RE:Federal government announces Canada’s hydrogen strategy
And an analysis from Friends of Science:
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Investigating the Science of Global Climate Change
The policy statement’s promise was fulfilled by a December 16th news release wherein energy minister Seamus O’Regan launched the government’s Hydrogen Strategy for Canada, “an ambitious framework that seeks to position Canada as a global hydrogen leader, cementing this low-carbon and zero-emission fuel technology as a key part of our path to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.” This 116-page document sees hydrogen as holding “the potential to decarbonize many sectors of Canada’s economy, including resource extraction, freight, transportation, power generation, manufacturing, and the production of steel and cement,” as well as “generating more than 350,000 high-paying jobs nationally.” The document’s Vision for 2050 includes (executive summary, p.XVIII): Up to 30% of Canada’s energy delivered in the form of hydrogen.
Canada to be one of top 3 global clean hydrogen producers, with a domestic supply >20Mt/year. Established supply base of low carbon intensity (low CI) hydrogen with delivered prices of $1.50-$3.50/kg (currently $5-$12/kg). [Using hydrogen’s energy content of 142MJ/kg these delivered prices work out to be $11-$25/GJ, or $40-$90/MWh. The current Alberta natural gas price is ~$2.50/GJ.]
>Five million fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) on the road. A nationwide hydrogen fueling network. >50% of energy supplied today by natural gas to be supplied by hydrogen through blending in existing pipelines and new dedicated hydrogen pipelines. Up to 190Mt-CO2e annual emissions reduction. Often, reports promoting hydrogen, like some of those described above, refer to it as an energy source, but it’s really an energy carrier that has to be manufactured, like electricity. There are three currently feasible ways of manufacturing it:
“Grey” Hydrogen is the result of a process known as steam methane reforming(SMR) in which methane (CH4) from natural gas reacts with high-pressure steam in the presence of a catalyst, thereby emitting 6 tonnes of CO2 for every 1.1 tonnes of hydrogen obtained. [Inputs are 2.2 tonnes of methane, 4.9 tonnes of water and 6.3MWh (22.7GJ) of heat, i.e., 15% of the energy value of the hydrogen output.] This is how ~75% of the annual global production of 70 million tonnes of hydrogen is made today. Currently the dominant uses of grey hydrogen (as well as “black” hydrogen from coal or crude bitumen) are industrial –oil refining and the production of ammonia, methanol and steel.
“Blue” Hydrogen is the grey variety combined with CCS (sometimes referred to as carbon capture, utilization, storage, or CCUS) to reduce the CO2 emissions by 70%-90%. Obviously, this requires some form of tax or regulation to make blue competitive with the grey. The IEA Report contains a chart showing 2018 costs for producing grey and blue hydrogen (called “no CCUS” and “with CCUS” in that report) for five regions of the world. According to this chart, blue hydrogen costs ~50% more than grey. Blue is the “carbon-free” type of hydrogen that CESAR refers to in its Alberta report. However, Hydrogen Strategy for Canada uses the term “low CI” hydrogen instead. The low CI standard is 60% below that of grey hydrogen, or 36.4gCO2/MJ (p.36).
“Green” Hydrogen is produced by electrolysis of water using wind or solar electricity (or hydro power where available, and possibly nuclear power). The process requires 9 tonnes of water for every tonne of hydrogen obtained (Hydrogen Strategy for Canada, p.22). Windor solar-made hydrogen is the enthusiasts’ gold standard, as there are supposedly no CO2 emissions (ignoring the fuels needed to mine and manufacture the wind turbines, solar panels and associated electrical infrastructure, as well as disposing of the turbines and panels at the ends of their ~20-year lives).
As the IEA’s Future of Hydrogen report notes, less than 0.1% of global dedicated hydrogen production today is by electrolysis.The current enthusiasm for hydrogen stems from an obsession with achieving “net zero” by 2050, not from any technical or economic advantages of hydrogen over current energy sources, in particular natural gas. Moreover, transforming our existing economy to a hydrogen one would bring significant disadvantages, including:
Any method of producing hydrogen wastes energy, compared to using conventional energy sources such as hydrocarbons, hydropower, nuclear, or even wind and solar. Thus, hydrogen energy will always cost more.
Transforming to a hydrogen economy would require a combination of subsidies, regulation and taxation. However, A Healthy Environment and a Healthy Economy allocates only $1.5 billion in a Low-carbon and Zero-emissions Fuels Fund to increase production of low-carbon fuels, such as hydrogen.
InvestigatingtheScienceofGlobalClimateChange
Injecting hydrogen blends into existing natural gas networks, particularly high-pressure transmission lines, brings the issue of embrittlement (Hydrogen Strategy for Canada, pp.60-61), meaning that a large portion of Canada’s pipeline network would have to be abandoned or replaced.
As p.62 of Hydrogen Strategy for Canada notes, blending low carbon intensity hydrogen into Canada’s natural gas networks is the “most economically challenging” issue, given today’s low-cost commodity prices and no resulting efficiency improvement.
If hydrogen is going to replace natural gas for domestic/consumer use there are significant safety issues, including detectability, wider range of flammability and greater propensity to leak. In addition, appliances and end-use equipment will require upgrading or replacement (Hydrogen Strategy for Canada, p.61).
While Hydrogen Strategy for Canada provides no figures for what it would cost to build the infrastructure needed to produce 20.5Mt/year of hydrogen by 2050, Fig.40 on p.81 shows the scale of increased energy use and the production infrastructure needed, depending whether the hydrogen is green or blue. The future set out in Hydrogen Strategy for Canada is truly a fanciful one. The strategy proposes integrating hydrogen into all parts of Canada’s energy system (Fig.33 on p.71). This would entail: a massive infrastructure creation and increase in energy use just to produce the hydrogen; replacing (“repurposing”) or abandoning large parts of the existing natural gas networks, as well as constructing new ones, to transport it; building new storage facilities; and developing new infrastructure for hydrogen’s end uses. The reason for all of this:
To reduce CO2 emissions by 190Mt/year (worth $32 billion at the 2030 carbon price of $170/t) –and to virtue signal.
Ian Cameron
Director, Friends of Science
Keep in mind:
Indeed, the claim that “most Canadians will get back more in carbon rebates than they pay”seems a cruel and unusual joke, when the ballparked cost to Canadians of the ultimate Net Zero 2050 electrification plan will be in the order of: “Using Tanton’s figures, that would place the costs of electrification at somewhere between U.S. $2.7 trillion (Cdn $3.6 trillion) and
U.S. $4.35 trillion (Cdn $5.9 trillion). This does not include the stranded assets costs or the dead weight losses which, based on the value of the proven reserves alone, would appear to be about $9.4 trillion....A cost of Cdn $3.6 trillion is equal to $95,000 for every person in Canada. A fore gone income of Cdn $9.4 trillion is equal to almost Cdn $250,000 per person, or one million dollars for a family of four.”
Also keep in mind in 2008 China was producing 7379 megatonnes of emmissions in 2008. In 2018 China produced 9429 megatonnes -- an increase of 2050m/t or 28%.
In this same time period Canada went from 545 megatonnes to 550 megatonnes -- an increase of 5m/t or 1%.
What do you think the taxpayers $1 million dollars will do for "world emmissions" as we go forward. Does the government really know what they are doing or are they just trying to "paint a picture" as Trudeau is known for.
In 2015, the newly elected, neophyte Liberal government representatives went to the Paris COP-21 conference and signed on to the purely voluntary agreement to reduce emissions.
The objective was to ensure that human-caused global warming (deemed to be caused by carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from human industry) would remain below a 2°C temperature as outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) science reports. Canada then opted for a more ambitious target of reductions to meet a 1.5°C target,
When Catherine McKenna was sent to the Paris Accord in 2015 she was known to say the following:
"When I took this job I immediately went to the climate negotiations. I did not know anything about the climate file. I had to figure out what a C.O.P. was (Conference of the Parties re Climate Policy). What is this COP? Many people had been to more than 1 - some to 13, 14 COP's. I got there, dug in, and we were able to get the very ambitious climate agreement, but then the rubber had to hit the road here...."
She then went on to commit Canada to limits that were more stringent than requested. And here we are! Just pay your money -- to save the world!