Ultimately, the blue hydrogen case seems circular and self-defeating; using natural gas to produce hydrogen, which in turn is replacing fossil fuels like natural gas - and at a higher cost. When derived from natural gas, if the carbon dioxide is captured, it is referred to as blue hydrogen.
Stewart Muir is founder and executive director of the Resource Works Society, a Vancouver-based group open to participation by British Columbians from all walks of life who are concerned about their future economic opportunities. These industries now use coal, with its own emissions.
Huge CCS capacity would be required for a wide implementation of blue hydrogen and that simply does not exist (and it is hard to see how it can).
The cleanest form, called ‘green hydrogen,’ is derived from water, H₂O, … Resource Works carried on June 28 a story on the opening (in North Vancouver) of a hydrogen fuelling station for vehicles. Receive our Weekly Recap of thought provoking articles, podcasts, and radio
Although they are not (yet) matching the high capacity factor and low cost of hydro power, offshore wind farms have made impressive progress over the last decade to such an extent that current long term tariffs allocated to offshore wind farms under auctions are at levels below the expected long term levels of spot prices.
Indeed, in the hydrogen discussion colours are loaded with meaning. Colours are assigned to each method of hydrogen production: green is cleanest; blue is fairly clean; grey is dirty; black or brown are the dirtiest. As a result, green hydrogen could be produced against very low or even negative electricity prices. As you might remember from chemistry lessons at school, hydrogen is both the lightest element in the periodic table and constitutes 75% of the mass of the universe. These industries require large volumes of hydrogen, allowing for economies of scale, while their facilities often have enough space to allow for on-site production reducing the new infrastructural investments. Surely, this would make a great business case for the production of green hydrogen?
So why are we not immediately switching from fossil fuels to blue or green hydrogen? There’s more to hydrogen, too, than powering vehicles and trains. While hydrogen as a vehicle fuel is — right now — more expensive than gasoline, manufacturers usually offer three years of free fuel when you buy or lease an FCEV car in the US.
Blue Hydrogen
So, despite being a promising energy carrier in a low carbon energy system, green hydrogen is still facing significant technical and commercial challenges. Why is the Moroccan renewable energy revolution of interest to Western investors and developers? Firstly, as mentioned, the existing grey hydrogen. Hydrogen can also be produced by the electrolysis of water (using an electric current to break water, H2O, into its component elements of hydr…
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This electrolysis process is an environmentally attractive process but notably expensive. The California Hydrogen Business Council reports 31 strategically located fuelling stations, and there are plans for 65 more. Required fields are marked *, All Comments are moderated before appearing on the site. There are no natural hydrogen deposits on earth, it has to be extracted from other compounds by a chemical process.
The world Hydrogen Council has a goal of 10,000 hydrogen stations and 10 million hydrogen-powered vehicles by 2030. Morocco may be the answer, As governments look to accelerate the decarbonisation of the transport industry, biofuels might be the next big opportunity in global renewables. And cooking with hydrogen? Firstly, as mentioned, the existing grey hydrogen. Unlike battery-powered EVs, FCEV cars can refuel in only 3-4 minutes and already have a driving range of close to 500km. Michael Ware discusses the RTFO obligation and the growing investment in organic fuels. Hydrogen also burns hot, which would be attractive for companies making products such as cement and steel. The hydrogen can also be channelled into a fuel cell to produce electricity.
In order to overcome such challenges the hydrogen sector is in need of low-complexity projects without expensive new infrastructure requirements to allow for a viable business case.
Unfortunately this accounts from roughly 95% of the hydrogen produced in the world today. If the CO2 from this process is capture and stored, the hydrogen produced is also CO2-neutral. As long as we release this CO2 into the air, we call this product “grey hydrogen”. Medium and heavy-duty vehicles including buses are being tested or sold, and two pioneering, hydrogen-powered, heavy-duty freight trucks will hit the highway between Edmonton and Calgary next year. California’s 2030 goals are 1,000 stations and one million vehicles. On a global scale this so-called grey hydrogen is responsible for almost 2% of worldwide emissions, more than the carbon emissions in the UK. He is an author, journalist and historian with experience on three continents including a financial editor of The Vancouver Sun responsible for mining and markets coverage. We thus do not believe in the blue hydrogen case. Prices may not come down sufficiently until the 2030s, according to some estimates.”.
there is growing interest in electrolytic hydrogen.” Down the road, BC could have an edge here, in having “clean” hydro-electricity available as the potential source of the energy needed to produce hydrogen from water.
Your email address will not be published. This is because using hydrogen as an energy source also has numerous disadvantages. It may be a while before hydrogen catches on as an automotive fuel in Canada, but HTEC’s estimates for Canada are 200 stations by 2030, to support more than 100,000 vehicles.
A cleaner version is “blue” hydrogen, for which the carbon emissions are captured and stored, or reused. As an intermediate step, low-CO2 (blue) hydrogen plays an important role, with most of the CO2 emissions, up to 90%, being captured during the production of grey hydrogen and stored, for example, in empty gas fields in the North Sea (Carbon Capture and Storage, CCS). But there is a solution: CCS. The next step is for governments and companies to be realistic and decisive when it comes to the further development of green hydrogen projects. The cleanest form, called ‘green hydrogen,’ is derived from water, H₂O, through a process that runs on renewable electricity. In BC, HTEC is working with partners to have 1,000 vehicles within the next five years. It also has the potential to repurpose abandoned wells, fields and facilities.”. And California introduces in 2024 a program under which, by 2045, every new truck sold must be a zero-emission vehicle. ALWAYS CONSULT YOUR INVESTMENT PROFESSIONAL BEFORE MAKING ANY INVESTMENT DECISION. “While all three types of hydrogen are equally clean-burning, green hydrogen has by far the least negative effects on the environment. This hydrogen is often called “blue hydrogen”.
“If that CO₂ is released into the atmosphere, the resulting fuel is known as ‘grey hydrogen.’ When the CO₂ is captured and buried underground, it’s known as ‘blue hydrogen,’ a cleaner alternative. The world’s big energy companies are looking seriously at hydrogen. The vast majority of industrial hydrogen is currently produced from natural gas through a process known as steam methane reforming or SMR.
Secondly, we have blue hydrogen, which would also be produced from natural gas, but with theoretically limited emissions as production would be combined with the much hyped technology of carbon capture and storage (CCS).
The most important role, though, will be played by the industry, as development, construction and operation of green hydrogen projects require a wide range of capabilities, from renewable energy to gas infrastructure, and from electricity markets to heavy industries, and investments will only take place if participants feel they can master all of these.
Moreover, and probably more importantly, governments should ensure a stable and representative carbon price so green and grey hydrogen can compete on an equal level, economically and environmentally.
More than 8,000 hydrogen-powered vehicles from Toyota, Hyundai, Honda and Mercedes Benz are on the roads in California. Hydrogen produced from coal may be referred to as brown hydrogen,, and when fossil fuel derived, is generally referred to as grey hydrogen.
Sign up here for the HoweStreet.com Weekly Recap. . We are looking forward to continue the dialogue, join forces and accelerate the global development of green hydrogen, because we believe a green future is green, not blue!
However, there is a slight fly in the ointment.
Hydrogen can also be made from water, using electricity to split water into oxygen and hydrogen.
First of all, for applications like mobility and heating, the required changes to the existing infrastructure will take a long time, cost a lot of money, and it’s not clear to investors how big the actual market will be. Still, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says: “With declining costs for renewable electricity . We at Green Giraffe are always working on decarbonizing our economy and we see there are opportunities in green hydrogen to significantly reduce carbon emissions combined with having a sound business case.
All the major automobile manufacturers have FCEVs on the market or in development. . In order to make a green hydrogen production facility compete with its grey cousin at current natural gas market prices, it needs to run at pretty much full capacity for a whole year at a relatively low electricity price. How about Toyota’s concept of a hydrogen-powered delivery truck carrying a hydrogen-powered pizza oven that will bake your pizza, hot and fresh, en route to your home.
It’s from BC-based HTEC Hydrogen Technology & Energy Corporation, which opened its first such station in Vancouver in 2018, another in Burnaby in 2019, and plans two more in BC. Not really green, … There is, though, a catch: hydrogen has first to be produced, and that takes energy. The core idea is that Mother Nature who has spent billions of years being creative by necessity, has already solved many of the problems humanity is facing so we can helpfully learn from her successes and avoid her mistakes.
. Since Resource Works was established in 2014, the group has gained international recognition for its practical approach to the public challenges of responsible natural resource development and use.
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(Such fuel-cells were designed and refined by NASA, which pioneered hydrogen gas as rocket fuel to deliver crew and cargo to space.).
“If that CO₂ is released into the atmosphere, the resulting fuel is known as ‘grey hydrogen.’ When the CO₂ is captured and buried underground, it’s known as ‘blue hydrogen,’ a cleaner alternative. .
Unfortunately for Mother Nature, this hydrogen is produced using natural gas, a process which causes significant carbon emissions. And some see the cost becoming competitive with gasoline in the next few years.
To us this sounds a bit like vowing to only drink beer at the weekends before you give up alcohol for good. Hydrogen can be made from natural gas, coal, or biomass, but that means also producing unwanted emissions.
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