{"id":302019,"date":"2024-02-16T16:47:52","date_gmt":"2024-02-16T15:47:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=302019"},"modified":"2024-02-16T16:47:54","modified_gmt":"2024-02-16T15:47:54","slug":"when-you-crunch-the-numbers-green-hydrogen-is-a-non-starter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=302019","title":{"rendered":"When You Crunch The Numbers, Green Hydrogen Is A Non-Starter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From The Manhattan Contrarian<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Francis Menton<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This post reports on two new instances of people applying a little critical thinking to the issue of using so-called \u201cgreen\u201d hydrogen as an essential piece of a future de-carbonized energy system. This is a subject that I have previously addressed, here in a post of June 13, 2022<\/a>, and here again in my energy storage Report of December 1, 2022<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two new pieces covered in this post are (1) a February 1 Report for the Manhattan Institute by Jonathan Lesser titled \u201cGreen Hydrogen: A Multibillion-Dollar Energy Boondoggle,\u201d<\/a>, and (2) a February 13 article in the Washington Examiner by Steve Goreham titled \u201cCan the government create a green hydrogen fuel industry?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you think that a \u201cde-carbonized\u201d energy system is some kind of urgent priority for humanity, and you put your mind to how to achieve that, it won\u2019t take you long to realize that hydrogen is the only way to get there. OK, there\u2019s nuclear, but environmentalists and regulators have nuclear completely blocked. That means that to be carbon-free, most electricity must come from the wind and sun, and in turn that means need for energy storage far beyond the capabilities of any batteries. Hydrogen is the one and only remaining solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And not just any hydrogen. Only \u201cgreen\u201d hydrogen will do \u2014 that is, hydrogen that is itself produced by some carbon-free process. The alternative is to get your hydrogen the way almost all hydrogen is produced today: you \u201creform\u201d methane (CH4), separating out the hydrogen and discarding the carbon as CO2 into the atmosphere. But this process has the same CO2 emissions as if you just burned the methane (aka natural gas) in a power plant to get your energy in the first place. If the entire goal is de-carbonization, that is clearly not allowed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over at the government, their minds move slowly, but they have recently figured out that keeping their energy transition fantasy alive can only be accomplished with vast amounts of green hydrogen. And so they have undertaken to address the issue in the only way they know, which is to throw oodles of taxpayer funding at it. This piece from JPT on October 24, 2023<\/a> covers the government\u2019s latest big announcement:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

US President Joe Biden and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm announced that seven regional clean hydrogen hubs have been selected to receive $7 billion in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding in an effort to accelerate the domestic market for low-cost, clean hydrogen. The seven selected regional clean hydrogen hubs are expected to catalyze more than $40 billion in private investment and create tens of thousands of jobs, bringing the total public and private investment in hydrogen hubs to nearly $50 billion.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note that the government\u2019s big initiative came just about a year after<\/em> the two Manhattan Contrarian pieces in 2022 explaining why this could never be done economically. But anyway, now that the government funds are flowing, and so-called \u201cinfrastructure\u201d is getting built, others are starting to look at whether this makes any sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of the two new pieces covered here, Lesser\u2019s is far the longer and more detailed. He goes through a careful look at all the elements of trying to produce this green hydrogen stuff \u2014 building the electrolysis facility, operating and maintaining the facility, buying electricity from wind and solar producers, transmitting the wind\/solar electricity to the site of electrolysis, and compressing the hydrogen into a form ready for transit somewhere to be used \u2014 and puts assumed cost figures on each piece of the process. He comes up with a total cost range of $2.74 to $5.35 per kg of hydrogen produced. Here is Lesser\u2019s chart:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Note that Lesser comes up with even higher figures of $3.62 to $8.85 per kg of hydrogen if he further adds costs of battery storage of electricity to make it so that the electrolyzers can run all the time and not be dependent on the intermittency of wind and sun. Green hydrogen advocates would dispute whether this is necessary, so let\u2019s leave it out for now. Even without this additional cost, we are at $2.74 to $5.35 per kg for the hydrogen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since a kg of hydrogen is good for about 33.3 kwh, that would mean something in the range of 8.3 to 16.2 cents per kwh just for the fuel, without yet considering any cost to get the fuel to a power plant to be burned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would comment that some of Lesser\u2019s assumptions are very low, and by \u201clow\u201d I mean favorable to the economic viability of this green hydrogen. Most notably, he has an assumption of an unsubsidized cost of 4 cents per kwh for the wind\/solar-generated electricity. Crazy. Here in New York, off-shore wind developers who had bid last year for contracts at about $90-100\/MWH (i.e., 9 – 10 cents per kwh) have recently reneged and demanded prices in the range of $150-160\/MWH, or 15-16 cents per kwh. If the recent New York demands represent the real cost of wind\/solar electricity, then you can multiply Lesser\u2019s figure for the electricity input to produce a kg of hydrogen by 4, adding about $6 per kg, bringing the total cost of a kg to around $9 – 11, instead of Lesser\u2019s $2.74 – 5.35. In cents\/kwh that would be about 18 additional cents per kwh, in either the high or low scenario; instead of a range of about 8 to 16 cents, it would be 24 to 32 cents per kwh to make the green hydrogen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goreham does not give us such a detailed calculation, but his bottom line is about the same (including a more realistic cost for the wind\/solar electricity):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hydrogen feedstock made from natural gas or coal is inexpensive, with a cost as low as $1 per kilogram. . . . To produce a kilogram of hydrogen by electrolysis, electricity alone costs $3 to $6 per kilogram, resulting in a total <\/em>cost<\/em><\/a> of at least $5 per kilogram. This makes hydrogen from electrolysis more than five times as expensive as hydrogen made from natural gas or coal.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goreham\u2019s \u201cat least $5 per kg\u201d for green hydrogen is actually well below Lesser\u2019s figure after we adjust for the cost of electricity from wind and solar generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note that, as I reported on January 12,<\/a> recent bids in the UK for producing green hydrogen using electricity from off-shore wind came in at about $306\/MWH, or 30.6 cents per kwh. Using the conversion factor of 33.3 kwh\/kg of hydrogen would make this the equivalent of over $10 per kg of hydrogen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We won\u2019t really know how much this green hydrogen stuff actually costs until there are some real facilities up and running. But whether it is ten times as expensive as the stuff produced from natural gas, or only five times as expensive, doesn\u2019t really matter. It is uneconomic, and nothing is going to change that. Nobody will ever buy it or use it without government mandates or subsidies or both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goreham\u2019s conclusion:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[G]overnments now want to create a new hydrogen fuel industry using market intervention, mandates, and massive subsidies. But physics and economics strongly oppose the development of a green hydrogen fuel industry. Get ready for a spectacular failure of these government-sponsored efforts.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you think that a \u201cde-carbonized\u201d energy system is some kind of urgent priority for humanity, and you put your mind to how to achieve that, it won\u2019t take you long to realize that hydrogen is the only way to get there. OK, there\u2019s nuclear, but environmentalists and regulators have nuclear completely blocked. That means that to be carbon-free, most electricity must come from the wind and sun, and in turn that means need for energy storage far beyond the capabilities of any batteries. Hydrogen is the one and only remaining solution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":302023,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"If you think that a \u201cde-carbonized\u201d energy system is some kind of urgent priority for humanity, and you put your mind to how to achieve that, it won\u2019t take you long to realize that hydrogen is the only way to get there. OK, there\u2019s nuclear, but environmen","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818076,691826962,691819849,691826963,691818154,691818772],"class_list":{"0":"post-302019","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-co2","9":"tag-de-carbonized-energy-system","10":"tag-green-hydrogen","11":"tag-methane-ch4","12":"tag-net-zero","13":"tag-u-s-president-joe-biden","15":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/0baf1e5ba0791fd82957c881bf4feeede.jpg?fit=1600%2C793&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1gzh","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":338050,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=338050","url_meta":{"origin":302019,"position":0},"title":"Impossible \u2018Green\u2019 Hydrogen Dream: Laws of Physics Bust Climate Cult\u2019s Latest Energy\u00a0Myth","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"31\/07\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"The Climate Cult promotes the myth of hydrogen gas as the salvation of the planet from catastrophic global boiling. The billionaire climate rent-seekers tell us that hydrogen power is the answer because the only emissions it puts out are water vapour. 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