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Yes, this is the case due to the enormous scale of production. Replacing the hydrogen source at similar scales with electrolysis is plausible with base load pow
by jandrewrogers 5y ago
Yes, this is the case due to the enormous scale of production. Replacing the hydrogen source at similar scales with electrolysis is plausible with base load power generation. The cost increase is a small integer factor, and in the bigger scheme of things is likely something we can adapt to at least for agriculture.
An obvious challenge is that we don't have available green base load power -- nuclear, hydro, or geothermal -- at anything remotely resembling the necessary scale. The requirement for base load power follows from the economics of industrial chemistry, which becomes much more expensive if you can't run your process in a continuous steady-state equilibrium. If we tried to produce ammonia via micro-batching chemistry or similar, those economics may not be practical.
The other unfortunate reality is that ammonia production is often a way to extract value from excess methane that might otherwise be vented or burned. It is a better use than the alternative. It isn't a coincidence that ammonia is primarily produced in countries with a persistent surplus of methane. As long as we have vast amounts of methane lying around, and we will for the foreseeable future, conversion into ammonia is a pretty reasonable choice since that carbon will often end up in the atmosphere regardless.
- mtsr 5y agoWhile nuclear has different pollution than fossil fuels, one can hardly call it green with the everlasting poison it produces.
- adrianN 5y agoAt least the poison is very concentrated and easy to store. CO2 in the atmosphere is "forever" too, and much harder to deal with.
- mtsr 5y agoNot really, the most abundant life forms on earth consume CO2 to grow. Of course not at the rate we would like (especially with current coverage and that we’re still freeing more carbon daily by chopping down more forests).
- hnhg 5y agoGreen is an unhelpful umbrella term IMO. We need to be specific. Even "low carbon" is vague and prone to abuse.
- mtsr 5y agoAbsolutely. But it is also helpful to for example subsidize low carbon energy, rather than solar and hydro specifically, because it allows for innovations outside of those specific options.
- pfdietz 5y agoI was amused by other color coding for hydrogen, especially "turquoise hydrogen": hydrogen that is produced by pyrolysis of methane to hydrogen and carbon. This requires considerably less energy than conversion of water to hydrogen and oxygen. The carbon can then be buried so it doesn't oxidize. The name comes from the combination of "green hydrogen" (electrolysis using non-fossil electricity) and "blue hydrogen" (methane reforming that avoids CO2 emission by capture and sequestration of the CO2).
- fuoqi 5y agoWith a proper breeder system we would not only significantly reduce amount of required Uranium mining (and thus its environmental impact), but also amount of produced waste and time at which it will be radioactively dangerous (from several hundred thousand years to several hundred). But, unfortunately, only the Russian government currently seriously invests into development of this area. Everyone else is fine with simply storing nuclear waste (with varying levels of finality and recycling), especially considering that it takes a minuscule amount of space as far as industrial processes go.
- emn13 5y agoAs far as I know - but please correct me if I'm wrong - the amount of waste is small enough that this is irrelevant. Additionally, having radioactive isotopes around is the natural state of affairs; after all, that's the input too. Is the scale of the nuclear pollution really different from the scale of infrastructure-construction pollution for e.g. solar or wind? Because AFAIK either option is much, much cleaner than fossil fuel. Finally, part of this teeth-gnashing seems to be centered on old fears. For instance, we have international treaties banning nuclear waste dumping in the ocean, but that's kind of absurd, considering that the amount is so low, and the ocean is so much larger than land, that water is quite good at absorbing and diluting residual radiation, and that any specific spot on the oceanic plate appears to be some of the least valuable ecosystem habitat on the planet. Why not just dump it in small containers somewhere in the middle of nowhere? I believe valid concerns surrounding nuclear are primarily those of cost and delay. But this isn't some competition with e.g. wind and solar; it's a potential addition to replace e.g. coal, which is still a major power source all over the world. Comparing nuclear to solar is a distraction - if we manage to replace nuclear with e.g. solar+storage many decades down the line, that's great - but decarbonizing is extremely urgent, and we should therefore not be shutting down any routes to do so without extremely solid reasons.
- hannob 5y ago> Replacing the hydrogen source at similar scales with electrolysis is plausible with base load power generation. There is no need to tie this to base load power generation. In fact, quite the opposite: A lot of the electrolysis projects and the funding happening right now is targetted at using electrolysis as a compensation for fluctuating renewables. This makes sense: We have cheap, green electricity, however having it in constant supply is expensive. So the smart thing is to shift the demand where that's possible.
- freemint 5y agoThis works because electrolysis equipment is cheap, so shutting it down half time barely increases total cost of ownership compared to the input electricity.
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoI don't think electrolysis equipment is particularly cheap, there's some excitement about cheaper alternatives coming to market and mass production that use cheaper materials. But overall it's going to be the cheapest way to make hydrogen and then ammonia very soon. And the market has already seen that inevitable future, lots of right-wing Australian mining billionaires have jumped into the market hard for example. The main saving is avoided carbon, which isn't priced in everywhere. But the sheer scale of ammonia production means it's easy to gradually introduce this as long as you spread the initial upfron cost across all the users (which is basically everyone). It's a very mutually beneficial arrangement for renewables so the two things reinforce each other strongly and I think it'll be one of those things that moves faster than they expect.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Retric 5y agoThe equipment is cheap relative to the cost of electricity to run it. This analysis is 5 years old and it was already the case back then: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/hydrogen-production-cost https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/hydrogen-pr...
- 7952 5y agoSurely the hydrogen could be stored to allow for intermittent power supply? Make hydrogen when power is cheaper and there is spare. Also, the continuous supply of power is exactly what the grid is designed to do. Availability of cheap nuclear or geothermal could change the economics. But the power is exactly the same if it comes from nuclear, renewables or battery storage.
- fuoqi 5y agoWith very-high-temperature reactors (one of potential paths for Generation IV reactors) you can produce hydrogen using reactor heat directly, bypassing the electricity conversion step, thus significantly improving efficiency of the process. And with sufficiently cheap hydrogen you would not be able to produce fertilizers, but also steel, another dominant CO2 source.
- 7952 5y agoOh I absolutely agree that nuclear is a brilliant choice for hydrogen production. And presumably it would allow nuclear to adjust electricity output whilst maintaining high utilisation and profitability. But still I think there is a mistake in assuming that everything needs to be tightly coupled. The benefit of an electricity grid and storable fuels is that you have flexibility.
- pfdietz 5y agoHow is nuclear a brilliant choice for hydrogen production? Hydrogen provides inherent storage, so energy sources will (aside from cost of electrolysers) be competing based on levelized cost -- and levelized cost of new nuclear sucks. High temperature electrolysis doesn't change this: it reduces the electrical power needed by maybe 25%, at the cost of a nuclear reactor that has to operate at 1000 C with all the material problems that implies (there's a reason LWRs won and HTGC reactors did not.)
- 7952 5y agoI don't have the expertise to answer that at a technical level. I think it could be a good choice because it would help balance out intermittent sources like wind and solar. And give alternative revenue streams for nuclear power.
- otherotherchris 5y agoIf electrolysis can be made cheaper (E-TAC looks promising) you can run it at a reduced duty cycle on excess solar and wind power whenever they are available. You can also produce hydrogen at the point of generation if water is available, and store it using the now obsolete natural gas distribution network.
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoPeople need to flip this excess electricity idea. The cheapest power is solar and wind. If you build an ammonia plant, the cheapest way to get the power you need is to build solar and wind. You can sell some excess to other grid users when you have too much, and you can stop production on very short timescales to help balance the grid during peaks but overall you'll be able to predict energy production years in advance and know upfront how much it'll cost you. Those financing benefits are a strong driver of the move away from fossil fuels. This is already happening with actual plants, they build the renewables and the plant at the same time. It just makes sense. So, green hydrogen will overall be a source of cheap 'excess' renewables power on the grid, not mopping up excess from other providers.
- pfdietz 5y agoGreen hydrogen becomes a source of more dispatchable excess power on the grid. This is more valuable than just randomly available power on the grid. Those renewables powering the ammonia plant can be diverted to sell to the grid when prices there are high.
- otherotherchris 5y agoAmmonia burns fine in a diesel engine with almost no modification, just swap the fuel pumps and injectors.
- peterburkimsher 5y agoLet's make ammonia in Siberia to catch the methane from the melting tundra!
- theropost 5y agoI for one am all for building green energy infrastructure at scale. However, at this point, I believe the push for green energy at the expense of nuclear, and even hydro projects at this point, has retarded the reduction of green house gases. It's a bit ironic that those wholly supporting wind/solar, have at the same time forced increased bureaucracy, and cost in other base load energy sources that could have helped in an overall reduction of emissions. So by fighting against climate change, they may have indeed made it worse.
- DonHopkins 5y agoWaiting for the Ammonia Shills to chime in that producing enormous amounts of ammonia that nobody actually needs will drive the development of green energy infrastructure.
- the8472 5y agoOr, until we have enough excess electricity, we could replace methane steam reformation with pyrolysis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production#Methane_pyrolysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production#Methane_py...