Hydrogen
We need more hydrogen, and we need it quickly. Renewables are great but the sun and never shines at night and the wind does not always blow at a usable strength, so we need both energy storage and base load generating capacity. Offshore wind farms are now being built just to create green hydrogen from the sea as an energy storage medium and likely to be far more efficient than batteries.
Is hydrogen the White Night? Its uses should not be stretched into unsuitable areas. It certainly has roles in heavy duty transport where one rapid charge provides fuel for a day’s work. There is still the need for a national infrastructure to the major transport depots.
Replacing town gas has many issues, such as the need to increase the capacity of the mains and hydrogen’s safety in homes. It does not carry as much energy by volume as natural gas so is unlikely to replace that domestic energy source without massive upgrades to the pipelines, pumps, and domestic installations. The Government’s own figures are couched in terms of 5GW by the mid-2030s, but this has now been doubled in the latest Government’s Energy Security Strategy. This fact demonstrates the conundrum of removing the use of fossil fuels, which still feature as a UK energy source until at least 2040. Thus, the need to make Carbon Capture and Storage mandatory for all carbon producing processes. However, hydrogen can be stored to balance energy supply and demand.
The energy sector can play a key role in net-zero plans, helping decarbonise energy-intensive industries and balancing the grid. This is quite a turnaround for the this the lightest gas, starring in the Hindenburg airship disaster, which is now seen as a major player in solving climate change issues. But like established players such as Solar and Wind, Hydrogen is bumping up against economic issues and investors are not achieving a satisfactory return.
The efficiency of electric batteries and hybrid vehicles make hydrogen unlikely to be used for cars and vans. But for long distance heavy good vehicles the lack of battery weight and the ability to “fill the tank” quickly suggests that hydrogen will compete well with diesel. A similar logic applies to air transport where short haul routes have already had successful flights.
Of course, it takes energy to produce the gas. It has grown to a have a rainbow of colours associated with it depending on how it is produced. The exciting production of Green Hydrogen is the construction of offshore wind farms not intended to power the grid but to extract the hydrogen from the unlimited supply of sea water with no carbon created. The gas is then stored and used as required and especially as noted above to balance the peaks and troughs of renewable energy sources.
Nuclear power plants are a promising option for electrolytic production of hydrogen because they can generate reliable, low-carbon electricity 24/7 for 60 years or more. If Hinkley Point C, due to open in 2027, was used to power conventional electrolyser technology, it could produce enough hydrogen for 40,000 hydrogen buses or to heat a million homes, changing the paradigm of how we use hydrogen.
Further reading: https://h2tools.org/
https://oguk.org.uk/ Oil & Gas UK