5 votes

Hydrogen, additionality, & Joe Manchin

3 comments

  1. SmolderingSauna
    Link
    Manchin (his staff, actually) will find any technicality to obstruct the speedy demise of a coal-powered future. His objections have little to do with promoting the public good and far more to do...

    Manchin (his staff, actually) will find any technicality to obstruct the speedy demise of a coal-powered future. His objections have little to do with promoting the public good and far more to do with securing his political power and longevity.

    Please vote, maybe even run for election, in your local school board elections. The only avenue out of this current predicament of self-serving nincompoop (I really struggled to keep this civil...) legislators is educated and informed citizens.

    7 votes
  2. [2]
    ChingShih
    Link
    (the subtitle of this article is "The IRS is working on rules to implement the Section 45V tax credit for green hydrogen. Lots of people want to help it do its job.") If you listen to podcasts you...

    (the subtitle of this article is "The IRS is working on rules to implement the Section 45V tax credit for green hydrogen. Lots of people want to help it do its job.")

    If you listen to podcasts you might've heard a commercial about hydrogen and "additionality requirements." I didn't know what that meant, but the commercial seemed vague and political, so I decided to look it up. Turns out it is political.

    However there's a environmental-technology conversation that needs to happen with regards to whether it makes sense that we develop alternative energy sources from facilities powered by traditional energy sources (not limited to fossil fuels) or whether additionality requirements should be added to mandate that hydrogen-production come from wind or solar sources. That also means not putting additional load on a country's electricity supply (which in most countries is still fossil fuel-based).

    Wikipedia has explanations of current methods of hydrogen production, including coal gasification and steam methane reforming, both of which have CO and CO2 as immediate byproducts. From a cursory look, it seems like electrolysis is the cleanest method of hydrogen production, but a lot of hydrogen could be gathered as a byproduct of existing fossil fuel creation or refinement processes.

    3 votes
    1. vord
      Link Parent
      One of those tough things. Its a good thing to gather byproducts that would otherwise go to waste, however becoming depending on those byproducts means that dependency on the core product becomes...

      One of those tough things. Its a good thing to gather byproducts that would otherwise go to waste, however becoming depending on those byproducts means that dependency on the core product becomes stronger.

      If we can capture hydrogen that would otherwise be lost refining crude oil into gasoline (arbitrary example, not sure if true), that's great. But if we become dependent on the output of the hydrogen coming from crude oil, this doesn't really solve the problem of still depending on crude oil. It means reduction in gasoline production would result in reduction of hydrogen production, and make it harder to justify reducing either.

      However, I think a good way to solve this problem would be to mandate hydrogen recapture as part of oil refinement, but the output must be given freely to the sovereign government to stockpile for emergency reserves. That way, the hydrogen generation is purely an added cost to the operating company. This increases the price of the generated good, and if the gasoline stops being in demand the hydrogen goes along with it. Having the hydrogen go into some sort of regulated emergency stockpile insures the broader market isn't factoring it into pricing. Using that stockpile could then be used as a way to help ease the transition to green hydrogen production. Namely being able to help cover gaps during commissioning/decommissioning of facilities.

      Yes, I do realize the potential risks of stockpiling large quantities of hydrogen. However, if its going to become part of the green energy transition, being able to deal with mass variation of green energy sources like wind and solar is going to require massive stockpiles.

      3 votes