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Hydrogen: “fuel cells will replace diesel engines in 10 years”

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Hydrogen: "fuel cells will replace diesel engines within 10 years"

by Mike Scott, April 18, 2019

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Photo: Engie

As the focus moves from decarbonising the electricity sector to embrace transportation and heating, slowly but surely, hydrogen is starting to play a more important role. The gas has a number of advantages over electricity, including its flexibility and the fact that it can provide energy storage for long periods of time, unlike electricity. It can use the existing gas network if it is used for heating, and it is more appropriate than electricity in heavy transportation such as trucking and rail. Mike Scott brings you the latest round-up of hydrogen updates…

The signs are finally there that the hydrogen sector is starting to awaken from its slumber. H2 alternatives are starting to emerge, in both industry and for transportation – and what is encouraging is the variety of applications for which it is being used.

The UK’s Committee on Climate Change says that “hydrogen is a credible option to help decarbonise the UK energy system if combined with greater energy efficiency, cheap low carbon power generation, electrified transport and new hybrid heat pump systems”. However, it adds that “its role depends on early government commitment and improved support to develop the UK’s industrial capability”.

Currently, hydrogen is mostly produced using a process called steam methane reforming, with natural gas as the feedstock – a process that is highly carbon-intensive. For hydrogen to be a viable source of low-carbon energy, either the gas facility would need carbon capture and storage equipment – something that is not currently commercially available – or it would need an alternative source of energy.

London-based PowerHouse Energy and its development partner, waste-to-energy company Waste2tricity, have announced plans to build the world’s first industrial-scale plastics-to-hydrogen facility, in the north west of England. PowerHouse says that the £7m site will be able to convert 25 tonnes of waste plastic and other materials such as end-of-life tyres into 1 tonne of hydrogen and 28MWh of electricity every day, enough power for around 3,000 homes and enough hydrogen to fuel around 6,000 HGV miles. The plant, if approved, could be in operation by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, scientists at California’s Stanford University have discovered a way to produce hydrogen using solar power and seawater. Existing ways of producing hydrogen from water require highly purified water, which is a precious resource and costly to produce.

Theoretically, to power cities and cars, “you need so much hydrogen it is not conceivable to use purified water,” said Hongjie Dai, a chemistry professor at Stanford and one of the key researchers on the project.

And in Australia, researchers at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) have found a way to extract pure hydrogen gas from ammonia using a metal membrane, which would enable the gas to be shipped safely around the world, like oil and gas are now.

At Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology, researchers have been working on another tiny, but essential, piece of the hydrogen economy jigsaw – what they call “the world’s fastest hydrogen sensor”, which will enable the rapid detection of hydrogen leaks and therefore ensure that cars fuelled by hydrogen – which is extremely flammable – are safe.

Hydrogen truck maker Nikola recently announced plans to build a production facility and research centre in Arizona, and CEO Trevor Milton says: “We believe the fuel cell will replace the diesel engine [in trucking] in the next 10 years.” To back up this belief, the company is planning to build tens of thousands of trucks and a coast-to-coast network of hydrogen fuelling stations across the US.

But it is not just start-ups and university labs that are working on the building blocks of the hydrogen economy – oil major BP and Nouryon, the former specialty chemicals arm of chemicals giant AkzoNobel to build the biggest hydrogen production facility using renewable energy in Europe.

The plant, to be based at a refinery at the Port of Rotterdam, would comprise a 250MW water electrolysis unit capable of producing up to 45,000 tonnes of green hydrogen a year. The refinery currently uses hydrogen made from hydrocarbons to desulphurise products, but BP believes it could cut 350,000 tons of CO2 emissions every year with the new facility, which would use excess wind and solar power that would otherwise be “spilled” at times of high supply.

Nouryon is also involved with a hydrogen hub in Amsterdam, where it is partnering with the Port Authority and Tata Steel to build a 100MW renewable energy-produced water electrolysis plant that will be able to produce 15,000 tonnes of hydrogen and oxygen that Tata Steel can use at its IJmuiden steel works. Back in October last year, the companies were touting this facility as Europe’s largest, in an illustration of how fast the sector is developing.

Other indications that hydrogen is becoming more accepted include the roll-out of trains than run on hydrogen in Germany, with tests also planned for the UK, where they will be a good, cheap, low-carbon option in areas that are not already electrified – and the news that China plans to phase out subsidies for electric vehicles and switch its focus to encouraging the development of hydrogen vehicles.

Taken on their own, each of these recent announcements is relatively insignificant – but their diversity, both geographically and in terms of the industries and applications involved, suggests that hydrogen is starting to gain traction as a serious player in the energy industry.

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Alstom and Eversholt Rail breeze in on hydrogen trains

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Alstom and Eversholt Rail breeze in on hydrogen trains

by Arasan Aruliah

January 18, 2019

Alstom and Eversholt's Breeze hydrogen train

French rail multinational Alstom and UK rolling-stock operating company Eversholt Rail Group have unveiled the design for a new hydrogen fuel-cell locomotive for the UK. The fuel-cell trains – called ‘Breeze’ – will bring zero-emission rail transport to parts of the UK that, at the moment, still run on diesel. The first trains are scheduled to run in 2022.

The UK has rural and inter-urban routes where diesel trains must be used because the rails have not been electrified. The UK government has set out an ambition to eliminate diesel powered trains from the network by 2040. So, having ditched plans to electrify a number of sections of the network over cost concerns, hydrogen and battery technologies are thought to be critical to ensuring the 2040 target is met.

“Hydrogen train technology is an exciting innovation which has the potential to transform our railway, making journeys cleaner and greener by cutting CO2 emissions even further,” said Andrew Jones MP, UK Rail Minister.

The first trains are expected to run as early as 2022.

For trains, hydrogen beats diesel and batteries

Diesel’s carbon emissions mean they must be made redundant. Hydrogen trains are equipped with fuel cells that produce electricity through a combination of hydrogen and oxygen, a process that leaves steam and water as the only emissions. Excess energy is stored in ion lithium batteries on board the train. One big advantage over pure battery-electric trains is the rapidity with which a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle can be ‘recharged’ – a couple of minutes (roughly the same as a petrol car) in comparison to several hours for a BEV.

The new train’s green credentials depend in part on the UK boosting its capacity to produce hydrogen from low emission, renewable energy, or potentially natural gas paired with carbon capture and storage. But the politicians are saying the right things. “The railways need to decarbonise and the government has rightly set out a goal to eliminate diesel rolling stock by 2040,” said Nick Crossfield, Alstom UK & Ireland managing director.

The world’s first hydrogen trains are already running in Germany

In September 2018 the world’s first hydrogen trains – Alstom’s Coradia iLint – went into service in Germany, where they now operate a regular passenger service on a daily basis. They have a range of 1,000km and are able to run for the whole day and charge up overnight. Alstom is set to deliver 14 more hydrogen trains and a refuelling depot in Lower Saxony by 2021.

There is growing interest in Alstom’s hydrogen technology worldwide, including in France where the President of the Occitane region, Carole Delga, recently announced a proposal to introduce the technology on trains there.

Alstom’s hydrogen trains have been running in Germany since September 2018

Not wanting to be left behind, the UK is talking up its own hydrogen energy future. “The UK is on track when it comes to growing a world-leading hydrogen economy, and through our modern Industrial Strategy we are providing £23 million to power our ambition to be the ‘go-to’ place for first-class hydrogen transport,” said Claire Perry MP, UK Minister for Energy and Clean Growth.

From horses to hydrogen

The UK is home to the first railway in the world to operate a freight and passenger service with steam traction. In 1821 George Stephenson, who had built several steam engines to work in the Killingworth coal mine, heard of Edward Pease’s intention of building a 13km line from Stockton on the coast to Darlington to exploit a rich vein of coal. Pease intended to use horse traction; Stephenson told Pease that a steam engine could pull 50 times the load that horses could on iron rails. Impressed, Pease agreed to let Stephenson equip his line.

On September 27, 1825, the first engine ran from Darlington to Stockton, preceded by a man on horse carrying a flag reading Periculum privatum utilitas publica (“The private danger is the public good”). When the horseman was out of the way, Stephenson opened the throttle and pulled his train of wagons carrying 450 persons at a speed of 24 km per hour.

From horses, to coal-fired steam, to diesel and overhead-electric…and now BEVs and Hydrogen. What a history we have in our European railways.

Stockton & Darlington Railway, picture taken to celebrate its centenary in 1925

 

Hy-Society – flexible hydrogen’s winning formula

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Hy-Society

flexible hydrogen’s winning formula
by Mike Scott
January 11, 2019

Open the papers and you’ll see that hydrogen-based transport, mobility and infrastructure are securing serious investment. In the past, the high cost of fuelling infrastructure – and “stupid” concept of using electricity to make hydrogen to make electricity – have stalled the advancement of this ultra-versatile clean fuel and energy storage solution. However, thanks to the availability of surplus power from RES and hydrogen’s remarkable flexibility, the numbers are beginning to add up and that means competition for batteries. Mike Scott explains why the money is finally moving hydrogen’s way…

The hydrogen economy has always been a bit like a mirage in the desert – hanging enticingly before us, never seeming to get any nearer. In some ways, this is surprising as it has so many advantages as an energy carrier. There’s lots of it, it produces only water vapour when it is burned, it can be stored for long periods of time – unlike energy stored in batteries– and it’s flexible.

It can be used to produce electricity in fuel cells, it can be used as a transport fuel either by being burnt or in fuel cells and it can be injected into gas grids and so used for heating. When renewable energy is used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, it is an emissions-free fuel. The technology is well-known, long-standing and proven.

“When renewable energy is used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, it is an emissions-free fuel”

Given that the focus is now turning to decarbonising heating and transport, where cutting emissions is seen as a much greater challenge than electricity production, it’s amazing that we don’t have a hydrogen economy already.

That phrase, “the hydrogen economy”, illustrates the problems the sector faces though. No-one talks about a battery economy, and yet the battery is spreading like wildfire through the energy landscape. For all their faults of limited duration, expense and the amount of time it takes to charge them, batteries are incredibly convenient and modular – they can have an immediate effect when added to a house, a hotel or a factory with minimal infrastructure.

Build an electric car, put a battery in it and it’s ready to go. Sure, you need charging points, but in extremis, any plug will do. Build a hydrogen car, and you need billions of euros of fuelling infrastructure – which is why you get talk of hydrogen highways and the like.

And yet, these are a long way from reality. As Clean Technica reported in September, “with 21 hydrogen fuelling stations, the greater Los Angeles area has more hydrogen fuelling stations than any other metropolitan area in the world today”. Indeed, all of the 36 hydrogen refuelling stations in the US and Canada are in California, while Hydrogen Tools says that as of the end of 2018, there were just 277 stations globally. The IEA reported that “the global fuel cell electric vehicle car stock reached 8,000 units in 2017, with the United States and Japan accounting for nearly 90% of the global fleet”.

Another problem is that while hydrogen can be produced cleanly, at the moment, much of it is produced using fossil fuels. The only way to make hydrogen produced in this way low-carbon is to use carbon capture and storage technology, which is progressing at a snail’s pace.

Hydrogen has some fairly high-profile detractors. Elon Musk, founder of Tesla, famously said that hydrogen as a vehicle fuel was “incredibly dumb” – although as a maker of electric cars, you would expect him to say that. But a more dispassionate observer, Michael Liebreich, founder of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, agrees, saying that “If you have electricity and you want to drive somewhere, wasting half of it generating hydrogen to turn back into electricity is a supremely stupid thing to do.”

But there are signs that hydrogen is slowly starting to gain traction. In Germany (and coming soon in UK) Alstom has launched the world’s first hydrogen-powered trains, while South Korea’s Hyundai is to test a 1,000-strong fleet of hydrogen trucks in Switzerland and Scotland is building the world’s first hydrogen-powered ferry.

South Korea is to spend more than $2 billion over five years to create hydrogen infrastructure to enable fuel cell vehicles, including 310 hydrogen stations by 2022 to supply 16,000 fuel cell vehicles, factories to build fuel cell cars and buses, fuel cell stacks and hydrogen storage systems. It joins Japan, which is planning to use the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games to showcase its own hydrogen vision, with the city’s governor Yoichi Masuzoe saying: “The 1964 Tokyo Olympics left the Shinkansen high-speed train system as its legacy. The upcoming Olympics will leave a hydrogen society as its legacy.” Toyota, Honda and Hyundai are the only major carmakers currently investing heavily in fuel cell vehicles.

“hydrogen technologies are reaching maturity – in or around 2025, clean hydrogen could be cost-competitive with existing industrial feedstocks such as natural gas and batteries” CSIRO, Australia

The UK, France and Australia have also announced hydrogen programmes, with CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency saying that “hydrogen technologies are reaching maturity, with the narrative now shifting from R&D to market activation. In or around 2025, clean hydrogen could be cost-competitive with existing industrial feedstocks such as natural gas, and energy carriers such as batteries in many applications.”

Scientists testing Power-to-X technology at the Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden Württemberg (ZSW)

In the past, hydrogen has been a victim of its own versatility, a jack of all trades but master of none. But now its wide range of uses is starting to work to its advantage. As well as being a long-lasting store of energy and its utility in heating, transport and power, it is a solution to the problem of what to do with surplus renewable power that would otherwise be spilled; it adds weight to the case for carbon capture and storage; it can help oil and gas companies to make use of their existing infrastructure – whether that is fuel stations or gas pipelines; and it provides a solution to issues such as air pollution and how to fuel long distance heavy transport in an environmentally-friendly way.

But as the UK’s Policy Exchange think tank said in a recent report: “The versatility of hydrogen offers big opportunities to help overcome some of the challenges the UK faces when transitioning to a low carbon economy – but we are far from realising them yet.

“Two issues need addressing. Firstly, we need to focus on getting cost-effective, scalable and sustainable production methods to reach mass market. Targeting investment towards reducing the high cost of producing large volumes of low carbon hydrogen is crucial. Secondly, we must decide the most appropriate applications of hydrogen within our economy, given potential uses are likely to be highly interconnected and this will have implications for the energy system.”

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Roads to 2050: hydrogen hype runs up against electrification reality

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BRUSSELS INSIDER #1 - October 30, 2018

Roads to 2050: hydrogen hype runs up against electrification reality

by Sonja van Renssen

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Energy-intensive industries will become electro-intensive industries

As the European Commission prepares a new EU 2050 climate and energy strategy for late November, organisations in Brussels are putting forward their own ideas on what this should look like. A major analysis by the Institute for European Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel – carried out on behalf of 11 energy-intensive industries – predicts a tripling in demand for low-carbon electricity and warns that the success of “green hydrogen” will depend on the availability of “competitively priced, abundant and reliable low-CO2 electricity”. The challenges of creating such a resource are formidable, however. Other groups still look to carbon capture and storage/use (CCUS) for salvation.

This article discusses the results of a number of new reports and papers showing roads to a net zero emissions energy system in 2050: from the Institute for European Studies, Eurelectric, Eurogas, Ecofys, The European Climate Foundation, BP and the World Energy Council Germany.

One report that is doing the rounds at the EU institutions this autumn is a study carried out by the Institute for European Studies (IES) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel this summer. It was commissioned by 11 European energy-intensive industries and in effect forms their contribution to a new EU 2050 climate and energy strategy. The Commission is preparing this strategy for delivery at the end of November, ahead of the next round of UN climate talks in Katowice, Poland (COP24) in the first half of December.

The IES report, which was first published at the end of September, clearly points out the central role of electricity in the future energy system. This is enhanced not diminished by all the recent hype about hydrogen in the EU capital. It concludes that European energy-intensive industries are likely to triple their electricity demand as they start large-scale decarbonisation, especially through use of hydrogen as a feedstock, carbon capture and storage (CCS) and the production of fuels using electricity (power-to-X).

“Energy-intensive industries will become electro-intensive industries,” Tomas Wyns, the study’s lead author, told Energy Post. The researchers estimate that energy-intensive industries will use 2980-4430 TWh of electricity in future, up from 500-1000 TWh today. That makes “competitively priced, abundant and reliable low-CO2 electricity… one of the most important framework conditions for the transition to a low-CO2 industry in Europe”.

A lot of power

The IES study stresses that energy-intensive industries are “vital to enable a carbon neutral Europe”. They sit “at the forefront of low-carbon solutions” and “form the foundations of the European economy”. This is because they are an integral part of material value chains that produce everything from wind turbines to electric batteries. Energy-intensive industries’ emissions have come down over time – 36% since 1990, the report says – but clearly they will need to come down further if Europe wants to reduce its emissions to net zero.

The researchers have analysed more than 80 low-carbon technology options across all energy-intensive industries. What’s striking in the list of main options applicable to most industries, is that nearly all of them require “high” or “higher” electricity use than today. That’s true for the electrification of heat and processes, but equally true for use of “green” hydrogen (produced via electrolysis), biomass and carbon capture and use or storage (CCUS) or for example to create synthetic fuels (Powerto-X).

It is this huge extra demand for electricity that leaves some skeptical of Brussel’s latest hype: decarbonising gas via hydrogen or hydrogen-based synthetic fuels. “This additional demand will increase the challenge of greening current power demand,” the IES researchers warn. An ever greater share of renewables in the power system is already bringing more and more variability – and redispatch costs.

A la renewables

That’s not stopping the green gas lobby. The studies on sector coupling – or the use of power in heating and cooling, and transport, for example through “green” hydrogen production – are piling up.

We reported on a new PtX study by UK-based consultancy Frontier Economics, conducted on behalf of the World Energy Council Germany, last week. On 24 October, it was the turn of Netherlands-based consultancy Ecofys, who carried out a meta-analysis of ten existing power-to-gas studies on behalf of the German Association of Gas and Water (DVGW). It too concluded that power-to-gas makes sense for Germany to achieve its climate targets in the most cost-effective way – the question is about when and in what form. The European Commission is carrying out its own study, with a mid-term report due in November.

These reports underpin a new lobby effort by the European gas industry for public support. A Gas for Climate consortium led by gas network operators recently put out a call for a 10% target and renewables-style subsidies for green gas for 2030. They hope to get these provisions into an EU gas market reform tentatively planned for 2020. As input to the same reform, Eurogas, representing the European gas wholesale, retail and distribution sectors, issued a discussion paper on 22 October with policy asks for “natural, renewable and decarbonised gas”.

Eurogas invites the Commission to develop “a vision on ‘sector integration’”. It also proposes a “binding EU target for renewable and decarbonised gases combined with a European blueprint for guarantees of origin as well as a European framework for support schemes that can help scale up the production and economics of decarbonised and renewable gas.”

Note here the distinction between “renewable” and “decarbonised”. The former encompasses biogas/biomethane and PtX; the latter is CO2-neutral gas produced from steam reforming of natural gas with CCUS. Several speakers at the launch of the Frontier Economics study in Berlin – including the study’s lead author and Jörg Bergmann, Chairman of the Board of Management at gas transmission company Open Grid Europe – argue that this so-called “blue” hydrogen could aid the development of a global PtX market.

A representative from the Norwegian Embassy in Berlin told the conference that Norway (labelled a “frontrunner” in the WEC study) is setting its sights above all on decarbonised gas because it has so far only exploited about one-third of its natural gas reserves.

Back to CCS

CCUS appears to be getting a new lease of life in Brussels, in part in the context of “blue” hydrogen production, in part because, at least on paper, it is still essential to the cost-effective decarbonisation of the European economy. MEPs rejected a controversial recital that would have dismissed CCS as a mitigation technology in a vote last Thursday on a position for COP24. NGO Bellona Europa, which has a long history of campaigning in favour of CCS, heralded this as recognition of “the vital role that CCS technologies will have to play in reducing industrial emissions”.

Few still seem to believe in CCS as a large-scale solution to decarbonise the power sector (vs industry), however. Which is why it was surprising to read in BP’s 2018 Technology Outlook, presented in Brussels last week, that for it, decarbonised gas still means “capturing the CO2 created by the combustion of gas or other fuels at power stations and elsewhere”. It believes that CCUS will account for “a significant share of power generation in North America and Europe” by 2050. The Outlook was originally unveiled in London back in March – see my colleague Karel Beckman’s analysis of it at the time here.

BP presents decarbonised gas as one of five areas in which it believes that technology can be a real game-changer. The link to the power sector probably stems from BP’s broader message that gas is still the best option to back-up renewables. The Outlook is rather neutral on hydrogen, citing the need for costs to come down substantially and upgrades to existing gas infrastructure. In a section on storage, it focuses above all on batteries. Presenting the Outlook in Brussels however, BP’s Head of Technology David Eyton suggested that CCU/S could be more important in hydrogen than power production in future.

Going green

Whether CCUS, green hydrogen or direct electrification, all of energy-intensive industries’ long-term decarbonisation options need a big increase in power. No wonder that Marco Mensink, Director-General for the European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC), suggested that Europe should pursue cheap, abundant, zero-carbon electricity as its very own “shale gas” at an event back in July.

At that event, Eurelectric, representing European electricity companies, presented a study on how electrification could contribute to decarbonisation. It calculates that final demand by industry could reach almost the same level as the current EU economy-wide final demand for electricity. It would also represent half (3000 TWh) of final EU electricity consumption in 2050, under a 95% emissions reductions scenario. This would make industry by far the largest final electricity consumer in the EU.