AI-generated image using Midjourney using the prompt Ruminant Pink Friday
Aweh dearly beloved fellow ruminants & groupies on day 163 of no lockdown.
Period as an ivory tower academic 168 days
Before delving into green hydrogen again just a brief digression into the unrelated topic of AI-generated art which is topical now. Using a portrait of myself I used Midjourney to create the featured image. I fed this AI software a portrait image of myself, and it creates images using textual descriptions that I supplied it with. Of course, the text was ruminant pink Friday. I’m not much good as an artist but with a bit of digital assistance who knows. Maybe I need to delve into this deeper. End of digression.
Today’s blog is rather technical so those of you not up to it skip this one. As all of you, no doubt know the EU has targeted a green hydrogen supply of 20 million tons per annum by 2030. Why are they doing this? Well, you see, developing a green hydrogen economy is a global imperative to address climate change. It’s currently expensive and uneconomic but the core concept is that it is necessary to launch the green hydrogen economy now to enable it to grow, innovate, and ultimately reduce costs in the decades to come. The EU appears willing to subsidise green hydrogen to get it going. One can debate how big the subsidy will need to be, but $3/kg wouldn’t be a bad start. Do the multiplication and that’s $60 billion per year. There are several feasibility studies in progress to meet the target. This is presumably an honorable thing.
Supply is all good and well, but you also need to create a market and build distribution and storage infrastructure to match the supply. The nature of this infrastructure depends on the applications chosen and will need to be built between now and 2030. A recent paper by Manfred Wanner has evaluated aspects of the infrastructural and technical challenges this would pose in Germany. Two examples are considered. First, the use of hydrogen as an electricity storage option to generate 1 GW of power for 24 hours to allow for an emergency electricity supply for a lull in intermittent renewable electricity supply. The long-term storage and infrastructure required are evaluated. This would either require a large cryogenic storage vessel of 22 500 m3 or storage of 145 000 m3 in a salt cavern at 150 bar. The technical challenges to achieving this are evaluated.
The second example is the infrastructure and storage required for a single service station selling 31 tons per day of hydrogen to refuel fuel cell electric trucks. If the hydrogen is sold as a liquid a liquefaction plant consuming 13 MW of electricity will be required together with a cryogenic storage vessel of 210 m3. Alternatively, two-stage compression to 700 bar is considered consuming 2.5 MW of electricity and 2027 m3 of high-pressure storage vessels. It is suggested that the operation of the hydrogen filling station will resemble the operation of a chemical plant rather than a conventional service station. To reach net zero Germany will require 140 such service stations. Each service station will consume about 10 000 tpa of hydrogen which is still a small number compared to the 20 million tpa supply. The question of whether sufficient fuel cell electric trucks will be available by 2030 to match the supply and the infrastructure built is still an open one. If the trucks are available, it is still not clear whether freight companies will choose fuel cell trucks or battery electric trucks.
In both cases, the author questions the technical feasibility of these examples. Irrespective of whether the infrastructural examples are technically or economically viable if a market for 20 million tpa of hydrogen is to be created by 2030 decisions will soon need to be made regarding what applications the hydrogen will be used for and projects initiated to construct the infrastructure so that it is ready in time.
In addition to the estimated capital cost of €170-240 billion to build the hydrogen production capacity, many infrastructural projects and billions of euros will be required to build the infrastructure required to be ready for 2030.
Is Manfred Wanner just a naysayer? Didn’t Nelson Mandela say it always seems impossible until it’s done? Shouldn’t we just put our positive pants on, and do it? Isn’t saving the planet beyond money? Well, of course, provided it’s other people’s money.
Thank you for all the ideas and comments. I really appreciate them and please keep them coming.
Regards
Bruce
Ruminant Pink Friday 