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Germany Turns to Hydrogen in Quest for Clean Energy Economy
- llampx 7y agoI remember back in the early 2000s BMW made a lot of splash about hydrogen-powered cars. So Germany has had a love affair with Hydrogen for a while now. Does anyone think its a worthwhile competitor to BEVs for personal and commmercial use?
- jasonvorhe 7y agoWell, BEVs are driving on streets, are available for purchase and infrastructure to charge them is pretty decent in most countries.
- kartan 7y ago> So Germany has had a love affair with Hydrogen for a while now. This sounds like a joke about the Hindenburg.
- pilsetnieks 7y agoDespite your memories, and even despite the title image Bloomberg has chosen, this isn't at all about cars, the article is about industrial and energy supply applications, where it could be much more relevant than in consumer vehicles.
- Causality1 7y agoI don't think it's going to pan out, for the same reason it hasn't panned out in the rest of the world despite decades of pop-sci publications saying we're five years away from a hydrogen economy. Hydrogen is more like a liquid battery than it is like gasoline, since you have to first generate the energy and then turn it into usable hydrogen, whereas petroleum gives you more energy than you use in obtaining it.
- henearkr 7y agoYep, I've always thought of hydrogen as an energy storage and transport vector, not a source. Thus not sufficient to base on it the whole economy: it still has to couple with sturdy solar (or wind, or geothermal, etc.) plants.
- Causality1 7y agoExactly. Considering the technological developments and prices of the last few years, BEVs just make more sense.
- radium3d 7y agoTesla Model 3 owner here. I don't understand why you would ever want a vehicle that must be refueled / recharged at an uncontrollable third party station instead of just having a car ready to go at home every day with the option of solar power. Will they also release cheap at-home hydrogen generators to go with the cars? Hydrogen does sound like an interesting option for countries that can't generate the power needed to generate hydrogen for power plant scale operations with green options like wind and solar. The hydrogen could be generated elsewhere and brought into the country or regions I suppose?
- klauslovgreen 7y agoGood point - I am surprised to read this, thought hydrogen was a thing of the past. Most of the German car manufactures are releasing EV's though...
- pilsetnieks 7y agoTo spare you from wondering about your downvotes, the article you didn't read has nothing to do with cars (even if the title image suggests otherwise,) and is instead about industrial and energy supply applications.
- radium3d 7y agoThanks, added some comments on the utility scale usage
- radicalbyte 7y agoIt's being used a lot for busses and there's talk of using it for heating instead of natural gas and anywhere else gas is used. It actually makes a lot of sense for buses/lorries/taxis at least until batteries can charge faster (4-6 hrs of use in 30 minutes).
- ericd 7y agoDoes it? It seems like it would still be more efficient to just use swappable battery packs. IIRC hydrogen is either made by cracking natural gas (which puts out carbon), or it's made extremely inefficiently via electrolysis (in which case you waste much more electricity than you would by charging batteries). The former is more economical than the latter, but doesn't seem to have much in the way of environmental benefits AFAICT vs. just using the nat gas directly.
- Zigurd 7y agoThere inherent inefficiency in making and burning hydrogen is daunting. But there now is a larger cost gap opening between wind and fossil fuels. If that gap gets big enough, hydrogen could be a good way to store and transport wrong energy.
- aurelwu 7y ago>Her group is calling for the natural gas system to carry a mandated share of renewable and decarbonated gases, including biomethane, synthetic methane and hydrogen, starting at 1% in 2021 and rising to 10% by 2030. Those are most likely volume percent... methane/natural gas has 3x the energy density of hydrogen so it pretty much does not have any effect on emissions but is mostly a publicity stunt.
- alex_duf 7y agoThat's an interesting point. i just assumed that having a mix 90% methane, 10% hydrogen would reduce the carbon footprint by 10%. But what you say makes perfect sense, it all depends on how much energy we generate from the mix. Is there any literature or numbers on the subjects I could read somewhere?
- aurelwu 7y agoSure, energy density can be looked up pretty much everywhere but here is a paper mentioning it, which might be otherwise interesting to you as well: https://afdc.energy.gov/files/pdfs/hyd_economy_bossel_eliasson.pdf#page=6 https://afdc.energy.gov/files/pdfs/hyd_economy_bossel_eliass... (middle of the page) To show that its really by volume they usually talk about, here just 1 example: https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/03/f11/blending_h2_nat_gas_pipeline.pdf#page=6 https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/03/f11/blending... ( first paragraph). Using volume percent is not directly a dishonest way to talk about it as that is pretty common way to look at things when it comes to gas and gas distribution networks, however it conveniently gives the wrong impression to a lot of people about potential emission savings - originally myself included ;). A 50% hydrogen - 50% methane/natural gas (by volume) mix just reduces the carbon footprint by ~22% (while requiring lots of investments, for example into gas turbines which work well with such a gas mix, lots of other end users also would have trouble with that mix)
- scottLobster 7y agoAt the end of the day it's a matter of infrastructure. BEVs benefit from a pre-established electric grid, end of story. Sure that grid might need improvements/hardening/modernization as BEVs become more popular, but the fundamental infrastructure exists. Hydrogen needs entirely separate refineries/production facilities, specialized transport vehicles and fuel stations, all of which must be built entirely from scratch and negate many of its efficiency benefits. A viable hydrogen vehicle market would likely need tens if not hundreds of billions in initial capital just to get off the ground and be self-sustaining; and even if such an effort was politically feasible why not put that money into BEVs where it will arguably do more good?
- alex_duf 7y agoThe title of the article is unclear, they mostly talk about increasing the mix of hydrogen with methane on the natural gas grid. This requires new ways of production but is re-entering the existing gas infrastructure for transport. Most boilers and gas hobs are fine up to 10% hydrogen instead of 100% methane. It's a good way to reduce the carbon footprint of heating by 10% (edit: after reading the message from aurelwu, this doesn't make sense, it won't reduce by 10, but by less than that), assuming the hydrogen has been produced in a reasonable way (excess solar and wind for instance).
- admax88q 7y agoTheoretically you could just electrolyze water on site using power from existing grid. It wouldn't be that much more difficult infrastructure wise than building charging facilities for EV. However according to the diagram included on this article[1] the pipeline from AC power to usable thrust is 3x more efficient for battery vehicles currently. EDIT: forgot to link the article but I'm on my phone now. Some clever googling will find it for you if you're interested.
- Scoundreller 7y agoAnd they’ll have to deal with the pesky fact that hydrogen gas from natural gas is cheaper than H2 from electricity. So it’s either: 1) more nuclear plants in Germany (lol) 2) increased German dependence on Russian natural gas (lol)
- pyrale 7y agoThe "clean" hydrogen story when most hydrogen is generated from gas decomposition is dubious at best. Hydrogen can be extracted using electricity, granted, but the costs given are usually those for hydrogen from gas.
- niftich 7y agoAs noted in the article, hydrogen is currently unfortunate, because the most economical way to produce it is through steam reforming of natgas. Germany already has supply issues with natural gas, not just the pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Electrolysis of water is another method, but requires a lot of electricity. Using it in the short term is highly wasteful, when the source fuels could just be used directly. Nonetheless, on a longer timescale, hydrogen effectively becomes a roundabout instrument of space-, time- and demand-shifted energy storage, but potentially bulk-conveyable using portions of existing gas pipeline infrastructure. This compares favorably to batteries (which are heavy, solid, contain other commodities, and are non-bulk-conveyable in a comparable way), and other energy storage schemes (which are immobile or lack effective the distribution of work). It's broadly similar to hydrocarbon natgas and syngas, but without the direct release of carbon during actual combustion. The hope in this effort to encourage progress and deployment of hydrogen-based technologies, infrastructure, and business models, and tolerate some short-term wastefulness to target a more favorable goal in the long term.
- jokoon 7y agoCan't hydrogen be used as a mean of energy storage? If nuclear power is used, wouldn't that make hydrogen much cheaper and viable? It's true that it's inefficient, but I'm curious as of how much inefficient it really it, because nuclear energy can be made abundant and cheap if you use electrolysis close to a nuclear plant.
- hannob 7y agoIt is often interesting how things are framed in international media when you know the local discussion. To put this in perspective: The role of hydrogen in the German energy system is extremely small. There are a couple of test plants, but that's about it. Yeah, lately there have been a few calls for more investments in that area, some articles discussing a larger role in the future. But it's certainly not at the center of the debate. The headline seems heavily overblown.
- marcell 7y agoGoogle the “Gell-Mann” effect for a name to attach to this phenomenon.
- ethbro 7y agoThat's hilarious. Apparently Michael Crichton named it after a physicist he talked about the phenomena with, in a semi self-referential nod to the effect itself. Tl;dr: appeals to authority work, even when there's previous proof the authority has no pants. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect
- _ph_ 7y agoI have to second this. Mercedes has a nice fuel cell demonstrator car, but will lease out only a few of them and no larger production is planned at this time. Other than a few projects which get shown to the press to have something new to show, there is no larger activity around hydrogen in Germany.
- new_realist 7y agoGermany has over 100 H2 stations, with plans for 400.
- rmoriz 7y ago75 https://h2.live/netzausbau https://h2.live/netzausbau
- audunw 7y agoThat’s funny. I’m some debates related to nuclear power very recently, I had the thought that it’s probably better to focus on using excess power from renewables to generate synthetic gas and simply use the existing gas pipelines and power plants. The world still needs hydrocarbons. They need to be made renewably. That might only be affordable when wind and solar is overproducing, ie we’re getting “free” energy. Producing those hydrocarbons solves a lot of problems, including balancing the power output from those renewable power plants I’m not so sure about hydrogen specifically. It just doesn’t have great properties. It’s just that it’s pretty easy to make renewably. Making synthetic hydrocarbon gases is harder, but it helps capture CO2 (at least temporarily) and is more energy dense and versatile. We also have better hydrogen fuel cells, but that could also change with time. Besides, I think this article was mostly about burning gases. I think this is a good direction for Germany.
- elproxy 7y agoUnlike fossil fuels, hydrogen is not a primary energy, so that article starts very poorly.
- russdill 7y agoHydrogen is most often produced from natural gas, so...yes, it is a "primary energy" Granted, using hydrogen produced that way isn't a win over just using natural gas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production
- elproxy 7y agoI refer you to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_energy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_energy
- russdill 7y agoAh, so gasoline is also not a primary energy, but the same as hydrogen produced from natural gas, a secondary energy. I hear someone say "fossil fuels" and think of gasoline, diesel, etc. But in the case of primary vs secondary, a fossil fuel includes what is literally taken out of the ground, oil, coal, or natural gas.
- elproxy 7y agoMy point exactly, I refer you to the first sentence of the article, which I was criticizing: "Hydrogen, overlooked for decades by Germany’s energy planners, is gaining ground as alternative to fossil fuels as the nation scrambles to recover lost ground on its climate promises."
- frankbreetz 7y agoI remember going to the science museum as a kid and they had device the split water into hydrogen and oxygen. I wonder if we could use wind and solar when the sun is shining to do this and burn these gasses when we renewables aren't producing.
- gpm 7y agoSure, you could. Batteries are more efficient though.
- new_realist 7y agoAlso extremely expensive to use for long term storage; costs grow linearly with storage size, as opposed to sublinear for hydrogen.
- dilekz 7y agoBut hydrogen has huge maintenance cost. - Filters need to be replaced. - Moving parts need to be serviced like the Hydrogen pressure pump. - The fuel cell itself has degradation and will lose it's efficiency. (funny thing is, it already has a very lower efficiency) I have worked with hydrogen in school. And it's so funny how much details people forget which actually impact the WHOLE idea of hydrogen solutions. I am sure it will never take off, just because it's already against the limits of the laws of nature. Unlike chemical batteries. Also to store energy, most efficiënt and cheap way to store mass ammounts of energy is in gravity. Current applications have a back and forward efficiency (Charging/decharging) energy of 85%. While hydrogen probably has a maximum of back and forward efficiency of maybe 20%-30%. While waisting the other 70%. Please. Don't read hydrogen propaganda. Read implementations and read the math. And then do the math yourself instead of following the hype of fake hydrogen news.
- the8472 7y agoSeveral pilot plants already exist in Germany (some produce methane instead of hydrogen). https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-Gas#Liste_der_Anlagen_in_Deutschland https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-Gas#Liste_der_Anlagen...
- k__ 7y ago"What’s held back hydrogen for decades is the cost and complexity of the technology" My landlord said it was the energy corps that were against it. The tech is so simple that you could run it at your home with a small solar panel. Don't know if he was right.
- zizee 7y agoI don't think your landlord was right. From memory, splitting water into Hydrogen and oxygen via electrolysis, only to be converted back to electricity is very lossy. I believe that most hydrogen generated at industrial scale is derived from fossil fuels. Storage is also very difficult. Hydrogen is so small it can squeeze through a lot of gaps, making it hard to contain. You probably have to store it at high pressure and at cryogenic temperatures.
- phkahler 7y agoBut there is no natural source for hydrogen. It's also rather dangerous, and I say that having worked in automakers facilities outfitted for dealing with the hazards.
- nanomonkey 7y agoWhile everyone likes to mention that it's inefficient to split water to produce hydrogen (~60% efficiency round trip to produce electricity, if memory serves me), no one seems to take into account that you now also have a source of pure oxygen. Oxygen is great for producing syngas from carbonaceous materials like biomass (left over dry plant material). If used in tandem one could produce two carbon neutral or carbon negative fuel sources.
- zizee 7y ago> it's inefficient to split water to produce hydrogen You also have significant losses when you convert it back electricity/heat with fuel cells, or burning it. > Oxygen is great for producing syngas This is really interesting. I wonder how much this helps offset the losses mentioned above?
- nanomonkey 7y agoSyngas (a.k.a producer gas) is normally made from atmospheric oxygen, and is a conversion process of the stored fuel in biomass through pyrolysis to produce tar gas, which is then reduced by the hot charcoal left over. You are essentially producing fuel from garbage and is worthwhile on it's own. By using pure oxygen you can produce a more pure gaseous fuel, as the final product isn't diluted by the mostly inert nitrogen that is in air.
- pfdietz 7y agoOxygen produced by air separation is extremely cheap, so the oxygen stream from electrolysis would have little value.
- nanomonkey 7y agoPure oxygen is not actually that cheap, enriched oxygen like you would get from a pressure swing absorption concentrator is relatively cheap (although it still consumes energy), but it is still mixed with other gases that will dilute your syngas.
- 8bitsrule 7y agoThere's "green hydrogen" and then there's "blue hydrogen" a new way of marketing an ancient technology... coal gasification (ancient tech) along with pumping the CO2 (safely, forever) into old wells. Devil's in the details. https://reneweconomy.com.au/hydrogen-blues-is-this-the-gas-industry-version-of-clean-coal-33772/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/hydrogen-blues-is-this-the-gas-i...
- dilekz 7y agoWe have busses driving around on Hydrogen. Then people here say like see: ITS POSSIBLE. But then they forget we got a huge factory here which has hydrogen as a byproduct. hahahaha Yeah. So it's wouldn't work somewhere else. Also they added a small solar field which generates hydrogen for green hydrogen. It's just waisting so much potential solar energy.. It's sad. It's just that some local company which sells equipment and gas equipment who persuaded the local government which have no single knowledge about hydrogen and just want to create a "GREEN IMAGE". Hydrogen is NOT a green solution. It's just a myth.
- sunkenvicar 7y agoNuclear is needed to generate the energy stored by Hydrogen.
- pfdietz 7y agoSince the levelized cost of new nuclear is 3-4x that of renewables, how could what you write there possibly be true? Hydrogen, in fact, if made by electrolysis from renewable energy, would be the final nail in the coffin for nuclear. That's because it would destroy the last, desperate argument the nuclear fans are making: that renewables cannot reach 100% due to occasional long windless/cloudy periods, and that batteries to tide over those periods would be too expensive. Batteries would be too expensive, but hydrogen burning turbines would not be.
- netjiro 7y agoBecuase of the low density of renewables: https://www.ted.com/talks/david_mackay_a_reality_check_on_renewables/transcript?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/david_mackay_a_reality_check_on_re... [edit, better link]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0W1ZZYIV8o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0W1ZZYIV8o
- pfdietz 7y agoLow density is only a problem for high population density, high latitude Europe. But if Europe decides "no, we're going with nuclear" then how can they compete with low latitude solar that's going to be nearly an order of magnitude cheaper? Renewables will be fine for Europe once all the heavy industry is gone.
- sunkenvicar 7y agoIndustry, the backbone of modern civilization, requires cheap unlimited power 24/7. Renewables in Europe are killing growth and driving jobs overseas.
- roenxi 7y agoReally interesting that with the benefit of hindsight - the German Energiewende stared circa 2010 and their progress on carbon emissions seems to have stalled. Ironic that that was the short term effect of transitioning to use more renewables.
- pfdietz 7y agoThe problem was the carbon emission market in Europe was screwed up, making the cost of carbon credit too low. That has recently been fixed and the cost of CO2 is now rising sharply there.
- lispm 7y ago> German Energiewende stared circa 2010 If you mean 'started', then the Energiewende started around 2000 in Germany. Whether the CO2 reduction are stalling for a few years is relatively unimportant for a project which has a horizon of 50 years. CO2 reductions in Germany in 2017 were 0.5%. In 2018 around 4.5%... 2019 looks good so far. For electricity production the first half of 2019 has seen a CO2 reduction of 15% compared to the first half of 2018.
- Animats 7y agoIt's like Germany's answer to ethanol in gasoline. Who does this subsidize? VW, probably, which ought to be a leader in electric cars, but isn't. Although they're finally bringing out some designed from the ground up electric cars.
- hairytrog 7y agoUsing renewable electricity to make Hydrogen is bonkers today. Using high temperature nuclear heat is not. You just need gas-cooled reactors that can make 900 to 1000 °C steam. This company is making gas-cooled reactor in Canada and claim they can make competitive Hydrogen: https://usnc.com/FCM.html https://usnc.com/FCM.html The processes are different from electrolysis. From https://art.inl.gov/NGNP/NEAC%202010/INL_NGNP%20References/R-6917-00-01%20NGNP%20Hydrogen%20Tech%20-%20IRT%20Eval.pdf https://art.inl.gov/NGNP/NEAC%202010/INL_NGNP%20References/R... "1. SI Process: A thermochemical process that incorporates: (1) endothermic decomposition of hydrogen iodide (HI) at about 450°C in the presence of a carbon catalyst to yield hydrogen and I2, (2) recycle of the iodine to a concurrent or countercurrent column reactor where it reacts exothermically at about 120°C with sulfur dioxide (SO2) via the Bunsen reaction to form hydriodic acid (HI) and sulfuric acid (H2SO4), (3) gravimetric separation of the HI and H2SO4, and (4) thermal/catalytic decomposition of sulfuric acid (H2SO4) to oxygen and SO2 at high temperature, up to 900°C, with the SO2 recycled back to the Bunsen reaction section. In the SI process, H2SO4 acts as oxygen carrier and HI as a hydrogen carrier. 2. HTSE Process: A ceramic electrolyte and electrode electrolysis process operating at up to 950°C. Water is the only reactant, and high temperatures allow for some of the energy required to split the steam (water) to be supplied as heat as opposed to electricity alone, as in LTE cells. 3. HyS Process: A hybrid process that produces hydrogen and oxygen in a polymer membrane based electrolysis cell operating at temperatures below 125°C. In the HyS process, SO2 is used to depolarize the cell and allow it to operate at lower voltages and hence higher efficiencies and current densities as compared to higher temperature electrolysis cells. Sulfuric acid is produced along with hydrogen in the cells, with the SO2 recycled from a sulfuric acid decomposer similar to that used in the SI process."
- mariushn 7y agoGermany should turn to safe, modern nuclear plants, eg Molten Salt Reactors.
- Doubleslash 7y agoSafety is not the only reason German wants to walk away from nuclear energy. The long-term, safe storage of nuclear waste that will radiate for decades to come is not something want to leave behind our future generations.
- campl3r 7y agoThe fear after Fukushima is what lead to Germany moving away from nuclear.
- AnonymousPlanet 7y agoNo it is not. The biggest blow of confidence in nuclear power was very likely Chernobyl in 1986. It made the German public realise what effort you have to put in to contain a nuclear disaster. Have a look a the locations of German reactors. And now imagine an exclusion zone around them and note the cities that are affected. It would spell economic disaster for the entire country. On top of that Germany isn't even remotely capable of commandeering the amount of man power the Soviets had to. Now let's look at politics. The government under Gerhard Schröder decided to phase out nuclear energy. The next government under Angela Merkel put a stop to the full phase out and issued an extension for existing plants in 2010 [1]. In 2011 there was a "moratorium" that consisted of a reevaluation of existing plants with the possibility to close plants ahead of their extended time [2]. This is the only political action taken after Fukushima. The ball had been rolling long before that. Please don't believe the simplified, sensationalist recounts that are popular in the American media. [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laufzeitverl%C3%A4ngerung_deutscher_Kernkraftwerke https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laufzeitverl%C3%A4ngerung_deut... [2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom-Moratorium https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom-Moratorium
- 7y ago