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Scientists propose converting natural gas into hydrogen directly in gas fields

https://techxplore.com/news/2024-06-scientists-natural-gas-hydrogen-fields.html

Skoltech researchers have found a way to produce hydrogen from natural gas with 45% efficiency right in the gas field by injecting steam and a catalyst into a well and adding oxygen to ignite the gas. Catalyst-assisted combustion produces a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, from which the latter can be easily extracted. This technology will help accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to clean hydrogen power. The study was published in Fuel.

Scientists propose converting natural gas into hydrogen directly in gas fields

67 comments

Grimy

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Fuck hydrogen. Its a fake green product so oil companies can transition as slow as they want while still keeping their strangle hold on our society.

assassin_aragorn

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It depends a lot on where the hydrogen is sourced from. Hydrogen that is generated from electrolyzers using renewable power is completely green (and funny enough, called Green Hydrogen), and is a good way to store excess energy from solar and wind.

Oil companies however want to market hydrogen from drilling and refining, which is dirty as hell.

It's an important differentiation to make though. Hydrogen is not inherently bad and will have plenty of green applications. We just have to make sure it's coming from the right places.

Grimy

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Sadly almost all hydrogen currently making its way to market is dirty. I have high hopes for it in the future but it seems like thinly veiled poison at the moment.

And this article is definitely about the dirty kind or at least feels like it is.

assassin_aragorn

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There's companies working on it! ~~We're just broke~~

And yes, this is definitely the dirty kind. It may still be an improvement on using natural gas directly, but there would need to be a fairly comprehensive analysis to tell for sure. One possible advantage though is we could start building up a hydrogen infrastructure that we can then feed green hydrogen into and completely replace the dirty hydrogen.

Anyway though, you're right to be skeptical. It's important though to look into the details to determine if it's legitimately green energy or if it's just oil companies greenwashing. We need to shun the latter while we promote the former.

(There is a grey area, and it's the same as electric cars -- if we're using electricity from the grid to power cars, and electrolyzers which make hydrogen, is it truly green? I would say this is acceptable for the same reason EVs are acceptable. It'll become completely emission free once the grid is run on renewables.)

GissaMittJobb

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and is a good way to store excess energy from solar and wind.

Is it really that good of a storage method, though? The round-trip efficiency is quite bad when compared to other methods of storage.

assassin_aragorn

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We'll need it anyway to produce existing chemical materials sustainably. It may not be the best energy carrier nor most efficient, but it shines in specific applications. Vehicles are a promising example.

GissaMittJobb

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There are some use-cases where hydrogen will be useful, but I don't think storage is one of them. Nor do I think vehicles are a particularly good use-case either, as compared to just iterating on battery technology.

RarePossum

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Acording to this paper/article, its better than technologies such as batteries, but the study isn't the most comprehensive and doesn't consider things like pump hydro.

GissaMittJobb

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It's hard to assess the validity of those claims as the article doesn't bring any numbers and the paper itself is paywalled. As the fossil fuel industry is pushing hard towards wedging in hydrogen as a means of keeping themselves alive for a while longer, it's vital to be able to assess the actual claims, lest they are just planted there by the fossil fuel industry.