Utilities are trying hydrogen-blended fuels. There are a lot of ‘unknowns.’
Utilities are trying hydrogen-blended fuels. There are a lot of ‘unknowns.’
Some critics say the projects are costly ‘experiments’ that will do little to cut greenhouse gases.
Adding 10% hydrogen was perfectly normal in Germany for decades, since hydrogen was a waste product of many industrial processes.
The question is: how the fuck is hydrogen supposed to be an economical solution? It's really really expensive and burning it in a stove isn't exactly efficient.
I don't know too much about this area, but I can't help but feel blue hydrogen research is too little, too late.
We should be focused on electrifying homes, offices, and factories ASAP with hydrogen research money. Stuff like aluminum smelting furnaces being powered by green hydrogen could be a great area of research, as could global shipping, which will probably need to run off eFuels, hydrogen, or nuclear going forward. This money doesn't appear to be going towards that.
I just don't see homes as a viable branch of hydrogen research. Old, leaky gas lines, stuff not up to code, and a suspiciously close link to existing gas and oil companies makes this feel like it won't hold water as a line of research when we have perfectly safe, carbon-free alternatives (plus, no risk of explosions or carbon monoxide from blended gasses)
I've studied this (professionally) quite a bit, and I can confidently say you're generally right.
Blends up to 20% hydrogen or so are pretty straightforward and can be done relatively easily without having to spend hundreds of billions of dollars upgrading downstream equipment, but that's only, optimistically, a 20% reduction in emissions. To get past that you need to replace most downstream burners, which will be very slow and cost a fortune. Better off going electric for homes
Sounds like an set-up to ensure long-term dependency on natural gas mining, then.
Sorry, we built our infrastructure assuming 80% natural gas, so we just have to mine more natural gas to prevent people from losing their ability to cook food. You wouldn't want poor families to go hungry, would you?