[pjscott]

Do you have actual knowledge of their motives? Or is this speculation, confidently stated as fact?

Another possible motive, mentioned in the the paragraph you quote, is that the oil companies see an energy transition coming and are trying to get aboard the hydrogen train to diversify their future revenue sources. And that sounds like a reasonable motive; the sort of thing that people who don't see themselves as evil villains – i.e. the supermajority of people – could embrace.

[iamthemonster]

I work for an oil and gas company. It has been specifically stated by my company that they are seeking support for hydrogen as a fuel because it adds value to their gas reserves - natural gas is roughly 75% hydrogen on a molar basis.

The idea is to stimulate demand for "green-ish" hydrogen (that is by grid-connected electrolysis); once demand for the hydrogen is there, it can be supplied by blue hydrogen. The O&G companies aren't super keen on green hydrogen made by dedicated renewables off grid, and they LOVE the approach of "we'll start off with grey hydrogen then we'll move to blue and green in the future".

This is very specifically a strategy to increase the amount of natural gas that can move from resources to possible reserves to probable reserve to proven reserves. That's how you increase the value of your company, which is how you get a fat bonus as a CEO.

You don't get a fat bonus by telling the truth or being right.

[jasonkester]

Can you define your hydrogen colors for us? It sounds like you have something interesting to say, but I can’t parse what it is out of your company’s jargon.

[MayeulC]

These are common terms. A random link: https://www.weforum.org/stories/2021/07/clean-energy-green-h...

* Green: produced from surplus renewable capacity (electrolysis)

* Black, brown, grey: convert various fossil fuels to hydrogen via steam reforming. Basically strip carbon from hydrocarbons, emitting a lot of CO2.

* Blue: same as black/brown/Greg but with carbon capture.

There are other (less common) shades as well.

[lambda]

There's also "white" which is naturally occurring pure hydrogen.

Mostly it's seen as being economically infeasible to extract, though there is one working well in the world, and some other potential sources that may be feasible to extract discovered recently.

But the big problem with hydrogen is that right now, the majority of the supply is grey/brown/black, which all emit CO2 to produce. Green is far more expensive, and the carbon capture needed for blue is also expensive and the methods of storage are dodgy.

The thing about green hydrogen is that it's more efficient to transmit and store electricity than convert it to hydrogen and distribute and store that, so it's basically just a worse way of utilizing green energy sources. The only reason hydrogen is at all economical is that grey/brown/black are cheap, and it's hard to see any path for green or blue to become competitive (and truly zero emissions for blue).

It's possible that we'll find reserves of white hydrogen and efficient ways to extract it, but that's purely speculative right now, while building renewable energy sources, electric distribution, and batteries can be done right now.

[AlexandrB]

And Green is a huge efficiency loss. I suppose if the energy used to do it truly "green" and "surplus"...

> As of 2022, commercial electrolysis requires around 53 kWh of electricity to produce one kg of hydrogen, which holds 39.4 kWh (HHV) of energy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water

[wisty]

20% loss isn't really "huge", is it?

10% of power is lost to distribution anyway. Batteries can also lose 10%.

The issue with hydrogen isn't producing it, it's that it's an absolute nightmare to transport and store. Hydrogen can soak into metals, causing them to become brittle - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_embrittlement and it leaks if there's absolutely any chance of it possibly leaking (thanks to the small molecules, and its tendancy to cause everything it touches to go brittle), and can cause a very big bang if it does leak.

It might work well for planes (where power to weight is at an absolute premium) but for cars and buses the weight of a bigger but tamer battery just makes more sense. It's absolutely a good rocket fuel.

The issue isn't that it can't be green. The issue is that it's rocket fuel - high performance but dangerous and high maintenance. Putting rocket fuel in a bus is just dumb.

[theshrike79]

But then you have even more losses when you convert the hydrogen back to energy.

The formula is that 55kW of electricity used to generate hydrogen from water and then converted back to electricity in a gas turbine or fuel cell results in 15kW of energy.

That's a lot more than 20%.

Compare that to just storing the 55kW in batteries and using them to spin an electric engine. "Hydrogen economy" only makes sense if you have infinite free electricity or massive overproduction.

[Loudergood]

Ok now added hydrogen losses due to distribution and storage.

[cjbenedikt]

Frequently the green energy used to split water is "surplus" energy. For example the bulk of offshore wind energy happens between 10pm and 2am when energy demand is at its lowest. That energy goes to waste if not stored in hydrogen. Hence, efficiency is irrelevant.

[SoftTalker]

When the energy is free (solar) efficiency doesn't matter, or at least not nearly as much.

Same reason the mob could sell their hijacked goods under wholesale prices... it was all profit no matter what.

[486sx33]

Then force all electric cars to be charged only by solar!

[486sx33]

Sure, but as long as we are burning natural gas, hydrogen is a bonus. Either use it or let it be wasted.

Using it to power public transportation is a great idea, if only we can get some better hydrogen fueling infrastructure. It should have a fair shake against electrics as electric vehicle power generation is using a lot of natural gas stations to charge up those cars !

[groone]

Red hydrogen: produce hydrogen from a thermochemical reaction between water, iodine, and sulfur at a high temperature, around 900°C, using the thermal energy from a nuclear reactor.

[D_Alex]

"Blue hydrogen" is commonly used for hydrogen produced from natural gas. If it is produced by steam reforming (most common), then the associated CO2 emissions are worse than if you just burn the natural gas directly.

"Green hydrogen" is usually hydrogen produced from water by electrolysis, using electricity from non-CO2 source, e.g. wind or electricity.

[ajb]

Blue hydrogen is supposed to capture the carbon. If its just emitted, then it's grey hydrogen: https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/energy-explained/hydrog...

[tialaramex]

Right, if you "oops" don't have working capture because it's never been practical you're making "Blue" hydrogen in which your customers can tell everybody they're environmentally friendly but due to a technical hitch you are emitting lots of CO2. Maybe you can agree a token $1B fine, of course offset against the taxes you were already going to pay, and everybody carries on as before. Hooray for your profitable corporation and oops, too bad for the stupid humans who live on the gradually less inhabitable planet you're destroying.

This would only be really dumb if the corporation was owned by humans. Huh.

[1oooqooq]

1bi fine? i wish. they just sign up for those carbon buyback scams and won't cost more than 20mi, including the bribes.

[D_Alex]

You are entirely correct.

[krisoft]

Blue hydrogen is produced from natural gas.

Green hydrogen is produced from electrolysis of water where the energy is comming from a renevable source. (Imagine solar panels which are directly connected to an electrolysis plant.)

“Green-ish” hydrogen is produced from electrolysis of water where the energy is comming from the grid. (And thus as green as your grid is.)

[jasonkester]

Thanks. Any idea what “grey” would mean in this context?

[iamthemonster]

Grey hydrogen is produced from natural gas

Blue hydrogen is produced from natural gas with carbon capture

[originalvichy]

These are quite obvious for anyone who has been following energy tech at a surface level.

[thaumasiotes]

> natural gas is roughly 75% hydrogen on a molar basis

I thought it was methane. Wouldn't that be 80% hydrogen on a molar basis? (Or... 67%, if we're counting moles of molecular hydrogen?) Is the discrepancy coming from impurities, or different types of fuel, or what?

[D_Alex]

Natural gas is a mixture of methane and heavier hydrocarbons, the composition varies by region, depending largely on how the LPGs (propane and butane) are used. Ethane usually ends up in natural gas, unless there is a petrochemical complex nearby.

So, 80% is a theoretical maximum, which is never achieved in practice. 75% hydrogen looks pretty right.

[thaumasiotes]

I'm still curious about the measurement "on a molar basis". If you have 20 moles of methane, and you process that to separate out the carbon, you'll end up with 20 moles of some form of carbon and 40 moles of hydrogen gas, right?

[philipkglass]

I think that "on a molar basis" is there to clarify that it's counting by number of atoms rather than grams. On a gram-for-gram basis, methane is ~75% carbon.

[D_Alex]

"Molar" refers to a number of elementary entities, which could be atoms or molecules or w/e. So yes, if you are counting moles of H2 gas, but not if you are counting atoms...

[thaumasiotes]

But hydrogen gas is the only thing you can get from that reaction. There is a theoretical construct of monatomic hydrogen, also a gas, but you're guaranteed to get molecular hydrogen instead. And there will only be 40 moles of it. There isn't a way for you to end up with 80 moles of hydrogen product.

[xbmcuser]

The current US administrations moves against renewables should make you realize how powerful the oil gas lobby is. They got some pushback from local politicians so were slowed down but the way they started they were looking to end all wind and solar for a false promise of nuclear tomorrow.

[belorn]

The last decades' worth of German administrations (and EU countries in general) removed nuclear on the promise of a cheap grid made from green hydrogen and renewables. What they delivered was a EU grid dependent on imported natural gas and a record high ~€400 billions energy subsidies.

It is hard to see whose promise of a bright future seems most realistic.

[kelnos]

I don't think poor transition planning should be seen as an indictment of renewables. Germany planned their transition poorly; that's on them.

(Germany also is culturally/politically somewhat anti-nuclear, too, which is a shame.)

[originalvichy]

Germany is not the same as other countries. They have a culturally different view towards nuclear power.

[kergonath]

Italy used to be similar (though they have seemed to be softening their stance recently). Austria is even more anti-nuclear than Germany ever was.

[belorn]

Sweden was also on the same german track, shutdown some of the nuclear fleet, but is now going back and forth on the issue. They are also investing in new natural gas fueled thermal plants, with similar "future" plans of using green hydrogen.

The national debate in Sweden is also similar. The right is arguing that the future is nuclear, and the left is arguing that green hydrogen is the future and natural gas is the stepping stone to get there. It is a miniature copy of the general energy discussion in EU.

[mistrial9]

except that there are more than two possibilities, but the debate is reduced to artificial Left and Right -- a miniature copy of the American political duopoly

[tremon]

Germany is not unique either. Both France and Belgium are struggling with their inventory of nuclear power plants: many are operating near or past their designed lifespans, so maintenance is getting more expensive but they can't be decommissioned because there are no replacement plants (and due to electric transportation, demand is only going up). Germany definitely made the wrong choice, but at least they were aware enough to make an explicit choice. Other European countries have basically been burying their head in the sand on the same issue.

As of today, France is looking to start construction on six new plants but that still means the plants likely won't be in operation until 2040. And Belgium hasn't even started the planning phase. That's 15 more years of operating nuclear power plants designed in the mid 1900s.

[lostlogin]

> The current US administrations moves against renewables

It is promoting electric cars fairly forcefully.

[alistairSH]

Only Teslas.

[lostlogin]

Without a doubt it’s ‘despite being electric’ rather than ‘because they are electric’.

[kelnos]

Only because of Musk's involvement. This is crony capitalism at its worst.

If they had their way, we'd all be driving Teslas, charging them with electricity generated from fossil fuels.

[casey2]

Powerful is correct. It's strange to me the number of people on this site who think we should just throw away trillions of dollars. We should use natural gas to make renewable dirt cheap, just that would offset any externalities you can make up.

[dwaltrip]

It'd be reasonable if hydrogen was competitive with electric, but it's not.

[Guthur]

Electricity is a by product of some source of energy, it doesn't just materialise unless your taking about capturing lightening in a bottle.

[Retric]

Hydrogen is also a byproduct of some source of energy, it doesn’t just materialize.

The difference is batteries are vastly more efficient at storage and doing useful work with that stored energy. There’s use cases where that’s fine like rocketry, but efficiency or energy density is usually a dealbreaker.

[jimnotgym]

Vastly more efficient at storing electricity. Vastly more expensive to construct, using rare materials. Have a Vastly shorter lifespan than a hydrogen tank and much lower energy density. Everything is a compromise

[Retric]

Many batteries actually last significantly longer than common hydrogen storage tanks, hydrogen embrittlement is a major issue. Type III and IV tanks have a life cycle of 10 years. https://www.awoe.net/Hydrogen-Storage-LCA.html

Hydrogen has also terrible volumetric energy density. It’s also really heavy until you scale to huge tanks.

[Heston]

Hydrogen's volumetric energy density is about as good as lithium-ion. The cost of replacing a hydrogen tank vs a lithium battery is absolutely massive. You also aren't considering the energy density lost in cold weather for batteries.

[rocqua]

How expensive, big, and heavy would a hydrogen tank (farm) be if it had to supply a whole winter for, say, 1million people. I ask because one of the bigger transition issues I see in Europe is load shifting from summer surplus to winter deficits, specifically for heating.

[Guthur]

What the hell are you talking about, a. batteries weren't mentioned and b. hydrogen is on the periodic table and exists as an element, and can actually be found in its pure form.

[Retric]

Pure hydrogen is not found in meaningful quantities on earth.

There’s a huge demand for hydrogen in industry and it’s almost exclusively met with steam methane reforming there’s some methane pyrolysis and a little green hydrogen but not much. If people could just drill for it, they would happier do so as being so light it’s easy to separate out from other gasses.

[pfdietz]

> Pure hydrogen is not found in meaningful quantities on earth.

This is not necessarily true. A recent discovery in France could contain as much as 250 million metric tons of hydrogen (but that's a generous upper bound).

[zejn]

While hydrogen can be found in its pure form, the reserves are not really developed.

Hydrogen is generally considered a storage, not a resource. Same as battery.

[Dylan16807]

> a. batteries weren't mentioned

What do you think people mean when they say "electric" in this context? It's batteries.

[danaris]

Given how hard and how long the fossil fuel industry has been fighting tooth and nail to suppress science, kill public and private projects, and fund bogus studies, all to avoid ever losing even a fraction of their ironclad control of the energy market, I think it's fair to deny them the benefit of the doubt at this point.

If they're saying or doing something that would stand in the way of or compete with the existing rise of renewable energy, even without any specific evidence, I believe it is fully justified to say they are doing it for selfish reasons that will harm literally every other human being on the planet.

[whalesalad]

Oil companies, vehicle manufacturers, tire companies and other powerful lobbyists have been doing this for decades so it’s an unsurprising theory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...

It’s why we don’t have rail in the US like you see in Europe. At one point in time we had a ton of rail and streetcar networks but these groups destroyed it all because it was a threat to their business. For oil companies, so is hydrogen.

[staunton]

> ... a threat to their business. For oil companies, so is hydrogen.

Hydrogen is no threat to oil and gas companies, quite the contrary, as discussed by comments all around.

For example, they can produce hydrogen from fossil fuels and justify expanding gas infrastructure while talking about some "future transition".

[andrepd]

Plenty of this in Europe. In my country there's less km of rail now than there was in 1910.

[newuser94303]

which country?

[masklinn]

Pretty much all of them. At least in the west, less sure about the east.

France had 70000km of rail around ww1, now it has about 30000. The main (though not only) casualty was the rural narrow gauge lines ("local interest network") which got obliterated by car and low productivity (about 20000km progressively closed from about 1930 to 1960, a handful survive as tourist attractions).

[rkosk]

Dunno which country they are in but this has happened in a lot of places. This is a an infamous example in the UK:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts

Which this politician who owned a major road engineering company was quite involved in

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Marples

[ryanmcbride]

This just sounds intentionally naive.

[namaria]

I think you mean disingenuous

[ryanmcbride]

yeah that's a better word for it

[mixermachine]

One can extract hydrogen from fossil fuels. So if a hydrogen break through is coming, they already have a cheap source for the material. Not really green though...

[m463]

not really cheap either.

I remember natural gas vehicles (busses and cars, like the honda civic). You could actually fill up at home if you had natural gas, but the electricity just to compress the natural gas for the car cost as much or more than the compressed fuel in the car.

For hydrogen, it is even harder. take a look at cars running compressed hydrogen. I remember $17 for the equivalent of a gallon of gasoline. I think it is even more expensive now.

Easier to burn CH4 than use energy to split out the H2, then compres it, then store it.

I actually think solar is better.

[mixermachine]

Most of the Hydrogen that is currently being produced is "gray". Meaning that it is produce with steam reforming from natural gas.

This is currently the cheapest and most used method (around 60%). Coal (around 20%) and oil (around 20%) are also used for hydrogen production.

Green hydrogen is below 1%.

So fossil fuels are still currently the cheapest option there. Just not a green one.

[baq]

Dollars are fake, or more accurately, a social construct, remember that. You can always tax the cheaper fuel and subsidize the more expensive one.

[rocqua]

Dollar costs of physical things (pre tax) quite accurately measure how much effort it takes to produce/acquire that thing. Hydrogen being more expensive than X quite stronly suggests that it is much more effort to get than X.

[baq]

I agree, that’s why I say tax the right things and subsidize the right things.

[AlexandrB]

All well and good until you have producers burning (or otherwise using) the cheap, taxed fuel to produce the expensive, subsidized one while creating more net pollution in the process. It's hard to get this stuff right at the best of times.

[navane]

"trying to get aboard the hydrogen train to diversify their future revenue sources" sounds very close to what op claims. For them, the goal is to get aboard, not to get to a destination.