How we measure and report on the vitality and decarbonization transition issues. The legacy of outdated items we use for vitality distorts debate and dialogue. Making use of items of vitality to issues like hydrogen that aren’t vitality frames them as essentially a part of the vitality transition. And the USA’s behavior of sticking with outdated Imperial measurements that nobody else makes use of confuses issues additional.
However let’s begin with hydrogen. What’s hydrogen right now? It’s an industrial feedstock and a local weather change emissions downside, on the size of all of aviation right now. But Europe measures it in items of electrical energy, TWh or MWh. What’s up with that?
Hydrogen Demand Projection by way of 2100, chart by creator
Its largest use is in oil refineries to take away sulfur, water, and different impurities from crude oil, and to crack lighter parts out of heavier parts. The more serious the standard the crude oil, the extra hydrogen is required, with my estimate being virtually eight kilograms of hydrogen to course of a barrel of Alberta’s oil sands crude, for instance. Low sulfur, mild crude makes use of rather a lot much less. The distinction is a part of why Alberta (and Venezuela’s) crude oils might be first off the market as peak oil demand arrives later this decade, with shuttering of most oil sands possible by 2040. The roughly one-third of all hydrogen, 40 million tons, used for oil right now will plummet within the coming a long time.
Its subsequent largest use is in manufacturing ammonia fertilizer. About 25% or 30 million tons is used there. Fertilizer is crucial to feeding the billions of individuals on the planet, no matter impending peak inhabitants, almost definitely someday between 2050 and 2070. We received’t get rid of fertilizer, however in my projections we’ll diminish its use considerably. Nitrogen fixing agrigenetics, precision agriculture, and low-tillage agriculture will all lower into demand for it.
The one progress sectors I foresee for it are in some pathways to the restricted quantity of biofuels we require for longer haul aviation and maritime transport, and inexperienced metal manufacturing. Hydrotreating of biofuels is a equivalent to hydrotreating of crude oil right now, however the huge demand attracts of desulfurization and hydrocracking received’t be current, so mixed with a lot decrease volumes of liquid fuels, it’s simply not going to be an enormous consumption space. Inexperienced metal underneath the HYBRIT mannequin makes use of 59 kilograms of hydrogen per ton of metal, however we’ll be turning increasingly more to scrapping current metal, particularly the huge quantities in fossil gas infrastructure globally to produce new metal.
Be aware that none of those use instances is said to electrical energy and that I measure hydrogen in metric tons, an truly wise unit for an industrial feedstock.
So why do particularly European organizations insist on measuring hydrogen with items of vitality? I lately stepped by way of a DNV report on manufacturing hydrogen offshore in wind farms. Amongst many different dangerous selections, it makes use of MWh because the measure of hydrogen.
It’s complicated. It takes about 60 MWh to fabricate a ton of hydrogen with the electrolyzer and stability of plant attracts. However that ton of hydrogen isn’t equal to 60 MWh of electrical energy by any stretch of the creativeness. First off, the 60 MWh used to fabricate, compress, retailer, and distribute hydrogen is maybe 70% environment friendly. The 60 MWh is already solely 42 MWh.
You may make a declare that hydrogen’s vitality is the same as its heating worth if burned, about 120 gigajoules (GJ). If you may get that hydrogen to one thing to burn it in with out losses, you may get that a lot warmth out of it. However hydrogen solely turns into electrical energy by way of both the equal of a pure fuel mixed cycle generator that’s about 50% environment friendly, or maybe a gas cell that is likely to be 60% environment friendly. In actuality, solely about half of the vitality within the hydrogen is out there as electrical energy.
The reported 60 MWh of hydrogen is just 20 MWh of actual electrical energy. Utilizing MWh for hydrogen as DNV does grossly distorts the that means of the MWh unit.
As I famous in my evaluation of DNV’s report, even with their extremely optimistic numbers for inexperienced hydrogen from any supply, the tip price of vitality can be ten occasions greater than imported liquid pure fuel (LNG), the costliest type of imported vitality often used right now, not that DNV makes that comparability anyplace of their report. Making vitality ten occasions costlier is a recipe for financial catastrophe, and so will fall by the wayside. And as famous, DNV is extremely optimistic, so inexperienced hydrogen will truly be costlier than they mission.
In fact, along with being deeply deceptive concerning the precise obtainable vitality, it’s framing hydrogen when it comes to vitality, not as an industrial feedstock. The elemental assumption that the DNV report makes is that hydrogen will exchange oil, pure fuel, and coal as a main vitality provider for Europe’s economic system. (DNV additionally ignores the stability of plant vitality attracts, assumes low-cost electrolyzers, and assumes that hydrogen pipelines are extra environment friendly than HVDC transmission, all deeply questionable selections.)
Is DNV alone on this dangerous framing? No, the brand new European EEX Hydrix inexperienced hydrogen index additionally makes use of MWh because the unit for hydrogen too, as I famous when calculating the quickly inflating high quality low cost for Alberta’s crude oil lately. The index is a good suggestion, gathering industrial deal information, normalizing and aggregating it. Nevertheless it’s caught on this hydrogen-for-energy paradigm.
EEX Hydrix FAQ assertion on utilizing LHV and MWh for inexperienced hydrogen
So sure, regardless of hydrogen not getting used for vitality right now, Europe is framing every little thing about hydrogen right now when it comes to the electrical energy required to fabricate inexperienced hydrogen, as if that may be a unit of accessible vitality. They’re explicitly making a comparability to the best way that Europe measures pure fuel, additionally in MWh. It additionally makes use of the decrease heating worth, which is unrepresentative of the particular effectivity of the method. Why? As a result of the EU hydrogen technique does.
And to be clear, it’s ambiguous about whether or not the Hydrix index is utilizing the vitality required to fabricate hydrogen, though the reference to decrease heating worth means that’s the case, or whether or not it’s utilizing it from a perspective about its precise embodied vitality.
So, subsequent query. Is it acceptable for Europe to measure pure fuel when it comes to MWh? It’s, relying on the conversion issue used. The biggest use case for pure fuel is, in any case, era of electrical energy. So long as the spark unfold — the common distinction between the price of fuel delivered on the fuel transmission system and the facility worth — of fifty% is used, it’s a helpful measure. Industrial customers, who typically use pure fuel for warmth far more straight, know how one can convert it. Residential customers, one other massive however diminishing pure fuel market, don’t know what MWh are anyway.
Lawrence Livermore Nationwide Laboratory (LLNL) Sankey diagram of US vitality flows for 2021
It is a diagram often utilized by me and lots of different vitality analysts. It’s a Sankey diagram of vitality flows from main vitality to vitality companies. It’s a useful gizmo, particularly once you take a look at rejected vitality in its outstanding place on the higher proper. Rejected vitality is vitality we throw away. We don’t use it. It’s simply vented into the environment. It’s excessive entropy and ineffective to us. It’s potential to seize a tiny fraction of it and shift it into district heating options, however that’s by far the exception fairly than the rule.
Take a look at the grey bar popping out of Transportation on the underside proper, for instance. 80% of the vitality that flows into that field simply disappears, making the air above highways hotter and flowing out of the engines of jets and the smokestacks of ships. In comparison with the vitality from the solar hitting the Earth, it’s an infinitesimal quantity of warmth, however in comparison with the first vitality flowing into the system, it’s large.
This diagram, which is solely about vitality, makes use of quadrillions of British thermal items (Btu) as its unit of vitality. (Cue irony sound impact.) That’s a a lot poorer alternative for vitality than the European mannequin as a result of the Btu is so unrepresentative of the vitality popping out the opposite finish. For those who want warmth, it’s fairly good. However in case you want electrical energy — and the world is electrifying quickly — then it’s a foul alternative.
All of these vitality containers on the left of the diagram are in quadrillions of Btu, however we don’t want to interchange them as we transfer to a lot greater effectivity electrical vitality makes use of powered by renewables the place nature offers us the gas at no cost, so we’ve no effectivity losses to talk of when changing it to really helpful electrical energy.
And so, to a latest piece by the US Power Info Administration right here in CleanTechnica: Nonfossil Gas Power Sources Accounted For 21% Of U.S. Power Consumption In 2022.
US vitality consumption graph from US EIA
Nonetheless in quads, clearly. And it’s extolling the expansion of non-fossil gas shares of vitality. So the query is, how do they calculate the Btu for wind, photo voltaic, and water, as apparent examples?
There are numerous selections. Zenon Analysis, a European local weather tech assume tank, simply revealed an evaluation of the issue, calling for standardization.
Zenon Analysis graphic from 2023 analysis word Past Main Power
They speak concerning the alternative ways to get to vitality equivalents. The above graphic exhibits the three main strategies used. Substitution provides the inefficiencies of thermal era to the wind, photo voltaic, and water, answering the query “If we needed to burn pure fuel for this, what number of thermal items of fuel can be required for a similar electrical energy?” It’s the spark unfold of fifty% once more, however after all, meaning choosing the right quantity for the spark unfold. It will get every little thing into the identical items, however the items are dangerous.
The direct equal methodology simply makes use of the output of wind, photo voltaic, and water as is, assuming 100% effectivity of turning wind into helpful vitality. That’s clearly lacking transmission and the like, so is in a different way imperfect, however a lot nearer to helpful.
The bodily vitality content material methodology makes use of the direct equal methodology for wind, water, and photo voltaic, and a conversion issue for thermal pathways as a consequence of their vitality losses.
So what does the IEA information use? Are these precise items of vitality, with the truly helpful electrical energy accurately represented, are they grossed up with thermal inefficiencies, or what?
“Starting with the September 2023 Month-to-month Power Assessment (MER), we’ll calculate consumption of noncombustible renewable vitality for electrical energy era utilizing the captured vitality strategy, which applies a relentless conversion issue of three,412 British thermal items per kilowatthour (Btu/kWh), the warmth content material of electrical energy. It is a change from our present methodology, known as the fossil gas equivalency strategy.”
Effectively, they’re about to alter and confuse everyone.
So if they’ll direct Btu in September, what are they utilizing within the diagram above? That’s truly a query I’ve been making an attempt to determine for some time with the LLNL Sankey diagrams as effectively, as their transient footnote was remarkably uninformative.
It took a very long time to unravel this, and after I say backside, I imply the underside row on an enormous small print desk on web page 241 of the IEA’s June 2023 Month-to-month Power Assessment report. At current, for wind, water, and photo voltaic PV, they’re utilizing 8,844 Btu because the vitality equal. That equates to a 39% effectivity issue, consultant of numerous thermal era that’s effectively under pure fuel mixed cycle turbines.
Okay, so the EIA is aligning with the remainder of the world on how they symbolize vitality from renewables. Are they doing the identical for fossil fuels?
Effectively, no.
Which means as of September, the EIA will begin representing renewables as a a lot smaller portion of the USA’s vitality combine than they’re in actuality, chopping their obvious deployment by 61%. The EIA doesn’t symbolize the rejected vitality within the fossil fuels because the LLNL Sankey diagram, so till they handle this, they’ll make renewables look terrible.
The 21% win that they’re claiming within the CleanTechnica article, and presumably different press efforts, goes to be severely degraded in future reporting. Principally, the EIA is steaming away from apples-to-apples comparisons. One has to ask why.
So, two main economies, the EU and the US. Two totally different issues with how they symbolize issues. The EU is failing by making use of items of electrical energy to hydrogen. The US is failing by eradicating apples-to-apples comparisons of fossil fuels to renewables. Each are combating the transition in several methods.
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