Billions To Be Wasted On Inefficient Hydrogen Factories
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
Its that Pushmi-Pullyu again!!
First we’re having hydrogen:
Then five days later we’re not!
But taxpayers have still got to pay for hydrogen factories:
Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho is to approve plans for hydrogen factories around UK coasts as part of the drive to achieve net zero.
Ms Coutinho is to publish a “Hydrogen Roadmap” within days, setting out how Britain will produce and use the gas in industrial quantities.
Hydrogen offers a clean alternative to natural gas and could potentially replace diesel as a key fuel for lorries, trains, and ships under net zero. It could also replace gas in heavy industry.
The roadmap is understood to include plans for large-scale hydrogen production facilities, seeding an entirely new UK energy industry and thousands of new jobs.
Teesside, Humberside and Merseyside are the most likely initial sites for mass hydrogen production because they already have much of the necessary infrastructure, say Whitehall insiders.
In the longer term, others would follow at sites potentially including Bacton in Norfolk, Milford Haven in south Wales and St Fergus in north east Scotland.
Those sites would be linked to each other and to the gas network by a “hydrogen grid” – a network of pipes dedicated to moving hydrogen around the UK as already happens with natural gas.
The scheme will cost billions of pounds, much of which will initially come from government subsidies and grants aimed at kickstarting the industry. Costs will ultimately fall on taxpayers and consumers.
Ms Coutinho is also expected to set out controversial longer-term plans for replacing natural gas with pure hydrogen for home heating. This would mean replacing or upgrading boilers, cookers and gas fires in all affected homes.
However, this will not go ahead until the idea has been trialled, first at village scale and then in whole towns to assess public acceptance and safety.
The move to hydrogen will be expensive. Hydrogen is produced either from natural gas, with the waste CO2 buried in rocks deep beneath the seabed, or by using electricity to break down water molecules. Both methods need a lot of energy, which makes them costly.
The Government’s own Hydrogen Strategy warns: “Although costs are likely to reduce significantly and rapidly as innovation and deployment accelerate, hydrogen is currently much more costly to produce and use than existing fossil fuels.”
A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesman said the UK wanted to become a global leader in producing and using low carbon hydrogen. This would include trialling the gas for domestic heating but only in communities that supported the idea.
The spokesman said: “By 2030, we aim to deliver 10 gigawatts of low carbon hydrogen production capacity, including at least half from green hydrogen sources, supporting more than 12,000 jobs and up to £11bn of private investment across the UK.
Given that half of this 10 GW will be “green”, the other half will have to come from steam reforming gas, which is about 65% fuel efficient. In other words, you need about 50% more gas than if you burnt the gas in the first place instead.
Worse still, any Carbon Capture process will inevitably waste yet more gas, assuming you can even make it work. You will probably double your gas consumption going down the Steam Reforming/CCS route. It’s just as well COP28 has allowed the Arabs to carry on producing as much natural gas as they can sell!
But even the “green” hydrogen won’t be green at all, as it can only come from dispatchable sources , i.e.natural gas. This is because all of the wind/solar power will already be maxed out on the grid, even come 2030. There will be no surplus wind power to make hydrogen out of.
CCGTs are reckoned to run at about 60% efficiency, whilst electrolysers run at about 75%. In other words, after allowing for line losses, the through efficiency rate is about 40%. You therefore need 250 GWh of gas to produce 100 GWh of hydrogen.
So we are going to spend billions building these hydrogen factories, and in the process will need twice as much gas as we would have needed if we burnt the stuff in the first place!
Crackers!
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Massive, expensive projects dreamed up by LibLabCon socialist governments are designed to WRECK THE ECONOMY. HS2 is a very fine example.
At first glance Hydrogen (H2) appears to be ‘the new wonder fuel’ –
Abundant, Light, Clean-ish, No Carbon, High Mass Energy Density; what’s not to like –
but, the devil is always in the detail … & there are a lot of unintended consequences !!!
Hydrogen (H2) is NOT AN ENERGY SOURCE, …
it’s an energy store (like a flywheel, a spring, an elastic band ),
you always have to put more energy in, than you’ll ever get out.
( the laws of thermodynamics can’t be changed to suit the latest popular political ‘magic thinking’ !! )
Using natural gas, the peak efficiencies of the newest Combined Cycle Gas Turbines (CCGT) exceed 60%
and condensing domestic heating units exceed 90%
– whereas the round trip efficiency of the ‘electricity→ Hydrogen→ storage → (fuel-cell) → electricity cycle’ is only around 23% … that’s a 77% loss !!!
Commercially available electrolysis equipment uses just under 50 kWh of energy to convert 9 kg (= 9 litres) of pure water into just 1 kg of H2 (plus 8 kg of O2). And 15 kWh to compress for storage; total input ≈65 kWh.
But that 1 kg of H2 will only produce around 14–15 kWh of electricity in most 50% efficient modern car-sized fuel cells.
So … you use ~65 kWh of electricity to make ~15 kWh of electricity.
If any one thinks that’s a good idea I’ve got some bridges to sell (:-))
But the electricity to make it and compress it is essentially free, or at least very cheap.
Solar power in summer during the daytime is already so abundant they can’t even give it away in some countries.
This is happening already. In future there will be far more solar/wind capacity and therefore more periods of excess electricity available.
In fact I would say intermittent renewables are far more suited to producing hydrogen than they are to providing electricity to the grid.
@kzbkzb
“But the electricity to make it and compress it is essentially free, or at least very cheap.”
No it’s not, you haven’t been paying attention !!
Just like coal, oil & uranium; sun & wind are free,
BUT costs a fortune to collect & use.
I get the impression that Claire Coutinho is another Claire Perry, over promoted, useless, thick as a brick, but that is just me, Hydrogen is a dead end, it is never going to work. Repeal the climate change act and stick with Methane (natural gas) and get nuclear going, set 2100 as the year when we switch gas off and rely on electricity, 2050 is too soon. maybe coal makes a comeback. The present plans have no chance of working unless we go back to be being cave dwellers.
Why switch off gas?
1. CO2/temperature for 800 million years, no correlation
2. CO2/temperature for 600 thousand years, temperature leads CO2
3. Van Wijngaarden and Happer; ‘Infrared Forcing by Greenhouse Gases’, CO2 saturated (doubling to 800 ppm causes 1% absorption increase). Methane quantity insignificant.
https://co2coalition.org/publications/van-wijngaarden-and-happer-radiative-transfer-paper-for-five-greenhouse-gases-explained/
Nigel Sherratt
Correct.
Hi Nigel, great post! Now, I wonder what response you’d get if you sent that to your MP….(I do hope you do).
She doesn’t reply any more, I’ve been moved to the local looney category I assume (Helen (wet lettuce) Wately).
Not my original but I’m happy to copy it, I would add these from reply to Scott Adams by Tony Heller.
4. All apocalyptic climate predictions by academics have failed.
5. Climate models used to generate alarm have no skill when checked against reliable tropospheric temperatures.
6. The most important argument against climate alarmism is that the proposed solutions are unworkable and dangerous, particularly for the poorest (women cooking over indoor wood and dung fires in Africa which has abundant coal and exports it to Europe).
Nigel, can I suggest that although the CO2 I/R frequencies are fully absorbed, as per Van Wijngaarden and Happer reference, it does not address the fact that the absorption will take place nearer to the surface as concentrations increase, with the effect of making the atmosphere at the surface warmer and the upper troposphere and stratosphere cooler. If I am correct in my assumption then the argument given is irrelevant?
Norman Paul Weldon. Yes you are correct, with increasing CO2 concentration, the outbound IR is absorbed at lower altitude. This warms the air near the surface and cools it at altitude, as observed.
The saturation or otherwise of the IR bands (in the total depth of atmosphere) is not the relevant concern, it is the depth of atmosphere needed to provide that saturation that is the issue.
That said, there is surely a need for the likes of W & Happer to validate (or otherwise) the climate models, because most of them don’t use first principles calculations like this. Perhaps they should.
Van Wijngaarden and Happer validated their work from satellite measurements of outgoing IR and balloon temperature measurements. The correlation is excellent, unlike the computer models.
From the link; ‘As always in physics, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The vertical infrared intensities measured at the top of the atmosphere with a satellite-based Michelson interferometer at latitudes of the Sahara desert, the Mediterranean, and Antarctica can hardly be distinguished from the observation-based calculations produced by the authors. The agreement is excellent by any standard. Moreover, the greenhouse saturation effect is very significant, and reduces the climate sensitivity of greenhouse gases to levels much lower than suggested from theoretical climate modelling. These findings should be discussed widely and should be taken very seriously by policy makers all over the world. In summary, a landmark paper that should be published as it is, and be widely disseminated.
Prof. Dr. C.A. de Lange
Amsterdam
Coutinho is in place because of Sushi and not due to any knowledge or experience. Allegedly from a commenter on Turb Times she is bright but also intent on climbing the political pole. Of course now she works for the government she no longer represents us. You could also say she ticks boxes by being Asian and female although not a Hindu.
Geoff: Youc are 00% correct and it ain’t going to happen. Besides nuclear etc another move to greater security is to adopt the Ireland Alternative Fuel Obligation and switch our CCGT plants to distillate fuels. Gas is going to become scarcer and smore expensive and we are far too reliant on it.c
Sorry Geoff: 100% correct of course.
The ideas, at least as presented here are indeed nuts. We must have zero STEM qualified persons in senior positions anywhere.
However, when we have massive offshore wind capacity, in the future, most of the time it will be over-producing. That power needs storing somehow, and hydrogen may well be one of the better ways of doing so.
In particular, hydrogen will be needed for steel production and other processes. It will be needed to make synthetic jet fuel. I would also like to see it used for EV propulsion using fuel cells, because you can refuel a hydrogen car almost as quickly as if you were filling with petrol or diesel.
All unnecessary (see above)
Nuclear power and lots of it is needed however.
Possibly, but we got rid of our nuclear fuel reprocessing and fast breeder reactor.
Fission is only a large energy resource if the full fuel cycle is used.
Also there is no realistic prospect of building enough nuclear capacity by 2050 let alone 2035.
RR SMRs are the way to go, thousands of submariners can vouch for that. My RR shares are doing well so I assume some others think like me.
There is no firm plan for a single one of them.
Let alone the 200 or so that will be required.
Don’t get me wrong, I wish that we’d continued to expand nuclear while we could. But we didn’t and here we are.
There is no chance this country could build this number of power plants by 2035 or even 2050. It takes 2 years to replace traffic lights for heavens sake.
“RR SMRs are the way to go, thousands of submariners can vouch for that.”
You couldn’t be more clueless.
Please explain, I’m so clueless that I no idea what you mean (genuinely).
No, I’m tired of explaining it. You made the ridiculous assertion; you back it up.
Oh well, no progress I guess, pity
Meanwhile back on planet earth, people down here will wonder what medication you are on.
Oil and gas will actually run out one day. Your message is really very negative, it is like saying civilisation comes to an end when fossil fuels run out.
“Oil and gas will actually run out one day.”
What’s your point? No one alive today will be around when that happens. Though it won’t happen. As supplies become tight, other methods will overtake.
Well that attitude is really going to get you support from the young isn’t it?
I’m going to burn through it all and I don’t care what happens after that because I’ll be dead.
What a poster child for this side you are.
Adopt your cause, else I’m a bad person. No thanks. You are free to waste your life.
Why would the young think it’s bad? 50 years ago people worried about the elements we used for photography getting scarce. Now most young people have never even seen film. 30 years ago we thought CDs were amazing, now they don’t exist. Technology moves on. The wealthier we become now, the wealthier our children and grandchildren will be. That’s how economic growth works, it compounds.
kzbkzb : “I would also like to see it used for EV propulsion using fuel cells, because you can refuel a hydrogen car almost as quickly as if you were filling with petrol or diesel.”
I suggest you read the following to learn how impractical this would be :
Energy & The Hydrogen Economy
Click to access hyd_economy_bossel_eliasson.pdf
If we actually use methanol as the hydrogen carrier rather than pure hydrogen then I’ve no problem with that. The principle remains the same.
I will point out however, that the analysis takes no account of the efficiency of hydrogen use. A fuel cell vehicle has about double the efficiency of an ICE vehicle, so you need only half the energy in the fuel. This factor does not seem to be mentioned.
Thank you John Brown for the heads up about direct methanol fuel cells.
They are not very powerful at present, but if they could improve the power to weight ratio significantly, it could be a game changer.
Refuelling with methanol would be an extremely similar experience to refuelling with petrol, so all for it.
Very interesting.
Traditional internal combustion engines can run well on methanol, although it does “eat” just about anything
Yes, and given the efficiency of a methanol fuel cell seems to be about 28%, there is not much difference in efficiency between them.
The direct methanol fuel cell has only about half the efficiency of a hydrogen fuel cell.
If they could improve both the efficiency and the power density it could be a game changer, but as things stand it is rather poor for EV operation.
There is also the energy efficiency of converting H2 and CO2 to methanol, which I suspect is not great either.
Using methanol as the hydrogen carrier will need a much greater energy input than using hydrogen directly, as things stand. However, all it means is more wind/solar capacity being installed, so it is doable from that point of view. It comes down to economics in the end, which is preferable.
Incorrect as stated. Internal combustion engines can be setup to run on methanol; you can’t just put methanol in your car. Two big modifications (besides the seals):
o Higher compression pistons
o Double the fuel delivery
The higher octane rating of methanol (108.6 RON) might allow greater compression ratio, thereby increasing the efficiency of the engine.
Doubling the fuel delivery is not a major issue on several of my vehicles. Protecting against corrosion could be a pain.
Methanol can be used with lower compression engines, and higher effective compression can be achieved without replacing pistons.
‘Rick Mears, who pitted on lap 58 in the 1981 Indy 500, was burned alive by methanol fire that came into contact with the engine during refueling. The weird part was that the methanol was invisible in daylight. Many fled when they noticed the fire, causing Mears to flutter and burn for 35 seconds.’
Well there is certainly nothing special about methanol then, is there ?
For heavens sake.
Special? No. They quit using it because it’s DANGEROUS.
Alcohols (like methanol) are not as dangerously flammable as petrol.
One thing that concerns me is the toxicity of methanol, especially when people get the idea they can drink it. It’s “methyl alcohol” of course, and there have been a number of accidental poisonings with people spiking the punch with it etc.
“Alcohols (like methanol) are not as dangerously flammable as petrol.”
Okay, I will repeat for the hard of hearing. Indy 500 quit using it because it’s DANGEROUS.
Methanol flames are invisible, which makes it insidiously dangerous.
Imagine a petrol station on fire. Imagine no one can see the fire.
most of the time it will be over-producing
Switching in and out of electricity generation to produce or not produce hydrogen, or not producing either as/when the wind drops, sounds over-complicated and hardly viable.
Stop being so negative. Of course it is possible, especially since the price of electricity will have wild swings according to the weather. Even now, solar power in some countries has got so cheap at certain times they can’t give it away.
” most of the time it will be over-producing” No it will not.
I don’t know why you think this.
As we know, renewables are weather dependent.
It’s also the case that “capacity” seems to be cheaper than electricity storage.
In summer there will be copious solar power around midday, in winter not so much. So there will be excess solar power in summer.
Similarly there will be excess wind power when the weather is favourable. In some ways this is happening already, hence the “constraint” payments.
Ray, I’m increasingly convinced that we are dealing with an AI bot here, interesting for a while but not worth serious engagement
Hi Nigel, do you mean like this perhaps
https://github.com/kzbkzb#start-of-content
Well this is going to win us the debate isn’t it?
Anything that does not agree with your views must be a bot.
Good luck winning over the other side with that attitude.
Ray; Lor, that’s a long way into the weeds for me, sometimes the replies make some sense and then sometimes not at all. I liked the description of an AI bot as just working word by word using what its been fed. Felt like a bit of a clue. On the other hand the charming ladies who run the restaurant/cafe at Gillingham Marina use it to help with menu preparation when they are short of time so there is some value there. Printed menu rather than the actual food I mean.
” We must have zero STEM qualified persons in senior positions anywhere. ”
There is a low number of STEM qualified MPs, the number does vary according to source and definition. I suspect that there is a low number of STEM qualified civil servants.
It’s got nothing to do with qualifications. I do wish people would understand how politics works. You won’t get into the cabinet if you don’t follow the PM’s lines. You certainly won’t get put in charge of energy if you don’t follow the carbon transition lines. These days, you won’t get selected as a prospective Tory MP if you express scepticism about climate change or renewables. Nor will you get a job in the civil service. It’s a closed shop. Net Zero is what we are doing and if you want to have a career in politics, you have to play along.
I understand what you are saying, but can’t help thinking that sufficient persons with a hard science/engineering background would form a critical mass, and be able to express scepticism.
Even just enough who could think objectively and rationally would be a start! I was hoping Kemi would have won the PM contest, as she strikes me as being pretty intelligent and articulate.
Quite right. I’ve tried talking to two local MPs, but they’re both Ministers, so they just spout the government mantra. It seems to me that it’s all one large job creation scheme.
Hybrit in Sweden have produce 100 tonnes of steel using hydrogen and are scaling up to 1m tonnes. The world however uses c.2bn tonnes every year. This is all going to be produced using hydrogen? I think not.
It will have to be, eventually. Of course there is no chance of it happening by 2050.
“It will have to be, eventually.”
In the year 2525
If man is still alive
If woman can survive
‘A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesman said the UK wanted to become a global leader in producing and using low carbon hydrogen.’
The government does but I don’t recall being asked about it.
What the hell is it with our politicians that they always feel the need to be either, the first, or the best in the world? Sometimes it helps to learn from pioneers. Hillary wasn’t the first to climb Everest, he was the first to get to the top. Nobody remembers those who climbed before – except those who are memorialised for dying in the attempt.
I have long thought Tenzing Norgay was the real hero, telling Hillary, “Step there.”
They no doubt reached the top together. Hillary did nothing Norgay didn’t do; Norgay probably did more.
But . . . hewho pays for the expedition gets credit for the expedition.
It’s a logical fallacy and an economic inanity. First prove hydrogen is s good thing. And being a “world leader” is stupid if you have to spend vast amounts ti get there.
“Ms Coutinho is to publish a “Hydrogen Roadmap” within days, setting out how Britain will produce and use the gas in industrial quantities.”
I bet she didn’t come up with that. It was probably cobbled together by her civil servants. The same ones who used to write the useless Perry’s replies to my letters to her. I doubt Courtinho has the first idea of how H2 is generated: she probably thinks it comes put of the ground! If you told her it was a ‘natural gas’ she’d have it banned.
I wonder how they intend to use all that hydrogen. In fuel cells? OK .. do they have them? Clean burning? Very difficult – hydrogen flame is very hot and creates a lot of nitrogen oxides.
Quite right. Perhaps the EU (if it is still going) will ban it because of the nitrogen emissions. More likely they will be enthusiastic about hydrogen as they don’t have any idea how it could be used (rather than vague wishes).
Here is South Australia the local government (Labor) is enthusiastic about hydrogen coming from an old well hole (no natural gas) and wanting its to use in steel making, mineral refining and heating homes, as well as replacing oil and gas use.
And this is before any flow rates from the (one) well.
Among the zillions of problems with hydrogen another is how to odorize it. Hydrogen, the smallest molecule, will potentially escape leaving the larger odorant molecule behind. No smell, no means of smelling a leak. More importantly with fuel cells is they may work with hydrogen but any odorant will poison them almost immediately so you have to take it out or not put it in in the first place….oops.
RR have a hydrogen fueled turboprop but it can hardly take off for the weight of the hydrogen fuel tanks. JCB have produced hydrogen versions of their diesel engines, a straight swap and a brilliant bit of engineering and pragmatic business response to the madness. JCB machines working a full day or even 24hrs can be followed around by a hydrogen bowser. No such luck for the RR turboprop.
https://www.rolls-royce.com/media/our-stories/discover/2023/rr-hydrogen-research-project-sets-new-world-industry-first-with-key-milestone-success.aspx
There are hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on the market.
They don’t seem to have been encouraged in the UK unfortunately.
Hydrogen fuel cells are horribly inefficient, JCB on the other hand have reconfigured the ‘top end’ of their diesel engines to run on hydrogen so that they are a straight swap for the diesel engines running on their equipment all over the world. If politicians are really determined to pursue this madness they have an answer. The alternative presumably is just going out of business. The entrepreneurial gene is plainly strong in the Bamfords.
George, fuel cells don’t burn hydrogen, most are Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) ~80°C; No nitrogen oxides.
You get nitrogen oxides when you burn hydrogen in an Internal Combustion Engine (ICE).
The issue of hydrogen leakage is always conveniently ignored, Methane leakage is over 6% of usage: hydrogen will be higher, as it is far more difficult to contain. Hydrogen in the ozone layer will be a real disaster for the world (the perfect ozone mop), but in the zealots mind only CO2 is a demon.
An estimated 10 to 17 % of all hydrogen manufactured leaks into the atmosphere during production, storage, transport & use; causing environmental problems
Indeed, it is the speed of the molecules that causes greater leakage, much higher than for natural gas, due to the lower mass, and the equipartition (of energy) Theorem.
“The spokesman [for DESNZ] said: “By 2030, we aim to deliver 10 gigawatts of low carbon hydrogen production capacity, including at least half from green hydrogen sources, supporting more than 12,000 jobs and up to £11bn of private investment across the UK.”
As Professor Michael Kelly pointed out in his 2019 GWPF lecture, the higher the proportion of the population working on providing energy (or food) the more expensive energy becomes and the poorer the population becomes. So as more and more peoplr are employed on Net Zero to provide energy the moe expensive energy becomes and consequently the poorer the country becomes. But then this is the reason for Net Zero and has absolutely nothing to do with anthropogenic emissions of CO2.
John B., Very well written.
My short version: Jobs are a cost, not a benefit.
and more n more WATER will be produced on combustion – to heat the planet so globull warming will get worse so we have to do MORE to stop global Bullshitting
But to MAKE hydrogen, will they not need scarce water in the first place – as they talk about doing in the SAHARA DESERT ( rich in Solar & water ) !!!
Give them a break, they have a ‘Roadmap’, thousands of’Green Jobs’ and they have cracked ‘Carbon Capture and Storage ‘ !
Just another day in climate cloud cuckoo land.
Ah yes, central planning. Always such a success.
Gamecock prefers Google Maps. It’s usually correct.
Since they hate car ownership, “roadmap” is an odd metaphor.
“However, this will not go ahead until the idea has been trialled, first at village scale and then in whole towns to assess public acceptance and safety.”
Think about that last word “safety”. Which villagers are happy to be the guinea pigs? Government official: “just sign this waiver please”.
I really don’t think so.
Which villagers are happy to be the guinea pigs? Westminster?
Yes, seen that suggested elsewhere and fully approve, installation by Guido Fawkes, gas engineers to the gentry.
The obscene assumption in all this is that politicians and their bureaucrats who never have to turn a profit actually know best. Their arrogance and grandiosity is breathtaking. The seed capital will turn into development grants and then turn into life support eventually. It will all end with funeral expenses, paid for by the taxpayer.
Markets work because bad ideas and bad execution get discarded in favour if what works best. Governments don’t work because bad ideas and bad execution just get more money.
Or, as I say, they don’t make business decisions, they make political decisions.
Just when you thought it could not get any worse, it appears the hydrogen industry has turned the bullshit dial up to eleven. From ITM (who manufacture electrolysers)
“Unlike other fuels, it doesn’t remove oxygen from the atmosphere –
or add more water vapour to the atmosphere than it consumes
during production – which helps retain the earth’s existing oxygen
and water balance.
https://itm-power.com
So now we are supposed to be worried about fossil fuels causing us to run out of oxygen! And WTF is an “oxygen to water balance” apart from out and out attenbollox.
“But you’re not as confused as him are you? I mean, it’s not your job to be as confused as Nigel.”
If this works it will make hydrogen ideas redundant, replacing them with…
Methane.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d42473-022-00166-2
Claims it will be more efficient, and of course eliminates the hydrogen handling difficulties. Lower cost, too.
First Hydrogen engine = 1804 Isaac de Rivaz ( also first ICE ) 65yrs before the
Otto gas engine.
First Hydrogen vehicle = de Rivaz 1807 the first ICE vehicle.
First Hydrogen fuel cell = Wm Grove 1836
First Hydrogen fuel cell vehicle = GM ‘Electrovan’ – 1966
First Hydrogen plane … Russia did it in April 1988… the TU-155
– a 160 seat plane … But it only had room for 6 passengers the rest was fuel tanks & refrigerating equipment.
***
Hydrogen makes an excellent fuel …
But, only when you add carbon atoms –
otherwise it’s leaky, sneaky and explosive.
And expensive…
Hydrogen trains up to 80% more expensive than electric options, German state finds
…hydrogen fuel-cell trains “will no longer be considered in the near future for various operational and economic reasons”
https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/will-no-longer-be-considered-hydrogen-trains-up-to-80-more-expensive-than-electric-options-german-state-finds/2-1-1338438
On the published evidence, that’s a quick climbdown. If a “local backlash” has achieved a local return to sanity in such a relatively short time frame then perhaps there is a hope of sanity generally returning re: domestic energy.
Would general sanity return if the financial costs of netzero are heavily highlighted (£££trillions), along with the fact that there is no proven link between human activities and dangerous climate change?
Second attempt at posting the above …
The fallacy based Net-Zero madness will be the death of the Developed World as we know it.
That’s pretty much the plan (nothing else makes any sense).
” nothing else makes any sense ”
Obsessive irrationality generally doesn’t make sense. Similar to religion.
This is to misunderstand power. As Nazi Germany and the USSR show, as extremes, lots of people who covet power are willing to go along with just about anything if it means they are in power. McNamara, who ran the Vietnam War for LBJ, said he knew it was a big mistake and the way it was being run was wrong. But he couldn’t bear the thought of not being at the table if he resigned. The US Constitution was designed to reign in power precisely for these reasons.
After 70 years I flatter myself that I have at least a tenuous grip on how the world works but I’ve been an engineer for 50 years (the other university) not an Oxford PPE grad so aim for brevity (usually).
” This is to misunderstand power. As Nazi Germany and the USSR show… ”
Nazism and Communism are belief systems, with all the flaws that are associated with belief systems i.e. very similar to religion e.g. “You must believe” .
The idea that a single American was in control of US military activities in Vietnam is laughable, but Paul H’s website is probably not the right venue to pursue this.
LBJ.
Laugh at that.
“supporting more than 12,000 jobs” – when they start using “jobs” as a reason to do something you know for sure it’s horrendously expensive and inefficient.
Jobs are a cost. 12,000 jobs at an average all-in cost of £35,000 is £420 million a year. We have to pay that.
Exactly. In all the years they have been using the metric, surely someone has pulled them aside and told them that’s bad. Except, of course, they aren’t businessmen, they are politicians.
The wind lobbyists claimed that wind would create 45,000 jobs in the UK. The reality that almost none of those 45,000 jobs materialised and it destroyed far more jobs than it created. But that was just the start … just you wait till the Net Zero scythe has its affect on the British economy.
Does Claire Coutinho know anything about energy or hydrogen. Surely she must have been told it doesn’t occur naturally and takes a great deal of ENERGY to manufacture hydrogen, and in a combustion application, you only get approx. 30% of that energy back, i.e. ~70% is lost, wasted, and that’s on top of what’s lost through leakage. How can our politicians be so dumb, or does she have skin in the game??
But y’all are going to have so much power that you can afford to waste it!
That’s the magical thinking as you face blackouts.
” ~70% is lost, wasted, and that’s on top of what’s lost through leakage.”
Actually ~77% + leaks :
that’s like getting £400 out of the bank,
putting £100 in you wallet & shredding £300 Why would you do that ???
Claire Coutinho is another arts graduate politician – completely ignorant of science and engineering and so completely susceptible to both snake oil salesmen for “green investments” and the climate zeolots.
Still don’t fret – in a year or so’s time we’ll likely have Ed Milliband as Energy Secretary and he’ll be even worse.
“Never think things couldn’t get worse.” – GC
“Hydrogen offers a clean alternative to natural gas and could potentially replace diesel as a key fuel for lorries, trains, and ships under net zero.”
Lorries, trains and pipelines with hydrogen at say 700bar, what could possibly go wrong? Oh yes it is a fugitive gas too!
“Let them use hydrogen! The oceans are full of it!”
Think of hydrogen as an energy transfer medium. It has to be generated. Which is grossly inefficient. Wasteful. But ‘a clean alternative.’ ‘Clean’ being the key requirement. A political requirement. Not a business requirement.
This made the TV news on BBC at lunchtime.
Cold wave freezes most of China, shutting highways, roads
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/freezing-temperatures-snow-ice-blanket-china-shutting-highways-2023-12-15/
The BBC being the BBC couldn’t let it pass without mentioning the “record” high of 50’C in the summer. High to Low difference of 100’C over a year, shock horror. No mention that the vast majority of people survived unharmed.
Inefficiency isn’t the only issue …
https://qz.com/1641276/a-hydrogen-fueling-station-explodes-in-norways-baerum
No one with any common sense is talking about hydrogen. It’s always been an obsession of the wackier element in academia.
People in all walks of life are going to start wondering why money that used to be available has disappeared … into Net Zero spending. It will be interesting when the cuts hit higher education. I see Sheffield University are already shedding academic staff … I think that might be a very regular headline in the next year or two. What is the point going to a University to you head stuffed full of nonsense, when you would be better getting a job and securing a job before the economic goes into recession?