What can we expect from clean hydrogen in Canada? | 24CA News
As the world races to search out efficient local weather options, hydrogen is incomes buzz as a doubtlessly low-emitting various gasoline supply.
The promise of hydrogen as a clear gasoline supply is nothing new — way back to the Seventies hydrogen was being promised as a “potential pollution-free fuel for our cars.”
While hydrogen hasn’t but taken off because the gasoline of the long run — a 2023 report from McKinsey & Company and the Hydrogen Council estimates that there’s a grand complete of eight hydrogen automobile fuelling stations in Canada — many nonetheless hope that can change.
The hope is hydrogen will play a major function in combating local weather change, serving as a low-emissions substitute for fossil fuels in energy technology, house heating and transportation, and at this time, curiosity in a Canadian clear hydrogen business could also be beginning to bubble over.
“People are super excited about hydrogen because of the opportunity to use it as a clean chemical fuel. So, as a displacement for natural gas, diesel, gasoline, jet fuel,” stated Andrew Gillis, CEO of Canadian hydrogen firm Aurora Hydrogen.
Plans for low or zero-emissions hydrogen tasks are starting to take form throughout the nation. But, in the intervening time, hydrogen is much from a low-emissions gasoline, which is why some consultants counsel expectations for the useful resource needs to be tempered.
ARCHIVES | Jack Nicholson selling a hydrogen automobile in 1978:
The International Energy Agency signifies that in 2021, world hydrogen manufacturing emitted 900 million tonnes of carbon dioxide — roughly 180 million greater than the aviation business — as roughly 99 per cent of hydrogen manufacturing got here from fossil gasoline sources.
“There is a concern that the role of hydrogen in the process of decarbonization is being very greatly overstated,” stated Mark Winfield, professor of environmental and concrete change at York University.
A rising pleasure
In 2020, the federal government launched a hydrogen technique, aiming to “cement hydrogen as a tool to achieve our goal of net-zero emissions by 2050 and position Canada as a global, industrial leader of clean renewable fuels.”
The newest price range consists of over $17 billion in tax credit between now and 2035 to assist fund clear hydrogen tasks.
Today, the most typical software for hydrogen in Canada is as a cloth in industrial actions reminiscent of oil refining and ammonia, methanol and metal manufacturing, in response to Natural Resources Canada.
But, the excitement round hydrogen is not precisely over its industrial purposes, stated Aurora Hydrogen’s Gillis.
“All these sorts of things where we currently have emitting gaseous or liquid chemical fuels, hydrogen’s an opportunity to replace those and access the energy without creating emissions at the point of us,” Gillis stated.
When utilized in a gasoline cell, hydrogen can produce electrical energy for transportation, heating and energy technology with out producing widespread dangerous emissions like nitrogen oxide, hydrocarbons and particulate matter — BloombergNEF estimates that hydrogen may meet 24 per cent of worldwide power demand by 2050.
A rising business
Canada’s hydrogen technique goals to have 30 per cent of end-use power be from clear hydrogen by 2050. According to the technique, Canada produces an estimated three million tonnes of hydrogen per yr from pure fuel at this time, however the technique would not point out how a lot hydrogen is produced from low-emissions sources.
In current years, the Canadian clear hydrogen business has earned worldwide curiosity.
In 2021, Canada signed a memorandum of understanding with the Netherlands to assist develop “export-import corridors for clean hydrogen” between the 2 nations. Canada additionally lately inked a cope with Germany to begin exporting the useful resource there by 2025.
But whereas a low-emissions hydrogen plant went on-line in Becancour, Que., in 2021, the remainder of Canada’s clean-hydrogen business appears to be within the early levels.
Canada’s East Coast has been drawing curiosity as a vacation spot for wind-powered hydrogen tasks, with new hydrogen tasks deliberate in all 4 Atlantic provinces — some with value tags within the billions.
In Manitoba, two clear hydrogen tasks are within the early phases — one hopes to be producing by the yr’s finish.
This previous winter, the federal authorities and Alberta introduced a $461-million funding into a hydrogen plant in Edmonton that may use carbon-capture know-how and is aiming to supply in 2024.
Atura Power is about to have a Niagara, Ont., plant operational in 2024, whereas each the Varennes Carbon Recycling Plant in Varennes, Que., and HTEC’s clear hydrogen plant in Vancouver goal to be on-line by 2025.
What is clear hydrogen?
The emissions capability of hydrogen relies not solely on how hydrogen is used, but additionally how it’s produced.
Hydrogen produced from fossil gasoline sources typically makes use of steam-methane reforming — a technique of separating hydrogen from carbon in pure fuel — and is often known as “grey hydrogen,” stated Winfield.
Lower-emissions hydrogen will be produced with fossil fuels utilizing carbon seize and is also known as “blue hydrogen.”
Emissions-free hydrogen — or “green hydrogen” — is usually produced through the use of renewable electrical energy for electrolysis, a technique of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen with out producing carbon emissions.
“How you make your hydrogen counts quite significantly in terms of how helpful it is or what kind of trade-offs you’re involved in,” Winfield stated.
WATCH | How inexperienced is inexperienced hydrogen?
.png?crop=1.777xh:h;*,*&downsize=510px:*510w)
Green hydrogen has been labelled as one answer for Canada to satisfy its internet zero purpose by 2050. CBC’s Frances Willick finds out if inexperienced hydrogen is absolutely higher for the surroundings.
‘Rainbow of bullshit’
Paul Martin, chemical engineer and co-founder of the Hydrogen Science Coalition, says the so-called hydrogen rainbow is extra delusion than actuality.
“There is only one colour — the rainbow of hydrogen is this rainbow of bullshit; this rainbow of euphemism,” he stated.
On the worldwide scale, practically all hydrogen manufacturing is from high-emitting gray sources, in response to the International Energy Agency; lower than one per cent of the world’s hydrogen manufacturing makes use of carbon seize or electrolysis.
Martin has doubts in regards to the viability of inexperienced and blue hydrogen. One consideration is the price of manufacturing, he stated.
Compared to gray hydrogen, blue hydrogen will be over 40 per cent costlier, whereas inexperienced hydrogen will be 32 per cent to almost 300 per cent extra expensive, in response to Canada’s Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development.
Winfield stated effectivity additionally must be thought of — utilizing electrical energy to supply inexperienced hydrogen for gasoline provides pointless steps to the power course of.
For instance, slightly than use electrical energy to supply inexperienced hydrogen, which is then utilized in a gasoline cell for house heating, it might be extra environment friendly to pump that electrical energy straight into one thing like a heat-pump, Winfield stated.
Hydrogen has lengthy been hyped because the gasoline of the long run, however forecasts of how shortly that may occur have did not materialize up to now.
As nicely, there is a lack of infrastructure, Winfield stated, declaring that hydrogen cannot be shipped utilizing present pure fuel infrastructure.
A 2022 audit from Canada’s Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development discovered that Canada’s hydrogen technique was “overly optimistic,” by way of the greenhouse decreasing capabilities of hydrogen.
Niche purposes
Aurora Hydrogen makes use of microwave power to transform methane into hydrogen and strong carbon, which Gillis says will produce no CO2 emissions and use 80 per cent much less electrical energy than electrolysis.
“There’s lots of stuff that people are going to want to electrify, and hydrogen production is probably going to be lower on the list,” Gillis stated.
“So the extent that we can produce hydrogen with a minimum amount of electricity required, we think that’s a strong benefit.”
Gillis believes his know-how will be scaled up effectively. He goals to reuse present pure fuel and electrical energy infrastructure — to not ship hydrogen however to ramp up manufacturing of hydrogen shortly and cost-effectively on the level the place the useful resource can be used.
But Aurora’s new know-how can be put to the check this yr at their first demonstration plant exterior of Edmonton, which Gillis says will produce sufficient hydrogen to gasoline 10 buses constantly.
Winfield suggests there’s a place for inexperienced hydrogen, even when it isn’t an ideal substitute for fossil fuels.
Using inexperienced hydrogen for sure industrial processes, reminiscent of metal and cement making or the manufacturing of sure petrochemicals and fertilizers, may make sense, stated Winfield.
He additionally suggests hydrogen might need a spot within the long-distance heavy-duty transportation sector the place electrical energy has confirmed troublesome on account of battery weight and dimension points.
“There are very specific circumstances under which it makes sense, but those are not necessarily universal,” stated Winfield.
