Of course climate-obsessed policymakers want to use it produce hydrogen and capture any CO2, at unknown but hefty expense — doing things the hard way. Why not save a fortune and just put it into the existing gas network?
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Low carbon hydrogen could heat up to 20 million homes and businesses across London and the South East of England for decades to come, according to a new industry report.
The Bacton Energy Hub (BEH), a Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) hydrogen project, located on the coast of Norfolk, could not only help to secure the UK’s energy supply but also play a major role in significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions, says the North Sea Transition Authority.
Currently the National Transmission System (NTS), supplying gas to homes and businesses in London and the South East of England, consists largely of methane. However, it is possible that by 2030 hydrogen produced at Bacton could be blended into the NTS, helping the transition to net zero while ensuring energy security.
Blending 20% hydrogen into the NTS creates the potential to abate 1.6 million tonnes per annum (MTpa) of CO2 by 2030, rising to 17MTpa by 2050.
CCS-enabled hydrogen – produced from natural gas with carbon dioxide captured and stored – would form the early supply until the early 2040s, after which electrolytic hydrogen – produced through a process of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen, called electrolysis – would take over.
CCS-enabled hydrogen production creates CO2 as a by-product and Bacton offers plentiful potential carbon storage fields – supported by the North Sea Transition Authority’s (NSTA) Carbon Storage Licensing Round – which can meet those needs.
There are undeveloped gas reserves of up to 2 trillion cubic feet at Bacton, which could be used as feedstock for the production of CCS-enabled hydrogen.
The NSTA’s 33rd Licensing Round, launched in October 2022, included four priority clusters in the Southern North Sea – areas with known hydrocarbons with the potential to be developed quickly – so the necessary gas resource is readily available.
The Climate Change Committee suggested that carbon storage can play an important role in scaling up the hydrogen industry. The use of hydrogen in boilers can save up to 85% of emissions compared to natural gas use in boilers.
The scale of the project is such that it will create hundreds of green jobs in East Anglia, providing a significant boost to the local economy.
Full article here.
via Tallbloke’s Talkshop
December 14, 2022 at 11:26AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 