Renewable, clean hydrogen power is coming to California. Here's what you need to know - University of California.edu

[Caribbeans]

Renewable, clean hydrogen power is coming to California. Here’s what you need to know.

Julia Busiek | UC Newsroom | December 4, 2023

You might remember from chemistry class that hydrogen is the lightest and most abundant element in the universe. You might not have learned that it’s also a powerful way to deliver clean, carbon-free energy. When it’s fed into a device called a fuel cell, hydrogen generates electricity and emits only heat and harmless water vapor.

Energy experts say hydrogen has great potential to cut global carbon emissions and keep toxic pollutants out of our air and water. And yet the technology hasn’t completely caught on in California, even as the state leads the way in other climate-friendly tech like electric vehicles. A few transit agencies run fuel cell buses, and you might be able to spot the occasional hydrogen-powered car on the highway. But the sectors where hydrogen power could make the biggest difference — like trucking, shipping and aviation — are still dominated by fossil fuels.

As the State strives to meet its goal of eliminating greenhouse gas emissions by 2045, hydrogen’s fortunes might be starting to change. In October, the federal Department of Energy chose California as one of seven hydrogen hubs, regions where the agency will fund coordinated networks of hydrogen fuel producers, purveyors and consumers. A University of California-backed consortium called the Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems, or ARCHES, managed the state’s application to DOE, and will steer up to $1.2 billion in federal funding toward 39 hydrogen infrastructure projects up and down the state.

Altogether, ARCHES projects are estimated to eliminate 2 million metric tons of carbon emissions every year, equivalent to taking 445,000 gas-powered cars off the road. They’ll create over 200,000 new good jobs. And by swapping diesel combustion engines spewing toxic exhaust for zero-pollution fuel cells, Californians will save nearly $3 billion in health care and related costs annually...more
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/renewable-clean-hydrogen-power-coming-california-heres-what-you-need-know

[Think. Again.]

1. The most common mistake people make about H2...

...has got to be the false idea that Hydrogen production will still cause greenhouse gas emissions.

This section of the OP article might help to clear that up...

"...Most of the hydrogen in use today comes from reacting natural gas with pressurized steam, a process that produces a lot of greenhouse gases. Hydrogen can also be made by zapping water with electricity in a process called electrolysis. This process doesn’t produce any greenhouse gases, so the hydrogen that results is as renewable as the electricity that’s used to make it.

Today electrolysis accounts for just two percent of hydrogen in circulation. The DOE funding is a big push to get that pendulum swinging in the other direction, since ARCHES will only fund hydrogen production projects that use renewable processes. Many of these projects will include dedicated solar or wind farms or get energy from biomass, so the electrolyzers won’t compete with electric vehicle chargers, home heat pumps and other climate-friendly tech that draws power from the grid.

Hydrogen could also help lower emissions from the grid itself, says Jack Brouwer, director of the Clean Energy Institute at UC Irvine. Today about 60 percent of California’s electricity comes from renewable sources annually, with occasional days near or at 100 percent. The state aims to meet all electricity demands with renewables within about two decades. Along the way, we will, alas, endure days or even weeks at a time when the wind won’t blow, the sun won’t break through the clouds or the rivers running through hydroelectric stations will slow to a trickle.

“In Germany, where their grid is more reliant on renewables, they call this dunkelflauten, or the dark doldrums,” Brouwer says. In recent years Germany has gone big on renewable hydrogen because they can use wind and solar to run electrolyzers and bank hydrogen when sun and wind are abundant. When dunkelflauten strikes, they can use that stored hydrogen to generate electricity, instead of firing up a coal or natural gas power plant as we typically need to do in California when renewable energy production dips."

From: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/renewable-clean-hydrogen-power-coming-california-heres-what-you-need-know

[airplaneman]

3. Someone needs to tell NNadir about this n/t.

[Mickju]

7. I would like to see his take on this.

[honest.abe]

8. He will post something about the laws of thermodynamics and nuclear is the only answer...

and anyone who thinks hydrogen can be part of the solution to our climate crisis has never opened a scientific textbook.

[progree]

4. Thanks for that. Good to hear (or read) /nt

[usonian]

2. So, I was wondering about that url, universityofcalifornia.edu

Well, it turns out that uc.edu is the University of Cincinnati.

[Think. Again.]

5. I'm curious, where did you get the UC.EDU address from?

The OP and the article presented are only citing the universityofcalifornia.edu address.

Were you confused by the UC Newsroom abbreviation in the byline?

[usonian]

6. I was just curious.

I worked at berkeley.edu, and all campuses are similar, including ucla.edu, ucsf.edu, ucmerced.edu, and ucop.edu, the office of the president.

So the main UC address is https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/ and not uc.

I had not heard of the long form until now, and that's a very long time.