Cracking the Hydrogen Colour Code

Is there a level of oversimplification from using the color coding method? It definitely helps with short-hand and getting a point across quick, but I imagine the emissions from all green isn't completely the same, nor blue, grey, brown, etc., and the specific emissions per unit of hydrogen can and should be considered. Are those factors commonly calculated and published? 

Thanks for sharing this article.  I recently read another article on our site that discussed the trends of Hydrogen. The author referenced the different color hydrogen production methods.  I was not clear on the difference between green and blue.  Also, from our 2021 Trends and Predictions insights shared by the community, it seems Hydrogen is going to continue to be an area of focus this year - but many think still in the R&D phase.  Thoughts on this? 

At World Hydrogen Leaders we have seen yellow used as hydrogen from nuclear power and also red which is from biogas with sequestration which would have the best emissions as it would be negative. There is a trial in Norway 

Methane, CH4, is our most plentiful and most cost-effective source of hydrogen, and natural gas pipelines provide a ready distribution system. The challenge is to move beyond conventional steam-methane reforming that produces CO2 and find another technique to split the carbon off from the hydrogen atoms in solid form as carbon black.

There are alternatives to steam-methane reforming. The Kvaerner process uses plasma to form carbon black and hydrogen from methane. 

Another option bubbles methane up through a column of hot liquid metal, the hydrogen separates off while the carbon pools and floats and is easily removed.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/11/converting-natural-gas-to-hydrogen-without-any-carbon-emissions/

Capturing the carbon in solid form is better than blue hydrogen because you don't need to sequester CO2 which has major challenges of its own.

I don't understand why there has not been more interest from industry in moving beyond steam-methane reforming. Natural gas is already our primary source of hydrogen and methane is not a limited resource. Hydrogen pipelines are expensive and dangerous, but we don't need them since we have natural gas distribution already. All we need to do is improve methane reforming to capture the carbon in solid form rather than as CO2 then we can have all the hydrogen we want at much lower costs than using renewables to drive electrolysis. 

I think a lot of the confusion here has to do with people who don't yet see the shift in mission for hydrogen.  Thirty years or so Amory Lovins started a global conversation about the hydrogen economy based on thoughts about hydrogen fuel cells. 

What happened over the last decade made that at the very best a fringe application, and more likely a nothingburger.  The only role we can reasonably expect for hydrogen vehicles in the future, now that the electric car has slam-dunked the transportation issue is maybe offroad vehicles, some remote locations where for some reason a hydrogen storage facility makes more sense than electricity generation from solar or wind, and possibly some larger tranportation modes like trucks and buses.

This is simply because the modern electric car costs a small fraction of what a hydrogen vehicle can cost, and the price differential can only increase.

What hydrogen does offer though is a future in a sustainable world for the petrochemical industry, and storage.   These two functions are not easily separated because the future depends on the time when we have so much wind and solar generation that some of it is available at times when the customers aren't using electricity.  By "some" I mean enough of total generation to ensure availability of above-demand generation for at least twenty or thirty percent of the year.  

There are 8760 hours in a year.   Today we see above-peak generation potential for three or four hours per year, and ten years of anti-wind articles based on "negative pricing" as a result.  That's sort of like complaining about shock absorbers on a truck wheel because they aren't used all the time.

I've written here before about my work with MISO wind data.   When MISO gets 50% of its electricity from wind, about seven tenths of one percent will be above-demand potential.   When MISO gets 70% of its electricity from wind about 8.7% of total generation potential will be available above demand.

At eight or ten percent of the year, it begins to make sense to build a hydrogen facility to take advantage of what will inevitably be very cheap electricity.  The problem is of course that making pure hydrogen will compete with a whole lot of other processes which turn hydrogen from water into other chemicals.   Nine percent of U.S. natural gas is used to make ammonia fertilizer.   When electricity costs less than 1.5 cents per KWh it is cheaper to make it from water and air.

We already have wind farms selling electricity at less than 1.5 cents per KWh, but is anyone going to build an ammonia factory with its own dedicated wind farm, or are they going to wait for others to build the wind and solar power, and shift to solar ammonia when the above-demand resource is large enough to ensure a steady supply of cheap power?

My guess is that it doesn't matter.   What matters is building wind and solar as fast as possible, as much as possible, and doing so until we find out that there is a reason to stop.

We obviously need some large storage capacity to have 100% renewables.   Less obviously, we are unlikely to need any storage at all until wind or solar exceed the regional grid demand for a lot of hours.  I describe it as "until we have something to store".

Like most of the other uses for hydrogen, people are working on the technology today.  But hydrogen and storage won't come into their own until the cheap power emerges.   We simply won't know what makes sense at the time until the time comes.   Not because we can't make good projections.   But because it is impossible to know how all the pieces will fit together until the time arrives.

I have expectations for certain things.  I see the people who own some of those recently built combined cycle plants that barely top 50% efficiency, as having serious interests in running those plants on hydrogen, or perhaps on methane made from hydrogen stored in the existing natural gas storage network.

Maybe that sort of project will be built, and someone will pay more for the hydrogen to make ammonia out of it.   Or another hydrocarbon.  Or boat fuel.  I don't know, and I don't really care.

What I do know is that the hydrogen future can't exist in the way it promises, until we have that abundance of wind or solar generation that permits hydrogen to be cheaper than it is today.

So the colors are interesting, but none of those colors are changing the landscape by making cheap hydrogen, and only green hydrogen has a real shot at doing so.

We can assume both that people will build wind and solar for dedicated projects that need cheap electricity and that above-demand capability will emerge slowly.  Hopefully slowly is a decade or so, not two or three.  People are already building wind and solar in places with the best potential for dedicated purposes related to making stuff with hydrogen from water.

So it isn't like it won't unfold slowly over time.  There isn't a rapid tipping point.   But the time isn't here now.  All we have today is enough to see where the general direction is.

Hydrogen from reforming costs about $5.50 per kg.  We're going to see hydrogen for under $2, and perhaps closer to $1.  That is radical.  It still won't make fuel cells competitive with electric cars.  I don't know how to factor in the fact that some people still think it will.  But renewable gasoline will also be viable.  Renewable gasoline at least has a viable market for antique cars.  And maybe for a soft landing on the way to 100% renewable transportation.

It sounds like unfortunately the benefits of hydrogen are still dependent on the energy we use to produce it....we need somebody to figure out cold fusion (ala Elizabeth Shoe in the Saint) 😃