Why Green Hydrogen is not so Green

[JBChiangRai]

Tunisia is one of the driest countries in Africa, and has just suffered three years of drought. Yet the EU sees the country as key to producing “green hydrogen” for export to Europe. The trouble is, this fuel is obtained by splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen with electricity generated by renewable sources. Tunisia has lots of sun but precious little fresh water.

 

The only way of producing the raw material needed for green hydrogen is sucking up Mediterranean water and desalinating it. But a report last year for the Heinrich Böll Foundation, affiliated to Germany’s green political movement, warns that this would be a dirty, energy-intensive, water-guzzling process – and put the high cost of decarbonising the rich world on to the shoulders of poorer nations.

Many sun-drenched countries, especially in the Maghreb, have been sold a future as export hubs for green hydrogen. The pitch is seductive. As 1kg of hydrogen contains about three times as much energy as 1kg of petrol, it is no wonder that hydrogen is being touted as a fuel of the future. Europe’s green deal, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by the end of the decade, relies on green hydrogen production in north Africa and Ukraine.

 

Producing green hydrogen in Europe is not impossible. But it is expensive compared with fossil fuels, with even wind-based generation needing larger subsidies. Without big government support packages, it remains an open question whether European consumers would be prepared to foot the very significant price rises needed to go green in this way.

 

Last year, the EU proposed doubling green hydrogen imports by 2030 to 10m tonnes a year. The continent’s heavy industries cannot use electricity, however environmentally friendly, for all their requirements; they need fuels for high-intensity heat. So to make sure that these energy sources are less carbon-intensive, Brussels is pushing industries – such as steel or petrochemical manufacturers – to adopt green hydrogen.

 

The benefits of such a strategy – with the desirable goal of low carbon emissions in Europe – cannot come at the cost of environmental destruction abroad. Raoudha Gafrej, one of Tunisia’s top water experts, warned in the Heinrich Böll Foundation report that the degradation of marine ecosystems from the toxic sludge produced by desalination plants would be irreversible.

 

Hydrogen produced by renewable energy has a role to play in future energy systems. Its “green” version can be converted to ammonia, a key feedstock for fertilisers, with other uses in shipping fuel, power generation and steelmaking. There are also significant energy losses to consider: about a third of the energy used to produce the gas through electrolysis is lost. Transporting hydrogen requires additional energy, equivalent to 10% of the energy of the fuel itself. From the perspective of African nations, as the recent Just Transition report points out, that energy could be used locally to address immediate needs rather than being directed to produce hydrogen for use in Europe.

 

Less than 0.04% of total hydrogen production is “green”. This proportion is bound to grow as governments worldwide wager that it will play a key role in cutting carbon-heavy emissions in industries such as cement manufacturing. With the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere already at 422 parts per million (ppm) – much higher than the 350 ppm generally considered a relatively safe level – there is no scope for worsening the problem. Transitioning to net zero emissions globally should not mean the rich gain at the expense of the poor.

 

source: The Guardian view on hydrogen hype: it’s perhaps not as green as you think (msn.com)

[retarius]

The poor countries always get screwed don't they? Poor Tunisia.

 

I have a question: if you burn hydrogen, you make water vapour, H20, which is another greenhouse gas, and which I have read is even more potent than CO2 at keeping heat in the atmosphere?

 

Are we just replacing one greenhouse gas for another? Obviously the scientists are smart people and have thought of this and elected to go with hydrogen fuel, so where is some fault in my logic. Can some eagle eyed climate chappie tell me what it is? 

 

Another thing: being cleaner than a current cement factory, steel making industry, or a petrochemical plant is not a really such a great advert for this new technology. Well, let's say these claims havn't made me rush out and buy shares in hydrogen companies.

[Crossy]

Not strictly Motoring only, so let's pop this over to the Alternative Energy Forum.

 

Yeah, there's no one-size-fits all energy solution.

 

Hydrogen is great for applications that really need fast re-fuelling or weight saving (long haul trucking, aircraft), but as noted it's horribly energy inefficient.

[Lacessit]

Most of the hydrogen being produced currently is made by cracking methane ( CH4 ), which results in even more CO2 emissions.

 

If governments were really serious about addressing climate change, they would subsidize or incentivize households to have rooftop solar panels, with a storage battery of about 12 kWhr for when the sun does not shine. Instead, the world seems to be fixated on EV's, with storage batteries of 60 - 100 kWhr, to transport virtue-signalling <deleted> on their excursions. As 70% of power stations still burn fossil fuels, it's an exercise in futility.

 

Simple math says there is less demand for lithium by equipping 5 households than one EV. Simple math says households which go 100% renewable subtracts demand for electricity, EV's don't unless they are sourcing their electricity from the same rooftop solar.

[Lacessit]

21 minutes ago, retarius said:

The poor countries always get screwed don't they? Poor Tunisia.

 

I have a question: if you burn hydrogen, you make water vapour, H20, which is another greenhouse gas, and which I have read is even more potent than CO2 at keeping heat in the atmosphere?

 

Are we just replacing one greenhouse gas for another? Obviously the scientists are smart people and have thought of this and elected to go with hydrogen fuel, so where is some fault in my logic. Can some eagle eyed climate chappie tell me what it is? 

 

Another thing: being cleaner than a current cement factory, steel making industry, or a petrochemical plant is not a really such a great advert for this new technology. Well, let's say these claims havn't made me rush out and buy shares in hydrogen companies.

Carbon dioxide and methane are both gases. Water is a liquid. Water vapour cannot exceed 100% humidity, any excess would condense out as rain.

Of course, the hotter it is, the more water can be present as vapor.

[bignok]

41 minutes ago, JBChiangRai said:

Tunisia is one of the driest countries in Africa, and has just suffered three years of drought. Yet the EU sees the country as key to producing “green hydrogen” for export to Europe. The trouble is, this fuel is obtained by splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen with electricity generated by renewable sources. Tunisia has lots of sun but precious little fresh water.

 

The only way of producing the raw material needed for green hydrogen is sucking up Mediterranean water and desalinating it. But a report last year for the Heinrich Böll Foundation, affiliated to Germany’s green political movement, warns that this would be a dirty, energy-intensive, water-guzzling process – and put the high cost of decarbonising the rich world on to the shoulders of poorer nations.

Many sun-drenched countries, especially in the Maghreb, have been sold a future as export hubs for green hydrogen. The pitch is seductive. As 1kg of hydrogen contains about three times as much energy as 1kg of petrol, it is no wonder that hydrogen is being touted as a fuel of the future. Europe’s green deal, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by the end of the decade, relies on green hydrogen production in north Africa and Ukraine.

 

Producing green hydrogen in Europe is not impossible. But it is expensive compared with fossil fuels, with even wind-based generation needing larger subsidies. Without big government support packages, it remains an open question whether European consumers would be prepared to foot the very significant price rises needed to go green in this way.

 

Last year, the EU proposed doubling green hydrogen imports by 2030 to 10m tonnes a year. The continent’s heavy industries cannot use electricity, however environmentally friendly, for all their requirements; they need fuels for high-intensity heat. So to make sure that these energy sources are less carbon-intensive, Brussels is pushing industries – such as steel or petrochemical manufacturers – to adopt green hydrogen.

 

The benefits of such a strategy – with the desirable goal of low carbon emissions in Europe – cannot come at the cost of environmental destruction abroad. Raoudha Gafrej, one of Tunisia’s top water experts, warned in the Heinrich Böll Foundation report that the degradation of marine ecosystems from the toxic sludge produced by desalination plants would be irreversible.

 

Hydrogen produced by renewable energy has a role to play in future energy systems. Its “green” version can be converted to ammonia, a key feedstock for fertilisers, with other uses in shipping fuel, power generation and steelmaking. There are also significant energy losses to consider: about a third of the energy used to produce the gas through electrolysis is lost. Transporting hydrogen requires additional energy, equivalent to 10% of the energy of the fuel itself. From the perspective of African nations, as the recent Just Transition report points out, that energy could be used locally to address immediate needs rather than being directed to produce hydrogen for use in Europe.

 

Less than 0.04% of total hydrogen production is “green”. This proportion is bound to grow as governments worldwide wager that it will play a key role in cutting carbon-heavy emissions in industries such as cement manufacturing. With the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere already at 422 parts per million (ppm) – much higher than the 350 ppm generally considered a relatively safe level – there is no scope for worsening the problem. Transitioning to net zero emissions globally should not mean the rich gain at the expense of the poor.

 

source: The Guardian view on hydrogen hype: it’s perhaps not as green as you think (msn.com)

Flawed left wing stuff. All energy is green as it comes from planet earth

 

[VocalNeal]

Why shouldn't Tunisia export their sunshine if they want to, in order to benefit their citizens?  Germany’s green curtain twitching political movement should butt out.???? 

[retarius]

1 minute ago, Lacessit said:

Carbon dioxide and methane are both gases. Water is a liquid. Water vapour cannot exceed 100% humidity, any excess would condense out as rain.

Of course, the hotter it is, the more water can be present as vapor.

Thank you. I hadn't thought of that.

So, assuming that enough hydrogen is burned to make a difference, then other things being equal, humidity might increase globally beyond current levels? And maybe, other things being equal, it might rain more?

So although the atmosphere may not actually get any hotter, but it will feel hotter because of higher humidity? Is that correct reasoning? Overall good for grass but maybe not so great for crops (excess rain and flooding).

 

Small note that doesn't affect your reasoning, given earths usual temperature: water's state depends on temperature, as does that of methane and CO2. All can can be solid, liquid or gas.

[VocalNeal]

11 minutes ago, retarius said:

I hadn't thought

The exhaust of gasoline engines is already 14% CO2 and 13% water vapour. ????

[Lacessit]

1 hour ago, retarius said:

Thank you. I hadn't thought of that.

So, assuming that enough hydrogen is burned to make a difference, then other things being equal, humidity might increase globally beyond current levels? And maybe, other things being equal, it might rain more?

So although the atmosphere may not actually get any hotter, but it will feel hotter because of higher humidity? Is that correct reasoning? Overall good for grass but maybe not so great for crops (excess rain and flooding).

 

Small note that doesn't affect your reasoning, given earths usual temperature: water's state depends on temperature, as does that of methane and CO2. All can can be solid, liquid or gas.

Feeling hotter is a subjective attribute. The Pilbara in Western Australia has temperatures regularly exceeding 40 C. However, because humidity is low at 10 - 20% RH, it's quite comfortable. OTOH, Darwin at 30 C and 95% RH is really uncomfortable, because one's body can't cool down with sweating.

 

The world's oceans are already producing more rain, the result of average sea temperature rising by about 1.5 C since the Industrial Revolution.

 

Higher humidity would cause more molds and fungi infestations in crops. Ireland's famine of 1845 - 1849 was caused by potato blight, a form of mold.

 

Carbon dioxide requires 5.1 atmospheres pressure to become liquid. Methane's boiling point is -161 C. We are in deep doo-doo if either condition occurred naturally.

 

While water vapor is responsible for roughly 60% of greenhouse effect, its time in the atmosphere can be measured in days. OTOH, CO2 and methane stay in the atmosphere for periods ranging from years to centuries.

[finnsk]

Quote

Why Green Hydrogen is not so Green

To make hydrogen you must have water and a lot of free/cheap energy.

 

In Tunesia they have a lot of sun and the possibity to make the effective solar mirror sytems to give close to free solar energy source. About the water, they must bring in the seawater because there is not to much groundwater, it gives some problems, the water must be transported to the desert area where the solar systems will be build, but thats most a question about energy, and energy can be close to  free in these solar systems if they are build in big scale, about the salt in the seawater there is different ways to work with that problem they will all need energy, but in this case there will be a lot of free energy to run the processes.

In the north sea there is a lot of hydrogen projects based on the many existing and comming windmills in the sea, still based on the idea of you must have free/cheap energy and water to make hydrogen. On windy days there already now is problems to get away with all the energy, in some situations they must stop the windmills or pay to get of with the energy. And they are going to build  many times more wind mills so here there is cheap/free energy avaible already and the water is just to take it where it is needed. The countries in the north sea area already have decided to build hydrogen factories out in the sea, now its only a question about time before the first sea hydrogen will come.

In the energy perspective Hydrogen is Green, in the polution perspective there needs some new tecnic solutions before its 100 % clean, but compared to using fossile energy, hydrogen already now is much more clean.

Is hydrogen a source for ever or only a step on the way to a green planet, I dont know, but I know the climate on the planet is getting crazy, and we need to stop using fossile energy as fast as possible.