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Page added on May 30, 2021
The Great Unfunded Green-Hydrogen Dream
Europe’s oil refiners have big plans to boost the use of green hydrogen to help them make fuel, an important component of the petroleum industry’s plans to cut its operational carbon emissions.
But with the clock ticking in the battle against climate change, the reality of what the industry has committed to remains modest. Green hydrogen comes from water and renewable electricity, while the vast majority of hydrogen made today comes from fossil fuels.
While using green hydrogen will help to clean up a refinery’s operations, it won’t have a big impact on the world’s overall carbon emissions because most of those occur when fuels are consumed rather than when they’re made. The gas is an essential part of oil refining, being used to take impurities out of fuels.
The first European plant to bring a so-called green hydrogen project online looks set to be Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s Rheinland refinery in Germany, with a small electrolyzer scheduled to start production in July. It will make about 1,300 metric tons a year. The International Energy Agency estimates global hydrogen usage is about 70 million tons annually, with consumption dominated by oil refineries and chemical makers.
With capacity of 10 megawatts, Rheinland is on a similar scale to pilot projects being developed across Europe by peers including Austria’s OMV AG and Spain’s Repsol SA. Over the course of a year, an electrolyzer of that size would produce enough hydrogen for less than a week at a complex like Rheinland. There are far bigger developments in the wings — up to a few hundred megawatts — but none of those have so far been funded.
“The problem is that the technology is still being developed, expensive to build and will need to increase in scale to make a significant difference,” said Jonathan Leitch, a director at Turner, Mason & Company.
While green hydrogen delivers higher carbon savings, refiners are also looking at so-called blue hydrogen, where projects tend to be bigger, at around 1,000 megawatts. Those rely on more-established carbon capture technology.
Carbon Capture
Refiners are more at home with blue hydrogen, described by Leitch as being pretty much the same as making hydrogen in a conventional refinery, except the carbon is captured and stored. The U.K., the Netherlands and Norway have the advantage here of being able to use caverns left over from the production of oil and gas to store carbon.
Companies across Europe are looking at using green or blue hydrogen, and most plan to use it in the production of fuels, rather than as a source of power. A refinery would need to make considerable modifications to run on hydrogen, with furnaces only able to tolerate a limited amount of hydrogen in the gas mix, according to Zoran Milosevic, a specialist with Eurotek Refining Services, a U.K.-based consultancy.
“Burning higher volumes of hydrogen in furnaces as fuel will be technically challenging and hardly economical,” Milosevic said.
Below is a list of hydrogen projects at European refineries. It includes projects where a developer mentions refiners among possible customers. It will be updated as developments take place.
10 Comments on "The Great Unfunded Green-Hydrogen Dream"
makati1 on Sun, 30th May 2021 5:42 pm
Hahahahahahahaha! I needed a good laugh! Now the suckers will swarm and throw money at the cons.
GAWD! The collapse of the West just gets funnier and funnier. Pass the popcorn.
Cloggie on Mon, 31st May 2021 12:38 am
Hahahahahahahaha! I needed a good laugh! Now the suckers will swarm and throw money at the cons.
GAWD! The collapse of the West just gets funnier and funnier. Pass the popcorn.
Americans like makati are children, who opine that if something doesn’t work today, it will never work.
There is a pipeline of more than 200 GW hydrogen projects in the world, 85% in Europe, the rest in China. Americans and their outgoing oil are irrelevant.
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2021/05/17/213-gw-hydrogen-electrolyser-project-pipeline-85-in-the-eu/
The article is lagging behind. That 10 MW project in Wesseling, Germany was the first, but by no means the only one. The largest one is currently in Spain, 500 MW:
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2021/05/26/spain-to-build-500-mw-hydrogen-plant/
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2021/02/18/nel-pushes-for-hydrogen-price-of-1-5-kg-by-2025/
“Nel Pushes for Hydrogen Price of $1.5/kg by 2025“
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2020/12/29/global-top-13-green-hydrogen-projects/
“Global Top-13 Green Hydrogen Projects“
Those are the GW-scale projects, Australia intends to join in as well, big.
But the real R&D comes from Europe. Makati-country America is as dead as brick, no surprises here.
When Germany puts its weight behind it, you know it is going to work:
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2020/06/12/germany-embraces-the-hydrogen-economy/
“Germany Embraces the Hydrogen Economy“
America is missing the boat on all fronts. The future is Eurasia.
Cloggie on Mon, 31st May 2021 1:51 am
12 top European gas companies from eleven countries, with billions in assets, are setting up an alliance to build a Europe-wide Hydrogen Backbone pipeline system:
https://gasforclimate2050.eu/news-item/european-hydrogen-backbone-grows-to-40000-km/
“European Hydrogen Backbone grows to 40,000 km, covering 11 new countries”
Even the British join in.
And, earlier this month, the Ukraine has offered to become a European energy province and use the old obsolete pipelines for hydrogen instead of fossil fuel, that will now go via North Stream 1 & 2.
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2021/05/29/the-ukraine-to-become-eus-hydrogen-valley/
“The Ukraine to Become EU’s Hydrogen valley”
America owned the 20th century because of its head start with oil and gas technology.
Europe is going to own the 21st century for exactly the same reason: energy is the most fundamental industrial category there is. If you own energy, you own geopolitics.
The_Forbin_Project on Mon, 31st May 2021 1:57 am
ref :”t won’t have a big impact on the world’s overall carbon emissions because most of those occur when fuels are consumed”
not “when” its “where” . for all the hand ringing and wailing China, India and Africa will burn it all
because “cliamte change” is just more Western imperialism to be resisted
makati1 on Mon, 31st May 2021 4:44 pm
Cloggie, you are o delusional it isn’t even funny any more. Get help.
You view of the world is so techie brainwashed you re hopeless. Get help.
Cloggie on Tue, 1st Jun 2021 2:45 am
Shell is teaming up with an Australian engineering company, Worley to build a 200 MW electrolysis hydrogen plant in Rotterdam:
https://www.offshorewind.biz/2021/06/01/shell-adds-worley-to-offshore-wind-to-hydrogen-project-team/
“Shell Adds Worley to Offshore Wind-to-Hydrogen Project Team”
200 MW, that is TWENTY times the scale of the Shell hydrogen project in Germany, the article is referring to.
Cloggie on Tue, 1st Jun 2021 10:31 am
“The Great Unfunded Green-Hydrogen Dream”
We can skip the “unfunded” part. Germany just announced it wants to invest 8 billion euro in 62 hydrogen projects:
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2021/06/01/germany-allocates-e8-billion-for-62-hydrogen-projects/
“Germany Allocates €8 Billion for 62 Hydrogen Projects”
Earlier, a Dutch-led consortium backed a €9 Billion scheme for 50+ hydrogen projects:
“Hydrogen Land €9B Project”
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2020/12/09/hydrogen-land-e9b-project/
Cloggie on Tue, 1st Jun 2021 11:02 am
The French making a point:
“Eiffel Tower Illuminated Through Hydrogen”
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2021/06/01/eiffel-tower-illuminated-through-hydrogen/
Cloggie on Wed, 2nd Jun 2021 5:38 am
Hydrogen coming to shipping. There are already several ships fueled by hydrogen, but the Port of Amsterdam does something completely new: using hydrogen in the form of powder, NaHB4, that can be handled as if it were detergent:
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2021/06/02/h2ships-fueling-ships-with-hydrogen-powder/
“H2Ships – Fueling Ships With Hydrogen Powder”
“Yabut…”
Milley on Tue, 21st Dec 2021 4:13 am
Great blog thanks for sharing!