Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

Seems like the RE news always has a hydrogen story these days. So, over to Scotland (again!) to research and assess the potential of H2 to support a net-zero future. Expect the rest of the UK to lean suspiciously out of their exam seats to get a peek at Scotland's answer sheet.

Scotland probes hydrogen potential

The Scottish Government has chosen engineering consultancy Arup to undertake an assessment of the potential to use hydrogen within the country's energy system.
Scottish Government, working alongside Scottish Enterprise and Highlands & Islands Enterprise, has outlined plans to assess the future use of hydrogen in the Scottish economy and develop a hydrogen action plan and hydrogen policy statement.
The gas, which can be decarbonised and also generated using clean electricity sources, such as wind, can potentially help Scotland achieve net-zero energy by 2045. 

Martyn1981

Lots of stories like this have been appearing:

COVID-19: '25GW of US wind projects at risk'

and it makes complete sense that as we enter a Worldwide recession RE deployments and actions could suffer badly.

But ...... watching the US news, there is a lot of talk about what they should do now, or could do soon, to spend their way out of a recession (perhaps even to avoid a depression), and talks often revolve around national infrastructure projects such as roads and bridges.

But (again) it seems (to me) that national spending, government subsidies, government support etc etc, could be ideally spent on a massive drive towards RE, batteries, hydrogen and bio-energy research etc.. This will create loads of jobs, put money into the economy, and let's face it, we need to do it anyway, so both a short term and long term investment with so, so many benefits, such as those seen in air pollution improvements now as less vehicles and industry are operating.

Wishful thinking perhaps, but you never know!

Martyn1981

Trying not to go down the schadenfreude route, as that's a tad naughty/nasty, but the US shale industry is in serious trouble. They've managed over the years to reduce their costs so they can be semi-profitable at sub $50/barrel oil prices, but can't really manage now as prices fell to ~$30/b, and as they head towards $20/b (this last week) they are now in serious trouble as they can't produce oil (profitably) at those prices ....... BUT ...... they can't not produce and sell oil (even at a loss) as they need constant cash to fund/service their massive debts too.

There is now far too much oil production in the World, and watching the US oil news, it won't take long for all the storage ('parked' tankers, fuel tanks at refineries, even national strategic oil/petrol reserves), to fill up as they are buying the cheap oil currently. Once storage is full, the prices will drop even further till producers (all over the World) start to shut down production. Prices of sub $10/b are being talked about openly. Ouch!

U.S. Oil Companies, Heavily in Debt, Are Further Strained as Prices Collapse

Martyn1981

Article on Hydrogen, even suggestions of domestic production/storage units in the future. Guess we'll have to watch and see.

The weekend read: Hydrogen is getting cheaper

Electrolyzer manufacturers are in agreement on the goal of rapidly reducing investment costs, mainly through economies of scale. Some are embracing large units, while others are betting on quantity over size. The first approach is attractive for operators of large PV plants, while the latter is better suited to operators of small systems.

michaels

Martyn1981 said:

Trying not to go down the schadenfreude route, as that's a tad naughty/nasty, but the US shale industry is in serious trouble. They've managed over the years to reduce their costs so they can be semi-profitable at sub $50/barrel oil prices, but can't really manage now as prices fell to ~$30/b, and as they head towards $20/b (this last week) they are now in serious trouble as they can't produce oil (profitably) at those prices ....... BUT ...... they can't not produce and sell oil (even at a loss) as they need constant cash to fund/service their massive debts too.

There is now far too much oil production in the World, and watching the US oil news, it won't take long for all the storage ('parked' tankers, fuel tanks at refineries, even national strategic oil/petrol reserves), to fill up as they are buying the cheap oil currently. Once storage is full, the prices will drop even further till producers (all over the World) start to shut down production. Prices of sub $10/b are being talked about openly. Ouch!

U.S. Oil Companies, Heavily in Debt, Are Further Strained as Prices Collapse

My understanding is that one by product of US fracking is the ultra cheap natural gas in the US.  Should oil prices result in fracking stopping then gas prices will likely rise - which would be good news for wind and solar - could low oil prices result in more renewables in electricity generation?!

Martyn1981

michaels said:

My understanding is that one by product of US fracking is the ultra cheap natural gas in the US.  Should oil prices result in fracking stopping then gas prices will likely rise - which would be good news for wind and solar - could low oil prices result in more renewables in electricity generation?!

At this point in time, I think almost anything could happen. Oil fracking has transformed the US into a net producer of oil and gas, so Trump might want to bail the companies out for that reason. Alternatively, given the enormous releases of FF methane, some from leaks, some from waste (in many cases the oil production doesn't want it, nor can deal with it (storage, transport etc)) and flaring, the industry is driving AGW forward and failing to account for huge externality costs, so if the Democrats win the Presidential election, they may move to ban fracking, but that too is up in the air, as Bernie Sanders would ban it very quickly, but Joe Biden is less clear with talk of ending new exploration/extraction, but closing current production as soon as sensible which is a bit 'loose', and claiming it would be criminal not to produce oil and gas!

So the US is starting to turn its back on this industry, the cheapest new wind/solar generation in the US is now competing on price against new build gas generation, but what actually happens is anyone's guess.

Martyn1981

Very interesting article on the role of hydrogen for space heating, but expands into other solutions such as heat pumps and district heating. I didn't know that H2 heating had moved forward (a bit) already. Perhaps the solution is a mix of technologies, and hopefully methane from bio-gas too, though I note that Ecotricity haven't yet made much headway with their grass gasmills project.

Is hydrogen the solution to net-zero home heating?

Just some extracts, but the article needs reading to understand all the pluses and minuses.

“The attraction of hydrogen is that for a lot of consumers, they wouldn’t notice any difference. Customers would continue to use a boiler to heat their homes in a similar manner to natural gas,” says Robert Sansom of the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s energy policy panel. He is the lead author on a study conducted by the institute called Transitioning to Hydrogen.

Some manufacturers are now so convinced that a similar thing can happen with hydrogen that they have already begun to develop new household appliances. In February, Worcester Bosch unveiled the prototype of its hydrogen-ready boiler. It would run first on natural gas and then, after a servicing visit, hydrogen.

“Hydrogen is certainly not a silver bullet,” says Lowes. And if we get distracted by it, we could be getting ourselves into more trouble, missing the 2050 energy target altogether.
But if there is so much uncertainty with hydrogen, why is the gas industry, which funds many of the studies, pushing it so hard? According to Chris Goodall, energy economist and author of What We Need to Do Now for a Zero Carbon Future, it is a matter of survival.
“They do not wish for their industry to be eaten up by a switch to electricity for heating. So they are moving as fast as they can to persuade us about hydrogen,” he says. And it all comes down to how the gas is produced.

The truth is that all options for us to decarbonise our heating systems will require significant disruption and cost. And while government continues to deliberate, the clock ticks towards 2050.
“There is no need to wait. We can deploy stuff now that works fine,” says Lowes, referring to his own experience of changing his gas boiler for a heat pump. “The urgency of climate change means there really isn’t any reason to delay.”
Others believe that there is a role for hydrogen and think it is worth taking a little more time to consider. But there is one truth that everyone agrees upon. “None of this is easy. If anyone is saying to you this is easy, they are misleading you,” says Lowes.

michaels

Random question but if H2 was generated by curtailment RE, could it ever make sense economically to use a fuel cell rather than a boiler having shipped it to a household?  What are the relative efficiencies in getting energy from the gas or would it still make more sense to turn gas to electricity centrally and distribute via the power grid?

Martyn1981

michaels said:

Random question but if H2 was generated by curtailment RE, could it ever make sense economically to use a fuel cell rather than a boiler having shipped it to a household?  What are the relative efficiencies in getting energy from the gas or would it still make more sense to turn gas to electricity centrally and distribute via the power grid?

Well, you'd get more heat from the leccy if combined with a heat pump, but the FC would have losses, but if you made use of those losses (heat) then it might work well if domestic scale fuel cell boilers can be developed at an acceptable price. There was something on this that was posted a year or so back, possibly Fully Charged, but using methane. I'll try to find it again.

Personal thoughts based on the older discussions about a domestic fuel cell boiler - these were ~50% efficient at producing leccy from methane, so presumably would be higher still for H2. My thought was to combine these with an air-air heat pump, plus batteries (and ideally solar) so as to better match the heat needs to the leccy needs. That way you get some heat (and hot water) from fuel cell boiler, boost the heat supply by using the leccy for the ASHP, balance out timing issues with the batteries, and use solar for hot water and leccy in the months you don't really want/need the FC boiler running. Maybe?

Martyn1981

Here's the older article with FC's running on any mix from 100% methane through to 100% hydrogen.

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