One moon circles

What’s the scoop with hydrogen fuel?

Many of my readers will recall the Star Trek episode in which Troi gets a dream message from the crew of an alien ship which says: “Eyes in the dark, one moon circles”. Both the Enterprise and the alien ship are trapped in some fictional kind of space rift and can only escape via a large explosion. Troi figures out that the aliens’ message of “one moon circles” is a request for hydrogen, which indeed has just one electron circling its proton. The crew vents hydrogen into the rift while Troi sends a dream message of “Now!” to the aliens and KABOOM, a large explosion ensues. Both ships are freed from the rift. I wonder if the aliens injected oxygen into rift, for when oxygen combines with hydrogen it releases energy and pure water. Could the explosive power of combining hydrogen and oxygen free us from our energy problems today, just as it freed the Enterprise?

Hydrogen fuel has been hailed by many as the solution to climate change, but others conclude that hydrogen fuel is not a feasible source of energy. To figure what the bottom line really is, I turned once again to the International Energy Agency (IEA) and found the report “The Future of Hydrogen” published in June, 2019. First off, I learned that hydrogen itself isn’t really a fuel but rather an energy carrier, by human standards anyway. Of course, stars use hydrogen as a fuel when gravity heats up the star’s gas, which is primarily hydrogen, to such high temperatures that fusion occurs. Energy and light are then released and a star is born or continues shining.

But this is not how humans use hydrogen fuel. First of all, we haven’t mastered fusion. And second of all, pure hydrogen doesn’t exist on Earth in any meaningful amounts. When we use hydrogen as a fuel, we have to first separate it from other atoms with which it shares a molecular bond, such as breaking up water molecules or methane to extract the hydrogen. Once produced, hydrogen can then be stored and transported. At the point of need, hydrogen is then combined with oxygen to produce energy and a byproduct of pure water. Hydrogen burning thus creates energy but releases no carbon emissions, no particulates, no sulphur, and no ozone. Hydrogen has no carcinogenic or other toxic properties. It is a fairly benign. However, it’s production isn’t necessarily benign for hydrogen is mostly produced using fossil fuels, nuclear power, or natural gas. Hydrogen can be produced using renewables which would make it a very clean energy source and distribution system. The ability to store hydrogen for a few months, its transportability and its clean burning yield a number of useful ways to reduce our carbon emissions and clean our air.

Even if fossil fuels are burned to produce hydrogen, the fact that this can be done in a centralized location to produce a portable energy (hydrogen) means we can effectively employ carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies to capture upwards of 90% of the carbon emissions. The hydrogen can then be used in cars, trucks, planes and ships, or manufacturing. Anywhere. In this way, hydrogen can help reduce carbon emissions in the short term, as well as the long term, for several sectors which have struggled to reduce their carbon emissions, like long haul transport with trucks and ships, chemical manufacturing and iron and steel production for which hydrogen fuel is an easy swap. And because hydrogen can be fueled by existing power plants using CCS, it can serve as a transition tool as we move away from fossil fuels until renewable energies have ramped up enough to power society. Then, the infrastructure we’ve developed to use hydrogen fuel as an energy carrier would still be useful as we swap out fossil fuels for solar, wind and geothermal energy.

What’s more, hydrogen offers a way to solve renewable energy’s dual “when” and “where" problems. The when problem is that solar and wind energy are not constant streams of energy and the where problem is that renewables are not equally distributed across the globe. It is therefore difficult for renewables to supply society with a consistent stream of energy But because hydrogen can be stored, we can produce it when it is sunny or windy and where is sunny and windy. Transporting it to other places and times as needed. This a problem that has long plagued me and it is delightful to read that hydrogen can help solve that problem.

But before we join the hydrogen camp, let’s consider some of the concerns people have with hydrogen power including safety and infrastructure issues. Safety first. Hydrogen, like gasoline, is explosive, and indeed needs less of spark to ignite than natural gas. However, hydrogen burns at a lower temperature than gasoline making secondary fires less likely. Hydrogen needs an order of magnitude more oxygen than gasoline to burn, meaning it is less likely to explode. When leaked, hydrogen floats away rather than puddling and potentially spreading flames or causing environmental disasters like oil spills. While safety must always be addressed, hydrogen fuel is arguably less dangerous than oil, coal or natural gas.

Infrastructure issues are probably the largest barrier to hydrogen fuel uptake. For instance, there are only 40 hydrogen refueling stations for cars and trucks in the U.S. And as for industrial uses, there is not much carbon capture and storage in place yet, so hydrogen production is still a big carbon emitter. According to the IEA, the cost of developing hydrogen infrastructure is the greatest hamper to hydrogen fuel uptake, not technological know how or suitability. The IEA predicts that the cost of producing hydrogen will drop 30% by 2030, though if governments and industry began investing in hydrogen fuel in earnest, prices would drop much more dramatically.

Considering both the pluses and minus, The IEA concludes that hydrogen fuel may capture a greater part of the passenger car market but is mostly likely to be successful in decarbonizing several difficult to address sectors like long haul transport and manufacturing. In particular, the IEA suggests making industrial ports the nerve center for scaling up clean hydrogen and subsequently dropping prices. The CEO of the Daimler Truck company agrees. He also comments that the electricity grid is unlikely to be able to support an electric fleet of trucks, let alone passenger cars, and that battery electric trucks would require an impractically huge battery. Daimler Trucks have announced they are developing a hydrogen corridor from Rotterdam to the Hamburg / Cologne region by 2025. This will be a 1200 kilometer (745 mile) corridor with 150 hydrogen refueling stations between two major ports. In addition, Daimler Truck is aiming to have 60% of their sales be battery or hydrogen powered electric cars by 2030 and expects the costs of the two technologies to rival diesel trucks by 2027.

It seems that hydrogen fuel may well be a useful tool in reducing carbon emissions for long haul transport and manufacturing. It may also be the solution to renewable energy’s twin problems of temporal and spatial patchiness. The only controversy seems to be whether or not hydrogen will be adopted for passenger cars. To summarize using Troi’s language: one moon circling can capture and transport drops of sunshine and gusts of wind to needy folk far and wide. And that’s uplifting!