systems, which is of particular interest for countries pursuing or considering nuclear power as part of their solution to meet net zero goals.

IAEA Event Showcases Progress, Innovations in Nuclear Hydrogen for a Clean Energy Transition

Nicholas Watson, IAEA Department of Nuclear Energy
Alina Constantin, IAEA Department of Nuclear Energy

The latest progress in nuclear hydrogen projects and emerging opportunities in the heat, power and industry sectors were presented, during a side event at the 65th IAEA General Conference. 

(Photo: A. Tahri)

The potential for nuclear power to produce low-carbon hydrogen in the global transition towards net zero emissions was examined by international experts, at an event on the sidelines of the 65th IAEA General Conference today.

The IAEA side event, Innovations in the Production and Use of Nuclear Hydrogen for a Clean Energy Transition, explored developments in the coupling of nuclear power reactors with hydrogen production plants to efficiently produce both electricity and hydrogen as a cogeneration system, as well as how energy sector cooperation, supply chain and policy support are facilitating the progress of these projects.

“A single 1 000 megawatt nuclear power reactor could produce more than 200 000 tonnes of hydrogen each year to fuel more than 400 000 fuel cell vehicles or more than 16 000 long haul fuel cell trucks,” Mikhail Chudakov, IAEA Deputy Director General and Head of the Department of Nuclear Energy, said in his opening remarks. “This is why nuclear hydrogen can be a game changer in the fight against climate change. Decarbonizing heavy industry, energy storage and even synthetic fuel production are some of the many roles it can assist us with in the clean energy transition.”

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe but producing it in pure form for industrial processes – ranging from producing synthetic fuels and petrochemicals to manufacturing semiconductors and powering fuel cell electric vehicles – is energy intensive and currently with a significant carbon footprint. To reduce the environmental impact of the world’s annual production of over 70 million tonnes of hydrogen, several countries are looking to nuclear power.

Richard Boardman, Director for Energy and Environment Science and Technology Programs Office at the Idaho National Laboratory in the United States, presented the potential for leveraging today's light water reactors and tomorrow’s advanced reactors in producing affordable, clean hydrogen. “We are looking at putting small- to medium-sized reactors right within industry, where they can be dedicated to making hydrogen, which also takes away the cost of having to store and transport it,” said Boardman.

Nikolay Kodochigov, Advisor to the Director General of JSC Afrikantov OKBM, a nuclear engineering company located in Nizhny Novgorod in Russia, provided details on his country’s development of nuclear hydrogen production. This includes a project at the Kola Nuclear Power Plant in northwestern Russia, which involves construction of a pilot plant for testing electrolysers and gaining experience in hydrogen storage, transportation and application.

David Campbell, Director of Bruce Power Centre for Next Generation Nuclear at the Nuclear Innovation Institute in Canada, described an ongoing project that is looking into producing nuclear hydrogen to capitalise on Ontario’s existing clean power grid and its baseload surplus. “The centre’s study is exploring the technical feasibility for hydrogen production and the business case for a local hydrogen market,” he said, adding that the results of the study will be published in the coming weeks.

Kees Jan Steenhoek, Director of Government Affairs at UK nuclear fuel company URENCO, presented the preliminary conclusions of a study commissioned by URENCO that examined the potential role of nuclear-produced hydrogen in helping to decarbonize the UK economy by 2050.

According to the results of the study, it is possible to create a low-carbon energy system coupling nuclear power with renewables and hydrogen. “If you increase the percentage of nuclear power in the mix, the overall system gets cheaper,” Steenhoek said. Advanced reactors capable of producing hydrogen with high-temperature heat can bring even greater efficiencies to the process and play a big role, added Felix Chow-Kambitsch of Aurora Energy Research, which carried out the study.

The conclusions of a separate study recently conducted by the IAEA, using the Agency’s FRAMES modelling system, were broadly consistent with Aurora’s results, said Francesco Ganda, an IAEA nuclear engineer. And in a scenario where future low-carbon hydrogen production is unable to rely on fossil facilities equipped with carbon capture and storage, advanced nuclear power reactors can play an even bigger role, he said.

IAEA activities on hydrogen

The IAEA provides support to countries interested in hydrogen production through initiatives including coordinated research projects (CRPs) and technical meetings. It has also developed the Hydrogen Economic Evaluation Programme (HEEP), a tool for assessing the economics of large-scale hydrogen production via nuclear energy. The Agency has also led a CRP, Examining the Technoeconomics of Nuclear Hydrogen Production and is running a follow-up CRP, Assessing Technical and Economic Aspects of Nuclear Hydrogen Production for Near-term Deployment.

Nuclear energy: Fusion plant backed by Jeff Bezos to be built in UK

By Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent
Published 17 June,2021

IMAGE SOURCE,GENERAL FUSION

An artist's impression of what the new demonstration plant might look like

A company backed by Amazon's Jeff Bezos is set to build a large-scale nuclear fusion demonstration plant in Oxfordshire.

Canada's General Fusion is one of the leading private firms aiming to turn the promise of fusion into a commercially viable energy source.

The new facility will be built at Culham, home to the UK's national fusion research programme.

It won't generate power, but will be 70% the size of a commercial reactor.

General Fusion will enter into a long-term commercial lease with the UK Atomic Energy Authority following the construction of the facility at the Culham campus.

While commercial details have not been disclosed, the development is said to cost around $400m.

It aims to be operational by 2025.

UK experiment could sweep aside fusion hurdle
Mind-boggling magnets could unlock plentiful power
'UK first' nuclear fusion plan for power station

Fusion is the process by which the Sun generates energy. Harnessing it here on Earth is seen as a critical step towards greener nuclear power.

It differs from the traditional nuclear approach by attempting to fuse atoms together rather than splitting them.

In theory, fusion promises a safer, carbon-free energy source that produces very little radioactive waste.

But getting atoms to fuse together at temperatures several times hotter than the surface of the Sun has proven a huge technological and financial challenge.

A major international effort to build a fusion reactor is underway in the south of France with the Iter project.

But this $20bn dollar venture has been hampered by delays and isn't likely to be working effectively until after 2035.

Frustrated by the slow progress, private companies across the world have been following their own approaches, and General Fusion's effort is seen as one of the most advanced.

Backed by Jeff Bezos for over a decade, the company raised $100m in its last round of funding and is preparing to go back to investors for more cash to show that the firm's technology can be successfully scaled up.

The company uses an approach called magnetised target fusion.

In this process, a super-heated gas called a plasma, consisting of a particular form of hydrogen, is injected into a cylinder which is surrounded by a wall of liquid metal.

Hundreds of pneumatic pistons are then used to compress the plasma until the atoms fuse, generating massive amounts of heat.

This heat is transferred by the liquid metal, and used to boil water and make steam to drive a turbine.


The giant assembly hall of the Iter project in the south of France

The company says that a key advantage of their approach is that much of the technology exists in industry already.

This is a very different approach to that being taken by other fusion programmes, at Culham for example.

The campus is owned and managed by the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and is also the location of major fusion research efforts: the Joint European Torus (Jet) and Mast Upgrade.

"Coming to Culham gives us the opportunity to benefit from UKAEA's expertise," said Christofer Mowry, the chief executive of General Fusion.

"By locating at this campus, General Fusion expands our market presence beyond North America into Europe, broadening our global network of government, institutional, and industrial partners.

"This is incredibly exciting news for not only General Fusion, but also the global effort to develop practical fusion energy."

The decision to locate the demonstration plant in Oxfordshire was made possible by funding from the UK government, with the monetary amount described by Christofer Mowry in wire agency reports as "very meaningful".

While UK ministers were positive about the development, they wouldn't be drawn on the amount of taxpayer's money involved.

The government says the agreement with General Fusion will support hundreds of jobs both in Oxfordshire and beyond, during the 3-year construction phase, as well as many others during the operational phase.

They say it will complement the government's commitment of £222m for the UKAEA's Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (Step) programme, which aims to design and build the world's first prototype fusion power plant by 2040.

"This new plant by General Fusion is a huge boost for our plans to develop a fusion industry in the UK, and I'm thrilled that Culham will be home to such a cutting-edge and potentially transformative project," said UK Science Minister Amanda Solloway.

"Fusion energy has great potential as a source of limitless, low-carbon energy, and today's announcement is a clear vote of confidence in the region and the UK's status as a global science superpower."

The Theranos Trial Shows Why We Should Be Suspicious of Nuclear Fusion

BY CHARLES SEIFE

DEC 08, 2021

Former Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes.

 Amy Osborne/Getty Images


The Theranos story is an epic tale of folly with lots of twists and turns, but it’s by no means unique. At the very same moment the play-by-play of the Elizabeth Holmes trial sprawls across the drama section of your daily paper, the pages of the business section are filled with adulatory copy regarding other science-techy startups. Inevitably, some of them will end up with financial losses that are even bigger, thanks to technology that is even shakier, business models that are more delusional, and exaggerations that are nearly as bold as anything associated with Holmes’ fiction-enhanced blood-testing company. These “startups” all promise limitless clean energy: power from nuclear fusion and a rapid transformation of our energy supply away from fossil fuels.

At this point, nobody’s claiming that there’s fraud in the fusion sector, though the exaggerated claims coming from the companies and the media are rapidly becoming as detached from reality as a Tucker Carlson monologue. Read the papers and it seems like a fusion power plant is imminent—we’re just a few years away from our first fusion generator and then to widespread commercialization. After all, that’s what the fusion companies themselves are saying. Tokamak Energy: A working power plant connected to the grid by 2030. General Fusion: Demonstration power plant beginning operations in 2025. Helion Energy: We’ll do it in 2024. First Light Fusion: Yeah, 2024. Zap Energy: 2023—so there! But if we’ve learned anything from the Theranos debacle, it’s that we can’t take any company’s claim at face value when “fake it till you make it” is a standard corporate motto.

There’s one key distinction, though. The fusioneers don’t really even have to fake anything. Unlike Theranos, which built (terribly flawed) hardware that was used to analyze patient samples, not a single one of the nuclear fusion “startups” has produced a prototype machine that they propose to base their business upon. Nobody has demonstrated that they’re even close to building a fusion device that produces—rather than consumes—energy. Luckily for them, assurances of honorable intentions have been sufficient for investors. These companies are able to trade on promises, not products. Yet despite the short history of purely commercial fusion, those promises already have a history of being broken. In 2016, Tokamak Energy promised energy production in five years. General Fusion: prototype plant within a decade—and that was in 2009. Most recently, the press went gaga in November over Helion Energy’s raising $2.2 billion in venture capital to build a working reactor by 2024. Almost none of that coverage mentioned Helion Energy’s business plan of building “a useful reactor in the next three years” way back in 2015, when it had only raised some $10 million. It’s the exact same promise, resold six years later at 200 times the price.

That’s the one real, concrete success of the fusion startups that you can point to: not extracting energy from seawater, but extracting money from speculators. If you measure scientific progress by venture capital raised, then, yes, the industry has been making huge strides. In just the past few weeks, Helion’s $2.2 billion and Commonwealth Fusion Systems’ $1.8 billion each surpassed Theranos’ estimated $1.3 billion capitalization at its peak. (And Theranos had a deal with Walgreens to show investors.) Speculators can now lose far more money chasing after fusion than they ever could by falling in thrall to Elizabeth Holmes.

Of course, fundraising isn’t a valid measure of scientific progress; however, you wouldn’t be able to tell that by reading press coverage. We now realize that media credulity helped build Theranos’ fortunes. A good, hard look at Theranos’ claims should have brought the house of cards tumbling down far earlier. Oddly, none of that seems to motivate journalists to cast a skeptical eye at the viability of the fusioneers’ technology (which ranges from the moderately plausible to the ridiculous) or their business models for making money if they are eventually able to prove their technology works (which range from the nonexistent to the nearly nonexistent).

Imagine that, against the odds, one of these startups succeeds. It manages to achieve fusion “breakeven” and get more energy out of a reaction than it puts in. Say that the excess energy is so great that all the inefficiencies of getting the reaction going (which haven’t been overcome) or capturing the energy and turning it into electricity (which most companies haven’t started to address seriously) are not a problem. Imagine, too, that the startup somehow has a patent on a key MacGuffin in the reactor that other companies with expertise in high-tech and power plant manufacturing can’t match. Then, and only then, can the company be reasonably assured of making money from energy production—if its plants bring energy to the market at a competitive price.

This last bit is far from easy. Given the overhead of building a high-tech plant that produces low-level nuclear waste that needs to be disposed of (yes, fusion produces nuclear waste!), it’s a good guess that the cost per megawatt will be at least as great as the cost of traditional fission nuclear power plants—which is quite a bit more expensive than gas- or coal-fired plant power. This isn’t to say that it won’t contribute to the nation’s energy-generating portfolio, but it’s not likely to be a game-changer or the stuff of an energy unicorn.

Yet if you listen to the rhetoric coming out of some of those fusion startups, you’re led to believe that it will be much cheaper to build, maintain, run, and decommission super-high-tech fusion plants than an equivalent coal plant. That is, it’s easier to set up a nuclear magnetic bottle and mimic the inner workings of the sun than it is to throw a rock into a raging fire. That, my friends, is bat-guano insane. As the Theranos trial is making clear, it’s not so easy to tell the difference between puffery and outright fraud. In my opinion, anyone telling investors that they’re going to produce energy at a third of the price of coal should brush up on the George Costanza defense: “It’s not a lie if you believe it.”

One of the strangest distortions about the whole fusion-energy-sector brouhaha is the way funders and business journalists treat all these fusion companies as startups. Some of them, such as Commonwealth Fusion Systems (founded 2018), aren’t too far off the mark. But others like Tokamak Energy (2009), General Fusion (2002), and TAE—the company formerly known as Tri Alpha Energy (1998)—are startups in the same sense that Cher is fresh new talent. After five, or 10, or 20 years of riding on potential, it’s time to admit that the potential wasn’t really there in the first place—at the very least, not in the way that the “startup” envisioned.

So who cares if a company sponges off VC and pretends to be a pre-IPO ingenue until it’s old enough to be drafted? Not long ago, it wouldn’t matter at all to your average investor. Only venture capitalists, angel investors, and other folks with very big wallets and a high tolerance for risk would lose money by putting cash down on a decade-old pseudo-startup without even a fully developed product to put on the market. After all, they’re supposed to be sophisticated investors who know the risks that they’re taking, and if they didn’t do due diligence, well, that’s the downside of capitalism. But the rules have changed, and now we’re all targets.

For years, only “accredited” investors—people who have high incomes or net worth, and are presumed to have a decent understanding of securities trading—were allowed to invest in unregistered securities, such as stocks in a pre-IPO company. But that changed about a decade ago, when Congress decided to allow ordinary citizens to invest in these companies via crowdfunding. There were some protections built into the law: Companies could only raise a certain amount of money through crowdfunding, limiting the public’s exposure to risk. (Of course, those protections are steadily dissolving.) So it’s no surprise that the naïve investor has become a target for fusion boosters. Lawrenceville Plasma Physics (founded in 2003 by a big-bang denialist) has been living crowdfund-to-mouth since 2014 when it raised about $200,000 with the promise of a working fusion machine by the year 2020. Its latest “stock” sale, which happened a few months ago, raised more than $2.2 million, while suggesting to investors that it would have a functional prototype within three years.

Fusion companies are giving Theranos a run for its money, yet the news coverage of them seems to be almost universally uncritical. Huge sums of money have flowed into their coffers—making Theranos’ mere billion and change look like small potatoes—in return for vague, often obviously broken promises of prototypes that fail to appear despite decades of trying. Despite the total void where a product should be, these companies are successfully convincing investors both big and small to part with their money.

Caveat empty.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.