At school we are taught that hydrogen burns to produce water. This is part of his image of pure fuel. But the new analysis provides warnings for the engineers who will design and operate our future energy systems.
In 2021, the UK government launched its hydrogen strategy by providing a roadmap for starting the hydrogen economy by 2030, which visualizes a future in which hydrogen can power boilers that heat our homes, power our transport and provide heat. for the production of chemicals and steel.
The first problem for engineers is that burning hydrogen doesn’t just produce water. This could lead to a continuation of current nitrogen dioxide pollution from the combustion of fossil fuels such as diesel and fossil gases.
The second problem comes from the leakage of hydrogen. Two government reports show that hydrogen is a global warming gas with a 100-year potential for global warming that is about 11 times that of carbon dioxide.
Unlike carbon dioxide, hydrogen has no direct effect on climate. Instead, it affects other pollutants.
Increased hydrogen in our air means that methane, the second most important gas from global warming, will stay in our air longer and have a greater impact.
More hydrogen would also change the amount of ozone in our atmosphere. This is the third most important gas for global warming. Near the ground, ozone harms our health and attacks plants, reducing yields.
Increased hydrogen would also change the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere and will affect our stratosphere, adding to the impact on the climate.
Hydrogen leaks are likely to come from the production and start-up and shut-down of turbines and our domestic boilers. It can also leak from pipe grids, where hydrogen will be mixed with fossil methane as a step towards hydrogen-powered villages and then to cities.
Prof. Dick Derwent, co-author of Air Quality and Climate Change: the Basics, who was not part of government reports, said: “Hydrogen offers a potential role in a low-carbon economy where a natural gas distribution network is already in place.
“Our work has shown that official data for the United Kingdom underestimates methane emissions from the gas distribution network. They get worse, not get better over time.
“Neither the government nor the gas industry in the UK has any idea what the rate of natural gas leakage is, so why do we expect hydrogen leakage to be different? Hydrogen distributed to the domestic sector may be problematic. “
Government reports suggest that burning hydrogen instead of fossil fuels will benefit the climate, but no matter how hydrogen is produced, maximizing climate benefits will require minimizing hydrogen leakage.
Add Comment