Hydrogen is seen to be capable of meeting these difficulties since its efficiency as an energy carrier is several times better than that of natural gas and coal, and the process of hydrogen creation produces no carbon dioxide emissions.
Positive remarks cause waves in the eyes. The Decade of Hydrogen has been announced by Wood Mackenzie, an international consulting business. According to Bloomberg, “by 2050, hydrogen will meet 24 percent of global energy demands, and its market value will fall to the level of gas pricing” (the forecast was made before a sharp increase in prices in the markets of Asia and Europe in the fall of 2021).
According to Bank of America analysts, the market for hydrogen fuel may soon surpass $11 trillion.
Canada, the United States, China, South Korea, Japan, and the European Union, which approved its hydrogen policy six months ago and predicted that “investments in hydrogen energy will expand to 180-470 billion euros in 30 years.” At the same time, other nations are entering this as-yet-undiscovered market.
In order to manufacture green hydrogen, energy businesses from Denmark, Italy, China, and Saudi Arabia formed the worldwide Green Hydrogen Catapult partnership in 2021. And Russia has already obtained not just the Hydrogen Energy Development Concept, but also a draft plan targeted at enhancing Russian hydrogen energy export potential.
The Russian Concept for the Development of Hydrogen Energy, developed by the Ministry of Energy, includes an overview of the state of the industry and the problem field, strategic goals and tactical tasks, three stages of work for 2021–2050, specific projects (three hydrogen production clusters), and control numbers, among other things. It follows the decarbonization trend in general: the word “low-carbon” appears 49 times on 23 pages in reference to energy sources, hydrogen, production, fuels, and the economy.
The formulation of strategic goals for the development of hydrogen energy is of particular interest: 1) realizing the country’s potential in the fields of hydrogen production, export, and use, as well as industrial products for hydrogen energy; 2) Russia’s entry into the ranks of world leaders in hydrogen production and export; and 3) ensuring the country’s economy’s competitiveness in the context of the global energy transition.
The ambition to maintain Russia’s status as an energy power and functions as an energy exporter in the face of energy transition is reflected in its external factor orientation. It’s no accident that the word “export” appears twice in the goal-setting paragraph and 40 times throughout the paper.
At the same time, the notion accurately depicts the issues surrounding hydrogen generation, storage, and transportation, as well as several ways to tackling these issues and some of the difficulties connected with each. Furthermore, the document’s writers are well aware that, at this point in technological progress, hydrogen energy is in jeopardy.
The document explicitly states that “there is a high degree of uncertainty regarding the prospects for the development of hydrogen energy,” that “at this time there is no global market for hydrogen as an energy carrier,” and that its development “will be dependent on the pace of development of a low-carbon economy and growth in demand for hydrogen on the global market.”
Production, storage, transmission, and use of hydrogen as an energy carrier are the four steps of the hydrogen energy cycle. Because hydrogen is the lightest and most active gas, it readily reacts with other chemical elements, it does not exist in its pure state in nature. As a result, it cannot be generated in the same way that natural gas is, although it may be created utilizing certain methods.
Carbon dioxide (CO 2) is not released when hydrogen is used as an energy carrier, although it may have a carbon impact during manufacture. Depending on the technology utilized and the amount of carbon emissions, these technologies are categorized into six color categories.
Electrolysis of distilled water with electricity from renewable energy sources (RES) or nuclear power plants produces green and yellow hydrogen. CO2 emissions are nil.
The technique of pyrolysis (heat breakdown) of methane, which accounts for 90% of natural gas, is utilized to produce blue hydrogen. Because the by-product of its manufacture is solid carbon (soot), which does not enter the environment, this sort of hydrogen is termed low-carbon.
The conversion of methane or coal produces blue hydrogen, which is accompanied by considerable CO 2 emissions. This method is classified as medium-carbon since carbon emissions must be collected and disposed of.
Gray hydrogen is produced by steam reforming methane, while brown hydrogen is produced by coal gasification. These are the dirtiest ways.
The irony of the issue is that all of these ways of hydrogen production demand a large amount of energy. That is, the cost of this “ideal energy carrier” includes the cost of consumed energy – whether clean, as in renewable energy sources and nuclear power plants, or filthy, as in coal or natural gas combustion. The use of rare metals as catalysts adds an extra layer of value.
As a consequence, clean technologies based on distilled water electrolysis turn out to be the most expensive: the cost of hydrogen obtained with their aid is many times more than the cost of hydrogen obtained on the global market.
Another issue with this process is the large amount of water required to manufacture 1 ton of hydrogen: 9 cubic meters of distilled water or 18 cubic meters of fresh water are required to make 1 ton of hydrogen. We’re talking about 900 million cubic meters of fresh water when we consider that by 2050, it’s intended to export 50 million tons of hydrogen every year. In three years, that’s around two Seligers.
Currently, this environmentally friendly method accounts for barely 2% of worldwide hydrogen generation. The percentage of filthy energy is 98 percent, with coal accounting for 23 percent and gas accounting for 75 percent. That is, the most common is gray hydrogen, which is produced during the steam reforming of natural gas, during which CO 2 is released into the atmosphere.
As a result, it turns out that using clean technologies is impossible because they are too expensive and kill the environment, and that in order for dirty technologies to comply with decarbonization principles, filters or some other method of capturing CO 2 molecules and solving the problem of their burial must be invented.
The storage of hydrogen in a gaseous state necessitates the use of sealed containers manufactured of specific alloys. Otherwise, it will react with the metal, causing damage to the inner lining, as well as combining with oxygen and causing an explosion of this explosive gas, bringing the safety concern to the forefront.
The energy potential of 1 cubic meter of hydrogen is eight times lower than that of the same volume of natural gas due to its lightness. This indicates that the volume of stored hydrogen must be eight times bigger than the volume of natural gas in order to obtain a comparable quantity of energy, implying that specific tanks for storing hydrogen gas must be extremely huge or there must be a large number of them.
Although hydrogen may be kept in a liquefied state, the expense of doing so is several times greater than the cost of manufacturing liquefied natural gas. This is owing to the fact that liquid hydrogen requires a temperature of less than minus 252 degrees Celsius, whereas liquefying methane, which is the base of natural gas, requires a temperature of less than minus 162 degrees. Lower temperatures necessitate a lot more energy and more complex equipment, which will have an impact on the ultimate cost.
Binding hydrogen into liquid or solid molecules is another option. You can combine it with nitrogen and store the ammonia in canisters or tanks, or employ metal alloys that can absorb and release enormous amounts of hydrogen when heated (this will allow it to be stored in solid form). However, using these technologies on a large-scale necessitates increased energy expenses and specialized equipment.
The difficulty of transporting hydrogen is inextricably linked to the solution of the storage problem. It can be sent as ammonia or metal ingots, although this way is only suited for small quantities. It’s difficult and expensive to carry liquid hydrogen while keeping the temperature below minus 252 degrees Fahrenheit for the whole journey. Pure hydrogen is very unsafe to transport since it can explode at the first sign of depressurization (skin injury).
The notion of distributing pure hydrogen over the current gas transmission system (GTS) has recently gained traction, however it appears to be unfeasible.
For starters, because of the potential dangers: the metal used to make the pipes is not designed to transport hydrogen; a chemical reaction that has already begun might destroy the pipe; and the entry of air (oxygen) can trigger an explosion.
Second, hydrogen is a light gas with a volume of 11.2 cubic meters per kilogram of hydrogen. As a result of its great efficiency per unit weight, 1 cubic meter of hydrogen has an energy value eight times lower than natural gas. Because the current GTS is centered on delivering gas, the volume of hydrogen required to obtain the same amount of energy must be eight times that of gas. To do this, you must raise either the pipe diameter or the pressure, or both, in the ratio of X to Y, where their product is eight. Changing all of the pipes is costly; changing all of the compressor stations across the network is much more so.
The conveyance of a combination of hydrogen and natural gas is another possibility for using GTS. Since 2018, certain European nations have been performing similar tests, and in France, a steady increase in hydrogen’s percentage was able to get it up to 20%. However, there is a safety concern here as well: when hydrogen is combined with natural gas, its capacity to engage a chemical reaction with metal is intact, which means the risk of an explosion persists.
Furthermore, it is required to coordinate the extraction of hydrogen from the mixture at the end. That is, it turns out that pure hydrogen is first made by steam reforming gas (the most frequent process), then mixed with the same gas, propelled via pipes, and finally separated from natural gas. This strategy not only raises the price of hydrogen, but it also defies logic. However, this does not deter those fighting climate change and decarbonization.
Furthermore, in recent years, there have been an increasing number of ideas to combine hydrogen with natural gas and use the resulting mixture in the power production process in order to lower the combination’s carbon impact. This strategy follows a simple accounting logic: the cleaner the end product, the less difficulties associated with violating decarbonization norms. However, the willingness to produce a clean and expensive product in order to improve some indicators invented by the energy transition demiurges by mixing it with a less clean fuel appears to be an outrage on common sense, indicating that the purpose of the fuss around hydrogen energy is precisely these performance, rather than the promised energy breakthrough, and this turns the hydrogen plot into a true theater of the absurd.
The efficiency of hydrogen as an energy carrier is based on the fact that the energy released (per unit weight) is two and a half times higher than that of gas and four times higher than that of coal. And this is with zero CO2 emissions, whereas gas and coal processes emit 2.75 and 3 kg of CO 2 respectively. Due to the technological difficulties of utilizing hydrogen’s unquestionable advantages, here is where the benefits of hydrogen as an energy carrier end.
Instead of CO2, a large quantity of nitrogen oxides will be generated if hydrogen is burnt in atmospheric air, causing acid precipitation, damage to the body’s mucous membranes, and the development of respiratory ailments. As a result, in order to make use of this technology, you’ll need to design effective filters.
Because the combustion temperature of hydrogen in an oxygen atmosphere is 2200 degrees, and the melting point of steel is 1500 degrees, all equipment, including power plant equipment, must be manufactured of heat-resistant alloys in order to burn hydrogen in pure oxygen. As a result, both of these procedures entail high expenses, enhanced security, and the employment of unique combustion technologies that eliminate the risk of an explosion.
The time-tested approach of collecting hydrogen energy using a solid oxide fuel cell appears to be the most promising in this case. Its output is electricity, heat, and water vapor, and it is based on an oxidation process. These facilities have a 60-70 percent efficiency, which is 20% greater than thermal, gas turbine, and nuclear power plants.
The main inferences that may be drawn from what has been mentioned appear to be gloomy. Hydrogen’s high cost relative to traditional fuels makes it difficult to establish hydrogen energy plants. Technical, organizational, and financial issues “mine” almost every method to solve the difficulties of hydrogen storage and delivery. The hydrogen revolution, which has been openly announced, is starting to resemble an operatic insurrection, complete with songs and dances in praise of decarbonization.
In this bleak field, an alternate approach to overcoming present difficulties emerges, summed up in two basic theses: hydrogen storage and transit should be temporarily closed, and hydrogen generation should begin at points of consumption. Konstantin Romanov, Director General of Gazprom Hydrogen LLC, and various energy market analysts signed this petition.
These theses were added by Andrey Konoplyanik, Advisor to the General Director of Gazprom Export LLC, who clarified the mechanism of hydrogen generation. According to him, it is required to transition to pyrolysis technology, which is reasonably simple to adopt, requires no additional actions, and has a zero carbon footprint: the end products are pure hydrogen and soot (binding CO 2), which may be utilized in the manufacturing of automobile tires.
At the same time, Boris Martsinkevich, a physicist who has worked on geoenergy issues for many years and is the ideologist of the Geoenergy project, took a very tough stance on hydrogen: “The global transition to hydrogen is the killing of nature and a 60-70 fold increase in the cost of electricity, with all the ramifications for industry, agriculture, and transportation,…> this is a blow to the foundations of our civilization.”
The information noise, in which promises to reduce the price of hydrogen to $2 have merged, the Ministry of Economic Development’s proposals to open access for independent hydrogen producers to Gazprom’s GTS so that they can mix their gas there, and to allow the construction of hydrogen facilities near main gas pipelines, including in protected areas, and much more…
