Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

Here's a decent article looking at just how bad 'blue' hydrogen is for the environment. In fact it may be worse than burning FF gas, or even coal in terms of CO2(e) due to the fugitive emissions of methane.

H2, produced from excess RE generation is most likely to be a massive benefit, solving some energy requirements where leccy and batteries can't, and providing a vast scale of energy storage beyond intraday batteries.

But, the FF industry is jumping on the green H2 bandwagon, with it's blue H2, long before we have large and consistent amounts of cheap excess RE, and that could be an absolute disaster.

Theory Versus Reality: The Dirty Hydrogen Story

The hydrogen myth refuses to go away. The theory is fine — hydrogen when used as a fuel produces no carbon emissions. At most, it results in some water vapor and a little heat. If the world ran on hydrogen, the theory suggests, we could slash carbon and methane emissions and maybe forestall the existential climate crisis that is staring us in the face.

The reality is very different. According to the New York Times, a peer-reviewed study by researchers at Cornell and Stanford has been published in the journal Energy Science & Engineering which finds that most hydrogen used today is extracted from natural gas in a process that requires a lot of energy and emits vast amounts of carbon dioxide. Producing natural gas also releases methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas.

For our default assumptions (3.5% emission rate of methane from natural gas and a 20-year global warming potential), total carbon dioxide equivalent emissions for blue hydrogen are only 9%-12% less than for gray hydrogen. While carbon dioxide emissions are lower, fugitive methane emissions for blue hydrogen are higher than for gray hydrogen because of an increased use of natural gas to power the carbon capture.

Perhaps surprisingly, the greenhouse gas footprint of blue hydrogen is more than 20% greater than burning natural gas or coal for heat and some 60% greater than burning diesel oil for heat, again with our default assumptions. In a sensitivity analysis in which the methane emission rate from natural gas is reduced to a low value of 1.54%, greenhouse gas emissions from blue hydrogen are still greater than from simply burning natural gas, and are only 18%-25% less than for gray hydrogen. Our analysis assumes that captured carbon dioxide can be stored indefinitely, an optimistic and unproven assumption. Even if true though, the use of blue hydrogen appears difficult to justify on climate grounds.

Martyn1981

Warning! I'm going to suck all the fun out of this article with loads of caveats, such as, it's only the potential pipeline of storage, the figures are power, they don't mention energy, etc etc.

But, 20GW of storage now in the pipeline, is an incredible figure. I think 20GW is the guesstimate for how much storage power* is needed to keep the grid going under a high RE penetration, with (I believe) the gas generation being ready to step in, for now.

So great news, but we're not there yet, but it's happening pretty fast ..... if that makes sense.

*For nearly 100% RE leccy (ignoring nuclear for now) intraday storage energy need is estimated at around 500GWh.

A record amount of battery storage applications submitted in Q2’21

In the UK, the pipeline of utility-scale battery storage projects has now reached over 20GW across 800 projects. This has been bolstered by a recent surge of applications being submitted, with a record Q2’21 that saw the pipeline jump from almost 17GW of total capacity to over 20GW. As such, the next few years could show a major increase in energy storage deployment.

More than 6GW is at the pre-application stage of planning; i.e. screening/scoping requests, and awaiting full applications to be submitted. Around 3GW is for submitted applications but still awaiting decisions. 8.5GW of capacity have been approved in planning but have not been awarded grid connection contracts and almost 2GW has been approved with grid connections.

gefnew

This is quite good way to reduce ff use.
Also benefit the community.
Reading hydroelectric scheme to harness power of Thames - BBC News
Worth A read.

QrizB

Martyn1981 said:

Warning! I'm going to suck all the fun out of this article with loads of caveats, such as, it's only the potential pipeline of storage, the figures are power, they don't mention energy, etc etc.

I'm glad it's not just me that gets frustrated when articles only give you half the story
20GW is great, roughly 50% of the total UK winter-time demand (closer to 70% of the summer demand) but how many GWh back it up? It's the difference between Usain Bolt and Mo Farah.

EVandPV

Homeowners will be offered £7,000 to help replace gas boilers with green heating units in new £400m scrappage scheme

Homeowners in the UK will be offered £7,000 grants to help replace their gas boilers in a new £400million scrappage scheme. 

Plans have been pulled together to improve the Clean Heat Grants scheme for relaunch in April next year. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9893211/Homeowners-offered-7-000-help-replace-gas-boilers-new-400m-scrappage-scheme.html

NigeWick

EVandPV said:

Homeowners will be offered £7,000 to help replace gas boilers with green heating units in new £400m scrappage scheme

Homeowners in the UK will be offered £7,000 grants to help replace their gas boilers in a new £400million scrappage scheme. 

Plans have been pulled together to improve the Clean Heat Grants scheme for relaunch in April next year. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9893211/Homeowners-offered-7-000-help-replace-gas-boilers-new-400m-scrappage-scheme.html

Problem is, it's about £15,000 for installation of a heat pump at present, and, that doesn't include new radiators if required. No brainer once they cost close to what a gas boiler does now.

QrizB

NigeWick said:

Problem is, it's about £15,000 for installation of a heat pump at present, and, that doesn't include new radiators if required. No brainer once they cost close to what a gas boiler does now.

And that's the puzzling part.

You can buy an 11kW Mitsubishi Ecodan for around £5k, vs. a 15kW Worcester Greenstar Ri for £840. The difference in cost of the hardware is about £4k. So why can you get a gas boiler supplied and installed for £2k but a heat pump is £15k?

shinytop

QrizB said:

NigeWick said:

Problem is, it's about £15,000 for installation of a heat pump at present, and, that doesn't include new radiators if required. No brainer once they cost close to what a gas boiler does now.

And that's the puzzling part.

You can buy an 11kW Mitsubishi Ecodan for around £5k, vs. a 15kW Worcester Greenstar Ri for £840. The difference in cost of the hardware is about £4k. So why can you get a gas boiler supplied and installed for £2k but a heat pump is £15k?

Excluding radiators and pipes, ours was about £11.5k.  That was for a bigger £6.5k ASHP so £10k in your example.  It also included a new tank at £1.3k which not everyone will need.  

The controllers, valves and electrical work involved is a lot more than with a gas boiler.  There is a mass of pipes, valves and wires a gas boiler doesnt have.    Also, the RHI compliant survey and registration all takes time that needs paid for.  

There is probably some inflating of prices due to labour scarcity/profiteering but that will disappear as  ASHPs become more mainstream. 

£7k isn't going to be far off making replacing a knackered gas boiler comparable to installing an ASHP.  Of course, paying for the electricity to run it is another story ...

Cardew

QrizB said:

NigeWick said:

Problem is, it's about £15,000 for installation of a heat pump at present, and, that doesn't include new radiators if required. No brainer once they cost close to what a gas boiler does now.

And that's the puzzling part.

You can buy an 11kW Mitsubishi Ecodan for around £5k, vs. a 15kW Worcester Greenstar Ri for £840. The difference in cost of the hardware is about £4k. So why can you get a gas boiler supplied and installed for £2k but a heat pump is £15k?

Because websites like this, and many others, persuade people that that the UK should set an example on how to save the world from global warming. It is thus money well spent and therefore heresy to criticise the cost of anything ‘Green’! Even more so if you are receiving a ‘green’ subsidy or making a large profit; hence a constant proliferation of articles with a vested interest which seems to be the main purpose of this thread.  

Never mind that countries like China have scores of coal fired power stations currently being built and any savings in emissions that GB could possibly make, at huge expense, will be wiped out in a matter of months.

Surely it is a valid argument that unless the major culprits – USA/China/India etc – start getting serious about cutting emissions, this country should divert our £billions from cutting emissions,  to measures to reduce the impact of the inevitable global warming. 

michaels

NigeWick said:

EVandPV said:

Homeowners will be offered £7,000 to help replace gas boilers with green heating units in new £400m scrappage scheme

Homeowners in the UK will be offered £7,000 grants to help replace their gas boilers in a new £400million scrappage scheme. 

Plans have been pulled together to improve the Clean Heat Grants scheme for relaunch in April next year. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9893211/Homeowners-offered-7-000-help-replace-gas-boilers-new-400m-scrappage-scheme.html

Problem is, it's about £15,000 for installation of a heat pump at present, and, that doesn't include new radiators if required. No brainer once they cost close to what a gas boiler does now.

Is it?  A gas boiler is still much cheaper to run.

And why does it cost so much? Under the old green deal I could have got a grant of up to 10k towards direct solar water heating....and the quote came in at just under 10k for a job that would probably cost about 4k if I shopped around and had no grant - and this to save about 60 quid a year on water heating cost by gas.