Peak Oil and why hydrogen won’t help us much (Long post)

[Il_Mostro]

The original point of this post is an answer to riverflush on why hydrogen is not the energy “source” of the future.
A lot of more knowledgeable people than me have written on this, I will mostly reference them.

I realise this post has grown to become a monster, but bear with me

First, we need to get a few things clear

1) I’m not arguing to win this time, I’m arguing to teach and be taught, so if you can refute my arguments using the same level of details I do, I’m all ears, if you can only give me wishes and vague hypothesises I reserve the right to not answer
2) I believe that the energy is the, by far, biggest problem we (as in the industrialized world) will face the next few decades. I hope we can solve it, but so far I’m not convinced
3) The fact that oil production will reach a peak and then start to decline is not really up for discussion anymore. The time of this peak is debatable, not the peak itself. The oil companies say it will, so does Matt Simmons (energy advisor for Bush) and lots of scientists [1]. Look it up if you don’t believe me
4) The most optimistic estimate for the peak is 2035, the more pessimistic 2005.
5) Given this peak, any energy solution for the future cannot by definition be reliant on oil. And not on gas, since the same peak will happen there, only a little later. And not coal, for the same reason. And, in the longer run, not nuclear fission, since we will run out of Uranium too, eventually.
6) I sincerely hope you will start looking into this, this is a serious problem that holds the potential to bring down all of the industrialized civilization. It does not have to happen, but it may, and that fact alone should be enough to get everyone to look into it and form his/her own opinion
7) If you don’t buy the theories, but won’t look it up, all I can do is wish you luck

Now for the actual post…

A few fundamentals will have to be said:

1) We need to find an energy replacement for oil that has the same, or almost the same, ease of use and versatility as oil. If we fail on this point we are facing a radically different society.
2) The final energy source(s) has to be indefinitely renewable. Not so in a transition period, but that period is not as long as one would like
3) The technology for this transition has to be on the horizon now, more or less esoteric energy sources like cold fusion and zero-point energy is excluded. Fusion is debatable; as far as I have read the people working in the field says that if at all possible we might have a fusion reactor online in about 50 years, that’s too late.
4) I’m not arguing we will all die if those fundamentals are not fulfilled, but since our economy is totally dependant on growth (which in itself makes it an impossibility in the long-run, a topic for another post, maybe), if we can’t grow we will face serious problems, and without cheap energy we simply cannot grow

So, does Hydrogen fulfil the fundamentals?

I will prelude all this with my thoughts on this matter, easily summarized like:
• Hydrogen will never run our society, it just cannot provide the energy needed
• Hydrogen may very well be part of the solution, just not The solution


Why, then, do I think that?

First, hydrogen is not an energy source; it’s an energy carrier. The way hydrogen is created is by electrolysing water. Due to the 2:nd law of thermodynamics energy is always lost when doing this, ie. more energy is spent on creating the hydrogen than can be obtained when burning the hydrogen. See Figure 4 in [2] for example. This fact alone pretty much excludes the notion of creating hydrogen using oil or natgas, since we’d be better of using them directly, instead of loosing energy converting them to hydrogen. We are left with electricity.

So, what we need to do is to create enough electricity to generate the hydrogen we need. The question is, is that possible?
In [3] ch 5 Energy resources is a calculation for the UK. The conclusions is as follows,
“For the UK this means that to substitute for the current road and air transport fuel by hydrogen would require from 1165 TWh to 1312 TWh of electricity generation, compared to the total UK generation of 386 TWh in 2002. “

In my mind that is just not doable, it’s hard enough switching to renewables, let alone do that at the same time as you increase the generation by a factor 5.

Another calculation along the same lines, this time for Cyprus [4]:
“Let's imagine that, one day, there will be 200,000 hydrogen-burning (e.g., fuel cell) cars in Cyprus, each averaging 40 km/day, it would require an extra power station of 1.6 GW to provide the required amount of hydrogen; this is almost twice the current peak electrical capacity for all industrial and domestic requirements.”

Now, let’s move on to [2], it’s a long document, but there are a few key passages, namely

Page 27. “Summary of results”
“We are surprised to discover that, apparently, the energy needed to run a hydrogen economy have never been fully assessed before.”

Page 28:
“All difficulties with the pure Hydrogen Economy appear to be directly related to the nature of hydrogen. Most of the problems cannot be solved by additional research and development. We have to accept that hydrogen is the lightest of all gases and, as a consequence, that its physical properties do not fully match the requirements of the energy market. Production, packaging, storage, transfer and delivery of the gas, in essence all key component of an economy, are so energy consuming that alternatives should and will be considered. Mankind cannot afford to waste energy for idealistic goals, but economy will look for practical solutions and select the most energy-saving procedures. The "Pure-Hydrogen-Only-Solution" may never become reality.”

As you see, I have concentrated on transportation here, the fact of the matter is that oil does a lot of other things for us that hydrogen can’t really do, including all those things as well only makes the case worse for the pure hydrogen economy.

A few links for the interested:
http://www.peakoil.net/
http://www.hubbertpeak.com
http://www.hubbertpeak.com/youngquist/altenergy.htm
http://manila.servlet.net/fuelcellfolly/

I don’t see the need to say more than this on this subject. If anyone has good reasons to believe I am wrong, please speak up. Otherwise, let’s conclude that a pure hydrogen solution just won’t cut it and move on to other energy sources. This conclusion is by no means radical, many researchers and authors has drawn it before me.
Myself, I will now look into synthetic hydrocarbons, as discussed in [2].



Endnotes:

[1] see for example:
http://www.peakoil.net/iwood2003/MatSim.html
http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex...sdifferent.htm
http://www2.exxonmobil.com/corporate...03/page_5.html

The most interesting point here is:
“For example, we estimate that world oil and gas production from existing fields is declining at an average rate of about 4 to 6 percent a year. To meet projected demand in 2015, the industry will have to add about 100 million oil-equivalent barrels a day of new production. That’s equal to about 80 percent of today’s production level. In other words, by 2015, we will need to find, develop and produce a volume of new oil and gas that is equal to eight out of every 10 barrels being produced today. In addition, the cost associated with providing this additional oil and gas is expected to be considerably more than what industry is now spending.”

Contrast that statement to the fact that today we find 1 barrel of oil for every 6 we consume

[2] http://www.methanol.org/pdfFrame.cfm...Report2003.pdf
[3] http://www.after-oil.co.uk
[4] http://www.cypenv.org/Files/hydrogen.htm