The Pioneers Backing Britain’s (Highly Subsidised) Hydrogen Boom
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
The hydrogen lobby really is out in force today!
In a vast, chilly warehouse in Doncaster, one piece of machinery in particular is consuming Jon Duffy’s attention.
The white cryostat tank parked in the middle of the room is key to his company’s new process to make hydrogen, the gas at the centre of the global push to cut carbon emissions. Not all is running smoothly, however.
Tests have revealed “a slight issue” regulating flow and pressure in the heat exchanger on top of the cryostat, potentially making it more difficult to separate hydrogen and oxygen mixed gases after electrolysis.
Fixing the hurdle has caused delays in getting Clean Power Hydrogen’s “plug and play” production units out to customers. One company, Octopus Hydrogen, cancelled its first order in November.
It’s not only its customers who will be watching its progress closely. AIM-listed CPH2 is one of a growing band of UK companies forging what the UK Government hopes will be a thriving hydrogen economy by 2050.
Politicians around the world hope the gas will one day be used to fuel everything from industrial trucks to steel production and potentially boilers in people’s homes. For many, hydrogen is considered a dream fuel. Unlike burning methane gas and coal, burning hydrogen does not emit carbon dioxide.
It is currently a niche product used in oil refining and chemical production, however, and is mostly produced by splitting methane gas into carbon dioxide and hydrogen, leaving tonnes of carbon dioxide in its wake.
While the extent to which it will be used is contested, with UK MPs stressing recently it is “not a panacea”, there is little doubt that coming decades will require a huge increase in supply of hydrogen produced without emitting carbon dioxide.
This can be done by splitting water using electrolysis, or by capturing the emissions left behind when producing it from natural gas. It will also require a huge increase in demand for the product, with steel mills, boilers and pipes needing an overhaul so they can make use of the lighter, combustible gas.
Vast numbers of jobs, taxes and expertise are likely to be gained or lost depending on how countries respond to this potential energy shift. How is the UK, keen not to repeat past mistakes and miss out on a new technology boom, positioned to capitalise on hydrogen?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/12/27/pioneers-backing-britains-hydrogen-boom/
The rest of the article is no more than lobbying from businesses who are hoping to profit from the billions of government subsidies on the table.
According to the Telegraph, we might be getting more than a third of our energy from hydrogen by 2050:
But amidst all of the talk of “dream fuel”, the Telegraph have not bothered to ask just where all of the energy will come from to make hydrogen!
The government’s projections are also extremely vague on the matter:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-hydrogen-strategy
But what is clear is that there is no practical way to get most of it from electrolysis. Even the 135 TWh projected would need about 50GW of offshore wind power dedicated to it, which is more than we are planning to build by 2035. These wind farms will of course need to be totally demolished and rebuilt every 20 years or so.
The impracticability of all of this is why the BEIS are banking on steam reforming with carbon capture for most of the needs. But this needs natural gas, and lots of it; indeed much more than we would need if we just burnt the stuff in the first place!
The Telegraph also forgets to question just how we will be able to store the enormous quantities of hydrogen, which we will need to draw down in winter.
By coincidence SSE were bragging about their new hydrogen cavern last week:
Energy firm SSE has ‘started work’ developing an underground cavern to store hydrogen, which could help the UK keep reserves of renewable energy and prevent blackouts in the future. This site, which will be built in east Yorkshire, could help the country stockpile electricity generates from renewable sources like wind and solar, and use them during the freezing, windless conditions, similar to the ones that the UK faced last week. Energy storage sites like this one will be crucial to help balance the National Grid as the country transitions towards renewable sources like wind, which are intermittent, and could stop generating electricity depending on the weather.
This pilot project will cost £100 million, leading to a full scale operation by 2028, which SSE say will store 320 GWh of hydrogen. With annual gas consumption in the UK of over 800 TWh, that would be enough to keep us going for about three hours! They don’t tell us what we are supposed to do for the rest of the winter!
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Reading Hydrogen and Boom in the same sentence gives me a sense of impending disaster but so does renewable energy.
Funny you should say that. See this by Mark Hodgson, and copious updates beneath it: https://cliscep.com/2021/08/07/hydrogen-boom/
Hydrogen produced by electrolysis “will one day be used to fuel everything from industrial trucks to steel production and potentially boilers in people’s homes.”
So what’s the idea? You perform electrolysis while the wind is blowing and somehow store enough hydrogen to supply demand from customers – including burning the hydrogen for heating, I suppose. What is their plan for the oxygen co-product?
If the whole attraction of H2 is as a storage medium isn’t that where the R & D need to be concentrated?
(Answer: no, because the whole Net Zero proposition is nonsense.)
Another possibility would be to use fuel cells to drive heat pumps. Even more expense, even more to go wrong, but less ludicrous than just burning the H2.
‘forging what the UK Government hopes will be a thriving hydrogen economy by 2050’
Government deciding what kind of economy you will have. ‘Thriving’ seems optimistic. Pending: regulatory destruction of what works to be replaced with what sounds good. Plus the obsession of defining the future. Imagine people in 1990 defining how we would live today.
‘How is the UK, keen not to repeat past mistakes and miss out on a new technology boom, positioned to capitalise on hydrogen?’
???
This seems to be a quirk of the British political class. What were these mistakes? Which booms did you miss out on? Do technology booms occur when government pushes a technology? Useful innovation would seem more important. There is no innovation here, only government pushing a problematic
technology. The people have chosen not to use it. Government forcing them to use it doesn’t upgrade it to a good idea.
I remember lasers being demonstrated on Tomorrow’s World more than 50 years ago and all they could think to do with them was burst balloons. It took many years to get to barcode readers and even more sophistication (CDs etc). I bet not one MP in those days could have dreamed what could be done so telling us what a great future we will have with H2 is nonsense.
Laser welding and cutting is an important industrial use of lasers.
I remember lasers figuring in cartoons as a weapon with a Capt Pugwash style figure defending his boat with a mirror. In those days cartoonists probably had a bit of engineering knowledge. Still a few today of course, like JOSH.
Governments are obsessed with being “leaders” in this that and the other. It’s simply anti-economics with a large dollop of complete misunderstanding of innovation. There’s no vast fortune to ge made by being a leader – unless you are the shareholders in a business that is successful. Bezos is wealthy because Amazon is a success, not the US. US consumers are wealthier because of Amazon but as consumers and those benefits are the same for UK consumers. It is this weird belief amongst UK elites that exports make us rich rather than us cutizens consuming cheaper and better services. I have no doubt that if Western Governments since 1945 has stayed out of the way, we would be at least 2 times and probably 3 times as rich as we now are. And with extraordinary technologies and innovation. But this impoverishment is invisible so nobody knows or cares.
AND . . . driving CO2 reduction doesn’t make money. UK leading the world in blowing money on an elite dream. They are trying to impress their WEF friends.
The head lemming is a leader.
Leading, over a cliff.
Good idea to separate the hydrogen and oxygen, though. That’s what plants do, of course, trapping the hydrogen as glucose, etc., and releasing the oxygen.
Analysis of hydrogen, albeit from competitor viewpoint.
https://www.rechargenews.com/energy-transition/wrong-side-of-history-wake-up-to-the-hype-around-green-hydrogen-for-heating/2-1-1282365
I read the Telegraph article twice, as it could easily pass as a poker-faced spoof.
I particularly liked the line-
“It will also require a huge increase in demand for the product”
That’s a business plan in tatters before it even starts.
Not when governments have decided that they can and should create and destroy demand as they think best.
As someone that has been sceptical regarding AGW since reading the first IPCC technical report I am not altogether sure why there is such an anti H2 response here. As the fact remains that town gas and the infrastructure that carried it was 70% hydrogen. And whilst the green lobby may be pushing for green H2 reality will eventually come into play and there are technologies in trials around the world to produce H2 from coal with carbon capture. Surely, it is better to have a mix of energy sources rather than go blindly into a energy strategy that gives a de facto monopoly to electricity production and distribution companies.
I think the problem aka scepticism i
Sorry, fat fingers.
…is that we have a huge market for H2 today (primarily fertilizer and petrochemicals but many others too). Making enough to meet that demand will be a challenge. When you throw in additional uses like home heating, power generation, transport etc the whole thing fizzles and becomes a story of unicorn farts. Consumers do need a multitude of choices, basing everything on a power grid will be risky AF (see Carrington event noted above). Not to mention the political risk (aka government control) that is also noted above.
I’m not anti-anything unless the government has decided it is what we should use! That’s as clear a signal as you can get that there are better and cheaper alternatives. I use Spotify not a record player and my phone camera not Kodachrome. I use a new car not a 1970s Morris Marina and I fly rather than take a horse. The market has been hugely successful at improving my life, governments (of every stripe) have generally only made it worse. If hydrogen prices to be cheaper and better than natural gas, great. I like cheaper and better.
You forgot the genius mercury filled twisty fluorescent light bulbs carefully picked by our Beloved Leaders.
Or that super HS2 rail system.
Or those wonderful energy saving “smart” meters.
Or fabulously safe “smart” motorways.
Shall I continue?
@terence Don’t swallow the H2 hype. And, regarding coal, we can’t make anything from coal while it is banned.
Present Government policy is on page 16 of the 2020 Energy White Paper as follows: “aiming to bring at least one large-scale nuclear project to the point of Final Investment Decision by the end of this Parliament, subject to clear value for money and all relevant approvals”.
How could the Government be so sure that nuclear power stations are a cost effective way to generate power? The answer is simple: because the Government sets the rules, and the rules can make it so.
Value for money tests will NOT be passed if the most cost effective generating plant are given an opportunity to compete with new nuclear build. Obstacles are therefore put in the way of economic options, leaving only expensive and/or unreliable options to be tested in value for money analysis of new nuclear build.
Net Zero targets and suicidal sub-targets are the backdrop. It’s just another version of nudge policy announcements They are economically and politically suicidal, but they will never come to pass. The new nuclear programme will save us, and we will all be jolly grateful.
Any comment beginning with a declaration of orthodoxy is suspect. You don’t disappoint.
Town gas was abandoned for several reasons. The assertion that it can be brought back ignores reality.
“there are technologies in trials around the world to produce H2 from coal with carbon capture”
Wasting other people’s money. And “trials” doesn’t mean it’s going to work. “Trials” is not a proxy for valid technology. “Around the world” adds what?
“Surely, it is better to have a mix of energy sources”
Which doesn’t make it any more viable. Adding bad ideas in the name of diversity is dumb.
“go blindly into a energy strategy that gives a de facto monopoly to electricity production and distribution companies”
Ahhh . . . companies! Companies are BBBBBBBAAAAAAADDDDDD!!!!!
First, Declaring yourself as an AGW sceptic is not declaring support for orthodoxy. I’m assuming that you do understand English
Second, I do not think I was suggesting that town gas was brought back but highlighting the simple fact that town gas was composed of 70% H2 and suggesting that Green H2 may not be viable but that blue or even grey may be viable energy sources once the practical and economic issues with green H2 are a reality. BTW Australian companies are producing H2 from lignite and exporting it to japan as we speak.
Thirdly, “around the world” adds simply that there are numerous real world trials of H2 in a number of countries ranging from Germany to Japan, testing out the infrastructure and engineering practice needed to build an H2 infrastructure for home heating and fuel cell application. I suggest you read some of the many research papers that deal with the engineering and economic issues, you may learn something.
I remember the gasworks down by the river in my childhood. It processed coal delivered by barge up the Thames. Amazingly you could walk through the works down to the towpath. The smell of coal tar was pervasive (some may remember coal tar soap). There was a distillation column for the tar by-products, and pipes ran overhead to the gasometers on a small bluff overlooking the scene. I suspect the coke was shipped back downriver to one of the power stations. The gasometer site is now a housing estate, and the works were remediated into a park.
Firstly town gas is about 50% hydrogen not 70% https://www.emsd.gov.hk/en/gas_safety/gas_safety_tips_to_users/types_of_domestic_fuel_gases_and_their_properties/ and in the UK at least it was distributed at a lower pressure than natural gas so when we converted to natural gas we also increased the amount of energy the existing gas supply (designed for gas lighting) could supply (natural gas also contain more energy than town gas).
Although hydrogen has more energy if we compare it based on its weight (and there are many who like to promote hydrogen who mention this in a borderline misleading way) if we distributing it as a gaseous fuel it volume is the important thing and it 3 times less dense than natural gas.
https://www.powereng.com/library/6-things-to-remember-about-hydrogen-vs-natural-gas
But we can’t just increase the pressure to counteract this due to hydrogen embrittlement of both iron & steel (we going to have to audit all the internal gas pipework in our buildings) especially if you increase the pressure and I suspect there would be issues trying to run a 30 KW+ central heating boilers if we lowered the pressure. Also there were issues with leaks in the town gas days due to its hydrogen content that would not have happened with methane/natural gas.
Then due to hydrogen’s unique molecular characteristics we most likely won’t be able to add a smell to it so we will probably have to design a real time electronic household distribution system to detect leaks and it won’t be as easy to convert gas fires & cookers as from town gas due to hydrogens flame characteristics, lower calorific value /m3 and likely increased levels of oxides of nitrogen (if we recall the predictable the diesel car fiasco) due to the higher flame temperature.
https://h2tools.org/bestpractices/hydrogen-compared-other-fuels
So I personally suspect it would be cheaper to build a new distribution system than to convert the natural gas system in which case it would make more sense to build district heating networks to peoples home and since using fuel cells to produce electricity would be the most efficient & sensible way to use hydrogen but would be poisoned by the sulphur in mercaptan (and I can’t see us not adding a smell for PR reasons even if doesn’t travel with hydrogen at the same dispersion rate if we were still using it in peoples home in gas fire and cookers) it makes more sense to pipe it to substations to generate electricity at peak times & maybe as a motor vehicle fuel than directly into peoples homes.
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“Surely, it is better to have a mix of energy sources rather than go blindly into a energy strategy that gives a de facto monopoly to electricity production and distribution companies.”
Hydrogen isn’t a fuel source like petroleum or coal but an energy carrier like electricity where most of the primary fuel ends up being waste heat and it probably be manufactured from surplus electricity so would still end up with a de facto monopoly to electricity production and distribution companies.
Somethings competition doesn’t make sense and standardisation & centralisation is the best approach ( look at the mess Japan has having both a 50 & 60 Hz grid) e.g before the national grid in the 1930s Britain had a wide number of incompatible (different frequencies or even DC) electricity systems which meant duplicate spare capacity and inefficient part loading of older inefficient generation plant the national grid resulted in a decline in the cost of electricity.
With current technology I personally would replace the crony capitalist marginal pricing electricity markets with a cooperative system with property owners being require to buy a share of generating capacity (via a low cost loan over 25 to 40 years) to match their maximum simultaneous demand as the KW of capacity cost with a 90% capacity factor of a existing nuclear reactor designs is at a minimum comparable to solar PV costs (and people are happy to buy those) and there are many comparable household repair/maintenance cost in that timeframe e.g a new roof or boiler. Too cheap to meter power may actually be possible under this model with a monthly electricity bill instead of KW/h being your loan for your required generating, transmission and distribution (and backup) capacity, fuel, staffing and maintenance costs.
But, but we are not going to be able to check the rise in atmospheric CO2 and we are going to realize that it doesn’t matter. All these investors will catch a cold. Be warned
Okay I’m up for a few billions worth of subsidy farming so here’s my pitch. Typical solar insolation in UK is 1,000kWh/m2 horizontal area per annum. New build 3 bed houses are typically 100m2 floor area over 2 floors so that 50m2 ground cover = annual insolation 50,000kWh. However, 75% insolation falls between vernal and autumnal equinox so that’s an effective summer 37,500kWh. Cover the entire roof with evacuated tube solar thermal collectors which are good for 75% heat collection efficiency. That now reduces to 28,500kWh which is almost double likely household hot water and space heating requirement and allows for inefficiency of the final “reactor.”
Storage of said harvested heat is by reversible thermochemical energy storage where A+B = C + Heat. Thus MgCl2.6H2O can be reduced to MgCl2.H20 at just over 100°C (easily reached from evacuated tubes). The latter can be stored almost indefinitely and then in winter be fed into a “reactor” with water allowing the “input” heat can be released on demand. The final restored MGCl2.6H2O is then stored in a tank to be run through the “drier” again in summer.
The energy density here is 2.8GJ perM3 (777kWh) so for say 12,000kWh storage you would need a cube of 2.5 metres on a side.
Now this stuff isn’t cheap, there is a lot of highfalutin technology in there and magnesium chloride doesn’t grow on trees (unless it does in China)…but it would work and most importantly be staggeringly expensive. So I have now devised a way to save the planet and make myself stinking rich – what’s not to like?
The Daily Telegraph’s business ladies seem to be committed to the hydrogen theory. The article quoted above by Rachel Millard appeared in Monday’s printedition witha different photograph. Another article appeared today by one Dr Angela Needle, Campaign Director for Hello Hydrogen also promoting hydrogen as the fuel for the future. The ignorance of the latter is revealed in her opening paragraphs referring to the debate of the 1960s and 1970s about whether to stick with coal-based towns gas or to use the new North Sea rersource. The decade of producing domestic gas by steam reforming of light distillate just disappeared. Poof! Ignoring all this hype, hydrogen as a basic fuel is a fantasy. Electrolysys, by whatever variant is developed, will never be viable as a base load supplier. Steam reforming of methane. Who in their right mind would reform a high heating value gas into a low heating value gas via a strongly endothermic process. Just to “capture the carbon”? Insanity. And while the option of reforming light distillate remains the increase in demand for gas since the 1970s makes the challenge beyond contemplation. And whatever means of introducing hydrogen into domestic use is considered the same problem remains as did in the 1960s – hydrogen based gas has much lower calorific value and Wobbe Index and every appliance in the country would hacve to be modivfied. Ain’t gonna happen. But replacing gas by distillate in electricity generation – yes, bring it on.
The idea that making a fuel can somehow be cheaper and better than extracting a ready-made fuel using relatively simple technology is very unlikely to be true. I don’t really understand why politicians don’t see this? Of course somebody may come up with a cheap way of making hydrogen but breaking chemical bonds is intrinsically energy-intensive. That’s why we don’t have large amounts of hydrogen (or other reactive elements) in the atmosphere. It’s a fundamental chemical property that’s the issue, not technology.
Phoenix: What and where is this magical ready-made fuel? Only one I can think of is coal and that’s a book that is closed.
We used to store town gas , about 50% H2, in gasometers , so presumably these will be reappearing in our towns . At Didcot they demolished the gasometer that I dimly remember to make way for the coal power stations . They are now demolishing the latter and have now room for a gasometer (or two). “Clogs to clogs in 3 generations”they used to say. In my case it will have been in just one.
O/T but very topical:
Rosneft Refinery in Schwedt as a Microcosm of Europe’s Sanctions-Induced Energy Mess
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/12/hoisted-from-comments-rosneft-refinery-in-schwedt-as-a-microcosm-of-europes-sanctions-induced-energy-mess.html
In fact, here’s the only good news that I can find in the article for Germany:
“8.c) Amongst the Greens, there is some trepidation: they are losing credibility as a competent government party because of the lackadaisical handling of the Schwedt affair by Habeck and Kellner.”
And there’s a good summary:
“Through ignorance of engineering and logistical issues, indifference to the mechanics of contractual agreements, and the lack of foresight, the German government has managed to put the country in an inextricable situation that will exacerbate supply chain shortages and inflation, for consumers and industry alike.”
I think it’s an appropriate summary for a good many countries in the West.
The reality of Tesla’s
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11579649/amp/Tesla-owners-blast-Christmas-car-charging-chaos-dozens-forced-wait-THREE-HOUR-queues.html
Nope. Not the reality in US. Tesla owner’s have home chargers. They would never, ever, EVER, use a public charger.
The idea of public chargers in England is FREAKY!
Gamecock – I’m puzzled by your comment that US Tesla owners “would never, ever, EVER, use a public charger”. Are you saying Teslas never venture much more than 100-200 miles from the doorstep? Or what am I missing from your comment?
Correct. But not that far. Not even 75 miles out.
Owners are instructed to keep their battery between 20% and 80%, for optimal battery life. Should their nominal range be 300 miles, the usable range is 180.
Owners have another – ICE – vehicle. They use the Tesla for local transport. They seem happy with it.
Why bother to read all the enthusiastic rubbish full of gigas, teras, kilos and the odd inconvenient Joule etc. All you have to do is look at the Enthalpy Balance Sheet.(EBS). No, NOT the financial one; that’s riddled with corruption.
The EBS requires the use of the Thermodynamic Laws, which for those with an even basic understanding of them must conclude that the the WHOLE scaled up “Hydrogen Concept” as an energy source will be “Endothermic”; thus not just useless but a drain on other energy sources.
It is unfortunate that this area is wide open to corruption, both in the financial/political scenes but also by dexterous omission of relevant energy fluxes in the audited EBS.
As a result it seems that we are moving towards wasting Millions, if not Billions of Pounds on Complicated and risky schemes with a Net Negative Return in the Energy Budget.
We all know that those involved in initiating these schemes will NOT be picking up the bill. That will be the plight of the rest of us with little chance to object.
“Tests have revealed “a slight issue” regulating flow and pressure in the heat exchanger on top of the cryostat, potentially making it more difficult to separate hydrogen and oxygen mixed gases after electrolysis.”
In my day, the electrolysis of water resulted in Hydrogen coming off one electrode, and Oxygen off the other:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water
Surely, it can’t be beyond the wit of man to keep the two gasses separate.