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- cross-posted to:
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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/8569504
How is the hydrogen made?
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To save you all a google: it’s made from natural gas, at a pretty significant energy loss compared to just burning the gas. It generates about 4 times more co2 than burning diesel.
Time to arm the swans and Canada geese, too.
That is true of all colours of hydrogen other than green (and possibly natural stores of ‘fossil’ hydrogen if they can be extracted without leakage).
Green hydrogen is better thought of as a battery than a fuel. It’s a good way to store the excess from renewables and may be the only way to solve problems like air travel.
How hydrogen is transforming these tiny Scottish islands
That’s not to say it’s perfect. Hydrogen in the atmosphere slows down the decomposition of methane so leaks must be kept well below 5% or the climate benefits are lost. We don’t have a good way to measure leaks. It’s also quite inefficient because a lot of energy is needed to compress it for portable uses.
And, of course, the biggest problem is that Big Carbon will never stop pushing for dirtier hydrogens to be included in the mix, if green hydrogen paves the way.
Storing hydrogen is also really hard. It needs to be kept extremely cold, and when it isn’t, it tends to pass right through most storage units.
But as a local battery, it can be very useful. Or for applications in large machinery where batteries aren’t a useful option yet.
If the leaks of hydrogen should be kept under 5%, we don’t have a good track record of keeping gas leaks under control anyway…
Yes. I’m not watching a video but it is a serious problem, especially as hydrogen degrades metals and finds its way out anyway. The private sector cannot be trusted to self-regulate nor the government to meaningfully regulate.
Trying very hard not to succumb to nihilism here …
Or, in other words, the hydrogen economy is prone to bubbles and explosions here and there.
Well then we won’t be chasing this technology until we can find a way to blame the consumer when it wrecks the environment…
And better yet, if the excess heat can be used. Last Friday i heard a sales rep from a (green) hydrogen company describe their solution as a heating solution that produce hydrogen at an energy storage conference. Seems fair to me😊
I really don’t get why hydrogen remains popular. Hydrogen is significantly less efficient than lithium batteries in storing electricity. There are currently dozens of technologies on the way for improving batteries beyond what’s possible with lithium. So what’s the market potential for green hydrogen again?
It wins by a huge margin on the energy to weight ratio. In scenarios where weight doesn’t matter it’s dumb, but there is potential in places like air travel where it does make sense.
I had to scroll way too far to find this - surely the main pro/con if hydrogen.
Storage was an issue in the past. Is it better now?
Batteries are too heavy for many applications (including, arguably, cars).
That doesn’t make hydrogen the only solution but it is at least a currently available solution. I posted a link about why the Orkneys (population 23k) are producing hydrogen and switching much of their transport to it: they have so much wind the UK (population 70m) national grid can’t take all the power they generate from it.
Hydrogen is useful in a lot of industrial processes. It also maybe win the race for green aviation fuel, but this one is not likely. There is plenty of market for green hydrogen.
There is also absolutely no reason to hype about any of it. Everybody hyping it on the media is trying to make global warming worse.
Industry uses A LOT of Hydrogen and that would increase dramatically if we stopped using fossil fuels as chemical feedstocks. eg. plastics, pharmaceuticals, dyes etc.
Oh great, and I was wondering why some of our policians were pushing hydrogen cars as an alternative to electric cars, despite even the car industry telling them to shut the fuck up.
Some of car industry. Some are dumb or corrupt. Then a lot people/consumers just see the range and zero ‘direct’ emissions. They don’t look at cost per mile, total energy efficiency, fuel storage and distribution, etc.
the car industry have brains?
Didn‘t we have a process to electrically synthesize hydrogen out of water?
Electrolysis, it works but it takes a lot of energy to produce, so burning hydrogen from this would be a fools errand.
Wouldn’t you spend almost same amount of energy to split water compared to heat produced by burning hydrogen?
Probably more because of entropy: Nature’s IRS.
The only way for electrolysis to be greener than fossil fuels is to use renewable energy sources like wind or solar. It wouldn’t produce enough to gain much market share in any case. So the oil lobby is pushing to derive it from petroleum, because they’re Captain Planet villains.
That’s why I said almost.
The only way for electrolysis to be greener than fossil fuels is to use renewable energy sources like wind or solar.
Yep. Basically gas battery.
But you could technically build huge solar panel areas in deserts and bring that hydrogen to populated areas. Or you could use excess energy from renewables to produce hydrogen, storing at least some of the excess energy for times where renewables produce less.
Finally, a correct answer within the context.
Are those CO2 emissions? I don’t get where the CO2 comes from.
I know this is an animation, but it shows pretty well, how hydrogen is made from natural gas. No CO2 emissions. And using the hydrogen should produce H2O.
In reverse order:
1 - it needs to be tranported
2 - it needs to compressed and cooled, in order to transport it. You need to cool it down around 1700 degrees, because:
3 - methane pyrolysis is done at around 1500 degrees C, getting something that hot isn’t free.
4 - methane isn’t the only component in natural gas, so you need to seperate out all the impurities.
5 - methane is a very strong contributor to global warming, so any natural gas leak from the drill to the factory adds co2equivalent.
6 - you need to extract natural gas from the ground and transport it, which takes energy.
Plus the big one is that my taking the hydrogen off of the methane, you’re left with carbon. And that carbon is usually reacted with oxygen to make carbon dioxide during the refining process. So for every two liters of hydrogen you make, you’d make a liter of CO2.
And we’re not doing so well on the gas leak part…
So what is the best solution, in your opinion?
Hydrogen isn’t a solution at all. Literally anything is better than using hydrogen from methane, even shovelling coal into steam engines produces less CO2 equivalent.
So, “don’t do that, it makes things worse”.
I don’t think I should have to produce an answer to one of the main problems facing Western society to be able to point out that hydrogen is mostly natural gas under an asbestos bedsheet.
It could make sense for planes, where batteries are just too heavy. But you’d need to weigh it against things like synthetic electrically produced kerosene or biodiesel.
How about hydrogen from water? Yeah, you need high amounts of electricity to get it, but, as one example, if it’s used in ICE engines, isn’t that significantly cleaner than petrol? And a lot less damaging than making lithium batteries? Once burned, wouldn’t it just react with oxygen to then form water vapour? And then, if it’s making water, that’s a self-sufficient cycle?
I feel like hydrogen can potentially be a very good solution, but the technology needs to catch up massively. I mean, scientists are getting to on nuclear fusion reactors, and their yield seems a lot better than everything else. Even fission reactors.
Also, I had this thought the other day, and yes, it’s extremely futuristic, with the right people in charge thought, but mining gas planets for the hydrogen. We’ll more than likely never inhabit those ones or use them for much, so we might as well use them for something, at least. At least before Dyson swarms become a thing.
Using excess green energy to produce hydrogen is a great option, but those events are pretty rare, and it doesn’t produce very much, compared to pyrolysis of natural gas. Using regular electricity isn’t very smart, since you’re burning hydrocarbons to create hydrogen from water, when you could just get them from the hydrocarbons, so that’s even less efficient.
Should keep doing what we’ve been doing?
WTF is people against asking questions?
Obviously not. But switching to something new and worse also clearly isn’t the solution.
Not something new? That seems a bit odd?
Try to answer the question people… What is the fucking solution?! You can’t just say “no” to everything, then “I have no suggestions”, but “don’t use new things” and “we shouldn’t use what we do”.
I’m not advocating for gas, oil or coal. Is the answer nuclear energy, solar, wind? Instead of just downvoting, try to use your words.
I think the issue is where the energy to heat the reaction vessel comes from. The video shows green sources, but that isn’t the only way to do it. The thing is, this is ultimately an energy storage tech rather than an energy generation tech. You need excess capacity to make it work, and if that means you have to make up for a shortful with conventional generators elsewhere, you aren’t actually saving anything.
I don’t know if the previous poster is right of course, but the planet is an almost closed system, and there really is no such thing as a free lunch when it comes to energy.
The ultimate idea afaik is to build huge renewable energy power plants (for example solar energy in deserts) to generate it there, and then transport it through pipelines to wherever you need it.
The only logical way to use it is as fuel for heavy transport if it’s produced in the same place that said transport refuels. We can’t keep petrol in pipelines, how do people think we’ll keep hydrogen in them?
I thought it’s made through electrolysis
You can, but it is totally inefficient
You get about 30% of the energy out that you put in
So it’s more like a really bad battery
But with all the disadvantages of having to handle gas!
Yup! It has really good gravimetric energy density, but really bad charging efficiency.
Not THAT bad, really, it potentially has a much better mileage-to-weight ratio and sidesteps the issue of lithium recycling and politics
Great to gravametric energy density, okay volumetric energy density, great availability, terrible charging efficiency, and complicated handling and storing mechanisms. Lots of tradeoffs.
Any evidence to your claim?
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/natural-gas/natural-gas-and-the-environment.php
Natural gas is a relatively clean burning fossil fuel
Burning natural gas for energy results in fewer emissions of nearly all types of air pollutants and carbon dioxide (CO2) than burning coal or petroleum products to produce an equal amount of energy. About 117 pounds of CO2 are produced per million British thermal units (MMBtu) equivalent of natural gas compared with more than 200 pounds of CO2 per MMBtu of coal and more than 160 pounds per MMBtu of distillate fuel oil. The clean burning properties of natural gas have contributed to increased natural gas use for electricity generation and as a transportation fuel for fleet vehicles in the United States.
Burning natural gas isn’t so awful but getting it out of the ground and to the place where is needs to be burned is always overlooked. It’s a gas, it wants to escape and much of the infrastructure leaks and so a great deal is lost before its used. I walk around Boston and no joke you just SMELL it all the time because the infrastructure is so old. Natural gas is also mostly methane which when leaked is 80 times more potent than CO2. Furthermore much natural gas needs to be transported on ships to be uses. To summarize there is no ‘greener’ fossil fuels it’s all to be avoided if possible.
Really 80 times?
I had 4 times in memoryLooks like it’s 27 to 30x over 100 years.
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/understanding-global-warming-potentials
Cleaner than coal is a very low bar. 60% of the emissions of coal is still way too much
Sure, the primary dutch co2 source website: https://www-co2emissiefactoren-nl.translate.goog/lijst-emissiefactoren/?_x_tr_sl=nl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Translated, because nobody speaks dutch.
):<
Behalve jij en ik dan
That’s the states for actually burned natural gas. Natural gas is basically methane and is therefore not too good for the climate when it leaks (which it does)
Unlike oil.
Oil leak is detectable via sight, methane is only detectable via a device, either a sensor or a camera.
Both is shit for the climate when leak.
Oil extraction leaks methane in a comparable amount to natural gas. Every local survey points that coal extraction leaks more methane than natural gas, but those numbers are safely suppressed from consolidation into actual studies.
It does result in higher methane emissions, which have a ln ~30x larger greenhouse effect than CO2.
See here: https://youtu.be/K2oL4SFwkkw
Edit: Looks like metane’s GGG co2 equivalent is 27 to 30 over 100 years.
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/understanding-global-warming-potentials
How is natural gas made? How is natural gas more natural than natural element?
Is this a real question? It’s methane, ethane, propane and butane, mixed with carbon dioxide, and we get it from underground.
Natural gas is a byproduct of ancient organic material being buried and slowly cooked by the earth’s heat. The hydrocarbons of the plant break down, and the gas rises. Under certain conditions, it gets trapped below non-porous rock and builds up.
Basically, all fossil fuels are Carbon fixed from CO2 by plants, then trapped underground. The solid material we call coal, the liquid oil and the gas natural gas.
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Which, I’m all for us all reducing our footprint too, but knowing that at the same time we should be matching oil and gas executives through the streets for old fashioned tar and feathering at the same time.
Maybe we should hit them back with the corporate co2 footprint
Lets calculate the amount of pollution divided by the amount of employees
BP told me it was my fault they were emitting carbon, because I was paying them to do it. So I stopped paying them. No car. And I want the government to ban cars among other reforms so nobody else pays them.
You know, when a proton and electron love each other very much…
You can make hydrogen greenly with electricity and electrolysis. But I doubt BP is doing that.
Where is the electricity coming from?
Extra solar and wind capacity ideally, but again, I don’t trust BP with that.
BP apparently
Hydrogen was made approximately 400,000 after the big bang in a process called recombination, as the universe cooled down enough for stable neutral atoms to exist.
Attack geese.
I’d normally suggest that attack geese are against geneva conventions or something… but these guys… they got it coming.
They aren’t legal combatants, it’s all fine.
oh. good. glad that’s sorted. Lets also activate the uplands geese for naval operations.
I wonder how much it would cost to train wild pigeons to shit on their shit. and how much that would cost… them.
Birds cannot control when they poop, so they’ll have to patrol their target.
Which, when you think about it, is even more terrifying
I was thinking something like that bird feeder that taught magpies to turn in trash for food.
they poop on a BP gas station… and get a reward.
Hell yeah, biological weaponry of mass destruction
its for a good cause,
OMFG that thread is full of people missing the point.
You mean the people literally answering the question? I doubt anybody is missing the point.
I’ll bite. I have no idea what the picture is doing or referencing and the joke answers are confusing because, again, I don’t get “the joke”.
The attack-🪿 is asking BP how the hydrogen is made because it’s an important question.
Hydrogen can be made multiple ways.
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Split water (H²O) with electricity. You get ⅔ H and ⅓ O. When you burn the H you’ll get water back and ⅔ the energy you put in. In this way it can actually as a poor battery.
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Take Methane (CH⁴), the major part of natural gas and split it. You get ⅘ H and ⅕ carbon. So you’re releasing the same carbon that you would release if you just burnt the methane, and you’ll get less energy too. Then take away the energy it took to split the methane and you’re a lot worse off for no saving in carbon.
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Other oil and gas based sources, but that follow the theme of methane.
Only the first one is “green”, and only if the electricy comes from a green source (like solar or wind). Burning gas to make electricity to make hydrogen is stupid.
Oil and gas companies companies keep pushing hydrogen as green power, but really they want to keep selling oil and gas, and if they need to convert it into hydrogen to do it, that’s fine in their eyes. Doesn’t matter if they are still pumping carbon out of the ground. Doesn’t matter if it’s less efficient. It’s green washing plain and simple.
Attack 🪿 is asking the question that would make them admit this.
That thread was full of people complaining that nobody was doing anything with hydrogen and it was stupid to power cars from electricity directly. They are all just O&G company shills
Thank you, I appreciate you took the time to write this out and provide context. I was only aware of the water method but that makes sense.
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During peak wind or solar hours when the electricity usage is often lower otherwise.
…and with what devices? Currently, there’s 11 GW of Electrolysis capacity available worldwide, with about 400 GW potentially realised by 2030. That’s 0.07% now of the total production of 16 TW from fossils, increasing to a whopping 2.5% in 2030. And that does not take into account that energy markets will be competing with industry that uses hydrogen as a reduction agent (steel, for example) to replace fossils. It also does not take into account that hydrogen is not as easy to transport than other fossils.
Hydrogen might be the solution to the energy crisis, but for that we’d have to pick up our game immensely. Which will not happen if everyone thinks hydrogen is already freely and abundantly available.
!Remind me in 20 years
I mean, it’s a tweet from BP.
The P don’t stand for photovoltaics…
