The age of Green Hydrogen is finally here
The most abundant element in the universe finally having its moment. Again. That is a very good thing.
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Jules Verne, a guy who didn’t need a baker to know which way the cookie crumbles, wrote in his book The Mysterious Island in 1875 these prophetic words:
“I believe that water will one day be employed as fuel, that hydrogen and oxygen which constitute it, used singly or together, will furnish an inexhaustible source of heat and light, of an intensity of which coal is not capable.”
One hundred and forty-six years later it looks like he may finally be right. The smart money crowd is getting excited again about hydrogen as a source of renewable energy. Those of you of a certain age will remember how hydrogen almost took off after the oil crisis in the 1970s and again in the 1990s when Bill McKibben scared the bejeesus out of us with the coming climate crisis. Both times the enthusiasm fizzled out for the usual reason—the economics didn’t make sense at the time.
Now that renewable energy is far cheaper and abundant and getting more so, the numbers are starting to look extremely attractive. So the chatter is back again and there are lots of signs that this time it might be for real.
The sticky wicket (as we used to say in West Virginia) is that hydrogen is not a primary fuel. It is almost always found as part of another compound, such as water or methane and must be separated into pure hydrogen for use as energy. That means you have to use some other form of energy to create hydrogen energy.
The two most common methods of creating hydrogen are steam reforming, which involves separating hydrogen atoms from carbon atoms in methane that is pressurized under high-temperature steam, or electrolysis, a process in which an electric current splits water into hydrogen and oxygen.
Hydrogen is often classified depending upon the energy sources used for its production. For example, hydrogen produced from coal may be called brown hydrogen, and hydrogen produced from natural gas or petroleum might be referred to as grey hydrogen. Brown or grey hydrogen production combined with carbon capture and storage/sequestration might be referred to as blue hydrogen. Hydrogen produced using renewable energy might be called green hydrogen. That’s where we want to be but we also know that renewables have to be competitive with other choices or many businesses will go with the cheapest.
That day is nearing. On April 7, BloombergNEF released a report, titled 2021 Hydrogen Levelized Cost Update, that found that green hydrogen should cost less than blue hydrogen made from natural gas with carbon capture and storage in all 28 of the modeled markets by 2050. Germany and a few other countries are on track to get there by 2030. There growing signs everywhere that hydrogen is being looked at again in a favorable light.
A 2020 McKinsey & Company study estimated that the hydrogen economy could generate $140 billion in annual revenue by 2030 and support 700,000 jobs. The study projected that hydrogen could meet 14 percent of the total American energy demand by 2050. The EU and international investors are committing billions of dollars to hydrogen development. President Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan released last month included funding for 15 hydrogen projects.
Several states with deep renewable footprints are viewing hydrogen as a potential game-changer. California will have spent about $230 million on hydrogen projects by the end of 2023. It already has about 7,500 hydrogen vehicles on the road and is shooting for 50,000 hydrogen light-duty vehicles by mid-decade and a network of 1,000 hydrogen stations by 2030. Toyota, Hyundai, Daimler, and several other automakers are betting big on hydrogen cars and trucks. Shell is building hydrogen stations in Europe and California.
Some states see hydrogen as a business opportunity. In 2019, the state legislature of Washington approved Senate Bill 5588, authorizing public utility districts (PUDs) to produce and sell “green hydrogen” produced mainly by the many hydroelectric dams in the state, which provide an abundant, reliable, emissions-free source of power. Sponsors say using surplus electricity to produce hydrogen is “an exciting opportunity” because it can be environmentally friendly and profitable.
The Douglas County (WA) PUD broke ground on April 8 for a new $20 million test facility that it says could be producing 2 tons of hydrogen a day by the end of 2021. The utility is installing an “electrolyzer,” made by engine manufacturer Cummins, to separate the oxygen from the hydrogen using 5 megawatts of power drawn from the hydroelectric turbines installed at nearby Wells Dam. If it is successful, this project will solve a lot of problems for Douglas County. Wells Dam has a limited storage capacity so it can hold in reserve only a small amount of water. The river must be sent through the turbines, or released downstream in limited volumes to protect young migrating salmon. The ability to capture hydrogen energy from the excess water is a near-perfect solution.
In early April,, a trio of companies, including Baker Hughes, a pillar of oil field services since the beginning, announced they are forming the $200 million FiveT Hydrogen Fund, a clean-hydrogen-only private infrastructure fund dedicated to delivering clean hydrogen infrastructure projects at scale. The two other partners are Chart Industries, which has been making hydrogen equipment for more than 50 years; the other is a hydrogen fuel cell maker.
Last week, the DOE announced the availability of $100 million over the next four years to fund a third SuperTruck project. Unlike the first two SuperTruck projects which focused on diesel, this one focused on zero-emission trucks. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said SuperTruck 3 will “push the envelope even further through the electrification of the vehicle, and hydrogen and fuel cells.” The funding is available for both medium- and heavy-duty trucks across duty cycles and vocations, from long-haul and pickup and delivery to refuse and tow trucks.
There stakes are enormous in these initial projects. Hydrogen has the potential to help rid the cement and steel industries of their reliance on fossil fuels that are the worst carbon offenders. It can be captured in fuel cells to power long-haul trucks, trains, ships, airplanes. It could be combusted to generate electricity. It can be transported by pipelines to heat homes and businesses. I was about to write that it could save the planet but it occurred to me recently that the planet isn’t going anywhere. We’re the ones who are going away if we don’t clean up our act.
Note: We know that hydrogen is the most plentiful element in the universe because of yet another brilliant woman who got screwed over by a male professor. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin had the solution in her thesis in 1925 but her teacher persuaded her to leave it out. Four years later, he published it himself. He was kind enough to mention her.
Dig Deeper
Road Map to a US hydrogen economy (McKinsey)
It was an old apple orchard. Now it could be the future of clean hydrogen energy in Washington state (Seattle Times)
California Is Trying to Jump-Start the Hydrogen Economy (NYTimes$)
Green hydrogen to cost less than natural gas-based alternatives by 2050
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (Wikipedia)
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