China's lead in Green Hydrogen

[OKIsItJustMe]

Presently, most hydrogen production in China (as in the rest of the world) “reforms" “Natural Gas”/Methane. (There are other methods; this is the primary one. We have been doing it for about a century now, and to date it is the least expensive/most profitable way to produce hydrogen.)

This is called “Gray” or “Grey Hydrogen”because “Greenhouse Gases” are produced at the same time. In theory, the GHG's could easily be captured and sequestered. Typically, they are not (since that means more expense and fewer profits.)

Importantly, as natural gas prices rise, producing hydrogen through steam reforming of natural gas becomes more expensive, making other methods of hydrogen production (i.e. “Green Hydrogen”) more cost competitive.

The key to "Green Hydrogen” at this point is electrolysis of water. Electricity from clean sources is used to split H₂O into H₂ and O₂. (Many of us saw this demonstrated in a high school science class.)
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=electrolysis+of+water&ia=videos&iax=videos

There are other possible ways to produce “Green Hydrogen,” but, for now, electrolysis is far-and-away the chief method.

In October of 2024, the International Energy Agency published their Global Hydrogen Review 2024. Since it was published in October of 2024, figures for 2024 are estimates. The following figures are taken from that publication.

In this first figure we can see the phenomenal growth of electrolyzer capacity just since 2020:


We can also see that China’s capacity in 2024 was greater than all the rest of the world combined. In a distant 2nd place was the whole of Europe, followed by the US.

To increase electrolyzer capacity requires manufacturing (or purchasing) electrolyzers. Here too, China has the lead, although the US and Europe are not as far behind.

[NNadir]

1. Why should the rest of the world worry about "being behind" in wasting energy?

There isn't a "race" to be stupid, is there?

The "green hydroggen" fraud is now half a century old, and for the whole time the laws of thermodynamics have applied, which means hydrogen is inherently dirty.

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. I don't believe the world should worry about China's lead.

I thought it best to document it.

According to the World Nuclear Association:
https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/energy-and-the-environment/hydrogen-production-and-uses

Hydrogen Production and Uses
UPDATED FRIDAY, 17 MAY 2024

• Hydrogen is increasingly seen as a key component of future energy systems if it can be made without carbon dioxide emissions.


• It is starting to be used as a transport fuel, despite the need for high-pressure containment.


• …


• Hydrogen also has future application as industrial-scale replacement for coke in steelmaking and other metallurgical processes.


• …


• The energy demand for hydrogen production could exceed that for electricity production today.

…

But, then, they’re all a bunch of “anti-nukes.” What do they know?

[NNadir]

3. Thanks for the "Appeal to Authority" fallacy.

In the 50 years of ongoing hydrogen bullshit, it's become an element of public mythology, stupid public mythology, that hydrogen is a clean fuel.

Recently in a Nature Journal, a new one, Nature Clean Technology, Vol 1 page 351-371 there is a review of the subject of which the abstract begins with the statement "Hydrogen has been promoted as a revolutionary fuel for 50 years, yet usage is confined to oil refining and fertilizer production."

One of the authors is from the Berkeley Department of Nuclear Energy.

I don't have any use whatsoever for the reading level of antinukes, but the open sourced paper lists all of the standard objections to this scam.

The nuclear industry is cleaner and safer than any energy technology, but until it has eliminated the use of dangerous fossil fuels, wasting it for stupid bourgeois fantasies - dangerous fantasies given hydrogen's horrible physical properties noted in the article - it is stupid to waste clean energy to make it.

Happily for the antinike cults, the authors demonstrate the requisite genuflection toward the useless so called "renewable energy," industry as if it were a serios thing, something it isn't. Still, the authors suggest that the only reason to make hydrogen will be for the reasons it's already used, fertilizer and oil refining.

These points are made in the list of "key points" that precedes the text.

Personally I would like to see oil refining phased out to replace petroleum with methanol and DME but given my general perception of the power of ignorance i doubt that will happen in my life time.

In any case, I consider myself well enough informed to reject "appeal to authority" arguments. The fossil fuel industry has been spectacularly successful at marketing the hydrogen made from their products overwhelmingly, as "green." We never run out of fools to buy it, going way back to the assshole Amory Lovins in the 20th century. There are wiser uses for nuclear energy than representing it as suitable for a stupid idea built around hydrogen as a consumer product.

The authors note that the doubling of the so called "renewable energy" scam would be required just to make enough hydrogen for its current use, oil refining and ammonia synthesis, leaving nothing for anything else.

I do not control the marketing of the nuclear industry but I understand the use of such marketing by that maligned industry to get buy ins from credulous fools, who have been handing out hydrogen hype and carrying on insipidly about a putative "hydrogen economy," for half a century. In that period the concentration of the dangerous fossil fuel waste in the planetary atmosphere has risen by around 100 ppm to over 430 ppm. I guess "renewable energy" didn't save us any more than "green hydrogen" lies saved us.

The reality remains that the laws of thermodynamics still hold, which means storing energy wastes it. This is true for batteries as well as hydrogen. All these absurd bullshit fantasies rely on the publicly embraced belief that electricity is "green." It isn't, but the idea of marketing as such has worked spectacularly, as well as cigarette ads got people to smoke in the 1940s and 1950s.

Have a nice evening.