Hydrogen powered combustion

[ColinS]

I thought this was quite an interesting program from BBC World Service: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct1hsk

[JimSh]

The near term future for Hydrogen is less likely t be in vehicles and more likely to be in domestic heating and cooking.

Yes I think that in the choice between electric and hydrogen powered vehicles, EVs will win out at least with cars.
with HGVs I would hope hydrogen would take over from diesel until battery power/ weight  ratio is improved.
I was talking to my plumber when my boiler was serviced last year and he was an advocate of hydrogen rather than heat pumps.
I don't know how much modification the gas network would need to adapt to hydrogen rather than natural gas. There is a trial in Fife as well.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/30/scottish-green-hydrogen-fife

[culzean]

https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-storage-challenges

Hydrogen has very small molecule size, and leaks very easily.  Normal gas mains for Natural gas would need to be improved.  Hydrogen has no smell so like natural gas a smell may have to be added for humans to notice a leak.

 A plumber / gas tech would most likely favour hydrogen, it would mean minimal change to his job and very little re-training needed.  It would undoubtedly be a lot cheaper to go the hydrogen route for domestic as the outlay for heatpumps and the changes needed for present radiator sizing to work at much lower temperatures and larger bore pipes etc. Oh and another thing, the colder the ambient temp gets the less output you get from heatpumps ( like majority of renewables it produces the least when you need it the most ).

[richardfrost]

https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-storage-challenges

Hydrogen has very small molecule size, and leaks very easily.  Normal gas mains for Natural gas would need to be improved.  Hydrogen has no smell so like natural gas a smell may have to be added for humans to notice a leak.

 A plumber / gas tech would most likely favour hydrogen, it would mean minimal change to his job and very little re-training needed.  It would undoubtedly be a lot cheaper to go the hydrogen route for domestic as the outlay for heatpumps and the changes needed for present radiator sizing to work at much lower temperatures and larger bore pipes etc. Oh and another thing, the colder the ambient temp gets the less output you get from heatpumps ( like majority of renewables it produces the least when you need it the most ).

You should read the link I provided earlier. Answers most of your questions/assumptions. The hydrogen/natural gas blend is perfectly within the design tolerances of existing equipment and infrastructure across the UK. If adopted nationally, the saving on CO2 emissions has been estimated as the equivalent of taking 2.5m cars off the road.

https://www.northerngasnetworks.co.uk/2021/07/23/green-light-for-first-hydrogen-blending-on-a-public-gas-network/

[embee]

..... If adopted nationally, the saving on CO2 emissions has been estimated as the equivalent of taking 2.5m cars off the road.
https://www.northerngasnetworks.co.uk/2021/07/23/green-light-for-first-hydrogen-blending-on-a-public-gas-network/

I appreciate it isn't an in-depth article, but I'm not clear whether that saving comparison takes into account the production of the hydrogen or just a simple gas point-of-use calculation. If the hydrogen can be supplied with minimal CO2 output in the process, then it would certainly be a worthwhile exercise, however the devil is always in the detail.

[JimSh]

..... If adopted nationally, the saving on CO2 emissions has been estimated as the equivalent of taking 2.5m cars off the road.
https://www.northerngasnetworks.co.uk/2021/07/23/green-light-for-first-hydrogen-blending-on-a-public-gas-network/

I appreciate it isn't an in-depth article, but I'm not clear whether that saving comparison takes into account the production of the hydrogen or just a simple gas point-of-use calculation. If the hydrogen can be supplied with minimal CO2 output in the process, then it would certainly be a worthwhile exercise, however the devil is always in the detail.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that the article on the Fife trial specified it was to be based on green hydrogen from renewables.
I expected it to be grey( made from hydrocarbons) hydrogen made in Mossmorran.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/30/scottish-green-hydrogen-fife

I would think that in the example from Gateshead the savings in carbon dioxide would only be made if green hydrogen is used.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/07/clean-energy-green-hydrogen/

[ColinB]

..... If adopted nationally, the saving on CO2 emissions has been estimated as the equivalent of taking 2.5m cars off the road.
https://www.northerngasnetworks.co.uk/2021/07/23/green-light-for-first-hydrogen-blending-on-a-public-gas-network/

I appreciate it isn't an in-depth article, but I'm not clear whether that saving comparison takes into account the production of the hydrogen or just a simple gas point-of-use calculation. If the hydrogen can be supplied with minimal CO2 output in the process, then it would certainly be a worthwhile exercise, however the devil is always in the detail.

That article reads as if it’s simply a trial to establish whether the transmission network and the end-user devices can cope with a hydrogen blend, which seems like a useful thing to check before going whole-hog for H2. They don’t need to worry about the source of the hydrogen to do that. If they were genuinely using green hydrogen (from renewable resources) as opposed to blue (from fossil fuels) you’d expect them to trumpet that, but they don’t even mention it. There won’t be any CO2 saving unless the source is renewable ... if not, you might as well keep burning the natural gas without going through the faff of turning it into hydrogen first.

[JimSh]

..... If adopted nationally, the saving on CO2 emissions has been estimated as the equivalent of taking 2.5m cars off the road.
https://www.northerngasnetworks.co.uk/2021/07/23/green-light-for-first-hydrogen-blending-on-a-public-gas-network/

I appreciate it isn't an in-depth article, but I'm not clear whether that saving comparison takes into account the production of the hydrogen or just a simple gas point-of-use calculation. If the hydrogen can be supplied with minimal CO2 output in the process, then it would certainly be a worthwhile exercise, however the devil is always in the detail.

That article reads as if it’s simply a trial to establish whether the transmission network and the end-user devices can cope with a hydrogen blend, which seems like a useful thing to check before going whole-hog for H2. They don’t need to worry about the source of the hydrogen to do that. If they were genuinely using green hydrogen (from renewable resources) as opposed to blue (from fossil fuels) you’d expect them to trumpet that, but they don’t even mention it. There won’t be any CO2 saving unless the source is renewable ... if not, you might as well keep burning the natural gas without going through the faff of turning it into hydrogen first.

Absolutely.
It was the reference to the 2.5M cars being taken off the roads in the quick facts at the end of the article picked up by Richard Frost and then Embee,  I was referring to. It would have to be green hydrogen to make that saving.

Seems like there are Forty Shades of Green or is it Fifty Shades of Grey
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/07/clean-energy-green-hydrogen/

[richardfrost]

They don’t need to worry about the source of the hydrogen to do that. If they were genuinely using green hydrogen (from renewable resources) as opposed to blue (from fossil fuels) you’d expect them to trumpet that, but they don’t even mention it. There won’t be any CO2 saving unless the source is renewable ... if not, you might as well keep burning the natural gas without going through the faff of turning it into hydrogen first.

Absolutely, it's a trial of the Hydrogen infrastructure (transmission, domestic and industrial equipment), not of the creation of it. By the way, Hydrogen isn't made from natural gas, that would be daft as you say. It was made from coal, hence it was called coal gas, or town gas, as it could be made locally in towns, prior to the creation of the gas national grid. The hydrogen/natural gas blend was in use prior to the conversion to natural gas and is still in use in Europe.

[JimSh]

They don’t need to worry about the source of the hydrogen to do that. If they were genuinely using green hydrogen (from renewable resources) as opposed to blue (from fossil fuels) you’d expect them to trumpet that, but they don’t even mention it. There won’t be any CO2 saving unless the source is renewable ... if not, you might as well keep burning the natural gas without going through the faff of turning it into hydrogen first.

By the way, Hydrogen isn't made from natural gas, that would be daft as you say. It was made from coal, hence it was called coal gas, or town gas, as it could be made locally in towns, prior to the creation of the gas national grid. The hydrogen/natural gas blend was in use prior to the conversion to natural gas and is still in use in Europe.

That was years ago before North sea oil and gas. As you say the old town gas used to contain about 50% hydrogen but much of industrial hydrogen is manufactured from hydrocarbons now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production
https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/low-carbon-energy-programme/hydrogen-production/

Edit substituted "hydrocarbons" for "petrochemicals" and added Wikipedia link

[JimSh]

https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-storage-challenges


 A plumber / gas tech would most likely favour hydrogen, it would mean minimal change to his job and very little re-training needed.  It would undoubtedly be a lot cheaper to go the hydrogen route for domestic as the outlay for heatpumps and the changes needed for present radiator sizing to work at much lower temperatures and larger bore pipes etc. Oh and another thing, the colder the ambient temp gets the less output you get from heatpumps ( like majority of renewables it produces the least when you need it the most ).

Pros and cons (mostly cons) for heat pumps.

Pros and cons (mostly pros) for hydrogen boilers

[John Ratsey]

If we get the 40GW of unreliable wind generation that the government proposes then hydrogen production will be one way of absorbing the excess electricity which arises when the wind does blow (perhaps 1/3rd of the time).

[JimSh]

If we get the 40GW of unreliable wind generation that the government proposes then hydrogen production will be one way of absorbing the excess electricity which arises when the wind does blow (perhaps 1/3rd of the time).

Hopefully there will be other renewables being developed like tidal, waves and geothermal.

[Jocko]

I don't know why more money is not being spent (private and government) on developing Tidal Generators further. What has been done shows how well tidal slots into the "Renewables" basket.

[JimSh]

I don't know why more money is not being spent (private and government) on developing Tidal Generators further. What has been done shows how well tidal slots into the "Renewables" basket.

Yep . Tidal not intermittent like solar or wind.
Very powerful tidal races round Western Isles and Moray Firth.
Slower dependable tides all round country.