Hydrogen

[qldfrog]

Noût

As abondant as can be, just hidden in water

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

As abondant as can be, just hidden in water

@TechnoCap

Yes, as one of my muses Samuel T. Coleridge said.
Water, water everywhere, / Nor any drop to drink

H2 is there, but to paraphrase another, William Shakespeare, who presaged this conundrum through Hamlet.
H2, or H20 : that is the question....
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

gg

 

[Value Collector]

is hydrogen really that rare?

The articles headline refers to “Rare Earth” materials, being used to make the storage device.

it’s not saying the hydrogen is rare.

“rare earth” is a name given to a few metals.

 

[sptrawler]

Looks as though the airlines are starting to investigate H2, well they probably have been for awhile, it is just the transition from fossil fuels is accelerating.

Air NZ to work with Airbus on carbon-free hydrogen planes

Air New Zealand will work with Airbus to study the viability of flying hydrogen-powered aircraft on short domestic routes, as it aims to operate carbon-free flights by the end of this decade.

www.smh.com.au

 

[Sean K]

Looks as though the airlines are starting to investigate H2, well they probably have been for awhile, it is just the transition from fossil fuels is accelerating.

Air NZ to work with Airbus on carbon-free hydrogen planes

Air New Zealand will work with Airbus to study the viability of flying hydrogen-powered aircraft on short domestic routes, as it aims to operate carbon-free flights by the end of this decade.

www.smh.com.au

I really don't understand how hydrogen can be used for a jet engine. Do they need to make new engines that operate with H2 or just change the fuel cells?

It sounds like they think it will work domestically for short flights but long haul is a major problem.

Their solution seems to be to use biofuels. Do they know how many acres of land need to be cleared to grow enough corn to produce a litre of ethanol I wonder? What's worse for the environment? Maybe they should be methane capturing cow farts to propel their planes.

However, Air NZ produces the bulk of its emissions from long-haul international flying. Mr Foran said switching to low-emission biofuel remained the only viable option to tackle those emissions, and that the airline was exploring the viability of producing “sustainable aviation fuel” locally with the New Zealand government.

 

[sptrawler]

I really don't understand how hydrogen can be used for a jet engine. Do they need to make new engines that operate with H2 or just change the fuel cells?

It sounds like they think it will work domestically for short flights but long haul is a major problem.

Their solution seems to be to use biofuels. Do they know how many acres of land need to be cleared to grow enough corn to produce a litre of ethanol I wonder? What's worse for the environment? Maybe they should be methane capturing cow farts to propel their planes.

However, Air NZ produces the bulk of its emissions from long-haul international flying. Mr Foran said switching to low-emission biofuel remained the only viable option to tackle those emissions, and that the airline was exploring the viability of producing “sustainable aviation fuel” locally with the New Zealand government.

Hydrogen can be fired through a jet turbine, or a power station gas turbine, in a similar manner to aero fuel, the only difference will be the injection and firing method. The volatility and energy density of hydrogen is similar to oil based fuel and LPG.
https://www.siemens-energy.com/global/en/news/magazine/2019/hydrogen-capable-gas-turbine.html

Long haul flights will be powered by scram or ram jets, which use hydrogen fired through a vortex which doesn't have blades, currently they are only used on hypersonic missiles, but they are being developed for plane application. They have to be travelling at about 1,000klm/hr to ignite, but speeds of up to 14,000 km/hr is achievable in theory.

Boeing’s Proposed Hypersonic Plane Is Really, Really Fast

Supersonic planes are always almost here, but maybe the way to fly is to go faster. Much, much faster.

www.wired.com

The scramjet is a super-fast, experimental engine with no moving parts

As a concept, the hypersonic scramjet has been around since the 1960s, but engineers only now have the material to

createdigital.org.au

 

[Value Collector]

I really don't understand how hydrogen can be used for a jet engine. Do they need to make new engines that operate with H2 or just change the fuel cells?

It sounds like they think it will work domestically for short flights but long haul is a major problem.

Their solution seems to be to use biofuels. Do they know how many acres of land need to be cleared to grow enough corn to produce a litre of ethanol I wonder? What's worse for the environment? Maybe they should be methane capturing cow farts to propel their planes.

However, Air NZ produces the bulk of its emissions from long-haul international flying. Mr Foran said switching to low-emission biofuel remained the only viable option to tackle those emissions, and that the airline was exploring the viability of producing “sustainable aviation fuel” locally with the New Zealand government.

If I had to guess, I think that synthetic fuels will eventually be viable, eg Hydrogen made from Electrolysis is combined with carbon extracted from the Air to make hydrocarbon fuels, basically a cleaner version of the hydrocarbon fuels we currently make using crude oil.

Or they could use the hydrogen to make ammonia based fuels, FMG is already running a train on ammonia, and trailing a ship engine, if it could work in jets it would the holy grail, eg jet fuel from renewable electricity.

 

[sptrawler]

If I had to guess, I think that synthetic fuels will eventually be viable, eg Hydrogen made from Electrolysis is combined with carbon extracted from the Air to make hydrocarbon fuels, basically a cleaner version of the hydrocarbon fuels we currently make using crude oil.

Or they could use the hydrogen to make ammonia based fuels, FMG is already running a train on ammonia, and trailing a ship engine, if it could work in jets it would the holy grail, eg jet fuel from renewable electricity.

That is the exciting part, hydrogen is the key to clean, high energy density fuel, without residual leftover waste.
If humans are to survive for another 7million years on Earth, as they have done already, they have to come up with a sustainable lifestyle which means sustainable fuel, food and shelter.
Also a cap on population wouldn't go astray IMO. ?
Who knows, we maybe already working on that.

 

[Value Collector]

That is the exciting part, hydrogen is the key to clean, high energy density fuel, without residual leftover waste.
If humans are to survive for another 7million years on Earth, as they have done already, they have to come up with a sustainable lifestyle which means sustainable fuel, food and shelter.
Also a cap on population wouldn't go astray IMO. ?
Who knows, we maybe already working on that.

Interesting talk from Andrew Forrest, he believes hydrogen/ammonia will be the solution for what he calls the “difficult third” of the energy sector that can’t be solved with batteries and electricity.

 

[sptrawler]

Interesting talk from Andrew Forrest, he believes hydrogen/ammonia will be the solution for what he calls the “difficult third” of the energy sector that can’t be solved with batteries and electricity.

I think Forrest is doing exactly the right thing, de leveraging from iron ore.

 

[Smurf1976]

I really don't understand how hydrogen can be used for a jet engine.

As a concept no different to running it on kerosene (jet fuel) or for ground use the more commonly used natural gas, diesel or less commonly LPG.

So long as it burns and contains no ash then as a concept it's straightforward.

Obviously some more detail in practice making sure materials don't degrade, nothing bad happens with varying altitude and so on but ultimately it's just a flame burning so the engine works and the rest is just fine detail to ensure safety etc.

Given there's plenty of gas turbines sitting on the ground for electricity generation, and no reason why one specifically intended for aircraft use can't be put to that use, there's plenty of opportunity to undertake extensive testing of alternative fuels cheaply and in relative safety with it all sitting on the ground. Then once that's refined and any problems sorted out, put them on an actual aircraft.

 

[Dona Ferentes]

I feel I need to get up to speed with Hydrogen and Hydrogen related stocks both on the ASX and in overseas markets. It is somewhat of a black hole in my knowledge.

Could any ASF members appraise me of its present state as a future green fuel, as an investment, and that of the attendant stocks* which may benefit from its use as fuel and in industry generally.

* attendant stocks .... would that be the elevator busboy helping out?

ATF Securities have just launched an ETF HGEN ...

The HGEN ETF will track the Solactive Global Hydrogen ESG Index, which is a basket of 30 companies in the hydrogen space globally.

But (promoter) Chugh says some of these companies offer exposure to other green energy themes too, naming Nel ASA (FRA7G) as one. Nel ASA produces hydrogen from water and has the world’s largest factory that makes hydrogen refuelling stations, which top up the tanks of hydrogen powered tanks and cars.

“People often look at it and say ‘Do I go battery technology, do I do hydrogen or can I merge the two together’ and I think with a company like NEL they’re working with Nikola, one of the competitors to Tesla, to produce electrolyses at their refuelling stations so they’re widening infrastructure,” he said.

“Another is PLUG (NDQ: PLUG) which makes fuel cells, they turn hydrogen into energy and some of their customers include Amazon, Home Depot and Walmart. They’re focused on electric forklifts and they’re working towards expanding their value chain – they’re acquiring green hydrogen producers.”

“It’s quite diverse so when you’re thinking about mega-trends it has to be agnostic to country, agnostic to sectors – so that’s very much the case here.”

 

[basilio]

Came across this review of various mechanisms for hydrogen production. A number of interesting alternatives noted.

The weekend read: Hydrogen is getting cheaper

Electrolyzer manufacturers are in agreement on the goal of rapidly reducing investment costs, mainly through economies of scale. Some are embracing large units, while others are betting on quantity over size. The first approach is attractive for operators of large PV plants, while the latter is...

www.pv-magazine.com

 

[Value Collector]

Came across this review of various mechanisms for hydrogen production. A number of interesting alternatives noted.

The weekend read: Hydrogen is getting cheaper

Electrolyzer manufacturers are in agreement on the goal of rapidly reducing investment costs, mainly through economies of scale. Some are embracing large units, while others are betting on quantity over size. The first approach is attractive for operators of large PV plants, while the latter is...

www.pv-magazine.com

I can’t see the benefit of producing hydrogen at home, if you have excess solar you would be better with a battery system, much less energy losses.

 

[SirRumpole]

I can’t see the benefit of producing hydrogen at home, if you have excess solar you would be better with a battery system, much less energy losses.

Plus the fact that hydrogen is very difficult to store and leaks out of most containers.

 

[sptrawler]

Plus the fact that hydrogen is very difficult to store and leaks out of most containers.

Plus to have a reasonable amount it has to be compressed.

 

[Smurf1976]

Plus the fact that hydrogen is very difficult to store and leaks out of most containers.

Plus it has an extremely wide flammability range in air and no smell of its own.

I'm not expecting we'll see hydrogen used in residential situations, ever, for that reason. Industrial yes, automotive maybe but residential no. The stuff is just too hard to contain and causes too many issues with embrittlement, flammability range etc to have people messing about with it at home.

 

[SyBoo]

BBQ https://merlin.unsw.edu.au/energyh/h2q/

 

[Smurf1976]

'm not expecting we'll see hydrogen used in residential situations, ever, for that reason.

I should clarify there that I mean in terms of in the house for kitchens and so on. I'm not seeing that we'll end up reticulating hydrogen with pipes under the streets and plumbing houses for it in the way that's done with natural gas since doing so is hugely problematic.

Obviously very different if we're talking about a small hydrogen container used as a portable source for whatever purpose. That has an order of magnitude less piping and issues with the flammability range.

 

[sptrawler]

I should clarify there that I mean in terms of in the house for kitchens and so on. I'm not seeing that we'll end up reticulating hydrogen with pipes under the streets and plumbing houses for it in the way that's done with natural gas since doing so is hugely problematic.

Obviously very different if we're talking about a small hydrogen container used as a portable source for whatever purpose. That has an order of magnitude less piping and issues with the flammability range.

There has been talk of introducing a small quantity of hydrogen into the LNG reticulated system.

Energy Ministers | energy.gov.au

Energy Ministers from the Australian Government and state and territory governments are working together on key issues in the energy sector.

energyministers.gov.au

What effect will blending Hydrogen into the Natural Gas network have? - Energy Post

What are the technical barriers to blending hydrogen into the natural gas network? How well will the pipelines cope? How will the blend affect equipment and appliances? What are the costs and environmental impacts? The answers to these key questions are being sought by a collaboration of...

energypost.eu

https://www.energynetworks.com.au/resources/reports/identifying-the-commercial-technical-and-regulatory-issues-for-injecting-renewable-gas-in-australian-distribution-gas-networks-research-report-energy-pipelines-crc/