Michael Barnard writes on all kinds of e-mobility and renewable vitality matters. In a current article for CleanTechnica, he discusses the most recent version of the US Nationwide Clear Hydrogen Technique and Roadmap, a coverage doc that the DOE produces and updates periodically.

Barnard’s piece is an in depth and extremely technical dialogue of a fancy subject, and needs to be learn in its entirety by those that would enterprise an opinion thereupon. Barnard finds the most recent model (June 2023) of the Hydrogen Technique to be an enchancment over the primary draft, however writes that it nonetheless appears to be aimed extra at supporting the fossil gas business than optimizing the usage of hydrogen expertise to cut back emissions.

Scientists and engineers are likely to agree that there are numerous promising functions for hydrogen in industrial processes, however that direct electrification is one of the best answer for transportation (and, regardless of one of the best efforts of the fossil gas business and the politicians on its payroll, the market appears to have already made the choice). As Barnard sees it, the improper federal division is in command of US hydrogen coverage. The Hydrogen Technique was primarily authored by the DOE, and at the least for the primary draft, there was “little obvious enter from the precise finish use case sectors for hydrogen at the moment.”

About 25% of the world’s hydrogen is used to fabricate ammonia, principally for fertilizer. Direct discount of iron (DRI) for metal accounts for one more large chunk of present hydrogen demand. Cleansing up these industrial processes needs to be main priorities, so Barnard thinks the Departments of Commerce and Agriculture ought to have extra enter than the DOE, whose primary remit is nuclear vitality.

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“Job one is to decarbonize [hydrogen’s] industrial use instances, not invent new markets it’s badly suited to, however the first draft of the US Hydrogen Technique was principally centered on inventing new markets,” Barnard writes. Within the new and improved model, the DOE is “making it clear that consultations, nevertheless deep or shallow, did and can contain lots of organizations that are present and future main hydrogen stakeholders.”

The primary alternative areas recognized within the Hydrogen Technique are “the economic sector (e.g. chemical substances, metal and refining), heavy-duty transportation, and long-duration vitality storage.”

Barnard agrees with a lot of the scientific world that the primary merchandise on that record is the right one. Nevertheless, “Heavy-duty transportation has no pathways for hydrogen in a rational world. Heavy-duty trucking will all electrify, as in-hand battery vitality densities enable 500-mile ranges at the moment, 1,000-mile ranges in a yr or two, and over double [the ranges of] present long-haul diesel rigs within the 2030s.”

As for rail, outdoors of the US, it’s both electrified or quickly electrifying. Rail is 85% electrified in India, 72% in China, and 60% in Europe. It’s exhausting to see any opening for hydrogen there, however Barnard tells us that the American Affiliation of Railroads is “belligerently against electrification for nonsensical causes.” For maritime transport, “it’s going to be batteries and biofuels, not hydrogen derivatives.”

What about long-duration vitality storage? Hydrogen for this utility is “going to be too costly as a result of inefficiencies and capital prices to compete in day-ahead reserves or two-day markets, so it’s going to be constrained, if ever constructed, to very long-duration storage the place there’s a nationwide scarcity of wind and sunshine for every week,” Barnard writes. “Even then, simply diverting biomethane from present anthropogenic sources into pure gasoline storage amenities is much more smart than manufacturing hydrogen for the aim. The reply for economically smart long-duration storage is pumped hydro and the rising redox circulation battery house, not an costly molecule that likes to leak.”

The DOE says that the Hydrogen Vitality Earthshot launched in 2021 “will catalyze each innovation and scale…and dramatically decreasing the price of clear hydrogen.”

Barnard isn’t having any. “This isn’t an area that’s topic to huge reductions in value. The legal guidelines of thermodynamics don’t give method to wishful pondering, so the price of inexperienced hydrogen through electrolysis will nonetheless require 50 MWh+ per ton of hydrogen. Solely the electrolyzer will not be a commoditized element at the moment, and it’s one in all maybe 28 parts in an industrial-scale electrolysis plant.”

Following a extremely technical rationalization of the components that drive the price of hydrogen, and why the blue or inexperienced hydrogen (created from renewable vitality) that H₂ followers like to tout will all the time price greater than black or grey hydrogen (created from fossil fuels), Barnard concludes: “Hydrogen is as low-cost because it’s ever going to get, even with the IRA’s huge subsidy per kg (equal to $3.00 per gallon of gasoline, or 83% of the retail value proper now). We don’t use it for vitality…as a result of it’s vastly dearer than fossil fuels, and we gained’t use it for vitality sooner or later except we’re financial idiots, as a result of electrification and biofuels are cheaper.”

The Hydrogen Technique requires grants and loans for automakers to fabricate gas cell EVs, in addition to tax credit for amenities that manufacture hydrogen and gas cell applied sciences. “Yup, let’s give cash to home producers to make gas cells and gas cell vehicles nobody will purchase or drive,” says Barnard. “That’s pure pork.

Barnard cites David Cebon of the Centre for Sustainable Street Freight, who present in 2022 that hydrogen vans from main distributors have been way more costly than their battery-powered options, and that gas prices could be thrice dearer than utilizing electrical energy. Barnard additionally reminds us that China has 1.1 million electrical buses and vans on its roads, and fewer than 10,000 gas cell autos. “If the USA needs to compete within the twenty first century with China, it has to take action with pragmatic decisions that make sense, not financial lifeless ends that fulfill solely the fossil gas business.”

By now you’ve gathered that Mr. Barnard will not be impressed with the US Hydrogen Technique, which he calls “a doc the fossil gas business will love,” that recommends “plenty of governmental cash to be used instances for hydrogen and carbon seize that can fail, perpetuating their enterprise mannequin for one more decade or two on the expense of the planet.”

Nevertheless, all will not be misplaced. The most recent version of the Hydrogen Technique is an enchancment over the primary draft. “Extra stakeholders are clearly referred to as out, and there’s a transparent all-of-government strategy that was missing within the authentic. There’s extra focus and readability on the precise use instances for lower-carbon hydrogen—ammonia and metal outstanding amongst them. And your entire residential and business heating potential for hydrogen has disappeared. They lastly bought that memo.”

For optimists who comply with the hydrogen-vs-battery debate, there are indicators that the wave of hydrogen fever has crested. “If the DOE updates [the Hydrogen Strategy] each 9 months, and there’s as a lot motion every time, then by 2026 or 2027, it may very well be a superb technique,” Barnard concludes.

Supply: CleanTechnica