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Released August 15, 2022 | SUGAR LAND
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Written by Paul Wiseman for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--As noted in this space last week, hydrogen as a non-carbon-emitting fuel presents a rosy face, but around the edges are some pimples. One of those is that current hydrogen production is more than 95% based on natural gas, coming from a separation process that does release carbon atoms from the hydrogen. This is called brown hydrogen.
That process can be mitigated to blue hydrogen if the separation facility uses carbon capture and storage (CCS)--but CCS, while coming down somewhat in cost, is still a very expensive undertaking, requiring a good bit of energy itself.
This creates the question of what's in the pipeline for green hydrogen--using green-generated (wind, solar, geothermal) electricity to electrolyze hydrogen from water, which just releases the oxygen atom.
While few green hydrogen plants are currently operating, IIR Energy is tracking billions of dollars' worth of projects that are planned or under construction. Here is a sampling of some of the largest of those.
HIF Global in Texas
Houston-based HIF Global has big energy plans for a state that already leads the nation in production of oil and of wind power. The company plans to spend $6 billion each in building e-Fuels facilities on the Gulf Coast, in Matagorda County, near the county seat of Bay City and in Somervell County, southwest of Fort Worth.
The company announced the Matagorda plans in April in conjunction with Texas Governor Greg Abbott. HIF expects to start construction at Bay City in 2023, and to be producing e-Fuels by 2026, with a goal of making 200 million total gallons of fuel per year, enough to power 400,000 vehicles. No timetable was given for the Somervell operation.
The plants' process will first use electrolysis with electricity derived from wind energy to create green hydrogen. That hydrogen will then be combined with carbon gathered from the atmosphere through CCS procedures to create synthetic methanol, which will then be converted to chemically-identical gasoline, jet fuel and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). Even though the vehicles using these fuels do emit carbon dioxide (CO2), it is considered green because that carbon was already in the atmosphere, so the total atmospheric CO2 is not increased.
These plants are part of a plan to build 12 sites around the world--six in Chile, three in Australia and three in the U.S. The 12 locations are expected to produce a total of 200 million gallons of e-Fuel per year.
Plug Power
The Texas Gulf Coast figures largely in industry-leading Plug Power's (NASDAQ:PLUG) (Latham, New York) green hydrogen plans as well. New Fortress Energy (NASDAQ:NFE) (New York, New York) announced August 4 that it would partner with Plug Power in building a 12-megawatt (MW) industrial-scale green hydrogen plant near Beaumont, a facility the announcement said would be one of the largest of its kind in North America.
The plant will use Plug's proton-exchange membrane technology for the electrolysis process. The company is also involved in a number of other green hydrogen projects around the U.S. Subscribers to Industrial Info's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) Chemical Processing Project Database can click here for more details.
Current Operations
One of the U.S.' few currently operating green hydrogen facilities is New Jersey Natural Gas' (Wall Township, New Jersey) Howell Green Hydrogen Plant in Howell, New Jersey, which opened in September 2021.
Howell uses solar energy for the electrolysis of well water to create 8.7 million British thermal units of hydrogen each day, which is then injected into the natural gas system. While the website brochure cites the accepted range of a 5%-20% ratio of hydrogen to natural gas, it does not specify its current actual percentage. Subscribers to Industrial Info's Chemical Processing Plant Database can click here for the plant profile.
How Much Is Enough?
The U.S. produces about 10 million metric tons of hydrogen per year, which, as stated, is about 95% natural-gas-derived. Dr. Sunita Satyapal, director, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), was recently quoted on the Environmental and Energy Study website as saying that, in order to scale up green hydrogen to replace that 10 million metric tons, it would require doubling today's wind and solar deployment. Needless to say, that would be a massive and expensive undertaking, creating much more competition between farmland and renewables than is already in place.
The DOE estimates that the U.S. uses 17 MW of energy for electrolysis of green hydrogen, while 1.4 gigawatts (GW) of projects are in the works. The agency estimates that 2030 will see 13.5 GW of electrolysis in use for green hydrogen.
But the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that the U.S. will require 44 GW of green hydrogen production capacity by then to meet climate goals set for that year.
Even with increasing tax credits and DOE funding, the limits of how much land surface can be dedicated to wind and solar would seem to be intractable factors. Other innovations will likely be necessary to meet the stated goals.
Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, IIR is tracking over 200,000 current and future projects worth $17.8 trillion (USD).
That process can be mitigated to blue hydrogen if the separation facility uses carbon capture and storage (CCS)--but CCS, while coming down somewhat in cost, is still a very expensive undertaking, requiring a good bit of energy itself.
This creates the question of what's in the pipeline for green hydrogen--using green-generated (wind, solar, geothermal) electricity to electrolyze hydrogen from water, which just releases the oxygen atom.
While few green hydrogen plants are currently operating, IIR Energy is tracking billions of dollars' worth of projects that are planned or under construction. Here is a sampling of some of the largest of those.
HIF Global in Texas
Houston-based HIF Global has big energy plans for a state that already leads the nation in production of oil and of wind power. The company plans to spend $6 billion each in building e-Fuels facilities on the Gulf Coast, in Matagorda County, near the county seat of Bay City and in Somervell County, southwest of Fort Worth.
The company announced the Matagorda plans in April in conjunction with Texas Governor Greg Abbott. HIF expects to start construction at Bay City in 2023, and to be producing e-Fuels by 2026, with a goal of making 200 million total gallons of fuel per year, enough to power 400,000 vehicles. No timetable was given for the Somervell operation.
The plants' process will first use electrolysis with electricity derived from wind energy to create green hydrogen. That hydrogen will then be combined with carbon gathered from the atmosphere through CCS procedures to create synthetic methanol, which will then be converted to chemically-identical gasoline, jet fuel and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). Even though the vehicles using these fuels do emit carbon dioxide (CO2), it is considered green because that carbon was already in the atmosphere, so the total atmospheric CO2 is not increased.
These plants are part of a plan to build 12 sites around the world--six in Chile, three in Australia and three in the U.S. The 12 locations are expected to produce a total of 200 million gallons of e-Fuel per year.
Plug Power
The Texas Gulf Coast figures largely in industry-leading Plug Power's (NASDAQ:PLUG) (Latham, New York) green hydrogen plans as well. New Fortress Energy (NASDAQ:NFE) (New York, New York) announced August 4 that it would partner with Plug Power in building a 12-megawatt (MW) industrial-scale green hydrogen plant near Beaumont, a facility the announcement said would be one of the largest of its kind in North America.
The plant will use Plug's proton-exchange membrane technology for the electrolysis process. The company is also involved in a number of other green hydrogen projects around the U.S. Subscribers to Industrial Info's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) Chemical Processing Project Database can click here for more details.
Current Operations
One of the U.S.' few currently operating green hydrogen facilities is New Jersey Natural Gas' (Wall Township, New Jersey) Howell Green Hydrogen Plant in Howell, New Jersey, which opened in September 2021.
Howell uses solar energy for the electrolysis of well water to create 8.7 million British thermal units of hydrogen each day, which is then injected into the natural gas system. While the website brochure cites the accepted range of a 5%-20% ratio of hydrogen to natural gas, it does not specify its current actual percentage. Subscribers to Industrial Info's Chemical Processing Plant Database can click here for the plant profile.
How Much Is Enough?
The U.S. produces about 10 million metric tons of hydrogen per year, which, as stated, is about 95% natural-gas-derived. Dr. Sunita Satyapal, director, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), was recently quoted on the Environmental and Energy Study website as saying that, in order to scale up green hydrogen to replace that 10 million metric tons, it would require doubling today's wind and solar deployment. Needless to say, that would be a massive and expensive undertaking, creating much more competition between farmland and renewables than is already in place.
The DOE estimates that the U.S. uses 17 MW of energy for electrolysis of green hydrogen, while 1.4 gigawatts (GW) of projects are in the works. The agency estimates that 2030 will see 13.5 GW of electrolysis in use for green hydrogen.
But the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that the U.S. will require 44 GW of green hydrogen production capacity by then to meet climate goals set for that year.
Even with increasing tax credits and DOE funding, the limits of how much land surface can be dedicated to wind and solar would seem to be intractable factors. Other innovations will likely be necessary to meet the stated goals.
Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, IIR is tracking over 200,000 current and future projects worth $17.8 trillion (USD).
