One of the world's largest solar companies announces huge hydrogen project

[NNadir]

Cruising around the internet looking for that industrial scale wind powered hydrogen project of my dreams, I came across this tidbit:

The two energy giants BP and GE Energy (GE) intend to jointly develop and deploy hydrogen power plants with carbon capture and sequestration technologies.
As a first step, BP and GE will jointly participate in the two hydrogen power projects with carbon capture and sequestration that BP has announced – in Scotland and in Southern California - both of which will use GE technology. The companies have an ambition to progress with developing 10 to 15 further projects over the next decade with a cost frame of more than 60 billion NOK, including the plants in Scotland and California...

... Within solar power BP has established a strategic alliance with the University of Lisboa to find more cost effective production methods. And with the California Institute of Technology, Caltech, BP has started a five year long cooporation to test and develop new methods and materials for solar panel production...

...BP has already announced plans for two hydrogen power plants. At Peterhead, Scotland, BP together with Scottish and Southern Energy plan to build a 475MW hydrogen fired power plant based on natural gas. It would sequester 1.8 million tonnes per annum of carbon dioxide 4,000 metres below the seabed in the Miller oil field where the carbon dioxide will enable the production of some 40 million barrels of oil that would not otherwise have been recoverable. A final investment decision is due in early 2007 so the plant can be in commercial operation in 2010.

The second project is a 500MW hydrogen power plant at Carson, southern California. BP, and partner Edison Mission Energy, would take petroleum coke, a refinery by-product and synthetic form of coal, to create the hydrogen. The plant will capture and store 4 million tonnes per annum of carbon dioxide which, like the Peterhead project, will enable incremental oil production. This project is scheduled to be complete in 2011...

Bold mine.

Natural gas?

Petroleum Coke?

Oil recovery?

Isn't hydrogen supposed to come from wind plants and solar plants? Wouldn't one of the world's largest solar power companies, BP, announce solar powered hydrogen?

Am I missing something here? I mean how exactly is hydrogen production supposed to be saving us from global climate change?

[Javaman]

1. Yet another false alarm but the oil company spin masters...

"quick look over here! No, no, don't look at that machine spewing the C02, just a pay attention to how great we are at helping the earth, pay no mind to how it's just as polluting as everything else we do!"

Hydrogen production in any real fashion from none fossils is years (if ever) away.

They alway roll out hydro cars of the future but never announce a production date. The same goes with hydrogen plants, sure anyone can make hydrogen using fossil fuels, the real rub is making it with out it.

smoke and mirrors.

[NNadir]

3. Somehow I think that it's not only the oil guys in this shell game.

It would not be possible to pull the wool over people's eyes with tales of hydrogen if they didn't want to hear it.

We hear quite a bit about hydrogen from the "renewables are the only answer" crowd. They're always producing a wonderful picture of a demonstration hydrogen bus, or Utsira, or Governor Steroid Boy's hydrogen Hummer:



http://www.forbes.com/vehicles/2005/01/04/cx_dl_0104vow.html

I suppose the theory is that a demonstration relieves one of the responsibility of having to think about reality.

The reality of hydrogen is that it is overwhelmingly produced now from fossil fuels. Except for small amounts of byproduct (mostly from the chloralkali industry) hydrogen produced by existing hydroelectric plants, there are no plans to make it on an expanded industrial scale using renewable resources.

It's not a pretty picture: Making hydrogen from the fossil fuels is worse than using the fossil fuels directly, since the process is necessarily thermodynamically inefficient.

[GOPBasher]

2. Global Climate change is not a problem.

This is what Republicans tell me, so it totally must be true.

[jpak]

4. I posted this a long time ago

and you ARE missing something...

Electrolysis of water is ~85% efficient (1 J of electricity invested will yield ~0.85 J of hydrogen energy).

Norsk Hydro has been operating MW-scale electrolyzers for many years.

A 2000 MW wind and/or PV farm could produce enough hydrogen to operate that CA 475 MW hydrogen plant - continuously (with appropriately sized hydrogen storage).

Are there 1500 MW wind farms in development????

(yup in Norway and Sweden)

Are there 475 MW hydrogen power plants in development????

(yup in California and Scotland according to your link)

Are there 900 MW of mystical solar stirling electric power in development in southern California????

(yup)

and hundreds more magical MW of solar power tower capacity in development in southern Califonia????

(yup)

and 3000 magical mystical MW of dithering PV in development as a result of California's vile planet-killing Million Solar Roofs program????

(yup)

Finally, is there any law of physics that prevents wind and/or solar from producing hydrogen on industrial scales.

(nope)

The scale of these technologies is not a problem.

Will it save the world???

There is nothing to prevent them from doing so...

nice try though!!!

[NickB79]

13. Is there an exajoule of solar power anywhere in the world?

(nope)

Does solar and wind put together amount to more than a couple percent of worldwide energy production?

(nope)

How many years have they had to try to get there?

(50 years or more)

[skids]

5. So hypothetically in the theory of oilfield carbon sequestration...

What happens to all the oxygen molecules after the carbon is repressurized into oil?

Just wondrin.

[hatrack]

6. Maybe they could put some money into anti-corrosion research . . .

Just a suggestion.

:eyes:

[NNadir]

8. That's a thought. Petroleum coke is corrosive I bet.

I spent some time in Carson, California. Nice smelling place, if you like hydrocarbons.

[hatrack]

10. Oh, come on, NN!! What's a little SOX or mercaptan among friends?

:eyes:

[NNadir]

11. Especially once you've become desensitized.

This actually happens. Exposure to mercaptans effects your ability to detect them, as the citizens of Carson know.

The sulfur oxides help. Since they're so acidic, they dissolve your mucous membranes, including the little nerve thingies you use to detect odors.

[greenman3610]

7. Bonehead logic

"sequestering" the carbon by using it to force more oil out of the ground
is rather a shell game, don't you think?

[jpak]

9. Some energy companies are trying to get carbon credits for oil field

CO2 injections.

I'd like to see the carbon balance for those schemes....

[NNadir]

12. It seems pretty obvious that it is.

What makes shell games like this work is that people believe in them, though.

Some day they're going to forget about those well caps and they're going to blow all of that CO₂ out.

Carson may be a crappy place to live, but there is a large residential population nonetheless. I'm thinking Lake Nyos here.

[mccoyn]

14. We'll never be able to sequester all the carbon from oil.

Since the density of oil is so much greater than CO2 they won't be able to pump equivalent amounts of carbon back down. The wells will fill up.

If its a choice between CO2, atmosphere or fresh water I think the CO2 is probably the best.