Hydrogen, The Dream That Won’t Die, Gets A New Lease On Life – CleanTechnica

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CleanTechnica readers are fully aware of what my colleague Michael Bernard thinks of hydrogen. In his most recent post on that subject, he said, “Hydrogen has been touted as a clean energy source, a critical pillar of decarbonization efforts in sectors from heavy industry to transportation. Policymakers and industry leaders alike have been singing its praises for decades, envisioning a future powered by green hydrogen, electrolyzers, and pipelines feeding a global energy transition. But buried beneath the hype lies an inconvenient truth — hydrogen itself is an indirect greenhouse gas with a potentially significant warming effect. While hydrogen’s direct radiative forcing is negligible, its interaction with atmospheric chemistry — specifically its impact on methane decomposition and hydroxyl radicals –amplifies climate change in ways that are only now receiving serious attention.”

The allure of hydrogen is that it creates no carbon emissions when it is used to produce electricity in a fuel cell. The only waste products are water vapor and heat. Viewed that way, it is downright miraculous. No wonder it gets its supporters so excited! Hydrogen can be made by passing an electrical current through water, but it takes a lot of electrical energy to break the bonds between hydrogen and oxygen in a molecule of water. However, the vast majority of commercially available hydrogen today is made from methane gas in a process that releases more carbon dioxide than if the methane was simply burned by a thermal generating station. Not only that, hydrogen is difficult to store and transport, making it cost 2 to 3 times as much as gasoline for an equivalent amount of miles driven. What it boils down to is that hydrogen is a poor choice for a fuel for both economic and environment reasons.

Finnish Start-Up To The Hydrogen Rescue

Hycamite is a new company in Finland that claims it can make hydrogen from methane gas without creating any carbon emissions. “We split the methane with the help of catalysts and heat — there’s no oxygen present in the reactor, so that there’s no CO2 emissions at all,” founder and chairman Matti Malkamäki told Canary Media in a December. ​“We are now entering industrial scale production.” The company’s proof of concept facility located in Kokkola can produce 5.5 tons of clean hydrogen per day, or 2,000 tons per year. But here’s the thing. Instead of creating carbon dioxide as an inconvenient gaseous byproduct, pyrolysis yields solid carbon. Hycamite uses catalysts developed over 20 years ago by professor Ulla Lassi at the University of Oulu, which transform the methane into ​“carbon nanofibers with graphitic areas.” This solid carbon can be processed further to produce graphite the company plans to sell to battery manufacturers and other tech industries.

Low carbon hydrogen theoretically could clean up emissions from heavy activities like long distance trucking, shipping, steelmaking, and refining — assuming anyone can manage to make it in volume at prices that compete with the gray hydrogen already available. In the US, some hydrogen producers and fossil fuel majors have talked about retrofitting carbon capture machinery onto existing hydrogen plants but nobody has built a full scale ​“blue hydrogen” operation so far. Renewables developers have evangelized ​“green hydrogen” made by running clean electricity through water to isolate hydrogen, but the electrolyzers and the sources of renewable energy need to get considerably cheaper. Right now, those operations are dependent on government support, which may not be forthcoming in the new administration.

“Thermodynamically, it’s far more energy-favorable to split methane than to split water,” said Raivat Singhania, a materials scientist who scrutinizes hydrogen startups at Third Derivative, a clean energy accelerator. The chemical bonds that hold water together are much stronger than the bonds that hold methane molecules together. Not only does methane splitting require less energy than electrolysis, it can be done with a simpler plant design that uses fewer moving parts and fragile equipment, Singhania noted. Those thermodynamic advantages come with tradeoffs, however. Methane pyrolyzers need a ready source of methane, which in practical terms means a pipe delivering fossil gas. That inevitably entails some level of upstream emissions.

They also need to be located where gas is abundant. It would be hard to scale up in places like Europe or Massachusetts where methane is not abundant and is used primarily for heating homes in winter. But supply is ample across much of the US, which is producing more methane gas than any country in history. Hycamite is building its commercial test facility in its home base of Finland, but the company is looking to the US to deploy its technology. Malkamäki said the revenues from the carbon products are ​“elementary for us to be profitable. A couple of investors have said to us that hydrogen makes you sexy, but carbon makes you money.”

Hydrogen As A Motor Fuel

If Hycamite and others can make low carbon hydrogen from methane and turn a profit, there are others who envision using hydrogen as a motor fuel.  Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, the University of Michigan, and several industry partners are launching the Hydrogen Engine Alliance of North America to promote hydrogen as a viable alternative fuel that can complement ICE vehicles while supporting the transition to electric and other zero emission technologies. “Our goal is to leverage hydrogen as a low-carbon solution that can enhance the performance and sustainability of internal combustion engines,” said Georgios Karavalakis, a professor of chemical and environmental engineering at UCR who is also a director of the new group. “Hydrogen powered ICEs can provide a long term, reliable solution, particularly for applications where battery electric or fuel cell vehicles may not meet consumer performance requirements.”

A recent demonstration by Southwest Research Institute of hydrogen ICE technology in a heavy duty truck showed ultra-low emissions of nitrogen oxides which react in the atmosphere with other pollutants to form ozone. The NOx levels were far below those achievable with conventional diesel-powered trucks, which reinforces the potential for hydrogen to achieve meaningful reductions in transportation related emissions. “Hydrogen combustion engines are a critical component of the clean energy transition, offering a practical solution for sectors where electrification is not yet feasible,” said Wayne Miller, who is also a professor at UCR.

Alpine, the performance arm of Renault, is also pursuing the development of hydrogen-powered internal combustion engines. Its latest offering is a high performance racing car fitted with a bespoke 3.5 liter twin turbo V-6 engine that runs on hydrogen and puts out 740 horsepower at 9,000 rpm. Known as the Alpenglow Hy6, the car was introduced at last year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans race. Bruno Famin, vice president of Alpine Motorsports, expressed his delight with the Hy6. “With the development of this brand new Hy6 V6 engine, we are demonstrating our commitment to hydrogen research, which could herald motorsport applications with high performance levels. A solution for continuing to cultivate the passion for motor racing using a very noble V6 with remarkable specific power and a sound to thrill drivers and spectators with its maximum revs at 9,000 rpm. The Alpenglow Hy6 concept is the perfect example that it is possible to achieve the essential step of reducing carbon emissions in motorsport.”

The Hy6 engine was created in conjunction with Alpine’s Formula One engineering team. There are rumors that the sport would like to return to the thrilling V-10 engines that preceded the current era of hybrid powertrains. Anyone who has ever experienced the scream of those engines would welcome their return, if they can be made to run on an emissions-free fuel like hydrogen. Bring it on!