{"id":328919,"date":"2024-05-14T07:18:03","date_gmt":"2024-05-14T05:18:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=328919"},"modified":"2024-05-14T07:18:05","modified_gmt":"2024-05-14T05:18:05","slug":"the-h-stands-for-hype","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=328919","title":{"rendered":"The H Stands For Hype"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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

From Watts Up With That?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Robert Bryce\u2019s Substack<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sun is mainly made of hydrogen<\/a>. But there is nothing new under the Sun, and that includes hydrogen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That Old Testament reference \u2014 \u201cwhat has been will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun\u201d \u2014 is appropriate here because the hype about hydrogen seems nearly as old as the Bible itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On June 10, 1975, during the 94th Congress, the House of Representatives held the first of two \u201cinvestigative hearings on the subject of hydrogen \u2014 its production, utilization, and potential effects on our energy economy of the future.\u201d The hearing was chaired by Mike McCormack<\/a>, a Democrat from Washington state, who claimed hydrogen \u201chas the potential of playing the same kind of role in our energy system as electricity does today.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1996, the\u00a0Chicago Sun-Times\u00a0<\/em>declared \u201cThe first steps toward what proponents call the hydrogen economy are being taken.\u201d In 2003, Jeremy Rifkin, an \u201ceconomic and social theorist<\/a>,\u201d published\u00a0The Hydrogen Economy: The Creation of the Worldwide Energy Web and the Redistribution of Power on Earth<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em>In that book,Rifkin claimed that \u201cGlobalization represents the end stage of the fossil-fuel era.\u201d Turning \u201ctoward hydrogen is a promissory note for a safer world,\u201d he averred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

President George W. Bush bought the hydrogen hype. In his 2003 State of the Union Address, he said, \u201cWith a new national commitment, our scientists and engineers will overcome obstacles<\/a>\u201d to taking hydrogen-fueled automobiles \u201cfrom laboratory to showroom so that the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen, and pollution-free.\u201d A few months after that speech, his administration announced a collaborative effort with the European Union for the \u201cdevelopment of a hydrogen economy,\u201d including the  technologies \u201cneeded for mass production of safe and affordable hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles.\u201d The White House claimed in a 2003 press release<\/a> that the effort would \u201cimprove America\u2019s energy security by significantly reducing the need for imported oil.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The history of the hype matters because we live in ahistorical times. Or, as author Jeff Minick explained in 2022<\/a>, we are plagued by \u201cpresentism.\u201d Presentism, Minick wrote, \u201cis the reason so many young people can name the Kardashians but can\u2019t tell you the importance of Abraham Lincoln or why we fought in World War II.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Presentism helps explain why, on April 30, the New York Times<\/em> published a piece headlined, \u201cHydrogen Offers Germany a Chance to Take a Lead in Green Energy<\/a>,\u201d which ignores the long history of hydrogen\u2019s failure to live up to the forecasts. But blaming presentism can\u2019t account for the vapidity of the article, which hinges on this nut graf:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The concept of hydrogen as a renewable energy source has been around for years<\/strong>, but only within the past decade has the idea of its potential to replace fossil fuels to power heavy industry taken off, leading to increased investment and advances in the technology. (Emphasis added<\/strong>.)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The idea of hydrogen may (or may not) be taking off, but hydrogen is not a \u201csource\u201d of energy, it\u2019s an energy carrier. Calling hydrogen an energy \u201csource\u201d is like calling Stormy Daniels an \u201cactress.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hydrogen is abundant in the universe. But it\u2019s not a source of energy. Instead, like electricity and gasoline, it must be manufactured. The most common ways are by splitting water through electrolysis, or via steam-methane reforming<\/a>, which uses high-pressure steam to produce hydrogen from methane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are other forehead-slapping statements in the\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0article written by Stanley Reed and Melissa Eddy, who traveled to the German city of Duisburg to visit a factory that makes electrolyzers. \u201cIf adopted widely,\u201d they wrote, \u201cthe devices could help clean up heavy industry such as steel-making, in Germany and elsewhere.\u201d Well, yes, if \u201cadopted widely.\u201d But despite decades of frothy predictions from Rifkin and others, electrolyzers haven\u2019t been adopted widely because making and using hydrogen on a large scale is \u2014 as my friend, Steve Brick, puts it \u2014 \u201ca thermodynamic obscenity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The cover of Rifkin\u2019s 2003 book.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reed and Eddy ignore the energy intensity of making hydrogen, only offering that by using \u201celectricity to split water\u201d the electrolyzer \u201cproduces hydrogen, a carbon-free gas that could help power mills like the one in Duisburg.\u201d That\u2019s true. But how much electricity is needed? And where the heck is German industry, which is already being hammered by expensive gas and power<\/a>, going to get the juice? At what cost? Those questions are not addressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be clear, lots of other media outlets are hyping hydrogen. And the hype is surging because of fat government subsidies. Reed and Eddy explain that the German government has earmarked some $14.2 billion \u201cfor investment in about two dozen projects to develop hydrogen.\u201d Here in the U.S., the 45V tax credit in the Inflation Reduction Act<\/a> provides lucrative subsidies for hydrogen production. Big business is lining up to get those subsidies. In February, energy giant Exxon Mobil warned that it might cancel a proposed hydrogen project at its Baytown, Texas<\/a> refinery depending on how the Treasury Department interpreted the \u201cclean\u201d hydrogen rules in the IRA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regardless of tax credits and subsidies, making and using hydrogen is a high-entropy, high-cost process. As a friend in the oil refining business told me last year, \u201cIf you like $6-per-gallon gasoline, you\u2019re gonna love $14-to-$20-per-gallon hydrogen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for Brick\u2019s \u201cthermodynamic obscenity\u201d line, the numbers \u2014 which I\u2019ll examine in a moment \u2014 are easy to understand. Hydrogen is insanely expensive, in energy terms, to manufacture. It takes about three units of energy, in the form of electricity, to produce two units of hydrogen energy. In other words, the hydrogen economy requires scads of electricity (a high quality form of energy) to make a tiny molecule that\u2019s hard to handle, difficult to store, and expensive to use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the biggest challenges in handling and storing the gas is the problem of \u201chydrogen embrittlement<\/a>,\u201d which can occur when metals are exposed to hydrogen. That means we can\u2019t use existing gas pipelines or tanks to move and store the gas. As for using the gas, yes, it can be blended with natural gas and put into turbines or reciprocating engines. However, the best way to use it is in a fuel cell. And from where will those devices come? I\u2019m old enough to collect Social Security. I\u2019ve been reporting about the energy sector for nearly four decades, and yet, in all that time,\u00a0I\u2019ve seen precisely three fuel cells<\/em>. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How much would the hydrogen economy cost? In 2020, Bloomberg NEF estimated that producing enough \u201cgreen\u201d hydrogen to meet 25% of global energy demand would require \u201cmore electricity than the world now generates from all sources<\/a> and an investment of $11 trillion in production and storage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The obscene thermodynamics of hydrogen can be understood by looking at an announcement made last year by Constellation Energy. According to a March 10, 2023 article in Nuclear NewsWire<\/a>, a new hydrogen production project at the company\u2019s Nine Mile Point nuclear plant in New York, \u201cis part of a $14.5 million cost-shared project between Constellation and the Department of Energy.\u201d Of that sum, $5.8 million was coming from the DOE. The article explained that \u201cUsing 1.25 megawatts of zero-carbon energy per hour,\u201d the plant\u2019s electrolyzer will produce \u201c560 kilograms of clean hydrogen per day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The math is simple. The plant uses 30 megawatt-hours of electricity to produce 560 kg of hydrogen per day. One MWh of electricity is equal to 3,600 megajoules of energy, and one kg of hydrogen contains about 130 MJ of energy<\/a>. Therefore, Nine Mile Point uses 108,000 MJ of electricity to produce 72,800 MJ of hydrogen, or 1.5 MJ of electricity for 1 MJ of hydrogen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such a lousy EROEI (energy return on energy invested) should immediately disqualify hydrogen from serious energy policy discussions. But that, of course, hasn\u2019t happened. It must also be noted that the EROEI is worse than what I stated above because the hydrogen, once produced, must be stored and fed back into another energy conversion device to make electricity or heat. In that process, more energy will be lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll end with a bit more history. In 2004, the National Research Council and the National Academy of Engineering published a 267-page report called \u201cThe Hydrogen Economy: Opportunities, Costs, Barriers, and R&D Needs<\/a>.\u201d In the concluding section, the report said, \u201cmaking hydrogen from renewable energy through the intermediate step of making electricity, a premium energy source, requires further breakthroughs in order to be competitive.\u201d It continued:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

There are major hurdles on the path to achieving the vision of the hydrogen economy; the path will not be simple or straightforward. Many of the committee\u2019s observations generalize across the entire hydrogen economy: the hydrogen system must be cost-competitive, it must be safe and appealing to the consumer, and it would preferably offer advantages from the perspectives of energy security and CO2<\/sub> emissions. Specifically for the transportation sector, dramatic progress in the development of fuel cells, storage devices, and distribution systems is especially critical. Widespread success is not certain.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Widespread success of the hydrogen economy wasn\u2019t certain in 2004, and it\u2019s not certain now. Or, to put it in ecclesiastical terms<\/a>, there\u2019s nothing new under the hydrogen sun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The Sun is mainly made of hydrogen. But there is nothing new under the Sun, and that includes hydrogen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":328925,"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":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"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":[691818051,691818118,691818370,691820985,691828606],"class_list":{"0":"post-328919","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-germany","9":"tag-green-energy","10":"tag-hydrogen","11":"tag-hydrogen-hype","12":"tag-president-george-w-bush","14":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/0bnr-demystifying-hydrogen-power.webp?fit=1920%2C750&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1nz9","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":257113,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=257113","url_meta":{"origin":328919,"position":0},"title":"Saudis Demand Hydrogen Enthusiasts Back their Hype with Money","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"12\/05\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Saudi Aramco\u00a0is weighing exports of liquefied natural gas instead of blue hydrogen, as talks with potential buyers of the latter fuel prove tough.","rel":"","context":"In \"Aramco\"","block_context":{"text":"Aramco","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=aramco"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/0the-hindenburg-disaster.png?fit=1200%2C600&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/0the-hindenburg-disaster.png?fit=1200%2C600&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/0the-hindenburg-disaster.png?fit=1200%2C600&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/0the-hindenburg-disaster.png?fit=1200%2C600&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/0the-hindenburg-disaster.png?fit=1200%2C600&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":204415,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=204415","url_meta":{"origin":328919,"position":1},"title":"Hydrogen Is Unlikely Ever to Be a Viable Solution to The Energy Storage Conundrum","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"14\/06\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"From the MANHATTAN CONTRARIAN Francis Menton What I call the \u201cenergy storage conundrum\u201d is the obvious but largely unrecognized problem that electricity generated by intermittent renewables like wind and sun can\u2019t keep an electrical grid operating without some method of storing energy to meet customer demand in times of low\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/00164676347_twitter-post.webp?fit=1024%2C512&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/00164676347_twitter-post.webp?fit=1024%2C512&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/00164676347_twitter-post.webp?fit=1024%2C512&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/00164676347_twitter-post.webp?fit=1024%2C512&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":243571,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=243571","url_meta":{"origin":328919,"position":2},"title":"More Green Fairy Tales: Hydrogen To The Rescue?","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"07\/02\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"I love a good fairy tale as much as the next person: Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel, Sun Cable. 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It is mainly hot air.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/image-953.png?fit=848%2C565&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/image-953.png?fit=848%2C565&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/image-953.png?fit=848%2C565&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/image-953.png?fit=848%2C565&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":215304,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=215304","url_meta":{"origin":328919,"position":5},"title":"Germany hypes green hydrogen alliance while shopping for Canadian fossil gas","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"24\/08\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Olaf Scholz is boosting gas infrastructure projects on the basis they will be \u201chydrogen-ready\u201d, which experts say is unrealistic and risks locking in high emissions","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/0Trudeau-and-Olaf.jpeg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/0Trudeau-and-Olaf.jpeg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/0Trudeau-and-Olaf.jpeg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/0Trudeau-and-Olaf.jpeg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/0Trudeau-and-Olaf.jpeg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/121246920"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=328919"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":328926,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328919\/revisions\/328926"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/328925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=328919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=328919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=328919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}