Green hydrogen is a clean fuel, but South Africa’s not ready to produce it: Energy experts explain why

Every single day, tens of millions of engines and factories burn fossil fuels, releasing carbon dioxide—a greenhouse fuel that traps warmth in Earth’s ambiance and contributes to local weather change. Now think about a clear gas that doesn’t pollute and produces solely water as waste. That is the promise of inexperienced hydrogen, which is made through the use of photo voltaic and wind energy to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen.

Nations worldwide, together with South Africasee inexperienced hydrogen as a significant instrument for tackling local weather change. There are plans to use green hydrogen in South Africa for every part from producing fertilizer for farms to powering factories and heavy vehicles.

As governments worldwide push for inexperienced hydrogen as a clear power answer, a vital actuality is being ignored: producing inexperienced hydrogen is just one piece of a fancy puzzle. The success of inexperienced hydrogen tasks is determined by concurrently growing infrastructure that may transport the inexperienced hydrogen to business. It can additionally want industries to undertake new expertise or convert current tools in order that they’ll change from utilizing fossil fuels to utilizing inexperienced hydrogen.

Producing one kilogram of inexperienced hydrogen wants as much as 30 liters of contemporary water. Because of this desalination or water recycling vegetation will likely be wanted if inexperienced hydrogen hubs are arrange in water scarce areas.

Consider it like constructing a brand new railway system. You would not assemble a practice station with out first laying practice tracks and ensuring that trains can be found to run on it.

But South Africa aims to build seven gigawatts of hydrogen manufacturing capability by 2030—sufficient to energy as much as seven million houses without delay.

We’re chemical engineerswith over 5 many years of mixed expertise within the petrochemical industrywho’ve researched the potential for inexperienced hydrogen commercialization in South Africa.

Drawing on our expertise, our latest research is about why formidable power tasks succeed or fail. We researched the right way to handle the dangers of organising a inexperienced hydrogen business—from mission execution by to market readiness—in a manner that is honest to each developed and growing international locations.

To develop our threat evaluation framework, we analyzed historic information from pioneer power vegetation globally and examined among the challenges skilled by megaprojects (those who value greater than R20 billion or US$ 1 billion to construct). We in contrast other ways to make use of inexperienced hydrogen by measuring what number of CO₂ emissions are averted for every ton of hydrogen used. This helped us perceive which functions are the simplest for chopping emissions.

What our risk assessment discovered was hanging: tasks that rush to make use of new expertise at huge scale sometimes see their prices double or triple from preliminary estimates. And over half of those tasks fail to satisfy their manufacturing targets of their first six months.

Our risk analysis also shows that the funds wanted to construct production plants globally, together with in South Africa, are only a fraction of what it is going to value to construct a functioning inexperienced hydrogen economic system. The federal government should take these dangers under consideration or the outcome will likely be stranded belongings: costly amenities that may’t be totally utilized as a result of the supporting infrastructure is not in place.

The dangers we discovered

Hydrogen, together with inexperienced hydrogen, can solely be moved round by costly specialised pipelines, or by being compressed utilizing excessive strain. Different methods to maneuver it embody first changing it into different chemical compounds like ammonia, or changing it to liquid type at -253°C. Up to 48% of the energy content may be misplaced in transportation alone by compression, liquefaction, conversion to carriers (like ammonia or methanol), and pipeline or transport inefficiencies, all of which require important power enter.

Most current pure fuel pipelines can’t deal with pure hydrogen with out substantial modifications. These technical complexities imply new infrastructure should be constructed virtually from scratch.

If these hurdles in transporting inexperienced hydrogen are overcome, the subsequent drawback is that inexperienced hydrogen wants clients with amenities geared up to make use of it. For instance, the metal business is taking a look at transferring away from polluting ovens to producing metal utilizing inexperienced hydrogen. This is able to produce virtually no carbon dioxide emissions however requires totally new infrastructure.

Fueling stations are one other instance. For an strange gas station to be transformed in order that it may serve hydrogen autos, it could want both huge cooling vegetation and cryogenic storage tanks (which retailer liquefied fuel at beneath -250°C) or high-pressure storage vessels and compressors. A hydrogen filling station would function extra like a small chemical plant than a traditional service station.

The South African authorities’s green hydrogen strategy desires to hold out 24 feasibility research to see how inexperienced hydrogen may very well be made and utilized by native business. There are additionally plans to export it.

However the price of producing and transporting inexperienced hydrogen is up to five times the price of a fossil gas various. Hydrogen can be very troublesome to move throughout the ocean. This implies there is no such thing as a likelihood of massive inexperienced hydrogen exports taking place within the brief to medium time period.

These components create dangers for a possible inexperienced hydrogen business that may make it troublesome for inexperienced hydrogen tasks to draw financing. Manufacturing amenities costing billions can’t be justified if transportation programs and finish customers aren’t prepared and ready.

Additionally it is value contemplating that, in lots of instances, photo voltaic or wind power are cheaper and more efficient than inexperienced hydrogen. For instance, inexperienced hydrogen is an costly and inefficient approach to energy automobiles in comparison with battery electrical autos or to warmth houses in comparison with electrical warmth utilizing warmth pumps.

A path ahead

Our research means that the South African authorities ought to focus first on industries that may discover it straightforward to change from fossil fuels to inexperienced hydrogen.

For instance, inexperienced hydrogen may very well be produced and transformed to inexperienced ammonia in a single place, with no need new pipelines. Inexperienced ammonia can be utilized to make farm fertilizers which are transported as stable pellets, and so no additional infrastructure is required to maneuver and promote luggage of inexperienced fertilizer.

Nevertheless, the higher cost of inexperienced ammonia-based fertilizer could be an issue for native gross sales. Nitrogenous fertilizer is used on staple crops resembling maize. Increased fertilizer prices would have a knock-on impact for meals costs.

The transition to inexperienced hydrogen requires cautious coordination throughout the complete provide chain. Moderately than a “build it and they will come” method, manufacturing, transportation and utilization infrastructure should be constructed on the similar time.

As international locations race to satisfy local weather targets, coverage makers should talk about all of the infrastructure a inexperienced hydrogen business wants. With out coordinated growth throughout the complete worth chain, the transition to wash power may very well be set again.

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