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South Australia has started producing "green" hydrogen and will be shipping it compressed to the city of Whyalla. I only mention that because one of the trouble

by ehnto 6y ago

South Australia has started producing "green" hydrogen and will be shipping it compressed to the city of Whyalla. I only mention that because one of the trouble's with hydrogen is transportation, so they must have found at least some solutions, might be worth checking out for anyone interested. In this same city, the steel plant will exceed it's emissions limits for this year, and so the hope is to see a hydrogen process start taking replacing the current coal process soon. The hydrogen plant is also supplying a mix of hydrogen and natural gas to the local gas supply, which is pretty rad too. Yet another way hydrogen can help cut reliance on fossil fuels. I don't know what the blend's carbon output is when burned, but reducing the demand for fossil fuels is a net positive in detering investment into drilling and mining. Having a renewable source for a general combustion gas is excellent.

ginko 6y ago
>I only mention that because one of the trouble's with hydrogen is transportation I think this may be the main reason why the test plant is in Austria. Central Europe has a developed energy grid with lots of energy spikes due to renewables especially in Northern Germany. Austria has an established steel industry and plenty of water, so they can probably produce the hydrogen on-site and immediately use it in the blast furnace.
tomatocracy 6y ago
In terms of transportation, the UK has talked about repurposing the existing domestic natural gas network for hydrogen in the longer term. One first step towards this is hydrogenation of natural gas. The UK has a particularly well developed natural gas grid by international standards, but if this works well it could be a template for others to follow.
kolinko 6y ago
I wonder if it would be feasible to produce Zeppelin drones to transport hydrogen - sounds like a tried and tested tech :)
- darksaints 6y ago
  Sure you can transport it that way, but in order for it to be lighter than air it cannot be significantly compressed. The compression factor (when liquid) is about 1000...you'd need a zepellin the size of 1000 trucks in order to transport the same quantity as a single truck. That leads to materials costs and aerodynamic efficiency being significant factors. You simply cannot transport hydrogen very efficiently using such methods.
  - jws 6y ago
    Maybe… A cubic meter of hydrogen has 3kWH of energy, about $0.25. The Hindenburg was 200,000 cubic meters, so $48,000 of hydrogen. So, hydrogen production facilities can fill very large balloons and send them off into the sky with little altitude controllers like the Project Loon balloons. They can then do their best to navigate the Earth's air currents to move themselves to pass over energy consumers. When an energy consumer needs more hydrogen they can send a powered airship up to grab a nearby hydrogen balloon and bring it down for harvesting, paying the producer in the process. Really the best part of this solution is that it will create an underworld caste of sky pirates who use their airships to steal hydrogen. We can only hope they wear vaguely Victorian clothing and wear goggles.
    - pjc50 6y ago
      > $48,000 of hydrogen. That seems disappointing, but it's roughly the UK retail value of a tanker full of petrol.
    - darksaints 6y ago
      With standard blimps (think goodyear) costing $20m+, I think you'd still find the ROI on that still being a lot lower than cryotanks on trailers.
      - detritus 6y ago
        How many Goodyear blimps are there in current service, though? If there were many more than there are now, the unit cost would drop.
ogre_codes 6y ago
Seems like the best bet would be consuming the hydrogen at the place of origin. If you located a steel plant near where you produced hydrogen then you would just need to transport the steel ore and end product which is a solved problem.
JimTheMan 6y ago
I work in the gas industry. We'll send Hydrogen down the same pipes we currently use for natural gas. We've solved large scale transmission of gases. Hydrogen has the pesky problem of embrittling metals, but this can be accounted for and monitored. Compressor stations will have to change and so on... Basically it can be done and natural gas asset owners are VERY interested in being relevant in the future as we transition away from carbon emitting fuels.

by ehnto 6y ago

ginko 6y ago

>I only mention that because one of the trouble's with hydrogen is transportation I think this may be the main reason why the test plant is in Austria. Central Europe has a developed energy grid with lots of energy spikes due to renewables especially in Northern Germany. Austria has an established steel industry and plenty of water, so they can probably produce the hydrogen on-site and immediately use it in the blast furnace.

tomatocracy 6y ago

In terms of transportation, the UK has talked about repurposing the existing domestic natural gas network for hydrogen in the longer term. One first step towards this is hydrogenation of natural gas. The UK has a particularly well developed natural gas grid by international standards, but if this works well it could be a template for others to follow.

kolinko 6y ago

I wonder if it would be feasible to produce Zeppelin drones to transport hydrogen - sounds like a tried and tested tech :)

darksaints 6y ago
Sure you can transport it that way, but in order for it to be lighter than air it cannot be significantly compressed. The compression factor (when liquid) is about 1000...you'd need a zepellin the size of 1000 trucks in order to transport the same quantity as a single truck. That leads to materials costs and aerodynamic efficiency being significant factors. You simply cannot transport hydrogen very efficiently using such methods.
- jws 6y ago
  Maybe… A cubic meter of hydrogen has 3kWH of energy, about $0.25. The Hindenburg was 200,000 cubic meters, so $48,000 of hydrogen. So, hydrogen production facilities can fill very large balloons and send them off into the sky with little altitude controllers like the Project Loon balloons. They can then do their best to navigate the Earth's air currents to move themselves to pass over energy consumers. When an energy consumer needs more hydrogen they can send a powered airship up to grab a nearby hydrogen balloon and bring it down for harvesting, paying the producer in the process. Really the best part of this solution is that it will create an underworld caste of sky pirates who use their airships to steal hydrogen. We can only hope they wear vaguely Victorian clothing and wear goggles.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    > $48,000 of hydrogen. That seems disappointing, but it's roughly the UK retail value of a tanker full of petrol.
  - darksaints 6y ago
    With standard blimps (think goodyear) costing $20m+, I think you'd still find the ROI on that still being a lot lower than cryotanks on trailers.
    - detritus 6y ago
      How many Goodyear blimps are there in current service, though? If there were many more than there are now, the unit cost would drop.

ogre_codes 6y ago

Seems like the best bet would be consuming the hydrogen at the place of origin. If you located a steel plant near where you produced hydrogen then you would just need to transport the steel ore and end product which is a solved problem.

JimTheMan 6y ago

I work in the gas industry. We'll send Hydrogen down the same pipes we currently use for natural gas. We've solved large scale transmission of gases. Hydrogen has the pesky problem of embrittling metals, but this can be accounted for and monitored. Compressor stations will have to change and so on... Basically it can be done and natural gas asset owners are VERY interested in being relevant in the future as we transition away from carbon emitting fuels.