What’s New On The Rungs Of Liebreich’s Hydrogen Ladder?

There are a number of methods to visualise details about just about something. Hydrogen isn’t any completely different. There are complete shade wheels dedicated to the commercial feedstock at current, which presumably are informative to people who find themselves much less shade blind than I’m. However one of many extra helpful hydrogen infographics over the previous few years has been Michael Liebreich’s Hydrogen Ladder, and now he’s up to date it after a few years of stability.

Hydrogen Ladder Model 5.0 courtesy of Michael Liebreich underneath CC by 4.0 Deed

I’ve mentioned the ladder quite a few occasions, each with Liebreich himself, but in addition with members of the Hydrogen Science Coalition akin to Paul Martin, and with coverage makers and purchasers. It’s a helpful framework to think about.

Liebreich is, in fact, the founder of what’s now Bloomberg New Vitality Finance, and has been assessing the place the large cash is in half-trillion greenback chunks for the previous 20 years or so. He’s been investing personally within the transition. He’s often been proper.

Hydrogen Demand Projection by means of 2100, chart by creator

I’ve my very own method of visualizing hydrogen and its future, one I’ve iterated just a few occasions as nicely. I most lately up to date mine earlier this yr once I stepped by means of the complete scope of iron and metal globally, the applied sciences which have been already commercialized or confirmed commercially at small scale akin to HYBRIT, and projected demand, options, and decarbonization by means of 2100.

The variations between the data dumps, each of which have copious pondering, evaluation and element behind them, make for fruitful floor to think about. By the best way, completely different individuals use completely different numbers for the present hydrogen demand. I labored mine up and am proud of 120, however others use 100 or 110. And, in fact, error bars on my state of affairs are giant, and it’s a single state of affairs of many I may venture, simply the one I believe most certainly.

One of many first issues that’s apparent in contrasting the 2 is that my projection is thru time whereas Liebreich’s is a time limit perspective by him of the relative competitiveness of hydrogen in numerous domains. When he and I mentioned our views earlier this yr in London, he’s barely much less bearish on hydrogen demand than I’m, pondering that complete demand will probably be within the 200 or maybe 250 million ton per yr vary, whereas I venture a decline to the 90 million ton vary from the present 120 million ton.

I believe Liebreich’s is a shorter time period perspective, maybe by means of 2030 and even 2040, nevertheless it’s unspoken. Actually I used to be stunned to see an upward blip between 2040 and 2050 in my very own projection once I built-in the iron new demand projection. And in my aviation projection, demand for biofuels goes up earlier than it goes down as electrification takes over increasingly of the house, so take all the pieces like this with a grain of salt and use it as a springboard for pondering and dialogue.

Unsurprisingly, at the least to me, the underside row of utterly uncompetitive proposed makes use of for hydrogen has change into a double stack. Liebreich is way from a hydrogen hopium addict, fairly the other, however even very bullish hydrogen for vitality sorts like former chief scientist of Australia Alan Finkel are realizing that it’s simply not match for lots of makes use of, akin to vehicles. I’ve been watching hydrogen for vitality performs collapse for the previous few years as spreadsheet jockeys who had to make use of actual numbers received concerned and located what’s apparent from serviette math, that hydrogen is a really costly provider of vitality and that electrolyzers and gasoline cells don’t come as giveaways with a tank of fuel.

The underside row is now replete with eight use instances, together with vehicles, taxis, metro transit, agricultural and mining tools, bulk supply of fuels between international locations, heating underneath 200° Celsius, home heating, and burning hydrogen that’s simply been created to make electrical energy. Personally, I believe all the hydrogen for vitality use instances above this may collapse into the utterly non-competitive row over time as Liebreich continues to iterate this. The one development space in vitality for hydrogen in my projection is said to hydrotreating biofuels in a lot the identical method as hydrogen is used with crude oil at this time, however the quantity is far smaller.

Having carried out my world evaluation of aviation and maritime transport demand and answer projections by means of 2100, together with a variety of work on battery chemistries and biofuels, I’m fairly snug that batteries and biofuels will dominate, whereas Liebreich is extra bullish on biologically sourced carbon with electrolyzed hydrogen for these use instances. He asserts that there’s restricted feedstock availability, which I don’t suppose is correct.

My projections — keep in mind, huge error bars, opinion, not carved in granite — present that the demand for burnable fuels for transportation is within the low lots of of thousands and thousands of tons. Present waste meals is 2.5 billion tons of the 7.5 billion tons we manufacture yearly world wide. Each ton of dried waste biomass (lower than the two.5 billion tons clearly) turns into 0.4 tons of biofuel. Simply the waste meals stream, ignoring the waste agricultural stalks and leaves, waste livestock dung, and waste timber residue is in the identical order of magnitude as all demand. European livestock dung alone is within the order of 1.5 billion tons. My evaluation of aviation gasoline necessities discovered that present waste stalks have been greater than sufficient.

Burning stuff for vitality is deeply inefficient, and as we received’t be simply digging the stuff up and processing it comparatively flippantly, however manufacturing it at nice expense, I see no cause to suppose we are going to perpetuate the follow the place there’s the choice of electrification. There’s plenty of waste biomass from human business.

On that observe, there’s a variety of yellow on the chart (based on individuals who aren’t shade blind). That’s all of the stuff the place the choice is extra straight utilizing electrical energy, both from the grid or through the magic of electrochemistry, aka batteries. Apart from metal on the second row, the place I venture a development of doubtless 30 million tons for the HYBRIT inexperienced metal course of and related ones, which use 55 or so kilograms of hydrogen per ton of latest metal, I count on all of these to break down into row G over time.

There will probably be brief time period exceptions, however they are going to be brief time period. Hydrogen followers have been delighted that India was shopping for electrical locomotives, for instance, as a result of they didn’t have a look at the rails they might be used on or examine to electrification. India is dedicated to 100% heavy rail electrification by 2025, and is approaching 90% of the best way there. The hydrogen engines have been for historic, slim, windy, ornamental vacationer trains working by means of scenic areas, as I perceive it. They didn’t need to spoil the view with overhead traces and it might have been costly, too. That’s going to change into accessible to rising battery vitality densities, so the hydrogen engines will change into superfluous and too costly.

Decrease Saxony’s expertise is the truth of hydrogen rail trials. They cease them when what was apparent earlier than the trials began turns into too apparent to disregard, that hydrogen for transportation is at minimal 3 times as costly as grid-ties and batteries.

Liebreich continues to be contemplating high-temperature industrial warmth as a spot the place hydrogen can play. I don’t suppose it’ll, though I believe anthropogenic biomethane will play within the house till it’s value scrapping legacy infrastructure for far more environment friendly and value efficient electrified infrastructure. Some very costly hydrogen for warmth performs will probably be tried, however I believe it’s deeply unlikely that they are going to be aggressive.

Let’s discover why this can be a little bit. Let’s have a look at blue and inexperienced hydrogen as the 2 main pathways.

Blue hydrogen is attention-grabbing. It begins with pure fuel, aka fossil methane, aka CH4, aka one carbon atom and 4 hydrogen atoms bonded collectively by thousands and thousands of years of strain and warmth appearing on lengthy useless crops, with the occasional dinosaur blended in.

Pure fuel is a fairly helpful supply of warmth. It burns comparatively cleanly in comparison with coal and it burns sizzling in comparison with alcohols like ethanol and methanol, 900° Celsius to 1,000° Celsius hotter. It’s additionally dust low-cost a variety of the time with the appearance of shale oil and fracking, so the warmth hasn’t been costly and its value was secure from the early 2000s till lately.

Do not forget that it’s made up of carbon and hydrogen. Properly, 45% of the vitality from burning it comes from that one carbon atom. Solely 55% of the vitality is from the 4 hydrogen atoms. And stripping that carbon atom off by bonding it with oxygen from the air to kind carbon dioxide, then capturing that carbon dioxide, transport it to a sequestration website and shoving it underground takes vitality too. After we make ‘blue’ hydrogen we are literally utilizing vitality to throw away 45% of the vitality in pure fuel, in addition to including a bunch of capital and operational prices.

That implies that blue hydrogen, even when it’s created from pure fuel on the precise place the place the warmth is required, will probably be greater than twice as costly per unit of warmth as burning the pure fuel. There aren’t any methods round that. The fundamentals of chemistry and physics don’t bend to wishful pondering by finance sorts.

Inexperienced hydrogen can be costly. It takes a variety of electrical energy to show water into hydrogen, about 60 MWh per ton with the stability of plant. That’s inefficient as a result of when the hydrogen is used, as soon as once more even whether it is manufactured precisely at level of use, it might return a most of 70% of the vitality with a bunch of further capital and operational prices. Electrical energy per unit of warmth is dearer than dust low-cost pure fuel, so inexperienced hydrogen is much more costly.

That remark about ‘at level of use’ is essential. The overwhelming majority of hydrogen is manufactured on the level the place it’s plugged right into a chemical course of like manufacturing methanol or hydrocracking crude oil. That’s as a result of it’s one of the costly molecules to move. It must be compressed massively or chilled to twenty° above absolute zero, and even then, its density is decrease than alternate options. It’s simply costly to retailer and transfer.

This isn’t to extol the virtues of pure fuel, by any means. It’s to level out that hydrogen is a extremely dumb thought for industrial warmth in numerous methods than pure fuel or coal are. It’s at all times going to be very costly no matter how we make it, and electrical warmth sources are going to be cheaper to function. So long as we are attempting to really remedy local weather change, not deal with the ambiance as an open sewer and never destroy our economic system, utilizing electrical energy straight for warmth will at all times be cheaper and decrease emissions.

Horny / Unsexy, Sensible / Impractical quadrant chart for residential, industrial and industrial warmth sources, chart by Michael Barnard, Chief Strategist, TFIE Technique Inc.

And in my work digging by means of all the varied use instances and know-how for all facets of heating, I haven’t discovered a single use case that we didn’t have electrical applied sciences that have been match for function. What I did discover have been lots of people who framed the query as changing their burning gases or liquids with clear gases or liquids as an alternative of asking the place the vitality would come from and how you can apply it. That misframing has a variety of causes behind it, a lot of them venal.

As at all times with Liebreich’s Hydrogen Ladder, I prefer to remind people who the highest row isn’t an announcement of continued or rising demand of excessive volumes of hydrogen. Hydrocracking and desulphurisation (and hydrotreating) are nearly solely issues carried out to crude oil in refineries. Whereas there could also be no alternate options to hydrogen for these use instances, these use instances are going to be in severe decline over the approaching many years. Peak oil demand is that this decade, and the heavy, bitter crude which calls for probably the most hydrogen to refine goes to be off the market first as a consequence of financial challenges.

Methanol is an issue of a special order, and having reassessed my place on it, extra prone to diminish as a requirement supply for hydrogen, not enhance, one thing I’ll handle in my subsequent hydrogen projection. Liebreich factors out that biomass / biogas might present the feedstock for it, however the course of nonetheless goes by means of steam reformation of methane into hydrogen. As hydrogen should decarbonize it’ll get dearer, and alternate options for the commercial solvent and feedstock will change into extra aggressive. Whereas it’s being touted as a maritime gasoline various, I’m on file as noting the bait and swap nature of the trouble. In different phrases, economics will seemingly drive a discount in methanol demand regardless of the business’s lobbying to make it multiply as an alternative.

Fertilizer is a special concern as nicely. After we say fertilizer within the context of hydrogen, we’re actually speaking ammonia, aka a nitrogen atom and three hydrogen atoms. The previous 60 years of wonderful crop productiveness will increase has been due largely to manufacturing ammonia from fossil fuels and placing it on fields. The fields don’t care concerning the hydrogen, that’s added to make a molecule that crops can do one thing with. The crops care concerning the nitrogen. As much as 5% of a plant’s dry mass is nitrogen.

Each ton of ammonia placed on fields ends in about 14 tons extra of crops. That’s why we’re utilizing much less land to develop much more meals than we used to. For the reason that begin of the present Inexperienced Revolution in agriculture, development in ammonia fertilizers has not saved tempo with development in inhabitants or GDP. It’s been market development, however we’ve been utilizing it increasingly effectively. With the latest worth spikes in pure fuel and shutting down Russian exports — Russia is a giant producer and exporter of ammonia for fertilizer — agribusinesses have been in search of alternate options.

We’re not going to get rid of ammonia fertilizers. However they’re a giant local weather drawback coming and going. Each ton of ammonia comes with about six tons of greenhouse gases from manufacturing and distributing it, and when utilized to fields a bunch turns into nitrous oxides that are the equal of about three tons of greenhouse gases per ton of ammonia. Each ends of which might be priced in carbon pricing schemes, together with the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism as of 2026, so fertilizer prices to farmers are going up, not down.

Their use may be minimized with out anybody ravenous. Agrigenetics just like the nitrogen fixing microbes from Pivot Bio are already lowering ammonia necessities by 25% on thousands and thousands of acres of corn within the USA, they usually have a goal of 100% for all three main grain crops by 2030. Precision spraying with electrically powered megadrones is grounding the helicopters and light-weight plane that used to overspray fields, and slicing product plenty by 30% or extra with the identical crop yield. And low-tillage agriculture has benefits on this regard as nicely.

I venture a discount in ammonia fertilizer demand, if not elimination of it, whereas Liebreich asserts that there’s no actual various for it. As soon as once more, timeframes for that query matter.

Lastly, there’s lengthy length grid balancing on the second row. I actually don’t see something about seasonal electrical energy storage for 10 or 100 yr issues which means the traits of inexperienced hydrogen are the most effective ones. I believe it’s extra seemingly that diverting the large quantities of anthropogenically created methane to salt caverns makes extra financial and local weather sense than manufacturing low-carbon hydrogen and shoving it underground the place it’ll strive actually arduous to leak. It’s the Houdini of molecules, in spite of everything.

I additionally suppose {that a} 10 or 100 yr drawback is a really completely different beast economically than all the pieces else we’re speaking about. It’s extra within the class of the Svalbard World Seed Vault, a severe wet day concern. For the subsequent few many years, placing fossil methane away for a wet day is sweet sufficient, as if we’ve to burn it solely a few weeks each few  years, we’re method forward of the local weather recreation.

None of that is to say unfavorable issues concerning the Ladder. It’s a really useful gizmo for discussing the comparative deserves of the completely different use instances for the Swiss Military knife molecule. Just like the tiny corkscrew, blade, and toothpick on the Swiss Military knife, hydrogen simply isn’t the go-to molecule if there are alternate options, and there are nearly at all times alternate options. And in hydrogen’s case, a variety of the present use instances are going to decrease as a consequence of financial and local weather imperatives, not develop.