re: Stated at CERAWeek: Hydrogen adoption will cost Europe, US more than $1 trillion

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Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser at the same conference said the world would be better off it were to focus on reducing carbon emissions from oil and gas rather than shift to other energy sources

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Saudi Aramco

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Well yea he’s biased AF

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The answer is not hydrogen vehicles.

The answer is hydrogen driving turbines at charging stations for evs across the country.

Dont need to upgrade existing electrical grids and each “gas station” is fully independent.

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This could be part of the hydrogen powered infrastructure. It could be great for use at fixed locations like this.

There are many other ways to use hydrogen, but using it as a fuel for passenger vehicles is just not going to happen. Maybe it could be used in certain vehicles like buses, semis, trains, or others that cab be refueled at a handful of stations along repetitive routes. But hydrogen filling stations as ubiquitous as gas stations won't happen.

This is literally my job. I work for a renewables that is planning 2 massive Hydrogen projects with CCS that combined are $6 billion in capex. We have a few other projects. One has FID'd. Hoping all do as I get equity in the company and I've gotten in early. By itself, it's unprofitable without the Inflation Reduction Act 45V tax credit.

There are 2 common ways to make Hydrogen: electrolyzers which use water to convert water into hydrogen or methane nat gas autothermal reforming (ATR) or steam methane reforming (SMR) and convert it to hydrogen. If electrolyzers become a lot cheaper or the process of converting nat gas to H2 becomes cheaper, then it could be widespread adopted. Maybe natural deposits of Hydrogen become available to drill for as that'd solve a lot of problems I feel.

You can set up CCS (carbon capture and sequestration) on refineries, concrete/asphalt producers to take away CO2.

The thing is that a lot of CO2 emissions come from transportation exhaust and it's impossible to set up a carbon capture device to every vehicle and somehow get it pipelined to a well to inject underground where as Hydrogen exhaust is H20 not CO2

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I don’t believe that people truly understand what it would take to build a nation wide hydrogen infrastructure. I don’t believe that the average person understands the mechanics of the hydrogen atom.

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Okay then tell us. Hydrogen infrastructure for grid electricity, which I am on a project now for it, is no different than nat gas in that it can run on a combined cycle turbine which converts it to electricity. Nothing is different besides the turbine that can intake Hydrogen is more expensive, by prob 35-40% than the turbine that can intake nat gas. Both power up the grid that keeps houses lights on. Just different turbine, there's flexible ones too that can take nat gas or hydrogen that just came out. I believe GE is the manufacturer.

I've done the math for a large consumer of power that we are going to supply with power on Hydrogen vs Nat gas powered, powering the facility with solely hydrogen is about 40% more expensive per MWh. That is with the 45V tax credits as well.

Technology advancements making it cheaper will make the difference whether Hydrogen is widespread adopted or not. Also if naturally occuring reservoirs with Hydrogen can be produced like nat gas, that'd be a plus too for cheaper supply instead of relying on electrolyzers or ATR/SMR to make Hydrogen.

Electrolysis is another option which I am unfamiliar with but I know it is very expensive.

Imo having worked on the electricity grid turbine side of Hydrogen, that option is much cheaper than trying to power individual vehicles.

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very real potential to reduce the peak demand from the grid

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So every weekday afternoon people get home from work, turn the AC down, take hot showers, cook on their stoves and somehow charging a massive electrical load is going to help the situation?

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Imo having worked on the electricity grid turbine side of Hydrogen, that option is much cheaper than trying to power individual vehicles.

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Right. But running individual vehicles versus the produced energy from an electricity generating turbine is not your baseline. Electricity generating turbines using hydrogen versus methane (NG) is your baseline. You will need government tax credits to make hydrogen economically viable in that equation.

Chasing the shiny baubles while the fricking answer (nuclear) is right there.

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What does this mean? Is it saying the equivalent energy you get from a barrel of oil that you would get from a “barrel” of hydrogen is the same or are we just comparing volumes? Because hydrogen at $200/barrel is less expensive on a $/mj basis when compared to today’s price for a barrel of oil ($86.96)

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BOE (barrels of oil equivalent) is a measure of energy content, not volume or mass.

Also crude oil has a higher volumetric energy density (MJ/L) than liquid hydrogen anyway, so not sure what math you used. Hydrogen has high energy density on a mass basis but it’s poor by volume due to low density, even when liquefied.

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Hydrogen is the base for ammonia. Ammonia usage is increasing a lot between farming and marine transportation has begun to use Ammonia as fuel.

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Ammonia as fuel for fuel cells offers an interesting set of possibilities because it can allow the use of alkaloid fuel cells. Alkaloid fuel cells use glorified potash without expensive noble metals for catalysts. Alkaloid fuel cells are poisoned by carbon, but that's not a problem with ammonia (NH3).