Hydrogen Home - The end of natural gas
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 ส.ค. 2021
- #Hydrogen #HydrogenHome
Hydrogen Homes in Gateshead and this is 100% hydrogen boilers that are running. So these are zero emission boilers. We all know that we need to do something to help with climate change and protect the planet as much as we can. I'm here today, we can have a look round, I'll show you, I've got few clips of the hydrogen burning, hobs in use, et cetera like that. If you do have any questions, please put them in the comments below and I'll try my best to answer those questions. Also, if you would like to come and have a look around for yourself, I'll also add a link in the description where you can just go and have a look. You can go see for yourself, any questions that you've got you can ask the people here as well. So, yeah. Good. Let's go have a look.
When you arrive, you are greeted with a pair of semi-detached properties and they've both got boilers in, we've got a Baxi boiler. We've also got a Worcester Bosch boiler. So what we'll do, first of all, we're going to have a look at the hobs.
To what you'd expect, natural gas. Obviously you don't get the blue colour and you get little bits of sort of like orange and red coming through. This can now on individual flames. So we'll allow that a bit of time to warm up. You can sort of start to see the orange coming on those flames already. Another pop, not such a bad pop. The burner is different to a natural gas burner in the oven, but it's not a huge change and because it's behind a draught excluding cover, you can't really see it. So, I don't think people are really going to notice much difference between natural gas and a hydrogen one.
So that was the hobs. And as you could see, there's like an orange flame on the hobs. This is totally new to me. I think it's exciting times. There's a lot of talk about air source heat pumps are going to be the answer to the climate crisis. In my opinion, it's going to be a balance we're going to have. I think air source is going to be big, but I think we need something else as well. And this hydrogen looks like this could be a solution. Please put a comment below. Let me know what you think. When you start the hob up, you get like a pop on it. And what they say is, if it were a bright day, you wouldn't be able to see the flame. But when we were looking at it clearly, you can see it's quite orange. So you can sort of see it.
There's also lights on them. So a little bit like electric, when you got the ceramic type tops, you know the glass tops, you have a light on there so that you know they are still hot. They've got that on these hobs as well and on the cooker. Put a comment below. Bearing in mind, these are 100% hydrogen. What's happening at the moment up here, they are putting a blend of hydrogen in, they've already started doing that. So in part of the network up here, they have put a 5% blend in, and that's going to go up to a 20% blend. And what they are saying is your normal appliances that you've got now, they expect that they will work on a 20% blend and then going forward from that to have 100% in the future, obviously it's going to be 30 years down the line or so, then you'd have to change the appliances.
But what will happen there is, as you are changing appliances, them appliances will already be hydrogen ready, hopefully. So when people are saying about, 'oh customers are not going to pay for this extra', well, hopefully it'll be just staged in. So it shouldn't have as much of an impact. So anyway, let's go and have a look at the fire. Look at the... There's a couple of types of gas fire, but we'll have a look at one of the gas fires as well. Again, this is 100% hydrogen gas fire, zero emissions.
This one here is the balanced flue glass fronted. So it's actually, it's the highest efficiency one, about 80% efficient, which is very impressive. Get two click clicks. Now it'll start to sequence. You can hear a fan for purging. There's the pilot light lighting. Now it's a smaller pop because bear in mind, that's a pilot light, whereas on your cooker, you're lighting straight on the main burner so that's the difference in the pop. Once it's recognised on the thermocouple, it should allow the main burner to light, which will go straight across. Yeah, yeah. That's true. Yeah. It's there for focal point.
So as you can see, they've also got solution for gas fires as well. Not that, well, I don't instal gas fires anymore. I don't really work on them that much, but at least there is a solution. And just to bear in mind that all this stuff is prototypes at the moment. Let's go and have a look at the boilers.
www.northerngasnetworks.co.uk... - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
Thanks Allen. I love your ‘agenda’ of openness and honesty 👌
Allen hart. What a bloody nice chap you are. Genuine and honest. Love your vids and reviews. Keep up the good work. Good for apprentices and fitters also can’t fault you
Thank you.
We will of course need to become " Hydrogen Safe Engineers " to work on the appliances.....that will be a big chunk of money going to some questionable training centres dotted around the country won't it.......!!!! 🤑
Hydrogen Boilers, will no doubt become part of your ACS. So I don't think there will be a to heftier price to pay. The training centres will also have to adapt.
I can't wait for the huge spike in refresher courses 😦😔
There is very little training required 30% of methane is hydrogen ...
I did a course whilst I was in the RAF on making liquid nitrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen was removed along with the other noble gases to get the required purity. Hydrogen we were told, was exceptionly dangerous, because when it was gassed off after liquification, the friction of the molucles had a tendancy to self combust if flow rates got past a certain point.
Hydrogen in any mixture with oxygen can be potentially dangerous, but in a pure state it’s quite stable, and it’s a lot safer in some aspects compared to propane for example, since it’s lighter than air it doesn’t pool. Acetylene for example is a lot more dangerous in bottled form.
@@sstorholm Hydrogen pools at high level , unlike Methane which disperses
Thank you for coming to the Hydrogen Home - really nice to meet you.
You are a smart boiler, heating the home and finding time to message clients on youtube !
Baxi boilers, i heard recently on a hetas refresher that you are a developing a boiler that converts mains water to hydrogen ready to burn, is this true?
Interesting video Alan . I will repeat your mantra "I am no expert" I am simply looking towards my own future needs and done some research to that end. I currently have a 20+ year old Potterton Netaheat Profile which was clearly built to last and heats my 2-bed bungalow well with no issues but by todays standards very inefficient.
I have had a look at Heat Pumps and saw "Rogers Rant" but I had already drawn my own conclusion. -that is how can a 5kw-7.5kw air source heat pump ( which is what is normally sold) compete even with my inefficient 15kw unit -It just does not add up.That over simplifies things a bit - there are other factors involved -but you get my drift. Yes heat pumps fine for new and recent builds that are well insulated. but for my mid-1930's property -I dont think so. no matter how insulation I put up in the loft. I certainly dont want radiators running all around my walls to compensate. So I shall take my bet on gas -hopefully hydrogen in the future and a twin coil tank so that I can add solar later on if I choose too. Gas boilers may be getting a bad press in some quarters but I don't think you will be out of a job anytime soon.
As with most problems in life there is no one size fits all solution
Thanks a lot for this very interesting video.
Take care of yourself man.
Great stuff Alan and the team. You are becoming a legend in the South as well as ooop North
Very kind of you. Thanks.
Well said Alan, really helpful to hear what the future will be for us engineers.
Another great video.
Just a thought when you move house will you be building another man cave?
Roger Bisby........hahahaha
Electric is so expensive no matter what system you use for hot water and/or heating.
When I hear hydrogen I just think of a bomb 😂
Water is H2O...splash n go. 8-)
Tbf if we were stupid enough to fill a blimp with natural gas the outcome would probably look much the same as the Hindenburg
Very interesting 🤔 I'm gonna ask my teacher his opinions next week. Thanks Allen, ur a top guy!👍👍👍😇
Let us know what he says. Thanks.
Nice video Sir!
Good video Allen.
Air source is really expensive in my view but over time I think the price will come down as more competitors come into the market.
I’m sure both air source and hydrogen need a 3 phase supply so that could be costly electric bill? Tricky but time will tell great video 👍
Thanks you for video. Can you suplay and fit?
thanks ...good introduction to the subject
As a Specifier/SAP and 'Energy Consultant' I have kept a keen eye on the new energy sources for homes but I feel the governments hellbent on filling houses with Electric Heating. Air Source Heat Pumps are fine if your alternative is oil but the cost:returns ratio is just too skewed into the favour of costs.
ASHP, to me, is an avoid until the costs come down. Electric though, if we had more MODERN nuclear powerplants (not breeder plants) we would have no energy issues.
Outstanding Allen love your work.
Thank you! Cheers!
Did they have it in gas bottles in your video? So it potentially could be a replacement for LPG boilers as well?
Yes,
Thanks Allen. Everyone needs to keep listening to the debate and carefully understanding the physics and how that has been interpreted into engineering. There is no easy solution that will happen overnight and answer this issue. There are many positives, negatives, and evolutions of potential technologies in differing stages, all adding clouds to the debate. Craig W makes a good point... 1st thing everyone need to do it lessen heat loss by adding insulation (correctly) and controlling drafts. Then keep what you've got running efficiently. Then, when it's really knackered, weight up what brass you've got and use it as wisely at that time, with the least risk of technological obselescence. Simply... the way forward for us domestics is VERY unclear, and will likely be so for another decade.
Great response!!
Did they talk about issues with Hydrogen particals escaping through copper pipework as they are so small?
Don't chat shit
Your H2 post really started a variety of responses to the issues surrounding hydrogen and other renewable!
Sharing opinions,knowledge, expertise etc can only be positive.
Great to see such a response!
I had a house with an Air source heat pump one of the big names ,it wasn't cheap to run for a start. It was a new build so we had underfloor heating which was fine. It did not heat up a couple of radiators in rooms with no underfloor so these heat pumps would be useless in a retrofit situation without underfloor linked. My neighbours slso had the same installations and had many problems with the pumps. Be wary of the hype to many people talking about them being the big saviour . With underfloor ok without it no way.
@MrBarrywat Thanks for sharing your experince, however, I suspect that it was simply that the radiators were not correctly sized to run at the same temperature as your underfloor heating circuit. This is not uncommon unfortunatley, but I can assure you that air source heat pumps work well when the system is designed properly, with radiators OR underflooor heating.
@@captain1664 am sure your right the floor heating was ok, the system was installed by leading approved installers and serviced by the manufacturers guys. Running the system wasn't cheap.. The house was not in the gas supply area so it was a choice between oil or lpg and who wants that so air source was a decent though not perfect solution.
I dont get how it's ok for underfloor but not ok for rads? Underfloor is just a massive radiator
Gas leaks could be a problem! An extremely explosive one too... My guess is that (new and much safer) Nuclear Power Stations will be the main way we get heat, power and hydrogen!
Yeah a Hindenburg in the kitchen basically
Woo Hoo, big shout out to Gateshead! My home town. Ha Ha
Love your content mate
Any idea when the hydrogen compatible gas boilers will become commercially available?
Hi... where is it possible to buy these boilers? And what about a ready hydrogen generator.. or in best case a full system for a house? To be indepedent? Best regards from Denmark.. Palle Jönsson
I think ground and air source heat pumps have their uses but they're really only practical and efficient on newbuilds, retrofitting is too expensive and most houses aren't suited anyway. Hydrogen is the obvious way forward but only if the hydrogen is produced in a green way. Personally I think the government need to look at a massive incentive for properly insualting existing homes to a level that will actually cut current gas usage, this can be done now over the next 5 - 10 years instead of waiting for hydrogen that's realistically decades away from being ready. Proper training for gas installers too on sizing systems properly would probably help, I went to a property the other day that had a 36kw heat only ideal running a 3 bed semi with only 6 small rads 🙈
I believe many combi Bosch Boilers are around 35kw. Personally I think a bigger Boiler is more efficient.. but,could be another £large on your install cost.
@@embryonica combi boilers are typically 30 - 35kw yes but that's only on the hot water. Most only run at 20 or 25kw on the heating circuit and how can an oversized boiler be more efficient? If you need 10kw of heat output to run 6 radiators and a cylinder, how would installing a 36kw boiler be more efficient than a 12kw?
@@craigwatson7692 I wasn't suggesting such an extreme example.. possibly +5kw.. and it is only my opinion.. but I maintain there is some logic there and I am sure there is some Thermodynamasist (?) out there with a view..
The question posed in the video really is 'What will replace Fossil Gas' and the problem 'as always' boils down to cost.. Is Hydrogen going to cost as much/more..
We may not have that choice for long if Boris turns off the supply.
These are big issues and even bigger infrastucture problems.. Who pays..? Electric Cars still havn't got anything like decent national chargestations and yet Electricity is available almost totally UK wide.
Upgrading the Electricity supply to cope with additional Heating cost will surely be cheaper than inventing a whole new industry. I dont run my telly or my fridge off Gas..
@@embryonica fair enough and +5kw is fine for any boiler as it will modulate down to whats needed. In my initial comment though I had mentioned such an extreme example and even with modulation the boiler will be massively overpowered, that in turn causes the boiler to cycle more and uses more gas. Point I was making is, if installers today started sizing boilers properly, that would have an impact on the amount of gas used annually, add to that properly insulating homes and we will see a huge difference in carbon emissions produced over the next 5 - 10 years instead of waiting until hydrogen is ready.
And I personally don't think going full electric is the answer either. 24 million homes in the UK, 32 million cars, imaging all of that trying to run off our current electrical network. It wouldn't cope. Let's say an average house hold has a washing machine 1.5-3kw, dishwasher 1.5kw, TV, 200watts, fridge freezer 150- 300watts and a kettle 3kw then plus all the other little things plugged in, at most if everything was running, you've got 10-11kwh of electric being used, now add a car charger 3kw, an electric boiler 12kw+(air source not suitable in most) an induction hob upto 7kw, and electric oven upto 6kw. Now the average household is requiring a further 28kwh of electric to function the same as it did on gas. I know not all households are the same but the point is clear, our electrical network can't cope and the cost to correct that would far outweigh the cost of producing hydrogen and using our existing gas network to transport it.
@@craigwatson7692 I am sure all the running costs you have shown are accurate but I am not running all my devices flat out all the time. I went all electric 2 years (not by choice) and my years Electric bill went up by £300 and my gas (now Hob only) went down to £3 per year so it levelled out to about £1000 (I have a 200m2 property and workshops with machinery). From the comments just on this blog it is not going to be a straight forward swap over like it was in the 70's to Natural Gas. I believe it will have to be a completly new industry and cost Billions.. And when it's all spent and Hydrogen comes to your house with a nice new price of £0.50 kwh will you be happy with that.. Insulation is absolutely the best spend but people have to understand their properties and to use insulation wisely. Victorian bricks absorb rain and rely on wind to remove that moisture. Also air vents under suspended floors make for a cold floor but keep the oversite mould free & dry. I disagree with your comment that the existing Grid cannot cope. (I dont have outages..) but will have to be continuously upgraded just to keep up with all the new homes being built who wont have Gas.
As soon as you get to 20 percent hydrogen you will need the appliance to be explosive proof and hydrogen has adverse effects on O rings seals and polycarbonate pipe
It'd be nice if the hydrogen came from renewables, but the vast majority of hydrogen production is "grey hydrogen" produced from natural gas with no carbon capture. So in many respects, it's not really any better than a gas-fired power station. People wrongly assume that Hydrogen comes from renewable sources, simply because it's possible for it to come from renewable sources. It's yet more greenwashing from the fossil fuel industry to keep us hooked. And generating hydrogen using electricity is so inefficient, you're better off just sending the electricity to homes using the future-proofed infrastructure we already have. I'll admit it's a great idea in principle, though. Love the videos Allen, truly unbiased and informative.
100th like from Baku with love!
would this be pumped to the house gas , or bottled ?
Oh allen what about all the work you have done in the mancave are you taking it with you when you move .seems a lot of work to leave behind
Not sure if you will know the answer to this but, I'm a plumber in Leeds and have never done my gas. Would it be worth doing or will there be a new qualification with hydrogen ?
Definitely worth doing your gas in my opinion. This will take many many years to sort out. Thanks.
Can we mix H2 with mercaptein and some amount CO2 ,then after we use it as a cooking gas
How much electricity do they use to make the hydrogen and how is the electricity made?
Hi, anybody know how the heat exchangers look like inside those boilers? thank you
Air source only works when designed for the property. Retro fitting doesn't work. I love the idea of hydrogen, but it comes with issues. You don't get something for nowt. Issac Newton's third law of thermodynamics. I'll stick with my coal fire, oh and put a few logs on to keep me carbon neutral! Hahaha. Good video as always mate. Keep it up
I’m just wondering if it’s possible to convert a Central heating boiler system to run off bottled gas that you get for a caravan???
Some boilers will work with a conversion kit.
@@AllenHart999 thanks bro🤙
There some Vaillant’s that you just change the setting on the display and your good to go
Hi Allen, can I pick your brain? My gas supply comes in under the garage floor (illegal so I've found out recently) my building inspector told me to put a plastic sleeve over the gas pipe before we put the concrete in that was 2003 the plumber that altered the pipe work inside the garage never picked up on it, I only found it was illegal recently and not had a chance to have it put right, Question is will a plumber refuse to fit me a new boiler because of this ? Any advice off any plumber's out there would be appreciated.
Hi, with the hydrogen been added how do they get the hydrogen into the home
What about the cost to produce hydrogen apparently it will be expensive.
I've seen in the Gas Safe booklet 6months ago about a microwave boiler , so heating up water in the same way a microwave heats food
so with a hydrogen boiler, do we still do performance combustion tests?
yes
Thanks Alan again for you great video. Please can I have more info as me and my team at Alliance Heating Ltd in Reading would love a visit.👍🏻
www.northerngasnetworks.co.uk/2021/07/15/first-hydrogen-homes-open-to-the-public/
Prefer an induction hob. Also hydrogen is more inflammable than gas so you don’t want a leak.
It's MAD having rads with air source heat pumps ! What you want is warm air heating - and put the external heat exchanger on your air outlet - to recover a lot of heat from that.
👍
At least there will be loads of working coming in. Hope I dont have to add another core to my gas ticket 😂
So how do we make the hydrogen?
Hi Allan great fan off electric boiler, can be fitted to any wet system, so reliable, no noise, but only problem more expensive to run, and you have to run a cylinder , a combination electric boiler is just a cylinder and electric boiler in a metal box and is quite large
In a flat around a £1 a day more than a gas boiler., in a house much more, and a large house, would really need 3 phase, but I am hoping as the large oil company come into
the electric generation game, there could be a price war to attract customer, to power there electric car and homes, Robert mailer
There is not a blanket solution to how the UK reduces its carbon emissions. Heating homes and generating hot water will be done using many different options based on where it is and what type of property. Natural gas will remain in some form blended with hydrogen over decades. Some electric boilers and some air/ground source will be used. But I cant see air source being in every home
Great video Alan. Roger from Skillbuilder did a great video with someone from Bosch/Worcester and they were saying exactly the same thing. Heat pumps really aren’t the answer in the UK and that Hydrogen was the way forward.
As WB have done little R&D into heat pumps they would say that.
Gas is not being run into new builds. Heat pumps work well in highly insulated homes, as new builds are.
@@johnburns4017 I am with you John.. Lets just turn off the Gas.. Cold turkey. I went all electric 2 years ago (not by choice.. no plumber I hired could find the blocked F&E pipe..) anyway I converted some of my Rads with 600w elements and a mixture of other electric heaters all with timers.. It works great. Bills are about the same. I still have a Gas hob which last year cost me £3 in Gas and £75 in Standing Charges.. I don't know if I can opt out of having Gas..!
@@embryonica
Get rid if the gas entirely. Buy an induction hob. You will not look back. It will also liberate space the gas meter takes up.
I advised a friend to go all electric in a terraced renovation. He went triple glazing, insulated doors, very thick insulation under the roof tiles. Wall insulation. At the rear of the house the insulation was external and painted white, run down under the ground insulsting the foundation walls. All ground floors were insulated. DHW was an 11.5kW instant electric water heater supplying a shower with an eco RainDance aerated shower head. The water heater was for the bathroom only, taking up little space in a shallow cupboard. 11.5kW is the largest permitted under single phase domestic supply.
The kitchen was a Qooker type of boiling water tap, eliminating a kettle & liberating limited worktop space.
Heating was electric UFH. The place is so well insulated the heating is rarely used.
- No gas standing charge.
- Space liberated with no gas meter.
- No annual gas boiler service charges.
- No space consuming combi.
- No pipes all over the place to eventually leak water and get sludged up.
It was also cheaper to install.
@@johnburns4017 YES YES YES.. I'm having a little dance here.. Brilliant.
Most comments on this blog seem to think it's either Bosch gas or a Heat pump.. There are other options..
When I changed my gas boiler about 25 years ago I disconnected the Copper cylinder coil as I was not convinced that heat exchange system was very efficient and have just relied on the 3kw immersion ever since and with occasional jigling, very succesful & all my hot water costs me about £60 year.
In recently considering building an extension I was attracted by these small HW storage units that live in a cupboard near where they will be used.. Sink/basin/shower and do not require the 4mm cableing that would be required for running a 10kw instant water sysem. Only £100 or less and no cold legs...
Big fan of the electric underfloor matting too.. When the time is right.. I will have some of that..
I tried looking into not using Gas but I do not know if my Standing Charge covers all pipework out to the street. Would they have to remove it.. Who to ask..?
@@embryonica
They'll remove the meter then cap up the gas main stub. No charge. If you want the gas main pipe off your property they may charge you. You have to inquire. If they cut off the house by capping it under the pavement, free, then you can just rip out the pipe as it enters the house.
30% of UK emissions come from Natural Gas burning. That is domestic, industrial, power generation. 20% of the natural gas supply can be hydrogen without any change to the end users. That drops the overall UK emissions in all fossil fuel by 6%. Not bad at all.
Really helpful vid as ever Alan. 2Q's occur: Is hydrogen as calorific as natural gas and is the existing infrastructure safe to deliver what is after all a lighter gas?
Short answer from a lab - Hydrogen has a higher HHV by mass (ie higher MJ/kg), however the density is lower (therefore lower MJ/m3). The blends are volumetric (eg 90% CH4 by Volume, 10% H2 by volume). As the RD of H2 is about a tenth of CH4, the net effect is that the wobbe is reduced slightly.
Hi Alan, I'm in the market for a new boiler, I've contacted baxi and Worcester to ask them about hydrogen ready boiler, but not one of them were any help, as far as they were concerned there wasn't any research or work going on at the moment?? This video as more information in it than I've been able to find anywhere else, thanks again Steve
Hydrogen ready boilers are a way off at the moment. Thanks.
I may of worded the question wrong, I meant I want to buy a new boiler, and if in the future hydrogen takes off as a source of fueling them, I wanted to buy one that could be converted from gas to hydrogen, or gas hydrogen mix easily??
Thanks again Steve
Hydrogen is the future for UK. That is unchangeable. Hydrogen homes will follow. The major defect in this policy is if in the middle of a bad winter the pipeline is temporarily shut down. What happens? A hydrogen backup is needed. Since it may be too cumbersome for having pressurized tanks , one solution is to have a metal hydrite tank that stores h2 in solid particle.
Thanks.
Interesting times ahead… Does this hydrogen have any smell to it ?
Good question, I guess if it doesn't they will add and additive to give it an odour the same as they do with natural gas
H2 is like NG ,in that it is odourless and therefore it will be treated like NG .Also it is anticipated that a colourant will be added.
What’s the BTU’s per therm?
Why are there still flue test points, when water is the omly product of burning hydrogen? Anybody know why.
I am guessing we will still test the flues.
Burning Hydrogen also produces nitrogen oxides, so you'll need to test this. Also a reason why hydrogen won't be good for urban areas with air quality issues
Also neither Worcestor or baxi wanted to make a new flue if the current gas ones work
Your on the right path
Maybe you should say something about how hydrogen burns with no visible flame (hence the green light to let you know it's burning)
Any orange flame will disappear once the impurities of the manufacturing process are burnt off.
And as hydrogen, like pure natural gas has no odour, will hydrogen have the same artificial compounds added?
The color Comes from the ceramic plates, it is designed this way so you van always see the flame.
@@bastiaan19948 Cheers,
The man with you are clout I just thought you could get them to open the boiler and show us what’s inside,
Did they elaborate on whether atmospheric boilers would be gone after 20% or 30% maybe what was the answer to that ?
I thought Hydrogen was VERY explosive (hence the loud pop when igniting). A normal gas leak is bad enough, but a Hydrogen leak could be really disasterous?
The most minor leak equals KABOOM. When flanges are all bolted down in industrial facilities, a straw broom is passed over and around each connection. You cannot see the flame in daylight. The broom will ignite if any leaks.
The hobs seem very loud burning 🔥
Good luck making all those ancient gas mains H2 tight
The "ancient gas mains" have almost completely been replaced with hdpe which is virtually impervious to hydrogen.
The problem is that hydrogen is substantially less energy dense than NG, and so you need to pressurise it by a factor of 10 compared to NG to make it usable economically. The current gas pipelines (even new ones) have connections, joints and fittings that are not designed to handle pressures necessary for hydrogen transport. You would need to replace 100% of the pipeline network. Also don’t forget that hydrogen is quite corrosive (reacts with) most metals, so all the pumping and pressurisation plants would need to be replaced / updated using special metals that are hydrogen resistant.
Also, where is the hydrogen going to come from? Current sources are byproducts of other industrial processes and cannot sustain a hydrogen based economy. Hydrogen in the air comprises only 0.00005% ( carbon dioxide is 0.04% by comparison) and so is rare in its free state.
Likely industrial scale sources would be water (H2O) and methane (CH4).
‘Blue’ hydrogen comes from the splitting of methane via the SMR process into hydrogen and carbon, however the carbon is in the form of carbon monoxide (poisonous) and carbon dioxide, defeating the whole point of using hydrogen in the first place. So you need to add carbon capture & storage at industrial scale into the process as well. Blue hydrogen will never be economically cheap, even for the western world countries, never mind third world and developing countries.
‘Green’ hydrogen comes from the splitting of water via electrolysis to hydrogen and oxygen. No pollutants, but you need electricity to carry out the electrolysis and the water splitting process is only ~80% efficient, meaning you lose 20% of the energy you put in getting the hydrogen energy out. So you need an extremely cheap energy source to make it economically feasible. Blue hydrogen SMR process is about 65% efficient by the way.
Both above need cheap energy inputs to make the hydrogen, which people say will come from renewables. This assumption is optimistic in my view. Renewables for all the improvements in recent years are nowhere near efficient enough on a continuous basis to drive a hydrogen economy.
@@paulm3538 Yes, it is much less energy dense (by volume) but I don’t understand why you think it has to be compressed 10 times that of methane. Simply comparing Heats of combustion gives 891 kJ/mol for methane, 286kJ/mol for hydrogen, ⅓ the density so a three fold increase in pressure would give effectively the same energy density by volume. Anyway this did not present a problem when our grid was served by town gas. Roughly 50% H2 and 50% CO which has pretty much the same energy density as pure hydrogen. This was distributed at street level at a pressure of only 0.25 bar and the low energy density was allowed for in the jetting size of gas appliances. In fact when we converted from town gas to methane in the 1970’s this was done by simply fitting narrower orifice jets in most appliances.
You are quite wrong to assert that the entire grid would need to be replaced. There have been extensive studies done and only those section composed of high tensile steel, designed to transport NG over large distances at something of the order of 70 - 94 bar would need to be replaced.
Since the plans are to generate hydrogen locally these sorts of pressures may not be needed and moderate pressure steel lines can be replaced by ductile steels which are much less susceptible to embrittlement.
By far the greater part of the grid (95%) is either MDPE or HDPE with welded joints and is virtually impervious to hydrogen.
“the integrity of polyethylene pipelines, which have been used since 1970, should not be affected by the use of hydrogen”
( Conversion of the UK gas system to transport hydrogen Paul E. Dodds a, *, Stephanie Demoullin b a UCL Energy Institute, 14 Upper Woburn Place, London WC1H 0NN, UK b Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, University College London, London, UK)
Referring to “current sources” of hydrogen is not relevant. It is how we are going to generate hydrogen, distribute and use it in the future that matters. The intention is to use green hydrogen so it will be entirely carbon free. Of course if we are going to generate electricity from renewables such as solar, wind, tidal etc. it makes best use if this can be distributed via the electricity grid and used directly but as you are no doubt aware demand for electricity varies greatly at different times of the day and year and to ensure there is enough capacity to meet periods of high demand there must be excess capacity during periods of low demand. With conventional power generation fossil or nuclear it is fairly straightforward to reduce or increase production as demand varies but this is can’t be done with renewables. When the sun shines or the wind is blowing during off-peak times these resources just go to waste since there is no way of storing electricity directly. It can only be stored by converting the electrical energy into some other form. Batteries do this but in terms of energy density by weight are only one 200th that of hydrogen and consume huge amounts of resources to make. Estimates just for producing lithium from the ore requires about 50 to 60 kWh of electricity for each kWh of battery storage capacity;
“Estimates of energy use for lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery cell manufacturing show substantial variation, contributing to disagreements regarding the environmental benefits of large-scale deployment of electric mobility and other battery applications. Here, energy usage is estimated for two large-scale battery cell factories using publicly available data. It is concluded that these facilities use around 50-65 kWh (180-230 MJ) of electricity per kWh of battery capacity, not including other steps of the supply chain, such as mining and processing of materials.”
(Simon Davidsson Kurland1
Published 20 December 2019 • © 2019 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd
Environmental Research Communications, Volume 2, Number 1Citation Simon Davidsson Kurland 2020 Environ. Res. Commun. 2 012001)
Batteries have an efficiency of about about 85% for the charge/discharge cycle and assuming 80% conversion of electricity to hydrogen and 90% combustion in efficient home heating boilers gives 72% overall so not much difference. You also have to consider that batteries have a limited number of charge cycles before they need to be replaced whereas there is no limit in the number of times an underground storage space can be filled and discharged with hydrogen. I know that is not what actually happens but without going into a cumbersome explanation about cushion gas etc. this will do.
Talk about a “Hydrogen Economy” may be over-optimistic but I have no doubt it will form a large part of our energy use in the not so far off future.
@@eckyhen Considering just natural gas, I agree that hydrogen only has ~one third the energy density of natural gas and that yes, in a simple world you can re-jet with larger jets the gas burners in domestic and industrial units, however if you keep the (hydrogen) gas mains supply at the same pressure as it is currently, then you will need three times the volume of hydrogen to generate the same heat energy. Our gas mains system already runs at close to design capacity - particularly in the winter peak demand season. Alternately, you need to triple the gas pressure throughout the distribution system and that will never happen as the gas distribution system is only tested at installation to 1.5 times design maximum capacity.
I am aware that HDPE and it’s welds are well capable of transporting hydrogen and that it’s use for natural gas has been commonplace since the 1970’s. However the valves and compression & pumping plants throughout the distribution network are predominantly metal, were never designed for hydrogen and the potential embrittlement of high tensile steel in particular. These parts will inevitably need to be upgraded/replaced in most cases is my estimation.
I would disagree with your statement of ‘virtually impervious’ - Natural gas will permeate and escape through HDPE (PE100), however it’s considered negligible in volumetric terms compared to the volume transported. Hydrogen with its smaller molecule permeates through PE100 at about 2.2 times the rate of natural gas. I assume that both natural gas and hydrogen permeability are governed by regulation and legacy HDPE/MDPE pipelines can be shown to meet those regulations at specific pressures.
So my point was that the existing natural gas network cannot be simply switched to hydrogen and everything work as normal - we would need for existing gas consumers 3X the current volume to maintain existing energy demand if we use hydrogen. Either we replace with new pipelines that can handle 3 times the current volume or we add new lines alongside existing.
The other great user of hydrocarbons are vehicles, most of which are petrol/diesel with a growing minority of electric. You wrote a nice section on the inefficiency of batteries as a storage solution, specifically for off-peak storage, and I have no argument with any of your points. I would further suggest that the use of battery storage in PEV’s is also inefficient in application and resource utilisation. Better in my view to utilise hydrogen fuel cells in a vehicle to generate the electric motive power ala Toyota Mirai (and others). The energy density of hydrogen is only ~10% that of petrol/diesel and if we get to the point on our roads of a significant or substantial number of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, then our hydrogen distribution pipeline network is going to need to cope with substantial additional capacity on top of the existing mostly heating/cooking/industrial demand, hence my ballpark 10X hydrogen pipeline capacity number.
@@paulm3538 have you not seen the webinar? It is comming from natural gas!! Setting up massive industrial plants to burn the natural gas and convert it to Hydrogen, the deal is done no escape. Fuel poverty on a massive scale. It costs 5 x as much to make from water etc.
I'm an Advocate of going to a totally 100 percent global hydrogen economy, almost everything energy should be hydrogen sourced, eventually leveraging hydrogen on demand technology. By 2050. Let's do it
It’s all very well talking about converting to super efficient carbon friendly systems. Even with government incentives it’s super expensive. Air source heat pump system for the average house that has been upgraded with the appropriate cavity wall and loft insulation ( which is a cost in itself) is about £15,000. Solar panels another £15,000. Battery pack £5000. You will never see the return on investment in your lifetime. Even taking into account the income from feeding the national grid. Government has reduced that source of ROI. Installation as new housing stock is built is the only economically feasible option.
anyone changing their boiler in next couple of years preparing for hydrogen will need to replace their boiler again by the time hydrogen comes online, worcester labelling their boilers is H2 ready is mis selling. In rogers interview with the man from worcester he said u will need to change 3 components which will cost approx £100 (at todays prices) and take about an hour, that boiler in my opinion is not H2 ready. I absolutely agree with you, we are at least 30 years away from an H2 network. Ive just had a customer quoted £17000 + approx £5000 in building costs for the installation of the cables to change his boiler to ASHP, house is fully UFH already & he will retain existing boiler for his 2 HWCs. The siting of the ASHP couldnt be easier, effectively straight through the wall from the boiler so pipework is next to nothing.
Unless ASHP are designed into the build at the planning stage they are just not viable, although of course this is the way legislation has taken us with gas boilers been banned in new builds very soon
I’d love to know if there’s a system that creates its own hydrogen via solar.
Me too
I agree with another comment about the huge investment already made with NG.So hydrogen would be sensible including Hydrogen cars.
I’m still researching, but initially it seems like air source aren’t that reliable because in our country it gets too cold in the winter months for air source to be economical because they need a heat element for supplementary heat. Also it’s going to be interesting where hydrogen is concerned because it seems it’s not that cheep to produce?
At the heating company I worked for we installed a Vaillant ground source heat pump with a borehole collector. I have to say it was very impressive, but costly. Even so it strikes me as the only sure way of doing the job properly. You read of ground source installations that don't work properly and we get back to this quality of design and installation issue. Done properly they are brilliant. Then ask...when has a government (any government) done anything properly. If they can't get insulation right there is no hope of them getting Air Source grants right on a technology that is marginal when its most needed. We will just see too many poor installs as I'm sure many of you are familiar with from other schemes.
*I would be keen to know the maximum percentage of hydrogen the natural gas supply can take to run a condensing boiler.* Hydrogen produces water when burnt, which is no good for non-condensing appliances. I assume the 20% limit is because of overproduction of water if the percentage is higher than 20%, which would corrode the innards of non-condensing appliances.
I was under the impression that the current pipework for natgas is not suitable hydrogen as 1. hydrogen will find places to leak being a smaller molecule and 2. hydrogen will also corrode the pipes
Without trawling through all the comments, I watched a video of a installation already in operation, the guy had a Viesman boiler which was fed natural gas, but, it was fitted with a device which removed the carbon from natural gas ( chemical symbol CH4) and left you with only Hydrogen at the point of combustion, which would mean that none of the gas infrastructure already being used does not need to be changed, what they did with the carbon removed was not explained.
I have double checked and the video I watched is still available, tap in 'Heat Geek' or 'Viessmann hydrogen boiler' very informative.
Did they explain how they have dealt with the embrittling effect of hydrogen on metal?
Hi. There has been studies int hydrogen embrittlement but I’ve not read any. I do know there is still a great deal of cast iron and steel pipes in the network, mostly larger diameter low pressure and a good percentage of medium and intermediate pressure pipes. Not to mention all the metal components that are used in the network, like the gas meter and its components which is in everyone’s property!
We are a long way from this. Hope it’s the way forward but the differences between Methane and hydrogen are massive.
I'm exited by the prospect of Hydrogen boilers. The cost of heat pumps seems very expensive. Maybe they work for larger buildings?
DAR CELE CU HIDROGEN SUNT BOMBA CU CEAS 100% !!
The hydrogen combustion appliances are not ‘zero emission’. They still emit nox.
he means zero carbon , and yes Hydrogen boilers emit zero carbon
Imagine, having all the gas infrastructure left to rot. Whole industry gone for ever. Alan is right, be air-conditioning units everywhere. Terrible for environment!
They will pump the hydrogen down the gas lines!! I.E they will use the main gas infrastructure!!
Why can’t the boiler manufacturers use the water supply at the boiler, create a small water tank and use electrolysis to create it’s own hydrogen to run the boiler?
Love the sentiment, but unless a means of achieving H2 production by electrolysis at low energy input can be achieved, it can't happen.
Did see an Australian demonstrate what your suggesting many years ago on Tomorrow's world or similar.
Story went a major oil company took "control" of the science!!!
@@johnward5006 you’re right; I’ve seen someone has a Patent for the technology, however these only last 20 years so will be expiring soon.
Transformers could be used with mains power to supply the low voltage DC required.
Imagine a boiler that has a water supply only and generates it’s own fuel, and the only waste out is water!
I’ll get working on converting an old boiler I have 😉
There was an interesting study that looked into the sourcing of hydrogen. It found that "Blue Hydrogen" was many times more emitting of green house gases than gas itself (due to the way it requires splitting natural gas into hydrogen). "Green Hydrogen" (made from using renewable energy to split water into oxygen and hydrogen) is the best solution. Lets hope our government stays away from funding the "Blue" side of things.
Just the sort of response I've hoped for!
Yes but however green you generate H2 if you burn it you still create the same Nox pollution. Only way to green energy from H2 is fuel cell then you will only produce water.
@@RAHellemans The contributions by so many on using H2 to fuel boilers has opened up huge interest and concerns surrounding how we produce and consume vast amounts of energy planet wide.
Hope it's not to late to address global warming.
Thanks to all for joining the conversation.
What ever lines the pockets of the politicians will come first.
Hydrogen production is expensive. Its just a scam.
@@RAHellemans there are several solutions to reduce NOx emissions including...
Specially designed burners with Micro Mix combustors, catalytic combustion, catalytic converters. These will increase cost and complexity though.
If I could get Hydrogen into my home I would, it makes sense to me to use the most abundant element which burns cleanly as well. I know that producing hydrogen is expensive but hopefully the cost will come down in time. Is the orange colour an introduced indicator to make the flame visible perhaps? Heat pumps look ugly, and I’ve seen comments on them being noisy and electrically costly to run with the need for larger radiators. I’d rather use the infrastructure we have and convert it to clean hydrogen.
O CENTRALĂ LA CE PREȚ AJUNGE IN ROMÂNIA ?
Thank You
whats the price difference
My only worry is how explosive Hydrogen actually is
Been a gas safe engineer for 38 years... and worked for corgi services I have major concerns about transportation of hydrogen in current gas mains ... can foresee similar problems with LPG mains plus hydrogen required as much fossil fuel to extract from H20. Einstein rule of relativity applies... you might not produce emissions at the point of use but the emissions will be created at source??? Not the way forward
Mark
What other options do we have? ASHP?
The idea is to for 100% green wind and wave electricity to produce the hydrogen. The prime aim is reduced emission, not economics.
Yes what’s the answer ?? The cost of manufacturing green hydrogen will be massive currently blue hydrogen is been used as a mixture up north of the country to boost the calorific values ? Scientists are advising the government not to use blue hydrogen?? Blue hydrogen produces more green house emissions to produce than natural gas produces when used. If you follow the science atomic energy is by far cleaner?? However the grid is not upto the possible demand ... and with electric cars now sucking from the national grid too 🤷🏻♂️ what is the answer?
Plus ... hydrogen in gas mains readily available... don’t totally understand the physics of a H bomb but it’s the gas that turns to helium under pressure and causes nuclear fusion. A terrorist field day ?
I like hydrogen for fuel cells. Not sure how hot it burns. It costs a lot to make unless you have a lot of solar and that costs money.
Hydrogen Fireplace can’t beat a log burner
No mention of the problems moving hydrogen through pipes or the calorific value of hydrogen compared to gas.
Where, just where is the green hydrogen coming from? Currently it takes about 2kWh of electricity to make a kWh of hydrogen, which is then transported to a home to make about 0.9kWh of heat. Alternatively a heat pump could turn that 2kWh of electricity into 7kWh of heat.
An electric boiler would be cheaper to run than a hydrogen boiler though clearly no where near as efficient as a heat pump
The majority of people simply don’t have 15k sitting about for a ASHP and UV cylinder/heat battery.
The gov either have to bring down the cost in some way for heat pumps, solve hydrogen or people will go cold.
Some people have the money sitting about for a heat pump, some people can’t even afford a new combi boiler.
Thank You
Air Source Heat Pumps run all hours of the day and are noisy. Do you really want your neighbours external unit buzzing outside your bedroom window all night keeping you awake? Also, if they were that good, why do they need subsidising by the Gov, surely they would sell themselves with the potential savings?
Maybe, just maybe, like grants for coal, oil, gas, solar, windfarms, EVs etc, the government is giving grants to increase adoption, and then reduce prices via economies of scale. It's not entirely about money, it's about stopping the planet melting.
I've got an old property and had an ASHP fitted last year, this thing is costing me an arm and a leg. I had celotex put between the rafters in the roof and had extra insulation put in the roof voids, but my bills are still sky high, even during the summer months its costing me around £100 a month in electricity, just for hot water and the day to day running of household appliances (and I have solar panels). Come the winter months and its almost 3 times more expensive. I think these ASHP are designed more for modern housing rather than older style properties, a costly lesson learned, Ouch!!
@@stevesirkett4310 That’s unfortunate, that’s not my experience with mine. Maybe get a HP surveyor around to see what can be done? Hydrogen won’t help in this case, as it takes two kWh of electricity to make one kWh of hydrogen, so the price per kWh will be at least twice as much as the electricity now, something all these hydrogen fans forget to mention. Drop me a reply if you want details of a Facebook group that helps people with costly hat pumps.
@@Muppetkeeper Thanks for the reply, yes, I would be interested in the Facebook group, please forward me the details, thanks again for your help.
There seems to be too many flaws to air source, especially with the amount of 10mm pipe in new houses being built. I don’t think the government has enough resources to pull off the Hydrogen change either, strange times ahead for sure
The United Kingdom has finally acquired that, lovely chemistry between this Earth and our Solar System..😁
I always look towards the future we are engineers don’t forget it’s our job to keep people safe we will access the risks pros and cons of hydrogen and just like we did for gas figure out safety measures and testing to make sure appliances run operate safely and do the relevant training to ensure we are doing our job to the highest standards we need to consider our the world our children and grandchildren will be living in after we have gone
Thank You
I'd no idea that there was a mix of H2 into existing gas , thought it was one or other.
Great opinion Allen. Heat pumps have a place but not in old builds insulation would destroy the frame work. They will put up gas and not put down electricity. So hydrogen is a no brainer we can make it at home with the right tech. Free electricity from water. Keep up your great videos you are a great mentour.