Green Hydrogen For Scotland
The title of this post, has been taken from this press release from ITM Power, which is entitled ‘Green Hydrogen For Scotland’ To Help Reach Net Zero Targets: First Project To Deliver A 10MW Electrolyser To Glasgow Facility.
This is the introductory paragraph.
A pioneering Strategic partnership has been established to create new green hydrogen production facilities with clusters of refuelling stations across Scotland, supporting the country’s efforts to achieve net zero by 2045. ‘Green Hydrogen for Scotland’ – a partnership of ScottishPower Renewables, BOC (a Linde company) and ITM Power – brings together industry-leading names in the renewables and clean fuel industries to offer an end-to-end market solution for reducing vehicle emissions through the provision of green hydrogen.
Other details include.
- The green hydrogen production facility located on the outskirts of Glasgow will be operated by BOC.
- ITM Power will deliver a 10 MW electrolyser.
- Electricity will come from , wind and solar produced by ScottishPower Renewables.
- The project aims to supply hydrogen to the commercial market within the next two years.
This ITM Power infographic outlines Green Hydrogen for Scotland.
Surely it should be called tartan hydrogen. Does anybody know a tartan containing the blue of Scotland, the white of Yorkshire and the black, red and gold of Germany?
The Weekend Read: Hydrogen And The Energy Transition
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on pv Magazine.
This is the introductory paragraph.
Researchers are now simulating how the energy transition can be as successful and cost-effective as possible. As part of the simulation, they are also calculating how much hydrogen will be needed and where it could come from. In Germany, a recent study by Fraunhofer ISE showed that the cost is so low that the nation could gift itself the energy transition as a Christmas present.
The last sentence is a very powerful statement.
The article makes these and many other points.
- Hydrogen is ideal to produce process heat about five hundred degrees centigrade.
- Hydrogen can be used to power some cars, trucks, trains, ships, and aircraft
- In Germany ten million cars could be powered by hydrogen, as opposed to forty million by batteries.
- Consumer choice will play a big part in how much hydrogen is needed.
It is very much a must-read article.
Linde And RVK Unveil New Hydrogen Station For Buses
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on H2 View.
This is the introductory paragraphs.
Linde and regional transport company Regionalverkehr (RVK) today presented an innovative hydrogen station for fuel cell buses to the public.
With a capacity of up to 20 refills per day, the new station located near Cologne, Germany features, for the first time, a new high-pressure storage technology developed by Linde: constant pressure tubes ensure that the refuelling pressure always remains at a constant level, even as the storage tank volume decreases.
It does appear that Linde is going to be big in hydrogen, as they already are an investor in electrolyser company;ITM Power.
Hydrogen Can Be Transported By Rail, German Railway Company Says
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on PV Magazine.
This is the introductory paragraph.
A study by DB Energie shows that technically and legally there is nothing to be said against the transport of hydrogen by rail. However, there is still a lack of suitable transport containers.
I suppose though the lack of suitable transport containers makes it a bit difficult.
Germany Builds The World’s First Hydrogen Train Filling Station
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on electrek.
Hydrogen Trains In Germany
The hydrogen filling station for trains is described under this heading.
This is the introductory paragraph.
The town of Bremervörde in Lower Saxony, Germany, has broken ground on the world’s first hydrogen filling station for passenger trains. Chemical company Linde will construct and operate the hydrogen filling station for the Lower Saxony Regional Transport Company.
It will provide approximately 1600 Kg of hydrogen per day.
The Supergroup Of ‘Green Energy’
This is a second section, which I find an interest sting concept.
These are the introductory paragraphs.
Oil giant Shell and Dutch utility Eneco have won the tender to build a super-hybrid offshore wind farm in the Netherlands. It will consist of two sites located 11.5 miles (18.5 km) off the west coast, near the town of Egmond aan Zee.
The Shell/Eneco consortium, CrossWind, will build the Hollandse Kust (noord) project. They will pair the offshore wind farms with floating solar facilities and short-duration batteries. It will also generate green hydrogen via an electrolyzer, according to GreenTech Media.
It will be operational in 2023 and have an output of 759 MW.
VDE Study Finds Battery Trains 35% Cheaper Than Hydrogen
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the International Railway Journal.
This is the introductory paragraph.
A study of the cost-effectiveness of battery electric multiple units (BEMU) and hydrogen electric multiple units (HEMU) as alternatives to diesel found that BEMUs could be up to €59m (35%) less expensive to buy and operate compared with their hydrogen fuel cell equivalents.
It also says that they are more expensive than the diesels they replace over thirty years.
As it is a professional German study, we should take note of what is said.
How Would This Apply To The UK?
There will be differences between the UK and Continental Europe, which will affect costs!
- Our small loading gauge seems to be making the design of hydrogen-powered trains difficult.
- Passenger capacity in a UK train, will probably be reduced when compared to the diesel equivalent.
- Our hydrogen technology is world-class.
- More affordable batteries would benefit both types of trains.
- I believe that companies like Vivarail, will come up with very fast and efficient chargers for battery trains using our third-rail technology, which may not be suitable outside the UK.
On balance though, I suspect that the cost difference worldwide, will be similar.
Conclusion
Companies, developers and engineers will fight a keen battle for supremacy.
There will be some suprising winners and some big losers.
Coronavirus: Over 600 People Test Positive At German Slaughterhouse
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on DW News.
This is the introductory paragraph.
Yet another German slaughterhouse has registered a massive outbreak of the coronavirus. Roughly two-thirds of the test results so far have come back positive.
Does the author think this is a recurring problem?
There is a sub-heading in the article of By No Means An Isolated Case, where this is said.
Germany’s meat processing sector has come under increasing scrutiny during the pandemic, with several plants reporting massive outbreaks. The sector is plagued with poor working conditions, exploitative contracts and usurious rents in mass housing for eastern European workers.
The company is blaming Bulgarian and Romanian workers going home for the long weekend.
The next paragraph, would appear to debunk that theory.
According to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Germany has had far more confirmed cases of coronavirus than either Romania or Bulgaria. In the past 14 days, Germany registered 4,814 new cases, compared to 2,898 in Romania and 915 in Bulgaria.
By comparison, we have had 14,932 lab-confirmed cases in the last fourteen days.
The article says that this slaughterhouse is in Gutersloh and from a picture in the article, the slaughterhouse seems to process pigs.
Out of curiosity, I looked up the Wikipedia entry for Gutersloh.
It looks to be a typical German town of 100,000 people, but it does have one unusual feature according to Wikipedia; ten percent of the population are Arameans.
I have found these facts on Wikipedia.
- The total number of Arameans in Germany is between 100,000 and 120.000. See Arameans
- There has been a long history of Turkish people migrating to Germany. See Turks In Germany
- The number of Turks in Germany is 2,774,000, making them the largest minority. See Demographics of Germany
- Many of the Turks were brought to Germany in the 1970s to do the jobs the Germans didn’t want to do and to solve a labour crisis, after the building of the Berlin Wall. See Turks In Germany
Turks are Muslim and the Germans produce a lot of pork. So do Turks work in German slaughterhouses handling pork and making sausages?
If they don’t, does this explain the large number of Arameans in Gutersloh? Arameans are Christians and unlike Muslims and Jews, eat pork.
Their diet also contains alcohol and appears to be gluten-rich!
I’d love to have German statistics of COVID-19 by ethnicity!
Neutrino Energy And Renewable Energy Decisions
The title of this post, is the same as that pn this article from Cision.
This is the introductory paragraph.
While Fossil fuels pose serious dangers to the future of human civilization, the Neutrino Energy Group proposes safe, clean solutions to the modern energy crisis that will help humanity take genuine leaps forward in development.
I’ve read the whole article and it is interesting.
It could be the biggest development in energy since our ancestors discovered fire or the largest load of hype since ZETA was built at Harwell in 1957. The latter was supposed to provide electricity too cheap to meter.
Every ten years or so, something like this pops up. The only thing different about this one, is that it has come from the Germans! Although in the 1930s. it was in Germany, where people like Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner were leading the world in nuclear research. They discovered nuclear fission for which Hahn won the Nobel Prize.
Meitner spent her last years in Cambridge and I’ve always wondered, if she ever met Rosalind Franklin, the other great female scientist of the time, who many believe should have also received a Nobel Prize. If they did or even if they didn’t, it would surely make a wonderful drama, in the style of Copenhagen.
Luckily for the world, these German nuclear scientists were often Jewish, so they left, probably robbing the Nazis of an atomic bomb. Many ended up on the Manhattan Project.
A Trading Update From ITM Power
ITM Power issued a Press Release entitled Trading Update, this morning.
It is a document, that is a must-read about the future of hydrogen.
There are some interesting statements on various topics.
The Future Of Hydrogen Production
The Press Release says this.
Alongside the predicted growth trajectory for electrolysis, the cost outlook for green hydrogen is also positive. The Hydrogen Council expects green hydrogen to become cost competitive with grey hydrogen by 2025 assuming a €50 per ton CO2 price. An 80GW electrolyser target for Europe by 2030 has been proposed, where electrolysers feed into a hydrogen transmission network that interconnects the renewable energy resources of the North Sea, Morocco and Ukraine with the demand centres of Europe. Further afield, Australia is actively pursuing opportunities to export green hydrogen and has estimated that 69 per cent of the 2025 global market for hydrogen will lie in its four target markets of China, Japan, Korea and Singapore.
Note.
- Green hydrogen is produced by a zero-carbon process like electrolysis using renewable electricity.
- Grey hydrogen is produced by a process that releases carbon-dioxide like steam reforming of methane.
It looks like green hydrogen will be the future.
Governments And Green Hydrogen
The Press Release says this.
Governments are increasingly recognising the role of green hydrogen as a decarbonisation tool. The U.K. government has introduced an overarching net zero target and placed an early focus on decarbonising industrial clusters that will lead to progressively larger deployments of electrolysers. In the Netherlands, the Dutch government has recently presented its green hydrogen vision for achieving a sustainable energy system that is reliable, clean and affordable. A total of three European governments have now stated explicit electrolyser targets for 2030: Germany 5GW, Holland 3-4GW and Portugal 2GW.
It looks like a lot of electrolysers will be built.
The Germans And Hydrogen
The Press Release says this.
The German government announced in its stimulus package of 3 June 2020 that it will present a national hydrogen strategy in the short term. Accordingly, a programme for the development of hydrogen production plants will be developed to demonstrate industrial-scale production of up to 5GW total output in Germany, operational by 2030. For the period up to 2035, but until 2040 at the latest, an additional 5 GW will be added if possible. To implement all these measures, the German government will invest €7bn.
Not only is hydrogen zero-carbon, it also means they will buy less of Putin’s gas.
Conclusion
Hydrogen has a very long term future.
Universities Study Options For Battery Traction To Replace Diesel
The title of this post, is the same as that as this article on Railway Gazette.
This is the introductory paragraph.
A three-month study of the extent to which battery-powered trains could replace diesel traction in Germany is being undertaken through a collaboration between rolling stock financing company Rock Rail, Technische Universität Dresden and the UK’s University of Birmingham.
In some ways, two Universities and one rolling stock leasing company are strange bedfellows for a study of trains in Germany.
But then Rock Rail are a very successful and surprisingly innovative company, who appear to know their trains. This sentence, is taken from the home page of their web site.
Rock Rail works closely with the franchise train operators and manufacturers to ensure a collaborative approach to design, manufacture and acceptance of the new state of the art trains on time and to budget.
They have certainly been involved in several large fleet orders in the last few years.
I have a feeling that this study will lead to sensible and workable conclusions, that may well have lessons for the UK.
The Anonymous Widower 