Hydrogen FTW... Some Day

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

The IEA sees a bright future for hydrogen... but doesn't say when. Here.

Very promising, very renewable but... produced from natural gas and too expensive to produce from renewables.

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

13 minutes ago, Marina Schwarz said:

The IEA sees a bright future for hydrogen... but doesn't say when. Here.

Very promising, very renewable but... produced from natural gas and too expensive to produce from renewables.

https://www.offshorewind.biz/2019/03/14/orsted-reveals-dutch-offshore-windhydrogen-pitch/

I understand that, those windfarms were subsidy free. https://www.offshorewind.biz/2019/03/04/dutch-zero-subsidy-offshore-wind-tender-open-for-applications/

[NickW + 2,714]

12 minutes ago, Marina Schwarz said:

The IEA sees a bright future for hydrogen... but doesn't say when. Here.

Very promising, very renewable but... produced from natural gas and too expensive to produce from renewables.

One practical  application of Hydrogen is to blend it into the Natural Gas network from surplus renewables. I recall blending upto about 10% by calorific value can be done without modifying the network. 

This is a practical way of storing intermittent renewables and potentially allows for renewable overbuild. Electrolysis units are quite modular and can be ramped up and down according to availability of surplus power (similar to how desalination plants work in many locations) 

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

1 hour ago, NickW said:

One practical  application of Hydrogen is to blend it into the Natural Gas network from surplus renewables. I recall blending upto about 10% by calorific value can be done without modifying the network.

This sounds good but is it good enough when you're targeting zero emissions...

[NickW + 2,714]

41 minutes ago, Marina Schwarz said:

This sounds good but is it good enough when you're targeting zero emissions...

Its good enough for us eco-pragmatists. We will be using natural gas for a long time. Hydrogen blending into Natural Gas pipelines serves three purposes. Firstly it is a practical way of storing intermittent renewable energy. The second is that blending in hydrogen reduces the carbon footprint of natural gas networks. The third is that where the capital cost of renewables has fallen so low its worth over building (solar is going this way) then its a practical way of mopping up and utilising the overbuild.

[NickW + 2,714]

50 minutes ago, Marina Schwarz said:

This sounds good but is it good enough when you're targeting zero emissions...

Taking the UK as an example we consume about 870 TWH of Natural Gas so if you could blend 87 TWH of Hydrogen into that, that would be the equivalent of (assuming the electrolysis process has a conversion yield of 70%);

22 GW* of offshore wind (operating at 45% capacity factor)

 

 

 

*The full Dogger Bank proposal is 30GW.

 

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

1 hour ago, NickW said:

Its good enough for us eco-pragmatists.

I sincerely hope there are many of you and the number is growing!

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

Marina,

Would you stop trying to inject logic into these discussions!

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

3 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Marina,

Would you stop trying to inject logic into these discussions!

pls see my above comment and links. Zero subsidy windfarms producing hydrogen. 

Oil is NOT going to disappear from the energy mix, but it's share will drop.  

[NickW + 2,714]

2 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Marina,

Would you stop trying to inject logic into these discussions!

What part of this thread lacks logic?

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

15 hours ago, NickW said:

Its good enough for us eco-pragmatists. We will be using natural gas for a long time. Hydrogen blending into Natural Gas pipelines serves three purposes. Firstly it is a practical way of storing intermittent renewable energy. The second is that blending in hydrogen reduces the carbon footprint of natural gas networks. The third is that where the capital cost of renewables has fallen so low its worth over building (solar is going this way) then its a practical way of mopping up and utilising the overbuild.

Hydrogen is primarily a product of natiral gas. If I understand you correctly you propose absorbing the cost of exploring for, drilling and producing the natural gas, then absorbing the cost of the hydrogen production from the natural gas and then absorbing the further cost of blending the refined hydrogen back into the natural gas.

Somehow this reduces the carbon footprint of the natural gas networks.

Ate you sure that you have included ALL of the carbon contributions required to produce the natural gas, the contibution of producing the hydrogen and the contribution due to blending?

[NickW + 2,714]

5 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Hydrogen is primarily a product of natiral gas. If I understand you correctly you propose absorbing the cost of exploring for, drilling and producing the natural gas, then absorbing the cost of the hydrogen production from the natural gas and then absorbing the further cost of blending the refined hydrogen back into the natural gas.

Somehow this reduces the carbon footprint of the natural gas networks.

Ate you sure that you have included ALL of the carbon contributions required to produce the natural gas, the contibution of producing the hydrogen and the contribution due to blending?

Err - No. 

Surplus electricity from renewables overbuild is used to electrolyse water to produce Hydrogen. That Hydrogen is simply blended into the existing Natural Gas network. 

As the Hydrogen displaces some of the natural gas (up to 10%) this reduces the overall carbon foot print of the gas. That footprint can be expressed as grams CO2/MJ or other methodology. 

 

 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

How would this 'hydrogen displacement' effect the efficiency of the natural gas to perform the roles which it was originally destined for?

Would this effect the BTU value per unit volume?

[NickW + 2,714]

12 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

How would this 'hydrogen displacement' effect the efficiency of the natural gas to perform the roles which it was originally destined for?

Would this effect the BTU value per unit volume?

It would  reduce its calorific value by volume which is one of the reasons a 10% limit is mooted as the upper threshold.

Natural Gas has small quantities of Hydrogen in it anyway along with calorie free CO2, N etc

Natural gas is about 39MJ/M3

Hydrogen 12.7MJ/M3

So a 9:1 mix would be 36.4 MJ / M3.  so a 6.7% reduction in calorific value.

Edited June 18, 2019 by NickW

[NickW + 2,714]

This gives some interesting parameters on fuel calorific value ranges. The lower end for natural Gas is 36.6 MJ/M3

https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/fuels-higher-calorific-values-d_169.html

 

[NickW + 2,714]

NREL paper on blending hydrogen into the natural gas network

A correction to my previous comment - the blending is by volume not calorific value.

https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/03/f11/blending_h2_nat_gas_pipeline.pdf

[ronwagn + 6,290]

On 6/17/2019 at 3:33 AM, Marina Schwarz said:

The IEA sees a bright future for hydrogen... but doesn't say when. Here.

Very promising, very renewable but... produced from natural gas and too expensive to produce from renewables.

Not needed at all, just use natural gas which is very clean. Also use biogas, event greenies like it. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

The idea of using all those far-placed "renewable" installations to generate hydrogen on-site from electricity is a neat way to avoid dumping irregular transients into the power grid, and you get this nice transportable fuel, either to mix into the nat-gas pipelines or to use a bottled gas as sole-source fuel.  It sounds like a brilliant idea. You do have to bring water to the generation site, but if you are using wind machines on the US Great Plains, that would work out nicely.  Lots of water in the Missouri River. 

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

On 6/17/2019 at 4:48 PM, Douglas Buckland said:

Marina,

Would you stop trying to inject logic into these discussions!

No, I won't.  There is a shortage of logic and common sense on internet forums, so I find it is necessary to try and supply some whenever possible.

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

42 minutes ago, Marina Schwarz said:

No, I won't.  There is a shortage of logic and common sense on internet forums, so I find it is necessary to try and supply some whenever possible.

Thanks Marina for your efforts.

 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

A Sisyphusian task....

[NickW + 2,714]

21 hours ago, ronwagn said:

Not needed at all, just use natural gas which is very clean. Also use biogas, event greenies like it. 

The use is coincidental. The Natural Gas network is potentially a store, in the form of Hydrogen from surplus renewable output. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

15 hours ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Thanks Marina for your efforts.

 

One of those rare times when a Meme from Tom gets a vote from me!

[ronwagn + 6,290]

6 hours ago, NickW said:

The use is coincidental. The Natural Gas network is potentially a store, in the form of Hydrogen from surplus renewable output. 

 

Edited June 25, 2019 by ronwagn
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