Green Hydrogen: Is it Just a Goose Chase?

It's best not to get too involved in bullshine.

Hydrogen is colourless.

Ahh. that would be methane

But not always odorless.

https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-storage-basics-0#:~:text=Storage%20as%20a%20gas%20typically,pressure%20is%20%2D252.8%C2%B0C.

We have less than 2% plug in electric cars in the US as of this time...What are we going to do continue to build out the infrastructure for plug in stations all over the US, which should take another 50 years, and somehow magically convert them to hydrogen? How's that work?

If you get in an accident in a hydrogen car, are we thinking Hindenburg???

Hey you're talking to a guy that has driven a car around for years with a bomb mounted in the middle of the steering wheel, you can't scare me with hydrogen....besides a leak at even 5,000 psi could cut your arm off....Chevy just recalled the bolt because the batteries are bursting into flames, think about that parked in your garage...Now that I've gotten my airbags replaced and that's taken a little of the excitement out of driving around facing unexpected death at any moment, I feel I can take on a little more risk....maybe I'll drain the brake fluid out tomorrow...nah too predictable....or is it?

It's ironic that cars are safer in some situations but more dangerous in others. Examples are the airbags you mention but also reduced visibility compared with older cars. Changes intended to reduce injuries in the event of an accident seem to increase the probability of having one.

I have a new car with a video display that periodically displays a long message to the effect that not keeping your eyes on the road could cause an accident. To read it requires sufficient time to have this accident.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CrappyDesign/comments/6i6cms/very_long_message_warning_while_driving_not_to/

Haha... yeah they put everything on this big video display and then warn you not to look at it....air bags can kill you unless you are at the right distance away...

What about a crash in a battery car, lithium self immolation. At least Hydrogen is in a very strong storage container not a flatpack.

Wow, raining fiery batteries at 100mph, yikes.....and the driver walked away...now that's impressive...

https://www.autoblog.com/2020/11/19/tesla-crash-100-mph-scatters-burning-batteries/

I guess the driver was in Ludicrous Mode.

As tear down expert Sandy Monroe stated, the most over engineered over built car he had ever seen. Initially he thought it was wrong, after he saw a few of these he changed his mind.

Smoke em if you got em...

Well, it won't be a second Tsar Bomba...

In the 1980's, when my friend was working on hydrogen powered cars (burning it in an ICE instead of a fuel cell), he was using it in solid chemical storage tanks in the form of hydrides. The pressures were fairly low, about 200 psi, and the crash tests with full tanks showed no explosions.

--JMM

I hope they choose better makers of wind turbines than they have done in Aus, with them failing as they are being commissioned, still there must be a scrap value for the crap value.

Anybody seen what hail storms do to solar panels or don't the have hail in green areas?

One recent report has a wind farm with 26% uptime so what does that mean for hydrogen compression/cooling, a 400% increase in the number of turbines or solar panels to provide the energy?

They should revise the installed capacity rating to average availability...5 MW becomes 1.5 MW ... instead they hide it as capacity factor...not truthful when you are comparing a 5 MW natural gas plant that has 100% capacity factor...

The statement “Its [H₂]storage requires compression to 700 times atmospheric pressure, refrigeration to -253C…" is inaccurate. One or the other, or some combined curve of the two, but not both concurrently.

That said, I agree that this not likely to become feasible soon. However, advancements could occur to make it practical. Some research should continue into this, but don't throw massive amounts of money at it just yet.

To liquify hydrogen it must first be pressurized and cooled under pressure to create a liquid, so yes they are both used at the same time......when the liquid hydrogen is placed in a pressure vessel as a low temperature liquid for transport, and it is allowed to warm back up to ambient, then the high pressure returns...

"Regardless of elemental composition, a gas can be liquefied by cooling it, turning to liquid at the point of condensation and solid at the point of freezing. To effectively store and transport hydrogen for use, the gaseous element must first be turned into a liquid, but elements like hydrogen that exist on Earth as gases by default cannot just be cooled to turn them into liquids. These gases must be pressurized first, to create conditions where the liquid element can exist.

...the hydrogen gas must be brought under at least 33 degrees Kelvin (hydrogen's critical temperature) to become a liquid. These temperatures must be maintained at all times in order to ensure that the liquid hydrogen stays in that form; at temperatures just under 21 degrees Kelvin, you reach the hydrogen boiling point, and the liquid element will begin to return to its gaseous state...."

https://sciencing.com/liquefy-hydrogen-5220130.html

The statement “Its [H₂]storage requires compression to 700 times atmospheric pressure, refrigeration to -253C…" is inaccurate. One or the other, or some combined curve of the two, but not both concurrently.

I thought the same thing when I read that. Our plant hydrogen was a cryogenic setup. I was not a pressurized system - hydrogen was allowed to vent to the atmosphere as it built up a small pressure, and you always lost some. It was incumbent on us to optimize tank filling times vs hydrogenation production schedule.

Yes; it should be just a matter of looking at a saturation pressure-temperature table for H₂.

Out of curiosity, how was the vented H₂ handled? Recondense it, adsorb it in some material, or just flare it?

Maybe cut out the middleman...

"Conceptual study of the process of hydrogen production by direct dissociation of water using high temperature solar energy is described. Calculated result of equilibrium composition of water vapour, hydrogen and oxygen suggests that temperatures above 3000 K are required for the dissociation of water. Considerations are made on a solar furnace for supplying such high temperature energy. Basic ideas on the method for separating hydrogen and oxygen from high temperature water vapour are suggested. Analysis of overall efficiency and target cost shows that the process will be justified for practical use if an effective separation method can be developed."

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0360319978900332

"More than 352 thermochemical cycles have been described for water splitting or thermolysis.,^[23] These cycles promise to produce hydrogen oxygen from water and heat without using electricity.^[24] Since all the input energy for such processes is heat, they can be more efficient than high-temperature electrolysis. This is because the efficiency of electricity production is inherently limited. Thermochemical production of hydrogen using chemical energy from coal or natural gas is generally not considered, because the direct chemical path is more efficient.

For all the thermochemical processes, the summary reaction is that of the decomposition of water:

2H2O +cat & Heat = 2H2 + O2

All other reagents are recycled. None of the thermochemical hydrogen production processes have been demonstrated at production levels, although several have been demonstrated in laboratories.

There is also research into the viability of nanoparticles and catalysts to lower the temperature at which water splits.^[25][26]

Recently Metal-Organic Framework (MOF)-based materials have been shown to be a highly promising candidate for water splitting with cheap, first row transition metals.;^[27][28]

Research is concentrated on the following cycles:^[24] "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_splitting#:~:text=High%2Dtemperature%20electrolysis%20(also%20HTE,just%20under%201000%20%C2%B0C.

I've had a passing interest in "Hydrogen" for some time and a frustration that people are still looking at H2 as the end goal.

While H2 might be the end goal in the IC engine, there have been multiple examples of using Amonia as a relatively stable, easily liquified means to transport a Hydrogen rich product that could replicate current refueling methods. All that is needed in the vehicle is the means to split the Nitrogen from the Hydrogen before it is introduced into the combustion process.

Many large facilities have their own refrigeration plants and some have their own ammonia plants, so ammonia production has already been "productionised".

While an ammonia spill would have its own challenges, it wouldn't be Hindenburg deja-vu.

"Hydrogen can be extracted from ammonia, first by using a catalyst to help decompose the ammonia molecule into a mixture of nitrogen and hydrogen gas. Then, the hydrogen membrane allows hydrogen to pass through it while blocking any other gas."Nov 22, 2018

https://blog.csiro.au/hyper-for-hydrogen-our-world-first-carbon-free-fuel/

"“PEM fuel cells take hydrogen at slightly above ambient pressure. The hydrogen is stored at high pressure and regulated down before it is fed to the fuel cell. There are some groups around the world looking at onboard H2 production from ammonia. CSIRO’s view is that it’s better to make H2 at or near a fuelling station, rather than onboard the vehicle. There are several reasons for this. As ammonia can be dangerous if released, it’s better to not have the public handle it directly. Also, onboard production means that systems must start up very quickly when you start the car. This adds extra complexity to the system as it must be heated to above 400°C. "

------------------------------

Formation of NH3 molecule

N - 2, 5

H - 1

Three hydrogen atoms each share their 1 electron with nitrogen to form three covalent bonds and make an ammonia molecule (NH3) ammonia molecule.

Carbon-free H2 production from ammonia triggered at room temperature with an acidic RuO2/γ-Al2O3 catalyst

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/4/e1602747.full

https://www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=656

"Hydrogen has received considerable attention as a clean energy source because the only product of its reaction with oxygen is water, and very high energy conversion efficiency is obtained when it is combined with fuel cell technologies (1–4).

However, low energy density by volume and handling difficulties are drawbacks for the commercial application of hydrogen gas.

These problems could be overcome by using hydrogen carriers, such as methanol (5, 6), formic acid (7, 8), and ammonia borane (9, 10).

Among these carriers, ammonia is a promising candidate because of its low production cost, high energy density (12.8 GJ m−3), and ease of liquefaction at room temperature (11–21).

A carbon-free hydrogen storage and transportation system based on ammonia as a hydrogen carrier could be used to realize a carbon-free society (13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20).

When hydrogen is produced by catalytic ammonia decomposition (Eq. 1), a trace amount of ammonia is included in the hydrogen stream.

Although traces of ammonia in the hydrogen stream sharply degrade the performance of the most commonly used polymer electrolyte fuel cells (22, 23), alkaline fuel cells that are not affected by relatively high volume fractions of ammonia (up to 9%) have been reported (24).

Recently, anion exchange membranes have been developed as alternatives to the conventional potassium hydroxide electrolyte; these membranes have increased the potential and importance of alkaline fuel cells using hydrogen produced from ammonia (20).

Although igniting pure ammonia on its own is difficult, a mixture containing as little as 10% hydrogen produced from ammonia can be readily combusted in an engine or turbine (25).

Currently, there is an active national project in Japan to create a low-carbon and hydrogen-based society using ammonia as a hydrogen carrier (26)."

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/4/e1602747.full

..."According to the roadmap of the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Japan expects hydrogen technologies to become profitable by 2030. ... Equipped with a 10'000 kW hydrogen production plant and using renewable energy such as solar power, up to several hundred tons of hydrogen will be produced every year."Feb 4, 2020

..."However, even in Japan the hydrogen market is not yet economically viable. At present, almost all hydrogen and fuel cell technologies are highly dependent on public funding. The retail price for hydrogen is currently around 100 yen per cubic metre (yen/Nm3). The goal is to reduce it to 30 yen/Nm3 by 2030 and to 20 yen/Nm3 in the long term."...

https://www.s-ge.com/en/article/global-opportunities/20201-c5-japan-hydrogen-market#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20roadmap%20of,to%20become%20profitable%20by%202030.&text=Equipped%20with%20a%2010'000,will%20be%20produced%20every%20year.

Going broke chasing green...it's a common thread...

I have a semi tractor carrying a full load of fuel cell hydrogen in Ammonia suspension in the Chesapeake Tunnel when things go bad......

Gear up...

Followed by this one,

And if it really goes south,

Seriously, all you engineer types who like to do math. What is the explosive potential of a semi rig fueled by hydrogen in kilotons?

Was our infrastructure designed to handle that explosive force?

Thinks tunnels and bridges and overpasses and large explosions.

In my world, when stuff goes south, it is rarely in the ideal or designed location.

Fun with science....

Once you get the hydrogen burning simply shut off the hydrogen and remove the feed tube, back away quickly...no, further....further....get behind that thing!

https://edu.rsc.org/resources/controlled-explosion-of-a-hydrogen-air-mixture/747.article

Oh boy!