Essay by Eric Worrall
h/t SteveG; Apparently a $2 billion headstart for the hydrogen economy will solve all our problems, and certification will reduce the risk of hydrogen fraud.
Hydrogen Headstart to power new jobs & industry
The Albanese Government’s second Budget is ensuring Australia can reach its potential as a renewable energy superpower, with $2 billion for a new Hydrogen Headstart program to scale up development of Australia’s renewable hydrogen industry.
This critical new investment is all about making Australia a global leader in green hydrogen, as competition for clean energy investment accelerates around the world.
The net zero transformation is the largest change to both Australia and the world’s economy since the industrial revolution. After a decade of policy inaction, Hydrogen Headstart contributes to the over $40 billion of investment by the Albanese Government to make Australia a renewable energy superpower.
…
The Albanese Government is helping to unlock clean industry growth through:
- $2 billion for Hydrogen Headstart, providing revenue support for large‑scale renewable hydrogen projects through competitive hydrogen production contracts. These will help bridge the commercial gap for early projects and put Australia on course for up to a gigawatt of electrolyser capacity by 2030 through 2 to 3 flagship projects.
- $38.2 million in funding for a Guarantee of Origin scheme, which will certify renewable energy and track and verify emissions from clean energy products – in particular hydrogen. This is critical funding to ensure Australia is seen as an attractive investment destination, to accelerate investment in an Australian hydrogen industry and to support access to future markets for verified renewable and clean products.
- $2.0 million to establish a fund to support First Nations people and businesses to engage with hydrogen project proponents, planning processes and program design.
…
Read more: https://www.miragenews.com/hydrogen-headstart-to-power-new-jobs-industry-1002248/
This is going to be funnier than government attempts to contain European carousel fraud.
When you think about it, hydrogen fraud makes a lot of financial sense as a criminal money maker.
There is no way green industries can produce affordable hydrogen which can challenge the cost of producing hydrogen from fossil fuel, so you need a certificate to prove your absurdly expensive hydrogen has the correct green pedigree.
But hydrogen is fungible – nobody can tell post production whether the hydrogen came from steam reforming fossil fuel or renewable electrolysis, or even nuclear powered thermochemical processes. Maybe regulators could cast some doubt using isotopic analysis, but there would likely be enough natural variation for plausible deniability.
My prediction – nations with high levels of corruption and lax enforcement will become the global leaders in certified green hydrogen production, but they will get mad and start slinging accusations of racism when anyone demands to inspect their renewable powered hydrogen production plants.
It follows taxpayer’s money spent on Aussie and US hydrogen production is a complete waste of effort, because if a hydrogen market actually does develop, it will be dominated by hydrogen fraud.
The article reads like a press release from the PM’s office. Can’t they afford to hire a journalist? Aren’t journalists supposed to be naturally and instinctly distrustful and skeptical of politicians?
If only THAT were true
They are a bunch of UOW “journalists” that have launched a site that they claim has no opinions and interpretations.
“stories are posted daily, selected from materials provided by hundreds of sources from around the world with a particular focus on the public interest, science, technology, health, environment, government releases to deliver the news as it is with no comment or interpretation.”
Of course that means that their site is positively drowning in government press releases and pretty much no opposition voices.
Not if those “journalists” have been bribed by those “politicians” with taxpayers’ funds, as in New Zealand!
Apparently not true. The advertisements for green hydrogen that have run in Australia show a green flame – cannot find if it is AGL, BHP or someone else but certainly green flame – how else will they encourage people to pay a fortune for green hydrogen. You can see a gas stove here using green hydrogen – at least that is my take on it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIaJfSBJd0M
A serious problem for hydrogen is finding a suitable odorant. Odorants are not good in fuel cells.
I saw a video which seemed to have a red flame from a hydrogen tanker. Some sort of pressure release system. I thought hydrogen burned clear.
Very odd. Might have been contaminants.
Hydrogen can have yellow or red flame, most probably from impurities. There has been some reporting that lean burning hydrogen (i.e. burning with too little available oxygen) might give off a red flame. Lean burn can happen in zones of the hydrogen gas where oxygen/hydrogen mixing is less favourable.
Started my engineering career in a hydrogen production plant. We were well aware of the clean burning, clear, hydrogen flames. At the time the plant was about 35 year old and elbows were beginning to fail. Everyone carried a long wooden stick to test before walking past an elbow in the plant. These were higher pressure lines and would self ignite when leaks occurred.
Also, the ethylene plants all produce high purity hydrogen as a byproduct.
not to be pedantic but I assume you mean colorless
yes
It’s worse than that – hydrogen can leak out of holes which trap the much larger odorant molecules. There is no reliable hydrogen odorant.
What’s the problem – buy your Hydrogen from a Chinese supplier and they will supply it with whatever certification you require.
Realistically, electrochemical sensors will need to be used to detect H2 leaks as someone mentioned here that fuel cells don’t like contaminants like sulfur containing compounds. Sensors will suffer from false alarms, as certain bodily functions can set them off.
In general, fuel cells will contain sulfur traps but they have a finite absorption capacity.
Dope it with Ar39 and give everyone a geiger counter.
I’m ok, I think. They are going to pay upto $500 to each household to compensate electricity bills. At the same time they are going to invest billions in renewable energy projects that will increase the price of electricity.
Economics is not really my strong point. I don’t think it’s the government’s strong point either.
It seems that no one in the Australian government has yet discovered, or even inquired about the thermodynamic properties of hydrogen which make it quite unsuitable as a fuel. When they do or when they are confronted by the consequences of these properties, they will discover that it takes a lot of energy to compress hydrogen for shipment in a pipeline, still more to liquify it, and it contains very little energy per cubic foot. in some scenarios, all or nearly all of the energy content of the hydrogen will have been consumed by such processes.
Denis, since when did the Alarmist movement concern themselves with ‘details’? They don’t worry about little things like that, they have economies to destroy. If hydrogen provides |(which it will) a net economic loss that suits the anti technology Climate Alarmist just fine.
The ongoing assault on Western lifestyles and Western economic strength is seen as a positive by the Monbiot’s and Attenborough’s of the world.
The walruses would not approve!
Hydrogen isn’t a fuel. It’s an energy potential storage medium, like batteries, but much worse. Batteries are rechargeable and for the most part remain unchanged when re-stuffed with electrons. Hydrogen requires energy to break it loose from whatever other elements its stuck to. Then when allowed to combine with oxygen, carefully controlled in a fuel cell or violently in a combustion process, some of that potential can be tapped.
Far less efficient than stuffing electrons into a battery and pulling them back out as needed.
Much, much less efficient when electrons are used to break the hydrogen free from water then the hydrogen is allowed to combust with oxygen to go back to water, and the heat of that reaction is used to boil water to steam to drive a turbine to drive a generator to stuff electrons into batteries…
The most efficient via taking the least number of steps are geothermal, hydropower, and nuclear. But then it’s simply most efficient to just use the electricity those methods generate rather than using it to crack hydrogen.
“Hydrogen isn’t a fuel. It’s an energy potential storage medium”
Does the same logic apply to nat gas?
No. Natural gas exist in nature. Hydrogen has to be manufactured taking energy to produce it. Even reforming takes some energy but not nearly as much is electrolysis because the bonds are not as strong.
I understand the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is rayciss, man. Or something.
The alarmists will tell you it is just an engineering issue. No problem.
The most useful form of hydrogen as a fuel is the one in which it comes bonded to a carbon atom.
“no one in the Australian government has … inquired about the thermodynamic properties of hydrogen”
Not really their job. Not everyone can be an expert in everything, so ideally they would be skilled at reacting and adjusting once someone else they trust supplies better info.
While the usual suspects may jump on this one, maybe Spain might join as well with the “midnight PV”?
https://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/03/world/europe/solar-power-24-hours/index.html
So, they’ve cracked (no pun intended) the embrittlement problem?
That’s what I was wondering.
Hydrogen burns with a colourless flame, as seen by the eye.
Image maniopulation has a coat of many colours.
Take your pick. Geoff S
I use hydrogen in my labs for several reasons. For “glass blowing” quartz, one has to use a hydrogen/oxygen torch in order to get to the high temps needed to melt it.
Sometime a defect on the torch tip will give some color to the flame for a time from metal atomization but the flame is hard to see, especially when wear eye protection to filter out UV light.
Cosmic reason for the glow.
FromBalmer DecayColor Emittedn=3hydrogen alphared n=4hydrogen betablue-greenn=5hydrogen gammavioletn=6hydrogen deltaviolet
This enquiring mind is wondering what exactly that money is going to deliver.
Bless The Telegraph, just this morning it delivered the answer.
Quote:”Analysis by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (Niesr) suggests that around 10.6m people are employed by the state – far more than the 5.7m typically cited by the Government.
One in three workers are now in the public sector, according to Niesr analysis.
here
this is a goody also Quote from it:”Whitehall ‘blob’ thwarts bonfire of Brexit laws
Wonderation: It’s my understanding that The Fall of Rome was in great part precipitated by ‘an excess of bureaucracy’
i.e. Everyone wanted to be a ‘Patrician’ = Father of the City.
They all wanted to rule the world, create regulations & laws, set, collect and spend taxes and tell everyone else how to live their lives.
Just Like Now
In the spirit of ‘Some Government is good so More Government must be better‘, they got their way.
Rome became a city of Chiefs and very few Indians.
(are any similarities visible yet)
Meanwhile, Rome was starving.
Having created the Lovely Much Vaunted and Desirable “Mediterranean Climate” – which is in actuality a Desert Climate, Rome took to importing food from very long ways away
e.g. 3 daily shiploads of wheat from ‘West Africa’ and they certainly didn’t invade (what is now) England because of the dreamy and balmy climate.
While many of the sea & river-ports used for unloading their African Sugar Bounty, English Wine and fine Citrus Fruits were silting up because of hideous soil erosion.
Simultaneously, the Pariarchs were spending insame amounts of money on military adventures 100’s and 1000’s of miles away, in places where they had completely no business.
Adventures founded on irrational fear, empire building, paranoia and projection.
(Is that familiar)
In contemporary times, we relentlessly remind ourselves of how lovely and warm it was during The Roman Warm Period.
We ressure assure ourselves that The Warmth is what caused Rome to be so successful.
Yes, no, maybe. It seems a nice coincidence, Surely Shirley it must be true.
In my book: No: A lot like how CO2 and temperatures don’t quite line up in the ice core record, the very peak of Roman Warm Temperatures were recorded at circa 300AD – the time when Rome was, to all intents, completely fugged. By itself. By the Patricians and the Cronies.
As Rome disintegrated:
Boys and girls had parted company.Boys spent all their time getting drunk, going to all the best circus, parties/conferences and shagging each other. Literally. Misogyny appeared to be rife.Lion Feeding was popular too.There were too many cronies. Too long & extended supply chains. Far too big a military and worst of all, not enough tax-generating Plebeians to support it all.(Is any of that resonant)
Rome was finished by 300AD when The Roman Warm Period was at its peak
iow Rome created the warmth – the warmth did not create Rome
And they did it by turning all of Southern Europe and North Africa into a desert. They chopped trees, They ploughed/farmed (using slaves from Greece) and fertilised too much. Grazed far too many sheep and goats..
And as sure as Eggs are Eggs – they blamed unseen and invisible forces for their decline…….
In their case, Gods.
In our case now……ermmmmmm. lemme think.
Just how warm did it get – how close are we now to 300AD?
I read the Telegraph on a daily basis along with a number of other ‘news’ papers. I would have commented on the Telegraph directly re the false numbers the state has been peddling regarding its workforce/head count. Sadly the DT has permanently shadow banned me, so no one is allowed to see my comments there. We have known for a good while the total number employed/funded by HMG was out of sync with the private sector tax payers’ (only the private sector pays tax remember) ability to cover the state employees costs. The government fixes this funding dilemma by increasing taxation, increasing working lives of private sector tax payers before they are allowed to retire and by borrowing money.
What could possibly go wrong with that economic model/policy?
Reads a little bit like Ehrlich.
That’s green policies to a Tee – a complete waste of money and major opportunity for fraud.
Regulatory councils that hire a few people look small next to $2B budgets but they don’t just go away.
If Australia’s govt thinks hydrgen is the clean green energy of the future, might I suggest that they first look at the problems that NASA had with a rocket launch last year involving hydrogen….
https://gizmodo.com/nasa-hydrogen-leaks-sls-rocket-space-shuttle-1849500702
“Why Hydrogen Leaks Continue to Be a Major Headache for NASA Launches”
“The second launch attempt of SLS had to be called off on Saturday, September 3, after engineers failed to resolve a hydrogen leak in a quick disconnect—an 8-inch inlet that connects the liquid hydrogen fuel line to the rocket’s core stage. As a result of the setback, SLS probably won’t launch until October at the earliest. The Artemis 1 mission, in which an uncrewed Orion spacecraft will journey to the Moon and back, will have to wait.”
“Ground teams were able to fix a hydrogen leak during the first failed launch attempt on Monday, August 29, but the launch was eventually called off after a faulty sensor erroneously indicated that an engine hadn’t reached the required ultra-cold temperature. The leak on Saturday proved to be much more difficult to contain, with engineers attempting three different fixes, none of which worked. “This was not a manageable leak,” Mike Sarafin, Artemis mission manager, told reporters after the scrub.”
************
If I recall correctly, hydrogen is devilishly difficult to contain.
The early days of the Haber Bosch process (synthesis of ammonia from hydrogen and nitrogen) were plagued by problems handling hydrogen gas at high temperatures and pressures.
Didn’t Herr Hindenburg discover that some time ago?
Yup, in 1937.
One of the plausible theories for the Hindenburg disaster is that hydrogen was somehow leaking from inside the blimp to the outside. With static electricity building up on the outside, it took just a spark to ignite the hydrogen. Boom! Videos of it are on YouTube.
Hell will freeze over before I drive a hydrogen-fueled automobile.
Not to say hydrogen isn’t dangerous but the skin of the Hindenburg was painted with an aluminum paint that was extremely flammable. It looked really great but keep it away from lighting.
NASA should have some of the best engineers in the world and they are having problems with new gear fueling their space craft.
What are the odds that if hydrogen becomes widely used that leaks and explosions will happen regularly .
The people pushing this dangerous fuel are trying to use surplus wind and solar power to justify wind farms and solar parks .
A new nuclear power station would make a lot more sense running 24/7 providing base load with the ability to use hydro and gas peaking stations when required to balance wind and solar if you insist on using them.
Using high pressure gas to fuel trucks is a recipe for disaster.
NASA had an unmanageable leak so why would transport operators be able to fix this sort of mishap?
Burning hydrogen creates almost as much greenhouse gas as gasoline …
I steam what you did there (:-))
Where does the carbon come from?
It was announced today on local news that Michigan has signed a deal with a company to produce hydrogen.
https://www.michigan.gov/whitmer/news/press-releases/whitmer-announces-michigan-wins-400-million-investment-from-nel-hydrogen#:~:text=Firefox-,Gov.%20Whitmer%20Announces%20Michigan%20Wins%20More%20than%20500%20Jobs%2C%20Up,Investment%20from%20Norway%27s%20Nel%20Hydrogen&text=LANSING%2C%20Mich.,electrolyzer%20manufacturing%20facility%20in%20Michigan.
From mkelly’s link: “said Governor Whitmer. “Earlier this year, I went on an economic mission to Europe to show the world what Michigan has to offer, and as a result of our efforts on the trip, we secured an investment from Nel to continue building on our leadership in cars, chips, and clean energy.”
That one comment elicits so many retorts, but the governor would seem to be doing her job (getting attention and selling strengths).
… because when I think “ cars, chips, and clean energy” the first thing I always think is “Michigan”. You too, right?
Something I have not seen mentioned is that green hydrogen requires a great deal of water because hydrogen is just 11% of the water by mass. Oh and you cannot use sea water without desalination it first. Where is all this water supposed to come from?
And what do we do with the 89% “waste”?
Hydrogen is a colourless gas, with very low energy density that is highly explosive. To “green” zealots and political charlatans, hydrogen is green or blue or perhaps brown depending on how it is produced and who makes the most cash on the involved transactions. As for being a dangerous and dilute commodity, well I guess it isn’t considered dangerous to the thieves who rake in billions of taxpayer dollars pretending to solve a nonexistent climate problem.
I think the big, scary $2B line is meant to stop critical thinking about
“$38.2 million in funding for a Guarantee of Origin scheme, which will certify renewable energy and track and verify emissions from clean energy products – in particular hydrogen. This is critical funding to ensure Australia is seen as an attractive investment destination, to accelerate investment in an Australian hydrogen industry and to support access to future markets for verified renewable and clean products.”
Sounds like an expensive regulatory patronage organization that signs documents from environmentally controlled comfort spaces while members post on Instagram.
Elsewhere this is called the “Hindenburg Strategy”, How appropriate – maybe it will blow the Labour loons out of existence!
Green hydrogen? Grrrr. BrilliantLight Power have developed the Suncell which utilises hydrogen from water. It does not burn it but changes it physically to an allotrope with an enormous release of energy.
See their latest Executive Summary. They are well advanced now and sufficient proving has been done. If I was in a position too I would be investing. Story tip. https://brilliantlightpower.com/pdf/Executive_Summary.pdf
“The concept of allotropy was originally proposed in 1840 by the Swedish scientist Baron Jöns Jakob Berzelius (1779–1848).”
I’d expect to find most available inputs in the lower energy state. Hard to imagine free and abundant energy sitting unharvested for over 150 years then not hear about it except in the comments section of a politicized climate page. (no offense, politics coopts everything that would be independently popular.)
We need the government out of the energy business, all they do is foul it up.
The author states: There is no way green industries can produce affordable hydrogen which can challenge the cost of producing hydrogen from fossil fuel…
Wrong. Everyone knows that solar too much electricity when it’s not needed, too little when it is.
Here in Cali we spend $millions on curtailment and continue to incentivize more solar. Green hydrogen producers look at these curtailment payments and see a win-win solution.
The input cost for the electricity to their electrolyzer’s will have a negative value. They’ll take all the excessive electricity for a “small fee”. Cali electricity rate payers will save $millions by avoided curtailment payments and green hydrogen costs drop significantly. Some people may argue that the solution to the curtailment problem is to stop building solar, but that won’t happen because the whole State is one big make-believe Disneyland/Hollywood.
Mandate green hydrogen make it eligible for production and investment credits, low interest loans, and accelerated depreciation allowances and we’ll have a whole new industry providing jobs and clean energy with a business model for the Nation to follow. We-are-screwed.