A significant element in the Biden administration’s plan to substantially reduce emissions of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels, replacing those fuels with hydrogen produced from fossil fuels, is fundamentally flawed, according to a new analysis from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).
IEEFA says it is “extremely concerned that the current blue hydrogen hype is going to result in the funding of projects that exacerbate climate change and lock in our reliance on fossil fuels for decades.”
The main way to get hydrogen, which does not occur naturally, is by reforming natural gas or coal and capturing the resulting CO2 emissions. This is known as “blue hydrogen,” as opposed to electrolysis of water from renewable electric sources, so-called “green hydrogen” or electrolysis from nuclear electricity, or “pink hydrogen.”
The title of IEEFA’s new report – “Blue Hydrogen: Not Clean, Not Low Carbon, Not a Solution” – and the subtitle – “Making Hydrogen from Natural Gas Makes No Sense” – tells the tale.
“Blue hydrogen hype has spread across the U.S., spurred by the billions of dollars of government funding and incentives included in the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).”
The report by analysts David Schlissel and Anika Juhn says, “Blue hydrogen hype has spread across the U.S., spurred by the billions of dollars of government funding and incentives included in the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The fossil fuel industry promises that blue hydrogen, produced from methane or coal, can be manufactured cleanly and contribute to climate change mitigation measures.”
This hydrogen hype rests on assumptions, predictions, and models that are flawed, unrealistic, and intentionally skewed. A key element in the case for blue hydrogen rests on a Department of Energy model known as GREET (Greenhouse Gases, Regulated Emissions and Energy use in Transportation) mandated by Congress for evaluating hydrogen projects.
When it comes to getting a realistic assessment of blue hydrogen, says IEEFA, GREET isn’t great. The DOE model downplays “the climate risks associated with blue hydrogen” and minimizes “the gamble that the federal government is making by supporting the rapid development of hydrogen produced from fossil fuels.”
GREET assumes that a mere 1% of the methane produced and delivered to the site where it will be deconstructed to yield its hydrogen will leak before it gets to its destination. Says IEEFA, “This is far less than recent peer-reviewed scientific analyses have found and that has been identified by airplane and satellite emission surveys.” A more realistic rate is around 2.5%
GREET, says the report, understates methane’s greenhouse gas effect by focusing on its long-term, 100-year, effects rather than its short-term, 20-year impact. These calculations are called the “Global Warming Potential,” or GWP. Over a 100-year period, methane has less of an impact, a smaller GWP, than CO2. But in the first 20 years of its emissions into the atmosphere, methane’s GWP “is more than 80 times that of carbon dioxide (CO2).”
The GREET analysis completely ignores the real warming impact of hydrogen itself, says IEEFA, “which works to extend the lifetime of methane and increase its atmospheric abundance. Hydrogen also has a 20-year GWP more than 30 times that of CO2.”
The model, “Contrary to scientific evidence…assumes that hydrogen does not have any impact on global warming when it leaks into the atmosphere.” Therefore, it excludes “downstream emissions from the produced hydrogen and the generation of the electricity needed to compress, store and transport the hydrogen to the ultimate user(s).”
The GREET model also “includes overly optimistic assumptions about the effectiveness of carbon capture processes.” IEEFA has previously raised substantial questions about the so-fair unproven technologies of carbon capture.
Changing just two variables in the model – “using methane’s 20-year GWP and a more realistic 2.5% methane emission rate” – dramatically changes the outcome, increasing the carbon intensity of blue hydrogen “between two and three times….”
There are two ways to liberate the hydrogen from methane, CH4. The first and most common is steam reforming, mixing natural gas, air, and high-temperature steam to produce hydrogen and CO2 through a two-step chemical process. Then, a third step removes the CO2 and impurities created in the first two steps, leaving elemental hydrogen gas. According to IEEFA, of all the steam reforming facilities in the world, only three capture the CO2. Also, natural gas “is burned to produce the external energy needed to drive the steam reforming process.”
The less common method, autothermal reforming, substitutes pure oxygen for the air in conventional reforming. The analysis notes, “Adding oxygen into the process produces the energy required for the conversion of methane so external burning of natural gas is not required.” The result still produces both H and CO2. IEEFA adds that there are no autothermal plants in the world that capture the CO2.
IEEFA says its current report does not examine the carbon intensity of the blue H itself. That issue “will be examined in subsequent reports in the near future. Second, this report does not examine the reasonableness of the tremendous growth in the demand for hydrogen projected by proponents of transitioning to much greater use of the fuel. That also will be a subject of a future IEEFA report. Third, this is not an economic analysis. It solely focuses on the critical question of whether blue hydrogen will be clean and low-carbon, not on its cost relative to other approaches to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”
IEEFA, based in Lakewood, Ohio, is a non-profit, non-partisan think tank. It describes itself: “IEEFA’s market-based research shows how the rise of the new energy economy, where renewable energy sources are steadily eroding reliance on fossil fuels, makes financial sense for investors, governments, businesses, communities and ratepayers.”
–Kennedy Maize
To subscribe to The Quad Report – it’s free – use the email and type “subscribe” in the subject line.
To comment: