Post by
retiredengexec on Jan 03, 2021 5:16pm
Grey Hydrogen Part 1
Part 2 will take a bit longer as the midstream portion is a bit more complex.
Part 1 Grey Hydrogen – Upstream Metrics/Executive Summary
In this analysis, it is assumed that 1.1 million bbls pd of oil used for transportation fuel and 3.5 Bcfpd of Nat gas used for home heating and commercial space heating is converted to hydrogen. This would eliminate 240 MT of CO2 per year. The hydrogen would be manufactured in a huge complex located immediately outside of Edmonton owing primarily due to proximity to CCS reservoirs and availability of Natural gas on the TCPL system.
The above load results in the need to make 75,000 metric tonnes of H2 each day. Current worldwide production is about 80,000 T/day. Feed/outputs are as follows: 1.41 million barrels per day of water (only 1% of the North Saskatchewan River), 12.5 Bcfpd of natural gas (75% of all Cdn Natural gas production) and 1,500 MW of electricity. Outputs are 75,000 kg of H2 (29.8 Bcfpd) and 12.9 Bcfpd of CO2 which is 3.8 million bbls per day of CO2 at sequestered reservoir conditions.
The storage requirement (and risk) to achieve green status in this case is huge. Over a twenty-year timeline over 117 Tcf of CO2 would need to be disposed of, or 3.5 billion barrels. The proposed reservoir would be the Devonian, which is the reservoir that Leduc #1 was produced from. This well was part of an extensive reef trend that ran from west of Red Deer to North east of Edmonton. In total this trend produced 4.5 billion bbls of oil and 31 Tcf of gas. At the aforementioned rates these reservoirs will be filled in 10 years. To use this trend about 1,000 old wells would have to checked and potentially repaired. After the reefs are “filled up” injection would take place on very flat widespread platforms charged with water. Unfortunately, they have very poor injectivity. For this reason, a minimum of 190 wells will be required to avoid the risk that CO2 had to be flared. Why you ask don’t we use other existing reservoirs? Well, we need them for H2 storage as demand is seasonal and with H2 you need about triple current storge of 1 TCF per year.
Before talking about costs, consider that all of Alberta’s natural gas would be used for H2 production. BC production would be used to fuel industrial demand in the rest of Canada. All in-situ oil production would be curtailed and most SCO. The only refineries operating would be in Montreal from ME crude. Actually, Ab gas production would drop by about 5 BCFPD as the Montney would stop as there would be no market for Condensate. All Canadian gas exports would cease and in reality, we would import gas from the US to keep the northern tier refineries running.
Total capital for upstream costs (five trains of steam reformers, 190 wells and a high-pressure high-capacity CO2 distribution system) is about $72 billion dollars with annual operating costs of about 30 billion (mostly natural gas). This works out to a total cost per kg of $1.67 which is in line with published numbers.
So, we are off to races right. Wrong in the strongest terms. Before we get too excited, we have to look at the midstream and LDC level, because this is what the you and I will see after these costs are factored in.
IN the next installment I’ll outline what it means to pivot. On a personal level be prepared to shell out $7,500 for a hydrogen furnace.
Comment by
Pandora on Jan 03, 2021 6:54pm
One thing about politicians they have no compassion whatever about "cost to the taxpayer" - as long as they themselves can live their ideology - even if it's a pipe dream - no pun intended.
Comment by
leo101 on Jan 03, 2021 8:51pm
excellent post, i enjoyed reading it. many energy options for the future.
Comment by
DuaneParnham on Jan 15, 2021 10:31am
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Comment by
Dapper1 on Jan 15, 2021 4:01pm
OOOPPS....Folks my apologies, the SMR reations are endothermic and require a lot of NG as fuel
Comment by
retiredengexec on Jan 15, 2021 4:18pm
Dap. I assumed 25% fuel ontop of process.
Comment by
retiredengexec on Jan 15, 2021 4:17pm
Thanks for that yes the Peace could handle this but there are no suitably large reservoirs to inject into. That said you could run a line down to the \devonian reefs around edmonton or to the hinton area.
Comment by
Dapper1 on Jan 16, 2021 12:31pm
REE" A side issue of CO2 injection I came across in my past involvement in this is; In some old reservoirs, it was noticed that there was a slow conversion to methane from micros. Perhaps more research should be done here to accelerate this.
Comment by
Quintessential1 on Jan 16, 2021 12:51pm
An interesting path of turning fossil fuel Natural Gas into Hydrogen and Renewable Natural Gas. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1041046
Comment by
retiredengexec on Jan 16, 2021 1:41pm
Dap. Excellent post. Also in conventional reservoirs they were slowly filled from widespread shale. The best example of this is the Permian. The issue is how quickly or slowly these processes take place.
Comment by
retiredengexec on Jan 16, 2021 1:41pm
Dap. Excellent post. Also in conventional reservoirs they were slowly filled from widespread shale. The best example of this is the Permian. The issue is how quickly or slowly these processes take place.
Comment by
Redslapdoggie on Jan 30, 2021 3:45pm
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Comment by
Fantome on Jan 03, 2021 11:33pm
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Comment by
retiredengexec on Jan 04, 2021 9:23am
No you are not. The costs are enormous and the sequestration and winter summer storage issues are huge.
Comment by
retiredengexec on Jan 04, 2021 9:27am
It will be decades to implement this.
Comment by
Fantome on Jan 04, 2021 10:37am
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Comment by
FreeAtFiddy on Jan 04, 2021 12:33pm
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