When hydrogen is a fossil fuel product: The absurd Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain (HESC) project


This project is nonsense on stilts.  Hydrogen can be very useful stuff but producing hydrogen from coal is a highly intensive industrial process that uses a lot of energy.  Any claim that it bypasses fossil-fuel use is a chimera.  How it works:

"Hydrogen production from coal is achieved through gasification. Coal gasification works by first reacting coal with oxygen and steam under high pressures and temperatures to form synthesis gas. Synthesis gas is a mixture consisting primarily of carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen (H2). The synthesis gas is cleaned of impurities, and the carbon monoxide in the gas mixture is reacted with steam to produce additional hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Hydrogen is removed by a separation system. The highly concentrated CO2 can be separated and captured using CCS technology"

And on top of that the hydrogen has to be greatly compressed and stored in a heavy pressure vessel for transport -- which again uses a lot of energy


A Japanese consortium hopes the production of hydrogen using coal from the Latrobe Valley in a world-first trial will prove it is possible to export the emerging fuel source.

The consortium has produced the first hydrogen at a plant at the Loy Yang mine, south-east of Traralgon, and plans to transport it to Japan from the Port of Hastings in a specially designed ship later this year.

The $500 million Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain (HESC) project involves creating hydrogen gas at the plant and refining it for transport.

Hydrogen is touted as a clean energy source with a range of uses including in fuel cells and powering vehicles.

The project is in its pilot phase, and because producing hydrogen using coal creates greenhouse gases, it will not commercialise it unless it is able to capture and store the emissions.

Announced in April 2018, then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull attended the launch of the project, which received $50 million each from the Victorian and federal governments.

Professor Alan Finkel, the Commonwealth's special adviser on low-emissions technology, said hydrogen was part of a "world-changing transition".

"Hydrogen is part of the future transition that around the world economies are going to go through towards zero emissions," he said. "The world's going to need a lot of hydrogen, and so the more ways we can get that hydrogen the better."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-12/hydrogen-from-coal-production-begins-la-trobe-valley/13241482

1 comment:

  1. I have got nothing on hydrogen but got a heads up about a news website.

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    Did a search for "border patrol custody" and found this:
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    Aussie news:
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    ReplyDelete

All comments containing Chinese characters will not be published as I do not understand them