“Replacing Natural Gas With Hydrogen Is A Fairy Tale”…”Six Times More Electricity”

Hydrogen as an energy source for powering transport and heating poses colossal technical and cost challenges

By Die kalte Sonne 

Article at Telepolis (Heise).

A mostly ignored problem in the hydrogen discussion is that the existing gas grids are not suitable for handling larger amounts of hydrogen. Thus, the Scientific Advisory to the German Bundestag had already dealt with the issue in the past. It came to the conclusion that “unlimited quantities of methane” could be fed into the gas networks. But concluded

For hydrogen produced by means of electrolysis, the limits are currently 1-10 percent by volume.”

Indeed, a problem generally known in materials research is that hydrogen leads to the embrittlement of metals. Many of the pipeline steels currently in use react to contact with hydrogen by significantly reducing elongation at break and becoming hydrogen brittle.”

The article is also critical of heating with hydrogen:

Using hydrogen to heat homes is, by comparison, less economical, less efficient, more resource-intensive and also has a greater environmental impact, Rosenow argues.

But the alternative is not as ‘green’ as hydrogen likes to be called. Among other things, it is pointed out that considerable technical changes would also be required in households, including the piping in the home, among other things due to embrittlement. This would also cost households an enormous amount of money.

In addition, it is abundantly inefficient to use electricity from renewable sources to electrolyze water to produce hydrogen for this purpose. ‘In the UK, heating homes with green hydrogen would use about six times more renewable electricity than heat pumps,’ David Cebon of the Hydrogen Science Coalition and professor of mechanical engineering at Cambridge University tells the BBC.

There is neither the time nor the resources to investigate further the role of hydrogen in heating homes, especially if the laws of thermodynamics are respected, he added.”




10 responses to ““Replacing Natural Gas With Hydrogen Is A Fairy Tale”…”Six Times More Electricity””

  1. Curious George

    “it is abundantly inefficient to use electricity from renewable sources to electrolyze water to produce hydrogen”. True but irrelevant. Hydrogen is used as an inefficient storage medium, without great capital costs or space requirements. Still a bad idea.

    1. Joe Brehm

      “it is abundantly inefficient to use electricity from renewable sources to electrolyze water to produce hydrogen”

      To finish that statement:

      “heating homes with green hydrogen would use about six times more renewable electricity than heat pumps”

      The issue is where do we get the energy to power those heat pumps when renewables are not producing?

      Oh ya, by building 6 times as much renewable production as we would otherwise need.

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  3. Graeme No.3

    “Six times more electricity” means six times the cost.
    Not that using hydrogen as storage for “excess cheap renewables” is quite that.
    My calculation says about 5 times the cost.

    67% efficiency (theoretical) for electrolysis and 35% efficiency when used in an Open Cycle Gas turbine to generate electricity (once one capable of doing so is invented) and allowing 5% leakage fo each stage. Strange to see Greenies in favour of hydrogen bombs.

  4. amike

    It can work: you would just need to consume 6 times less electricity. Although, I said “would need”. But for them, it’s done: it “will be necessary”.

  5. pochas94

    We’ve got coal, gas, petroleum and nuclear. When one gets too expensive, we switch to another. The last man standing is nuclear. Then how do we fuel transportation?

    1. pochas94

      Problem is we are pushing the process prematurely, wasting billions as we go. Let the markets decide.

  6. Rodney Michell

    I cannot comprehend the use of all these charges and expenses to change something that’s not broken climate change isn’t changing the world the same goes for all the expenses for wind farms and solar farms and electric vehicles when it’s not needed

  7. voza0db

    We do LOVE a good Unicorn!

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