I'm old enough to remember Labour's Green Deal, and then I look at the size, complications and cost of heat pumps and I think...ok, good luck with that.
That was before the cost of gas quadrupled in the space of a couple of months. Alternative heating solutions and/or improved insulation might look rather more interesting to consumers now.
Its a lot of equipment to fit in a standard three bed semi.
Despite what is says if you are going to use the ASHP a lot then the radiators and pipework will need to changed, as pumping 40 degree water through 15mm pipework into a standard radiator will provide very limited heat.
Agree on the lot of equipment.
That looks like someone trying to create an opportunity to keep their technology in the game. It's problematic because 1 - we are pivoting away from gas, 2 - because it is a more complex install which will requite you to eg have 2 annual services not one (gas engineers will love you), 3 - because there are far simpler solutions available.
The stuff about always needing new pipework is for an ASHP is baloney, btw. You perhaps resize your rads (or use a double of the same size). Once you have improved your fabric you do a heat demand model for your house, and a calculation which will tell you what kit you need. Replacing rads is cheap. And then set the appropriate flow rate.
Keeping the same radiators is even cheaper. Which is what happens if you switch from natural gas to hydrogen.
Gas explosions are more common than you'd like them to be. Another home was destroyed in Ayr from a gas explosion yesterday. I was woken up by the Police and ordered to evacuate my own home in the week after the London Riots after a lone copycat moron chose to go on an arson campaign and set fire to the gas pipe going into one of my neighbours leading to a fear the entire bloc could go up.
I'm no chemist but from what I understand hydrogen seems even riskier than natural gas to be connected to homes for if things go wrong.
Safety studies have been performed, and more are ongoing. On balance, the risk from hydrogen is roughly the same as that from natural gas. While, for example, there is a greater leakage potential, hydrogen is less likely to achieve a fuel-air mixture in the explosive region. Also, no carbon monoxide deaths from hydrogen.
More to the point, how will it ever be economic ?
Once we fully internalise the negative externalities of burning unabated fossil fuels, then low-carbon technologies will be cheaper.
In other words, tax the feck out of CO2 emissions.
We think we've been having a free lunch since the dawn of the industrial revolution. Now the earth has presented us with the bill.
I'm not asking about the economics versus fossil fuels. I'm asking how producing hydrogen to heat homes will ever be economic versus doing so with green electricity.
Yup, hydrogen seems like a fool's errand. It would require ripping out and replacing our existing natural gas infrastructure to accommodate how tiny hydrogen molecules are.
The nation has got to look beyond gas delivery and move towards electrical heating for everything with electricity generated by SMR/mini-nukes and renewable energy with compressed air battery storage.
In the end hydrogen will prove to be unfeasible due to the hugely explosive nature and inability to safely transport and pipe it to homes it as we do with natural gas.
Over 80% of the existing infrastructure is hydrogen compatible and it is already being trialled. The large boiler companies are heavily investing in it. The issue is the safety.
Is it really that much more explosive than our current gas supply? I can't imagine it collecting in the air in the same way as methane unless a house is extremely well sealed.
The fuel-air mixes are different - the real issue is that hydrogen can leak much more easily. Proving that a set of pipework is hydrogen tight is an interesting challenge.
Yes, which is why the 80% number is a load of rubbish.
Who to believe, industry experts or a London based pensions man.
Will that be industry experts with or without an agenda?
Any time a so called expert speaks the first question you should stop and ask yourself is "who are they and what is their agenda?"
If their agenda is to ensure hydrogen is in the mix in the future because that's their business model then that makes them an actor in this, not an independent expert.
Of course that’s the case. But these people are people I used to work with who I catch up with from time to time. In our discussion there is no agenda and I don’t doubt they are right. Hydrogen may not be part of the domestic heating future but it may well be.
When I worked in the oil business - Hydrogen was the Future. Because electricity left them feeling a bit left out.
Run that by me again - hydrogen is more oil like than electricity is?
Yes, because the source of most hydrogen is methane (blue hydrogen).
I'm old enough to remember Labour's Green Deal, and then I look at the size, complications and cost of heat pumps and I think...ok, good luck with that.
That was before the cost of gas quadrupled in the space of a couple of months. Alternative heating solutions and/or improved insulation might look rather more interesting to consumers now.
Its a lot of equipment to fit in a standard three bed semi.
Despite what is says if you are going to use the ASHP a lot then the radiators and pipework will need to changed, as pumping 40 degree water through 15mm pipework into a standard radiator will provide very limited heat.
Agree on the lot of equipment.
That looks like someone trying to create an opportunity to keep their technology in the game. It's problematic because 1 - we are pivoting away from gas, 2 - because it is a more complex install which will requite you to eg have 2 annual services not one (gas engineers will love you), 3 - because there are far simpler solutions available.
The stuff about always needing new pipework is for an ASHP is baloney, btw. You perhaps resize your rads (or use a double of the same size). Once you have improved your fabric you do a heat demand model for your house, and a calculation which will tell you what kit you need. Replacing rads is cheap. And then set the appropriate flow rate.
Keeping the same radiators is even cheaper. Which is what happens if you switch from natural gas to hydrogen.
Gas explosions are more common than you'd like them to be. Another home was destroyed in Ayr from a gas explosion yesterday. I was woken up by the Police and ordered to evacuate my own home in the week after the London Riots after a lone copycat moron chose to go on an arson campaign and set fire to the gas pipe going into one of my neighbours leading to a fear the entire bloc could go up.
I'm no chemist but from what I understand hydrogen seems even riskier than natural gas to be connected to homes for if things go wrong.
Safety studies have been performed, and more are ongoing. On balance, the risk from hydrogen is roughly the same as that from natural gas. While, for example, there is a greater leakage potential, hydrogen is less likely to achieve a fuel-air mixture in the explosive region. Also, no carbon monoxide deaths from hydrogen.
More to the point, how will it ever be economic ?
Once we fully internalise the negative externalities of burning unabated fossil fuels, then low-carbon technologies will be cheaper.
In other words, tax the feck out of CO2 emissions.
We think we've been having a free lunch since the dawn of the industrial revolution. Now the earth has presented us with the bill.
I'm not asking about the economics versus fossil fuels. I'm asking how producing hydrogen to heat homes will ever be economic versus doing so with green electricity.
Yup, hydrogen seems like a fool's errand. It would require ripping out and replacing our existing natural gas infrastructure to accommodate how tiny hydrogen molecules are.
The nation has got to look beyond gas delivery and move towards electrical heating for everything with electricity generated by SMR/mini-nukes and renewable energy with compressed air battery storage.
In the end hydrogen will prove to be unfeasible due to the hugely explosive nature and inability to safely transport and pipe it to homes it as we do with natural gas.
Over 80% of the existing infrastructure is hydrogen compatible and it is already being trialled. The large boiler companies are heavily investing in it. The issue is the safety.
Is it really that much more explosive than our current gas supply? I can't imagine it collecting in the air in the same way as methane unless a house is extremely well sealed.
The fuel-air mixes are different - the real issue is that hydrogen can leak much more easily. Proving that a set of pipework is hydrogen tight is an interesting challenge.
Yes, which is why the 80% number is a load of rubbish.
Who to believe, industry experts or a London based pensions man.
Will that be industry experts with or without an agenda?
Any time a so called expert speaks the first question you should stop and ask yourself is "who are they and what is their agenda?"
If their agenda is to ensure hydrogen is in the mix in the future because that's their business model then that makes them an actor in this, not an independent expert.
Hydrogen may have some use as an industrial fuel, but for domestic heating it's likely to be marginal or a non event.
I expect that around 80% of homes that currently have a natural gas supply will end up being switched to a hydrogen supply.
So neither marginal nor a non-event.
You still haven't explained where it's going to come from.
In the short to medium term, blue hydrogen will be the primary source of decarbonised hydrogen. Natural gas reforming with carbon capture. Expect to see plants built as part of the clusters announced today.
Longer term, the cost of green hydrogen will come down and become the preferred source - for example as part of integrated offshore wind/electrolysis plants with the hydrogen piped to shore.
So we're going to burn gas for energy to turn other gas into hydrogen? Even if we say gas prices fall in the medium term how is that even close to economically viable? That's without addressing the CO2 storage costs, the cost of upgrading the existing natural gas storage distribution network to accept hydrogen. Who's investing all of this money?
It is economically viable when you internalise the negative externalities associated with CO2 emissions. A high enough carbon tax, and blue hydrogen is a lower cost option than just burning the natural gas.
As with other low carbon technologies, the government will give it a kick start through public sector funding. Co-funding CAPEX, support per tonne of decarbonised hydrogen produced, support for the costs of CO2 transport and storage.
Either the taxpayer pays, business pays, the consumer pays or the planet is buggered. Our choice.
But hydrogen is still competing with renewable electricity and electric water heating. It doesn't exist in isolation. With a high CO2 tax like that hydrogen would lose to electric. The automotive industry has already realised this, it won't be long until water heating goes the same way.
Why, if I had £1bn to invest in green energy, would I look at hydrogen instead of offshore wind plus compressed air batteries? The cost of the latter is lower and it doesn't rely on nice Mr Putin keeping the pipelines open.
Meeting the peak winter demand for heating (and the huge difference between summer and winter demand) is the challenge. We achieve this today with natural gas - line pack, salt cavern storage, LNG. I consider that it is much easier (and lower cost) to meet this challenge through hydrogen using a similar approach than with electricity.
None of this is easy or cheap. But if we want to achieve net zero, we need to do it - and pay for it.
But the economics of hydrogen don't make sense against renewable electricity even with an energy storage solution included in the LCOE. Again, I'll pose the question, why, as an investor with £1bn, would I invest in hydrogen vs renewable electricity? Even under your system of very high CO2 taxes the case for hydrogen against renewable electricity seems marginal to non-existent. The existing infrastructure of natural gas isn't as compatible as advertised either so there's a real chicken/egg situation too. Every household has got an electricity connection, though.
As an investor, you don't care whether people go cold in the winter. You want the biggest return on your investment. Depending on how the various grant and subsidy schemes work out, that could be in hydrogen, it could be in renewables, it could be in CCGT with carbon capture for power generation. In Northern Ireland it was from burning biomass and claiming a subsidy - happy days for those who got on board.
That is a different question to what is the most technically achievable and economically optimised solution of meeting the UK's energy needs as part of a net zero strategy.
Decarbonised electricity is clearly part of the solution - for lighting, transport and a proportion of heating. However, I consider that for the bulk of heating (domestic, commercial and industrial) a decarbonised fuel is required. There will be applications for biogas, bioliquids, wood, etc., but I see hydrogen as a central plank of the solution.
As a consumer, it is the easiest solution. New boiler for old, everything else stays the same. Happy days.
It is almost like Khan is a qualified solicitor who knows the temperate and non prejudicial language to be used.
No, I’m afraid you’re wrong. He uses “it appears” with “was another attempt to divide us”. “Horrific killing” is stated as fact
You need to go to Specsavers.
'it appears that the horrific killing'
No sorry, afraid you are wrong. I can read written English perfectly well. He wasn’t saying ‘it appears TO BE a horrific killing’ he’s saying ‘it appears that this horrific killing is attempting to divide us’
The ‘appears’ relates to the ‘another attempt to divide us’, not to the nature of the killing
I think we are allowed to say there was a horrific killing, it's not like anyone's defence is going to be that there wasn't. Pushing the argument only a bit further, perhaps we shouldn't be saying that Sir David is dead? It would be a perfectly good defence to a charge of murder, if he isn't.
In Ireland they've got into a bit of a tangle with courts preventing the naming of almost every criminal involved in an act of violence against a child, because to do so would risk revealing the identity of the child, sometimes even when the child is dead, which has been distressing for the child's family.
It's quite a long way from the principle of open justice.
As someone who used to design heat pump systems - I don’t like them.
I don’t really like anything that requires an expensive and unreliable gas safe qualified heating engineer to repair or service them.
The future is cheap renewable electricity and direct electric heating in my opinion. Much simpler and much less waste.
Less waste? Installing sufficient generating capacity to meet peak heating demand on a cold, still January evening?
Not viable.
Of course it’s viable. You just need masses of redundancy and adequate energy storage.
It’s slightly futurology but at the end of the day if you have a air source heat pump and traditional rads you’re basically going to be running at near direct electricity anyway on a cold January morning.
OK, yes, so technically viable. Not economically viable compared to the alternatives. Seasonal storage of hydrogen molecules is a lot easier than seasonal storage of electrons.
No, it's a nonsense. Hydrogen is not even remotely economic via electrolysis at present, and it's completely uncertain as to when it might be. You can't plan a nation's domestic heating on that basis. And if the tech for electrolysis ever does become economic, it would be far more practical to then make synthetic fuels rather than hydrogen.
In the meantime, storage technology is already a commercial reality and will improve year on year. And a Europe wide grid with interconnects to N Africa* will be a reality long before commercial hydrogen - which will deal with 9)% of the intermittency problem anyway.
My brother-in-law has an air source heat pump on his well insulated newly built house. They're becoming quite popular in the self-build market in rural Ireland I think - I walked past another one round the corner recently - but houses built for sale are still relying on oil. So I'm a fan.
These arguments over technology though demonstrate a weakness in the government approach of choosing which technology we will use and providing piecemeal grant schemes.
It would be much better if they would simply tax carbon, and then return the tax raised as a flat rate per capita payment. This would make all low/zero carbon alternatives relatively cheaper, tax the heaviest users of carbon most, provide cash to lower income households so that they can spend on improvements, and allow the market to choose which technology works best.
It would also mean that the exchequer would avoid becoming reliant on carbon taxes to fund day-to-day spending.
The exchequer hates that kind of scheme though. Maybe a PAYE rebate? That would really get the oldies worked up.
I'm old enough to remember Labour's Green Deal, and then I look at the size, complications and cost of heat pumps and I think...ok, good luck with that.
That was before the cost of gas quadrupled in the space of a couple of months. Alternative heating solutions and/or improved insulation might look rather more interesting to consumers now.
Its a lot of equipment to fit in a standard three bed semi.
Despite what is says if you are going to use the ASHP a lot then the radiators and pipework will need to changed, as pumping 40 degree water through 15mm pipework into a standard radiator will provide very limited heat.
Agree on the lot of equipment.
That looks like someone trying to create an opportunity to keep their technology in the game. It's problematic because 1 - we are pivoting away from gas, 2 - because it is a more complex install which will requite you to eg have 2 annual services not one (gas engineers will love you), 3 - because there are far simpler solutions available.
The stuff about always needing new pipework is for an ASHP is baloney, btw. You perhaps resize your rads (or use a double of the same size). Once you have improved your fabric you do a heat demand model for your house, and a calculation which will tell you what kit you need. Replacing rads is cheap. And then set the appropriate flow rate.
Keeping the same radiators is even cheaper. Which is what happens if you switch from natural gas to hydrogen.
Gas explosions are more common than you'd like them to be. Another home was destroyed in Ayr from a gas explosion yesterday. I was woken up by the Police and ordered to evacuate my own home in the week after the London Riots after a lone copycat moron chose to go on an arson campaign and set fire to the gas pipe going into one of my neighbours leading to a fear the entire bloc could go up.
I'm no chemist but from what I understand hydrogen seems even riskier than natural gas to be connected to homes for if things go wrong.
Safety studies have been performed, and more are ongoing. On balance, the risk from hydrogen is roughly the same as that from natural gas. While, for example, there is a greater leakage potential, hydrogen is less likely to achieve a fuel-air mixture in the explosive region. Also, no carbon monoxide deaths from hydrogen.
More to the point, how will it ever be economic ?
Once we fully internalise the negative externalities of burning unabated fossil fuels, then low-carbon technologies will be cheaper.
In other words, tax the feck out of CO2 emissions.
We think we've been having a free lunch since the dawn of the industrial revolution. Now the earth has presented us with the bill.
I'm not asking about the economics versus fossil fuels. I'm asking how producing hydrogen to heat homes will ever be economic versus doing so with green electricity.
Yup, hydrogen seems like a fool's errand. It would require ripping out and replacing our existing natural gas infrastructure to accommodate how tiny hydrogen molecules are.
The nation has got to look beyond gas delivery and move towards electrical heating for everything with electricity generated by SMR/mini-nukes and renewable energy with compressed air battery storage.
In the end hydrogen will prove to be unfeasible due to the hugely explosive nature and inability to safely transport and pipe it to homes it as we do with natural gas.
Over 80% of the existing infrastructure is hydrogen compatible and it is already being trialled. The large boiler companies are heavily investing in it. The issue is the safety.
Is it really that much more explosive than our current gas supply? I can't imagine it collecting in the air in the same way as methane unless a house is extremely well sealed.
The fuel-air mixes are different - the real issue is that hydrogen can leak much more easily. Proving that a set of pipework is hydrogen tight is an interesting challenge.
Yes, which is why the 80% number is a load of rubbish.
Who to believe, industry experts or a London based pensions man.
Will that be industry experts with or without an agenda?
Any time a so called expert speaks the first question you should stop and ask yourself is "who are they and what is their agenda?"
If their agenda is to ensure hydrogen is in the mix in the future because that's their business model then that makes them an actor in this, not an independent expert.
Hydrogen may have some use as an industrial fuel, but for domestic heating it's likely to be marginal or a non event.
I expect that around 80% of homes that currently have a natural gas supply will end up being switched to a hydrogen supply.
So neither marginal nor a non-event.
You still haven't explained where it's going to come from.
In the short to medium term, blue hydrogen will be the primary source of decarbonised hydrogen. Natural gas reforming with carbon capture. Expect to see plants built as part of the clusters announced today.
Longer term, the cost of green hydrogen will come down and become the preferred source - for example as part of integrated offshore wind/electrolysis plants with the hydrogen piped to shore.
So we're going to burn gas for energy to turn other gas into hydrogen? Even if we say gas prices fall in the medium term how is that even close to economically viable? That's without addressing the CO2 storage costs, the cost of upgrading the existing natural gas storage distribution network to accept hydrogen. Who's investing all of this money?
It is economically viable when you internalise the negative externalities associated with CO2 emissions. A high enough carbon tax, and blue hydrogen is a lower cost option than just burning the natural gas.
As with other low carbon technologies, the government will give it a kick start through public sector funding. Co-funding CAPEX, support per tonne of decarbonised hydrogen produced, support for the costs of CO2 transport and storage.
Either the taxpayer pays, business pays, the consumer pays or the planet is buggered. Our choice.
But hydrogen is still competing with renewable electricity and electric water heating. It doesn't exist in isolation. With a high CO2 tax like that hydrogen would lose to electric. The automotive industry has already realised this, it won't be long until water heating goes the same way.
Why, if I had £1bn to invest in green energy, would I look at hydrogen instead of offshore wind plus compressed air batteries? The cost of the latter is lower and it doesn't rely on nice Mr Putin keeping the pipelines open.
Meeting the peak winter demand for heating (and the huge difference between summer and winter demand) is the challenge. We achieve this today with natural gas - line pack, salt cavern storage, LNG. I consider that it is much easier (and lower cost) to meet this challenge through hydrogen using a similar approach than with electricity.
None of this is easy or cheap. But if we want to achieve net zero, we need to do it - and pay for it.
But the economics of hydrogen don't make sense against renewable electricity even with an energy storage solution included in the LCOE. Again, I'll pose the question, why, as an investor with £1bn, would I invest in hydrogen vs renewable electricity? Even under your system of very high CO2 taxes the case for hydrogen against renewable electricity seems marginal to non-existent. The existing infrastructure of natural gas isn't as compatible as advertised either so there's a real chicken/egg situation too. Every household has got an electricity connection, though.
The big problem is the amount of energy that has to be expended in making hydrogen. Then storing and transporting it is a pain.
The classic is the hydrogen powered car.
1) To get decent range needs to use a fuel cell to generate electricity, rather than an ICE. 2) So you have an electric car driven by a hydrogen fuel cell. 3) But for efficiency, too get more range, you need regenerative braking. 4) So you add a battery, controllers etc. 5) So you now have a fuel cell, hydrogen, a battery and electric power train. 6) But hydrogen refuels so much more quickly? or does it? 7) Cryogenic (liquid) hydrogen has interesting handling problems. Oh, and you can't pump it quickly. 8) Compressed gas hydrogen is extremely dangerous. Look up the handling rules for that.
or
You make the battery bigger and have an EV.
The other thing about fuel cell vehicles is that they require a very efficient and reliable compressor to deliver a sufficient supply of oxygen to the fuel cell in order to develop enough power. Which is the essential component of a reliable heat pump...
Statement by Donald J Trump, 45th President of the USA, on the death of Colin Powell.
'Wonderful to see Colin Powell, who made big mistakes on Iraq and famously, so-called weapons of mass destruction, be treated in death so beautifully by the Fake News Media. Hope that happens to me someday. He was a classic RINO, if even that, always being the first to attack other Republicans. He made plenty of mistakes, but anyway, may he rest in peace!'
Massive nuclear programme plus direct electric heating for most domestic properties is the only way net zero can be done without significant technological breakthroughs that might not occur and are unlikely to occur in the target time frame. Relying on wind is naïve because long periods of cold still weather over western Europe are common. For once government needs a set of contingent plans with decision gateways based on climate data and compliance of other countries. So identify and prepare the nuclear sites now, pilots for newer technology like small modular reactors then a contingent roll out. UK "going it alone" is economic suicide and means we have reduced resources for adapting to big climate changes if needed (I doubt they will be but that is a separate argument).
I'm old enough to remember Labour's Green Deal, and then I look at the size, complications and cost of heat pumps and I think...ok, good luck with that.
That was before the cost of gas quadrupled in the space of a couple of months. Alternative heating solutions and/or improved insulation might look rather more interesting to consumers now.
Its a lot of equipment to fit in a standard three bed semi.
Despite what is says if you are going to use the ASHP a lot then the radiators and pipework will need to changed, as pumping 40 degree water through 15mm pipework into a standard radiator will provide very limited heat.
Agree on the lot of equipment.
That looks like someone trying to create an opportunity to keep their technology in the game. It's problematic because 1 - we are pivoting away from gas, 2 - because it is a more complex install which will requite you to eg have 2 annual services not one (gas engineers will love you), 3 - because there are far simpler solutions available.
The stuff about always needing new pipework is for an ASHP is baloney, btw. You perhaps resize your rads (or use a double of the same size). Once you have improved your fabric you do a heat demand model for your house, and a calculation which will tell you what kit you need. Replacing rads is cheap. And then set the appropriate flow rate.
Keeping the same radiators is even cheaper. Which is what happens if you switch from natural gas to hydrogen.
Gas explosions are more common than you'd like them to be. Another home was destroyed in Ayr from a gas explosion yesterday. I was woken up by the Police and ordered to evacuate my own home in the week after the London Riots after a lone copycat moron chose to go on an arson campaign and set fire to the gas pipe going into one of my neighbours leading to a fear the entire bloc could go up.
I'm no chemist but from what I understand hydrogen seems even riskier than natural gas to be connected to homes for if things go wrong.
Safety studies have been performed, and more are ongoing. On balance, the risk from hydrogen is roughly the same as that from natural gas. While, for example, there is a greater leakage potential, hydrogen is less likely to achieve a fuel-air mixture in the explosive region. Also, no carbon monoxide deaths from hydrogen.
More to the point, how will it ever be economic ?
Once we fully internalise the negative externalities of burning unabated fossil fuels, then low-carbon technologies will be cheaper.
In other words, tax the feck out of CO2 emissions.
We think we've been having a free lunch since the dawn of the industrial revolution. Now the earth has presented us with the bill.
I'm not asking about the economics versus fossil fuels. I'm asking how producing hydrogen to heat homes will ever be economic versus doing so with green electricity.
Yup, hydrogen seems like a fool's errand. It would require ripping out and replacing our existing natural gas infrastructure to accommodate how tiny hydrogen molecules are.
The nation has got to look beyond gas delivery and move towards electrical heating for everything with electricity generated by SMR/mini-nukes and renewable energy with compressed air battery storage.
In the end hydrogen will prove to be unfeasible due to the hugely explosive nature and inability to safely transport and pipe it to homes it as we do with natural gas.
Over 80% of the existing infrastructure is hydrogen compatible and it is already being trialled. The large boiler companies are heavily investing in it. The issue is the safety.
Is it really that much more explosive than our current gas supply? I can't imagine it collecting in the air in the same way as methane unless a house is extremely well sealed.
The fuel-air mixes are different - the real issue is that hydrogen can leak much more easily. Proving that a set of pipework is hydrogen tight is an interesting challenge.
Yes, which is why the 80% number is a load of rubbish.
Who to believe, industry experts or a London based pensions man.
Will that be industry experts with or without an agenda?
Any time a so called expert speaks the first question you should stop and ask yourself is "who are they and what is their agenda?"
If their agenda is to ensure hydrogen is in the mix in the future because that's their business model then that makes them an actor in this, not an independent expert.
Of course that’s the case. But these people are people I used to work with who I catch up with from time to time. In our discussion there is no agenda and I don’t doubt they are right. Hydrogen may not be part of the domestic heating future but it may well be.
When I worked in the oil business - Hydrogen was the Future. Because electricity left them feeling a bit left out.
Quite. The Hydrogen source is intended to be the existing gas industry using reforming to extract H2 from methane and sequestering the carbon somewhere. But the actual output of that process is CO2, so you need to put energy into turning CO2 into carbon, or else claim that your CO2 storage is going to keep a lid on large amounts of CO2 indefinitely.
You do not turn CO2 into carbon. You sequester CO2 in geological formations. That have held hydrocarbons for millions of years. So it will stay there.
I'm old enough to remember Labour's Green Deal, and then I look at the size, complications and cost of heat pumps and I think...ok, good luck with that.
That was before the cost of gas quadrupled in the space of a couple of months. Alternative heating solutions and/or improved insulation might look rather more interesting to consumers now.
Its a lot of equipment to fit in a standard three bed semi.
Despite what is says if you are going to use the ASHP a lot then the radiators and pipework will need to changed, as pumping 40 degree water through 15mm pipework into a standard radiator will provide very limited heat.
Agree on the lot of equipment.
That looks like someone trying to create an opportunity to keep their technology in the game. It's problematic because 1 - we are pivoting away from gas, 2 - because it is a more complex install which will requite you to eg have 2 annual services not one (gas engineers will love you), 3 - because there are far simpler solutions available.
The stuff about always needing new pipework is for an ASHP is baloney, btw. You perhaps resize your rads (or use a double of the same size). Once you have improved your fabric you do a heat demand model for your house, and a calculation which will tell you what kit you need. Replacing rads is cheap. And then set the appropriate flow rate.
Keeping the same radiators is even cheaper. Which is what happens if you switch from natural gas to hydrogen.
Gas explosions are more common than you'd like them to be. Another home was destroyed in Ayr from a gas explosion yesterday. I was woken up by the Police and ordered to evacuate my own home in the week after the London Riots after a lone copycat moron chose to go on an arson campaign and set fire to the gas pipe going into one of my neighbours leading to a fear the entire bloc could go up.
I'm no chemist but from what I understand hydrogen seems even riskier than natural gas to be connected to homes for if things go wrong.
Safety studies have been performed, and more are ongoing. On balance, the risk from hydrogen is roughly the same as that from natural gas. While, for example, there is a greater leakage potential, hydrogen is less likely to achieve a fuel-air mixture in the explosive region. Also, no carbon monoxide deaths from hydrogen.
More to the point, how will it ever be economic ?
Once we fully internalise the negative externalities of burning unabated fossil fuels, then low-carbon technologies will be cheaper.
In other words, tax the feck out of CO2 emissions.
We think we've been having a free lunch since the dawn of the industrial revolution. Now the earth has presented us with the bill.
I'm not asking about the economics versus fossil fuels. I'm asking how producing hydrogen to heat homes will ever be economic versus doing so with green electricity.
Yup, hydrogen seems like a fool's errand. It would require ripping out and replacing our existing natural gas infrastructure to accommodate how tiny hydrogen molecules are.
The nation has got to look beyond gas delivery and move towards electrical heating for everything with electricity generated by SMR/mini-nukes and renewable energy with compressed air battery storage.
In the end hydrogen will prove to be unfeasible due to the hugely explosive nature and inability to safely transport and pipe it to homes it as we do with natural gas.
Over 80% of the existing infrastructure is hydrogen compatible and it is already being trialled. The large boiler companies are heavily investing in it. The issue is the safety.
Is it really that much more explosive than our current gas supply? I can't imagine it collecting in the air in the same way as methane unless a house is extremely well sealed.
The fuel-air mixes are different - the real issue is that hydrogen can leak much more easily. Proving that a set of pipework is hydrogen tight is an interesting challenge.
Yes, which is why the 80% number is a load of rubbish.
Who to believe, industry experts or a London based pensions man.
Will that be industry experts with or without an agenda?
Any time a so called expert speaks the first question you should stop and ask yourself is "who are they and what is their agenda?"
If their agenda is to ensure hydrogen is in the mix in the future because that's their business model then that makes them an actor in this, not an independent expert.
Hydrogen may have some use as an industrial fuel, but for domestic heating it's likely to be marginal or a non event.
I expect that around 80% of homes that currently have a natural gas supply will end up being switched to a hydrogen supply.
So neither marginal nor a non-event.
You still haven't explained where it's going to come from.
In the short to medium term, blue hydrogen will be the primary source of decarbonised hydrogen. Natural gas reforming with carbon capture. Expect to see plants built as part of the clusters announced today.
Longer term, the cost of green hydrogen will come down and become the preferred source - for example as part of integrated offshore wind/electrolysis plants with the hydrogen piped to shore.
So we're going to burn gas for energy to turn other gas into hydrogen? Even if we say gas prices fall in the medium term how is that even close to economically viable? That's without addressing the CO2 storage costs, the cost of upgrading the existing natural gas storage distribution network to accept hydrogen. Who's investing all of this money?
It is economically viable when you internalise the negative externalities associated with CO2 emissions. A high enough carbon tax, and blue hydrogen is a lower cost option than just burning the natural gas.
As with other low carbon technologies, the government will give it a kick start through public sector funding. Co-funding CAPEX, support per tonne of decarbonised hydrogen produced, support for the costs of CO2 transport and storage.
Either the taxpayer pays, business pays, the consumer pays or the planet is buggered. Our choice.
But hydrogen is still competing with renewable electricity and electric water heating. It doesn't exist in isolation. With a high CO2 tax like that hydrogen would lose to electric. The automotive industry has already realised this, it won't be long until water heating goes the same way.
Why, if I had £1bn to invest in green energy, would I look at hydrogen instead of offshore wind plus compressed air batteries? The cost of the latter is lower and it doesn't rely on nice Mr Putin keeping the pipelines open.
Meeting the peak winter demand for heating (and the huge difference between summer and winter demand) is the challenge. We achieve this today with natural gas - line pack, salt cavern storage, LNG. I consider that it is much easier (and lower cost) to meet this challenge through hydrogen using a similar approach than with electricity.
None of this is easy or cheap. But if we want to achieve net zero, we need to do it - and pay for it.
But the economics of hydrogen don't make sense against renewable electricity even with an energy storage solution included in the LCOE. Again, I'll pose the question, why, as an investor with £1bn, would I invest in hydrogen vs renewable electricity? Even under your system of very high CO2 taxes the case for hydrogen against renewable electricity seems marginal to non-existent. The existing infrastructure of natural gas isn't as compatible as advertised either so there's a real chicken/egg situation too. Every household has got an electricity connection, though.
As an investor, you don't care whether people go cold in the winter. You want the biggest return on your investment. Depending on how the various grant and subsidy schemes work out, that could be in hydrogen, it could be in renewables, it could be in CCGT with carbon capture for power generation. In Northern Ireland it was from burning biomass and claiming a subsidy - happy days for those who got on board.
That is a different question to what is the most technically achievable and economically optimised solution of meeting the UK's energy needs as part of a net zero strategy.
Decarbonised electricity is clearly part of the solution - for lighting, transport and a proportion of heating. However, I consider that for the bulk of heating (domestic, commercial and industrial) a decarbonised fuel is required. There will be applications for biogas, bioliquids, wood, etc., but I see hydrogen as a central plank of the solution.
As a consumer, it is the easiest solution. New boiler for old, everything else stays the same. Happy days.
Why would the state subsidise hydrogen when renewable electricity is already a decarbonised source of energy? Hydrogen, especially blue hydrogen, is actively competing with renewable electricity generation and it loses on every metric.
Also your idea that you can simply install a new hydrogen boiler into a domestic scenario is laughable. You're welcome to do it in your own place.
I've only seen 3 of the top 25. Fleabag, Office, Sherlock. All trad BRITISH shows. And people say I'm not a patriot.
You spend too long a) on PB: and/or b) playing golf; and/or c) at that little bar you know down the road.
It's fair criticism. Box sets are the high art of our day and I'm woefully underexposed. The actual real reason for this is I have a pretty basic TV set-up.
I'm old enough to remember Labour's Green Deal, and then I look at the size, complications and cost of heat pumps and I think...ok, good luck with that.
That was before the cost of gas quadrupled in the space of a couple of months. Alternative heating solutions and/or improved insulation might look rather more interesting to consumers now.
Its a lot of equipment to fit in a standard three bed semi.
Despite what is says if you are going to use the ASHP a lot then the radiators and pipework will need to changed, as pumping 40 degree water through 15mm pipework into a standard radiator will provide very limited heat.
Agree on the lot of equipment.
That looks like someone trying to create an opportunity to keep their technology in the game. It's problematic because 1 - we are pivoting away from gas, 2 - because it is a more complex install which will requite you to eg have 2 annual services not one (gas engineers will love you), 3 - because there are far simpler solutions available.
The stuff about always needing new pipework is for an ASHP is baloney, btw. You perhaps resize your rads (or use a double of the same size). Once you have improved your fabric you do a heat demand model for your house, and a calculation which will tell you what kit you need. Replacing rads is cheap. And then set the appropriate flow rate.
Keeping the same radiators is even cheaper. Which is what happens if you switch from natural gas to hydrogen.
Gas explosions are more common than you'd like them to be. Another home was destroyed in Ayr from a gas explosion yesterday. I was woken up by the Police and ordered to evacuate my own home in the week after the London Riots after a lone copycat moron chose to go on an arson campaign and set fire to the gas pipe going into one of my neighbours leading to a fear the entire bloc could go up.
I'm no chemist but from what I understand hydrogen seems even riskier than natural gas to be connected to homes for if things go wrong.
Safety studies have been performed, and more are ongoing. On balance, the risk from hydrogen is roughly the same as that from natural gas. While, for example, there is a greater leakage potential, hydrogen is less likely to achieve a fuel-air mixture in the explosive region. Also, no carbon monoxide deaths from hydrogen.
More to the point, how will it ever be economic ?
Once we fully internalise the negative externalities of burning unabated fossil fuels, then low-carbon technologies will be cheaper.
In other words, tax the feck out of CO2 emissions.
We think we've been having a free lunch since the dawn of the industrial revolution. Now the earth has presented us with the bill.
I'm not asking about the economics versus fossil fuels. I'm asking how producing hydrogen to heat homes will ever be economic versus doing so with green electricity.
Yup, hydrogen seems like a fool's errand. It would require ripping out and replacing our existing natural gas infrastructure to accommodate how tiny hydrogen molecules are.
The nation has got to look beyond gas delivery and move towards electrical heating for everything with electricity generated by SMR/mini-nukes and renewable energy with compressed air battery storage.
In the end hydrogen will prove to be unfeasible due to the hugely explosive nature and inability to safely transport and pipe it to homes it as we do with natural gas.
Over 80% of the existing infrastructure is hydrogen compatible and it is already being trialled. The large boiler companies are heavily investing in it. The issue is the safety.
Is it really that much more explosive than our current gas supply? I can't imagine it collecting in the air in the same way as methane unless a house is extremely well sealed.
The fuel-air mixes are different - the real issue is that hydrogen can leak much more easily. Proving that a set of pipework is hydrogen tight is an interesting challenge.
Yes, which is why the 80% number is a load of rubbish.
Who to believe, industry experts or a London based pensions man.
Will that be industry experts with or without an agenda?
Any time a so called expert speaks the first question you should stop and ask yourself is "who are they and what is their agenda?"
If their agenda is to ensure hydrogen is in the mix in the future because that's their business model then that makes them an actor in this, not an independent expert.
Of course that’s the case. But these people are people I used to work with who I catch up with from time to time. In our discussion there is no agenda and I don’t doubt they are right. Hydrogen may not be part of the domestic heating future but it may well be.
When I worked in the oil business - Hydrogen was the Future. Because electricity left them feeling a bit left out.
Run that by me again - hydrogen is more oil like than electricity is?
Yes, because the source of most hydrogen is methane (blue hydrogen).
"blue" makes it sound like it is made from water or some such though.
The Information Commissioner’s Office has announced that as part of their pursuit of a “Single View of the Customer” (SVoC), it is their intention that all “behavioural data” of gamblers will be shared from a centralised store. The genesis of the SVoC, which began in November 2020, was to ensure operators and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) together with the Gambling Commission had an overview of data, which would help identify problem gamblers before it became an issue. Why this role has fallen to the Information Commissioner is not clear to Guido.
In summary:
Bookies will be forced to share “behavioural data” of current customers with other gambling firms and the government-run ICO and Gambling Commission.
The ICO has said it expects – in addition to behavioural data – for the Gambling Commission to collect “credit reference data on personal income.”
Any gambler who has more than one gambling account will be added to a register of gamblers, which all operators and government will have access to.
The SVoC plan poses a clear and unprecedented level of privacy infringement. Bookies will be forced to share personal data with government agencies, including: how much is deposited, where people live, names, addresses. This will develop into the government having the power to oversee credit-referenced data and, ultimately, decide if the person can gamble. Regular gamblers, like the Queen, will have to be on the government’s gamblers’ register just to have a flutter on the Derby.
It is almost like Khan is a qualified solicitor who knows the temperate and non prejudicial language to be used.
No, I’m afraid you’re wrong. He uses “it appears” with “was another attempt to divide us”. “Horrific killing” is stated as fact
You need to go to Specsavers.
'it appears that the horrific killing'
No sorry, afraid you are wrong. I can read written English perfectly well. He wasn’t saying ‘it appears TO BE a horrific killing’ he’s saying ‘it appears that this horrific killing is attempting to divide us’
The ‘appears’ relates to the ‘another attempt to divide us’, not to the nature of the killing
I think we are allowed to say there was a horrific killing, it's not like anyone's defence is going to be that there wasn't. Pushing the argument only a bit further, perhaps we shouldn't be saying that Sir David is dead? It would be a perfectly good defence to a charge of murder, if he isn't.
In Ireland they've got into a bit of a tangle with courts preventing the naming of almost every criminal involved in an act of violence against a child, because to do so would risk revealing the identity of the child, sometimes even when the child is dead, which has been distressing for the child's family.
It's quite a long way from the principle of open justice.
I find the sociology of Ireland over the last few decades fascinating. It’s gone from everyone collectively turning a blind eye to the the abuse of the vulnerable, to where they are now. The old order has completely collapsed and they’re still figuring out what to put in its place. How much “protect the children” is too much?
I'm old enough to remember Labour's Green Deal, and then I look at the size, complications and cost of heat pumps and I think...ok, good luck with that.
That was before the cost of gas quadrupled in the space of a couple of months. Alternative heating solutions and/or improved insulation might look rather more interesting to consumers now.
Its a lot of equipment to fit in a standard three bed semi.
Despite what is says if you are going to use the ASHP a lot then the radiators and pipework will need to changed, as pumping 40 degree water through 15mm pipework into a standard radiator will provide very limited heat.
Agree on the lot of equipment.
That looks like someone trying to create an opportunity to keep their technology in the game. It's problematic because 1 - we are pivoting away from gas, 2 - because it is a more complex install which will requite you to eg have 2 annual services not one (gas engineers will love you), 3 - because there are far simpler solutions available.
The stuff about always needing new pipework is for an ASHP is baloney, btw. You perhaps resize your rads (or use a double of the same size). Once you have improved your fabric you do a heat demand model for your house, and a calculation which will tell you what kit you need. Replacing rads is cheap. And then set the appropriate flow rate.
Keeping the same radiators is even cheaper. Which is what happens if you switch from natural gas to hydrogen.
Gas explosions are more common than you'd like them to be. Another home was destroyed in Ayr from a gas explosion yesterday. I was woken up by the Police and ordered to evacuate my own home in the week after the London Riots after a lone copycat moron chose to go on an arson campaign and set fire to the gas pipe going into one of my neighbours leading to a fear the entire bloc could go up.
I'm no chemist but from what I understand hydrogen seems even riskier than natural gas to be connected to homes for if things go wrong.
Safety studies have been performed, and more are ongoing. On balance, the risk from hydrogen is roughly the same as that from natural gas. While, for example, there is a greater leakage potential, hydrogen is less likely to achieve a fuel-air mixture in the explosive region. Also, no carbon monoxide deaths from hydrogen.
More to the point, how will it ever be economic ?
Once we fully internalise the negative externalities of burning unabated fossil fuels, then low-carbon technologies will be cheaper.
In other words, tax the feck out of CO2 emissions.
We think we've been having a free lunch since the dawn of the industrial revolution. Now the earth has presented us with the bill.
I'm not asking about the economics versus fossil fuels. I'm asking how producing hydrogen to heat homes will ever be economic versus doing so with green electricity.
Yup, hydrogen seems like a fool's errand. It would require ripping out and replacing our existing natural gas infrastructure to accommodate how tiny hydrogen molecules are.
The nation has got to look beyond gas delivery and move towards electrical heating for everything with electricity generated by SMR/mini-nukes and renewable energy with compressed air battery storage.
In the end hydrogen will prove to be unfeasible due to the hugely explosive nature and inability to safely transport and pipe it to homes it as we do with natural gas.
Over 80% of the existing infrastructure is hydrogen compatible and it is already being trialled. The large boiler companies are heavily investing in it. The issue is the safety.
Is it really that much more explosive than our current gas supply? I can't imagine it collecting in the air in the same way as methane unless a house is extremely well sealed.
The fuel-air mixes are different - the real issue is that hydrogen can leak much more easily. Proving that a set of pipework is hydrogen tight is an interesting challenge.
Yes, which is why the 80% number is a load of rubbish.
Who to believe, industry experts or a London based pensions man.
Will that be industry experts with or without an agenda?
Any time a so called expert speaks the first question you should stop and ask yourself is "who are they and what is their agenda?"
If their agenda is to ensure hydrogen is in the mix in the future because that's their business model then that makes them an actor in this, not an independent expert.
Of course that’s the case. But these people are people I used to work with who I catch up with from time to time. In our discussion there is no agenda and I don’t doubt they are right. Hydrogen may not be part of the domestic heating future but it may well be.
When I worked in the oil business - Hydrogen was the Future. Because electricity left them feeling a bit left out.
Run that by me again - hydrogen is more oil like than electricity is?
Yes, because the source of most hydrogen is methane (blue hydrogen).
Thanks.
Extracting it from water not as easy as one would hope, then
Statement by Donald J Trump, 45th President of the USA, on the death of Colin Powell.
'Wonderful to see Colin Powell, who made big mistakes on Iraq and famously, so-called weapons of mass destruction, be treated in death so beautifully by the Fake News Media. Hope that happens to me someday. He was a classic RINO, if even that, always being the first to attack other Republicans. He made plenty of mistakes, but anyway, may he rest in peace!'
Leaving aside Trump’s (somewhat expected) shameless narcissism, I did find the hagiographic treatment of Powell by the msm rather nauseating. Trump has a point.
He was a complicated politician, whose career was notable for his one major fuckup. Iraq - in particular, the lies on which it was justified - was unforgivable.
His passing is notable. And, on a human level, sad. That is all.
He also liberated Kuwait from Saddam in 1990 and finally Iraq from Saddam in 2003.
However it does show how far US politics has shifted since then that the Democratic President has withdrawn US troops from Afghanistan and the lead candidate for the 2024 GOP nomination has attacked the former Secretary of State from his party over WMD claims and the Iraq War.
Neoconservatism is without a home in US politics for now
You just have to read Fred Barnes or Bill Kristol to know that is true.
I'm old enough to remember Labour's Green Deal, and then I look at the size, complications and cost of heat pumps and I think...ok, good luck with that.
That was before the cost of gas quadrupled in the space of a couple of months. Alternative heating solutions and/or improved insulation might look rather more interesting to consumers now.
Its a lot of equipment to fit in a standard three bed semi.
Despite what is says if you are going to use the ASHP a lot then the radiators and pipework will need to changed, as pumping 40 degree water through 15mm pipework into a standard radiator will provide very limited heat.
Agree on the lot of equipment.
That looks like someone trying to create an opportunity to keep their technology in the game. It's problematic because 1 - we are pivoting away from gas, 2 - because it is a more complex install which will requite you to eg have 2 annual services not one (gas engineers will love you), 3 - because there are far simpler solutions available.
The stuff about always needing new pipework is for an ASHP is baloney, btw. You perhaps resize your rads (or use a double of the same size). Once you have improved your fabric you do a heat demand model for your house, and a calculation which will tell you what kit you need. Replacing rads is cheap. And then set the appropriate flow rate.
Keeping the same radiators is even cheaper. Which is what happens if you switch from natural gas to hydrogen.
Gas explosions are more common than you'd like them to be. Another home was destroyed in Ayr from a gas explosion yesterday. I was woken up by the Police and ordered to evacuate my own home in the week after the London Riots after a lone copycat moron chose to go on an arson campaign and set fire to the gas pipe going into one of my neighbours leading to a fear the entire bloc could go up.
I'm no chemist but from what I understand hydrogen seems even riskier than natural gas to be connected to homes for if things go wrong.
Safety studies have been performed, and more are ongoing. On balance, the risk from hydrogen is roughly the same as that from natural gas. While, for example, there is a greater leakage potential, hydrogen is less likely to achieve a fuel-air mixture in the explosive region. Also, no carbon monoxide deaths from hydrogen.
More to the point, how will it ever be economic ?
Once we fully internalise the negative externalities of burning unabated fossil fuels, then low-carbon technologies will be cheaper.
In other words, tax the feck out of CO2 emissions.
We think we've been having a free lunch since the dawn of the industrial revolution. Now the earth has presented us with the bill.
I'm not asking about the economics versus fossil fuels. I'm asking how producing hydrogen to heat homes will ever be economic versus doing so with green electricity.
Yup, hydrogen seems like a fool's errand. It would require ripping out and replacing our existing natural gas infrastructure to accommodate how tiny hydrogen molecules are.
The nation has got to look beyond gas delivery and move towards electrical heating for everything with electricity generated by SMR/mini-nukes and renewable energy with compressed air battery storage.
In the end hydrogen will prove to be unfeasible due to the hugely explosive nature and inability to safely transport and pipe it to homes it as we do with natural gas.
Over 80% of the existing infrastructure is hydrogen compatible and it is already being trialled. The large boiler companies are heavily investing in it. The issue is the safety.
Is it really that much more explosive than our current gas supply? I can't imagine it collecting in the air in the same way as methane unless a house is extremely well sealed.
The fuel-air mixes are different - the real issue is that hydrogen can leak much more easily. Proving that a set of pipework is hydrogen tight is an interesting challenge.
Yes, which is why the 80% number is a load of rubbish.
Who to believe, industry experts or a London based pensions man.
Will that be industry experts with or without an agenda?
Any time a so called expert speaks the first question you should stop and ask yourself is "who are they and what is their agenda?"
If their agenda is to ensure hydrogen is in the mix in the future because that's their business model then that makes them an actor in this, not an independent expert.
Of course that’s the case. But these people are people I used to work with who I catch up with from time to time. In our discussion there is no agenda and I don’t doubt they are right. Hydrogen may not be part of the domestic heating future but it may well be.
When I worked in the oil business - Hydrogen was the Future. Because electricity left them feeling a bit left out.
Run that by me again - hydrogen is more oil like than electricity is?
Yes, because the source of most hydrogen is methane (blue hydrogen).
"blue" makes it sound like it is made from water or some such though.
Indeed, the oil industry has got great marketing and PR people.
I'm old enough to remember Labour's Green Deal, and then I look at the size, complications and cost of heat pumps and I think...ok, good luck with that.
That was before the cost of gas quadrupled in the space of a couple of months. Alternative heating solutions and/or improved insulation might look rather more interesting to consumers now.
Its a lot of equipment to fit in a standard three bed semi.
Despite what is says if you are going to use the ASHP a lot then the radiators and pipework will need to changed, as pumping 40 degree water through 15mm pipework into a standard radiator will provide very limited heat.
Agree on the lot of equipment.
That looks like someone trying to create an opportunity to keep their technology in the game. It's problematic because 1 - we are pivoting away from gas, 2 - because it is a more complex install which will requite you to eg have 2 annual services not one (gas engineers will love you), 3 - because there are far simpler solutions available.
The stuff about always needing new pipework is for an ASHP is baloney, btw. You perhaps resize your rads (or use a double of the same size). Once you have improved your fabric you do a heat demand model for your house, and a calculation which will tell you what kit you need. Replacing rads is cheap. And then set the appropriate flow rate.
Keeping the same radiators is even cheaper. Which is what happens if you switch from natural gas to hydrogen.
Gas explosions are more common than you'd like them to be. Another home was destroyed in Ayr from a gas explosion yesterday. I was woken up by the Police and ordered to evacuate my own home in the week after the London Riots after a lone copycat moron chose to go on an arson campaign and set fire to the gas pipe going into one of my neighbours leading to a fear the entire bloc could go up.
I'm no chemist but from what I understand hydrogen seems even riskier than natural gas to be connected to homes for if things go wrong.
Safety studies have been performed, and more are ongoing. On balance, the risk from hydrogen is roughly the same as that from natural gas. While, for example, there is a greater leakage potential, hydrogen is less likely to achieve a fuel-air mixture in the explosive region. Also, no carbon monoxide deaths from hydrogen.
More to the point, how will it ever be economic ?
Once we fully internalise the negative externalities of burning unabated fossil fuels, then low-carbon technologies will be cheaper.
In other words, tax the feck out of CO2 emissions.
We think we've been having a free lunch since the dawn of the industrial revolution. Now the earth has presented us with the bill.
I'm not asking about the economics versus fossil fuels. I'm asking how producing hydrogen to heat homes will ever be economic versus doing so with green electricity.
Yup, hydrogen seems like a fool's errand. It would require ripping out and replacing our existing natural gas infrastructure to accommodate how tiny hydrogen molecules are.
The nation has got to look beyond gas delivery and move towards electrical heating for everything with electricity generated by SMR/mini-nukes and renewable energy with compressed air battery storage.
In the end hydrogen will prove to be unfeasible due to the hugely explosive nature and inability to safely transport and pipe it to homes it as we do with natural gas.
Over 80% of the existing infrastructure is hydrogen compatible and it is already being trialled. The large boiler companies are heavily investing in it. The issue is the safety.
Is it really that much more explosive than our current gas supply? I can't imagine it collecting in the air in the same way as methane unless a house is extremely well sealed.
The fuel-air mixes are different - the real issue is that hydrogen can leak much more easily. Proving that a set of pipework is hydrogen tight is an interesting challenge.
Yes, which is why the 80% number is a load of rubbish.
Who to believe, industry experts or a London based pensions man.
Will that be industry experts with or without an agenda?
Any time a so called expert speaks the first question you should stop and ask yourself is "who are they and what is their agenda?"
If their agenda is to ensure hydrogen is in the mix in the future because that's their business model then that makes them an actor in this, not an independent expert.
Hydrogen may have some use as an industrial fuel, but for domestic heating it's likely to be marginal or a non event.
I expect that around 80% of homes that currently have a natural gas supply will end up being switched to a hydrogen supply.
So neither marginal nor a non-event.
You still haven't explained where it's going to come from.
In the short to medium term, blue hydrogen will be the primary source of decarbonised hydrogen. Natural gas reforming with carbon capture. Expect to see plants built as part of the clusters announced today.
Longer term, the cost of green hydrogen will come down and become the preferred source - for example as part of integrated offshore wind/electrolysis plants with the hydrogen piped to shore.
So we're going to burn gas for energy to turn other gas into hydrogen? Even if we say gas prices fall in the medium term how is that even close to economically viable? That's without addressing the CO2 storage costs, the cost of upgrading the existing natural gas storage distribution network to accept hydrogen. Who's investing all of this money?
It is economically viable when you internalise the negative externalities associated with CO2 emissions. A high enough carbon tax, and blue hydrogen is a lower cost option than just burning the natural gas.
As with other low carbon technologies, the government will give it a kick start through public sector funding. Co-funding CAPEX, support per tonne of decarbonised hydrogen produced, support for the costs of CO2 transport and storage.
Either the taxpayer pays, business pays, the consumer pays or the planet is buggered. Our choice.
But hydrogen is still competing with renewable electricity and electric water heating. It doesn't exist in isolation. With a high CO2 tax like that hydrogen would lose to electric. The automotive industry has already realised this, it won't be long until water heating goes the same way.
Why, if I had £1bn to invest in green energy, would I look at hydrogen instead of offshore wind plus compressed air batteries? The cost of the latter is lower and it doesn't rely on nice Mr Putin keeping the pipelines open.
Meeting the peak winter demand for heating (and the huge difference between summer and winter demand) is the challenge. We achieve this today with natural gas - line pack, salt cavern storage, LNG. I consider that it is much easier (and lower cost) to meet this challenge through hydrogen using a similar approach than with electricity.
None of this is easy or cheap. But if we want to achieve net zero, we need to do it - and pay for it.
But the economics of hydrogen don't make sense against renewable electricity even with an energy storage solution included in the LCOE. Again, I'll pose the question, why, as an investor with £1bn, would I invest in hydrogen vs renewable electricity? Even under your system of very high CO2 taxes the case for hydrogen against renewable electricity seems marginal to non-existent. The existing infrastructure of natural gas isn't as compatible as advertised either so there's a real chicken/egg situation too. Every household has got an electricity connection, though.
Nuclear, renewables and batteries sums up the simplest solution to most of decarbonising the economy.
Hydrogen isn't necessarily green (unless through electrolysis, which is a long way from being economical) nor does it easily fit in with our existing infrastructure. I fear it is a red herring.
The implication of no gas/hydrogen is, however, that we would need to have huge amounts of surplus electricity during summer months, which we would need to either store or export.
I've only seen 3 of the top 25. Fleabag, Office, Sherlock. All trad BRITISH shows. And people say I'm not a patriot.
I've seen at least one episode of 37 of the top 100 shows. I don't think that I watch a lot of TV, probably well under an hour a day on average, but I try to watch something good whenever I do.
Ah hang on, I'm not counting a series unless I've seen a good chunk of it. If I count ones where I've caught the odd epi (eg as with GoT at my brother's place) I'd be at more than 3/25. Although not massively more tbf.
I'm old enough to remember Labour's Green Deal, and then I look at the size, complications and cost of heat pumps and I think...ok, good luck with that.
That was before the cost of gas quadrupled in the space of a couple of months. Alternative heating solutions and/or improved insulation might look rather more interesting to consumers now.
Its a lot of equipment to fit in a standard three bed semi.
Despite what is says if you are going to use the ASHP a lot then the radiators and pipework will need to changed, as pumping 40 degree water through 15mm pipework into a standard radiator will provide very limited heat.
Agree on the lot of equipment.
That looks like someone trying to create an opportunity to keep their technology in the game. It's problematic because 1 - we are pivoting away from gas, 2 - because it is a more complex install which will requite you to eg have 2 annual services not one (gas engineers will love you), 3 - because there are far simpler solutions available.
The stuff about always needing new pipework is for an ASHP is baloney, btw. You perhaps resize your rads (or use a double of the same size). Once you have improved your fabric you do a heat demand model for your house, and a calculation which will tell you what kit you need. Replacing rads is cheap. And then set the appropriate flow rate.
Keeping the same radiators is even cheaper. Which is what happens if you switch from natural gas to hydrogen.
Gas explosions are more common than you'd like them to be. Another home was destroyed in Ayr from a gas explosion yesterday. I was woken up by the Police and ordered to evacuate my own home in the week after the London Riots after a lone copycat moron chose to go on an arson campaign and set fire to the gas pipe going into one of my neighbours leading to a fear the entire bloc could go up.
I'm no chemist but from what I understand hydrogen seems even riskier than natural gas to be connected to homes for if things go wrong.
Safety studies have been performed, and more are ongoing. On balance, the risk from hydrogen is roughly the same as that from natural gas. While, for example, there is a greater leakage potential, hydrogen is less likely to achieve a fuel-air mixture in the explosive region. Also, no carbon monoxide deaths from hydrogen.
More to the point, how will it ever be economic ?
Once we fully internalise the negative externalities of burning unabated fossil fuels, then low-carbon technologies will be cheaper.
In other words, tax the feck out of CO2 emissions.
We think we've been having a free lunch since the dawn of the industrial revolution. Now the earth has presented us with the bill.
I'm not asking about the economics versus fossil fuels. I'm asking how producing hydrogen to heat homes will ever be economic versus doing so with green electricity.
Yup, hydrogen seems like a fool's errand. It would require ripping out and replacing our existing natural gas infrastructure to accommodate how tiny hydrogen molecules are.
The nation has got to look beyond gas delivery and move towards electrical heating for everything with electricity generated by SMR/mini-nukes and renewable energy with compressed air battery storage.
In the end hydrogen will prove to be unfeasible due to the hugely explosive nature and inability to safely transport and pipe it to homes it as we do with natural gas.
Over 80% of the existing infrastructure is hydrogen compatible and it is already being trialled. The large boiler companies are heavily investing in it. The issue is the safety.
Is it really that much more explosive than our current gas supply? I can't imagine it collecting in the air in the same way as methane unless a house is extremely well sealed.
The fuel-air mixes are different - the real issue is that hydrogen can leak much more easily. Proving that a set of pipework is hydrogen tight is an interesting challenge.
Yes, which is why the 80% number is a load of rubbish.
Who to believe, industry experts or a London based pensions man.
Will that be industry experts with or without an agenda?
Any time a so called expert speaks the first question you should stop and ask yourself is "who are they and what is their agenda?"
If their agenda is to ensure hydrogen is in the mix in the future because that's their business model then that makes them an actor in this, not an independent expert.
Hydrogen may have some use as an industrial fuel, but for domestic heating it's likely to be marginal or a non event.
I expect that around 80% of homes that currently have a natural gas supply will end up being switched to a hydrogen supply.
So neither marginal nor a non-event.
You still haven't explained where it's going to come from.
In the short to medium term, blue hydrogen will be the primary source of decarbonised hydrogen. Natural gas reforming with carbon capture. Expect to see plants built as part of the clusters announced today.
Longer term, the cost of green hydrogen will come down and become the preferred source - for example as part of integrated offshore wind/electrolysis plants with the hydrogen piped to shore.
So we're going to burn gas for energy to turn other gas into hydrogen? Even if we say gas prices fall in the medium term how is that even close to economically viable? That's without addressing the CO2 storage costs, the cost of upgrading the existing natural gas storage distribution network to accept hydrogen. Who's investing all of this money?
It is economically viable when you internalise the negative externalities associated with CO2 emissions. A high enough carbon tax, and blue hydrogen is a lower cost option than just burning the natural gas.
As with other low carbon technologies, the government will give it a kick start through public sector funding. Co-funding CAPEX, support per tonne of decarbonised hydrogen produced, support for the costs of CO2 transport and storage.
Either the taxpayer pays, business pays, the consumer pays or the planet is buggered. Our choice.
But hydrogen is still competing with renewable electricity and electric water heating. It doesn't exist in isolation. With a high CO2 tax like that hydrogen would lose to electric. The automotive industry has already realised this, it won't be long until water heating goes the same way.
Why, if I had £1bn to invest in green energy, would I look at hydrogen instead of offshore wind plus compressed air batteries? The cost of the latter is lower and it doesn't rely on nice Mr Putin keeping the pipelines open.
Meeting the peak winter demand for heating (and the huge difference between summer and winter demand) is the challenge. We achieve this today with natural gas - line pack, salt cavern storage, LNG. I consider that it is much easier (and lower cost) to meet this challenge through hydrogen using a similar approach than with electricity.
None of this is easy or cheap. But if we want to achieve net zero, we need to do it - and pay for it.
But the economics of hydrogen don't make sense against renewable electricity even with an energy storage solution included in the LCOE. Again, I'll pose the question, why, as an investor with £1bn, would I invest in hydrogen vs renewable electricity? Even under your system of very high CO2 taxes the case for hydrogen against renewable electricity seems marginal to non-existent. The existing infrastructure of natural gas isn't as compatible as advertised either so there's a real chicken/egg situation too. Every household has got an electricity connection, though.
Nuclear, renewables and batteries sums up the simplest solution to most of decarbonising the economy.
Hydrogen isn't necessarily green (unless through electrolysis, which is a long way from being economical) nor does it easily fit in with our existing infrastructure. I fear it is a red herring.
The implication of no gas/hydrogen is, however, that we would need to have huge amounts of surplus electricity during summer months, which we would need to either store or export.
Yes, we'd need around 4-5x our current peak energy generation plus storage to fully replace natural gas as an energy source. That's the task. Hydrogen is just a massive distraction created by the oil and gas industry to try and stay relevant in a post-fossil fuel for energy era.
I've only seen 3 of the top 25. Fleabag, Office, Sherlock. All trad BRITISH shows. And people say I'm not a patriot.
I've seen at least one episode of 37 of the top 100 shows. I don't think that I watch a lot of TV, probably well under an hour a day on average, but I try to watch something good whenever I do.
Ah hang on, I'm not counting a series unless I've seen a good chunk of it. If I count ones where I've caught the odd epi (eg as with GoT at my brother's place) I'd be at more than 3/25. Although not massively more tbf.
One way to reduce your boiler's carbon footprint is to get the flame yellow so CO is produced. CO is far less forcing than CO2. There are err .. downsides to this though.
I'm old enough to remember Labour's Green Deal, and then I look at the size, complications and cost of heat pumps and I think...ok, good luck with that.
That was before the cost of gas quadrupled in the space of a couple of months. Alternative heating solutions and/or improved insulation might look rather more interesting to consumers now.
Its a lot of equipment to fit in a standard three bed semi.
Despite what is says if you are going to use the ASHP a lot then the radiators and pipework will need to changed, as pumping 40 degree water through 15mm pipework into a standard radiator will provide very limited heat.
Agree on the lot of equipment.
That looks like someone trying to create an opportunity to keep their technology in the game. It's problematic because 1 - we are pivoting away from gas, 2 - because it is a more complex install which will requite you to eg have 2 annual services not one (gas engineers will love you), 3 - because there are far simpler solutions available.
The stuff about always needing new pipework is for an ASHP is baloney, btw. You perhaps resize your rads (or use a double of the same size). Once you have improved your fabric you do a heat demand model for your house, and a calculation which will tell you what kit you need. Replacing rads is cheap. And then set the appropriate flow rate.
Keeping the same radiators is even cheaper. Which is what happens if you switch from natural gas to hydrogen.
Gas explosions are more common than you'd like them to be. Another home was destroyed in Ayr from a gas explosion yesterday. I was woken up by the Police and ordered to evacuate my own home in the week after the London Riots after a lone copycat moron chose to go on an arson campaign and set fire to the gas pipe going into one of my neighbours leading to a fear the entire bloc could go up.
I'm no chemist but from what I understand hydrogen seems even riskier than natural gas to be connected to homes for if things go wrong.
Safety studies have been performed, and more are ongoing. On balance, the risk from hydrogen is roughly the same as that from natural gas. While, for example, there is a greater leakage potential, hydrogen is less likely to achieve a fuel-air mixture in the explosive region. Also, no carbon monoxide deaths from hydrogen.
More to the point, how will it ever be economic ?
Once we fully internalise the negative externalities of burning unabated fossil fuels, then low-carbon technologies will be cheaper.
In other words, tax the feck out of CO2 emissions.
We think we've been having a free lunch since the dawn of the industrial revolution. Now the earth has presented us with the bill.
I'm not asking about the economics versus fossil fuels. I'm asking how producing hydrogen to heat homes will ever be economic versus doing so with green electricity.
Yup, hydrogen seems like a fool's errand. It would require ripping out and replacing our existing natural gas infrastructure to accommodate how tiny hydrogen molecules are.
The nation has got to look beyond gas delivery and move towards electrical heating for everything with electricity generated by SMR/mini-nukes and renewable energy with compressed air battery storage.
In the end hydrogen will prove to be unfeasible due to the hugely explosive nature and inability to safely transport and pipe it to homes it as we do with natural gas.
Over 80% of the existing infrastructure is hydrogen compatible and it is already being trialled. The large boiler companies are heavily investing in it. The issue is the safety.
Is it really that much more explosive than our current gas supply? I can't imagine it collecting in the air in the same way as methane unless a house is extremely well sealed.
The fuel-air mixes are different - the real issue is that hydrogen can leak much more easily. Proving that a set of pipework is hydrogen tight is an interesting challenge.
Yes, which is why the 80% number is a load of rubbish.
Who to believe, industry experts or a London based pensions man.
Will that be industry experts with or without an agenda?
Any time a so called expert speaks the first question you should stop and ask yourself is "who are they and what is their agenda?"
If their agenda is to ensure hydrogen is in the mix in the future because that's their business model then that makes them an actor in this, not an independent expert.
Hydrogen may have some use as an industrial fuel, but for domestic heating it's likely to be marginal or a non event.
I expect that around 80% of homes that currently have a natural gas supply will end up being switched to a hydrogen supply.
So neither marginal nor a non-event.
You still haven't explained where it's going to come from.
In the short to medium term, blue hydrogen will be the primary source of decarbonised hydrogen. Natural gas reforming with carbon capture. Expect to see plants built as part of the clusters announced today.
Longer term, the cost of green hydrogen will come down and become the preferred source - for example as part of integrated offshore wind/electrolysis plants with the hydrogen piped to shore.
So we're going to burn gas for energy to turn other gas into hydrogen? Even if we say gas prices fall in the medium term how is that even close to economically viable? That's without addressing the CO2 storage costs, the cost of upgrading the existing natural gas storage distribution network to accept hydrogen. Who's investing all of this money?
It is economically viable when you internalise the negative externalities associated with CO2 emissions. A high enough carbon tax, and blue hydrogen is a lower cost option than just burning the natural gas.
As with other low carbon technologies, the government will give it a kick start through public sector funding. Co-funding CAPEX, support per tonne of decarbonised hydrogen produced, support for the costs of CO2 transport and storage.
Either the taxpayer pays, business pays, the consumer pays or the planet is buggered. Our choice.
But hydrogen is still competing with renewable electricity and electric water heating. It doesn't exist in isolation. With a high CO2 tax like that hydrogen would lose to electric. The automotive industry has already realised this, it won't be long until water heating goes the same way.
Why, if I had £1bn to invest in green energy, would I look at hydrogen instead of offshore wind plus compressed air batteries? The cost of the latter is lower and it doesn't rely on nice Mr Putin keeping the pipelines open.
Meeting the peak winter demand for heating (and the huge difference between summer and winter demand) is the challenge. We achieve this today with natural gas - line pack, salt cavern storage, LNG. I consider that it is much easier (and lower cost) to meet this challenge through hydrogen using a similar approach than with electricity.
None of this is easy or cheap. But if we want to achieve net zero, we need to do it - and pay for it.
But the economics of hydrogen don't make sense against renewable electricity even with an energy storage solution included in the LCOE. Again, I'll pose the question, why, as an investor with £1bn, would I invest in hydrogen vs renewable electricity? Even under your system of very high CO2 taxes the case for hydrogen against renewable electricity seems marginal to non-existent. The existing infrastructure of natural gas isn't as compatible as advertised either so there's a real chicken/egg situation too. Every household has got an electricity connection, though.
As an investor, you don't care whether people go cold in the winter. You want the biggest return on your investment. Depending on how the various grant and subsidy schemes work out, that could be in hydrogen, it could be in renewables, it could be in CCGT with carbon capture for power generation. In Northern Ireland it was from burning biomass and claiming a subsidy - happy days for those who got on board.
That is a different question to what is the most technically achievable and economically optimised solution of meeting the UK's energy needs as part of a net zero strategy.
Decarbonised electricity is clearly part of the solution - for lighting, transport and a proportion of heating. However, I consider that for the bulk of heating (domestic, commercial and industrial) a decarbonised fuel is required. There will be applications for biogas, bioliquids, wood, etc., but I see hydrogen as a central plank of the solution.
As a consumer, it is the easiest solution. New boiler for old, everything else stays the same. Happy days.
Why would the state subsidise hydrogen when renewable electricity is already a decarbonised source of energy? Hydrogen, especially blue hydrogen, is actively competing with renewable electricity generation and it loses on every metric.
Also your idea that you can simply install a new hydrogen boiler into a domestic scenario is laughable. You're welcome to do it in your own place.
Seasonal storage. Peak winter demand for heat. Hydrogen delivers this much more easily than electricity.
Hydrogen-ready boilers will soon be the norm. I imagine most of us will get one by default when our existing boiler packs in from 2025 onwards. Then, when our bit of the network switches over, our homes will be hydrogen-ready.
Statement by Donald J Trump, 45th President of the USA, on the death of Colin Powell.
'Wonderful to see Colin Powell, who made big mistakes on Iraq and famously, so-called weapons of mass destruction, be treated in death so beautifully by the Fake News Media. Hope that happens to me someday. He was a classic RINO, if even that, always being the first to attack other Republicans. He made plenty of mistakes, but anyway, may he rest in peace!'
I'm old enough to remember Labour's Green Deal, and then I look at the size, complications and cost of heat pumps and I think...ok, good luck with that.
That was before the cost of gas quadrupled in the space of a couple of months. Alternative heating solutions and/or improved insulation might look rather more interesting to consumers now.
Its a lot of equipment to fit in a standard three bed semi.
Despite what is says if you are going to use the ASHP a lot then the radiators and pipework will need to changed, as pumping 40 degree water through 15mm pipework into a standard radiator will provide very limited heat.
Agree on the lot of equipment.
That looks like someone trying to create an opportunity to keep their technology in the game. It's problematic because 1 - we are pivoting away from gas, 2 - because it is a more complex install which will requite you to eg have 2 annual services not one (gas engineers will love you), 3 - because there are far simpler solutions available.
The stuff about always needing new pipework is for an ASHP is baloney, btw. You perhaps resize your rads (or use a double of the same size). Once you have improved your fabric you do a heat demand model for your house, and a calculation which will tell you what kit you need. Replacing rads is cheap. And then set the appropriate flow rate.
Keeping the same radiators is even cheaper. Which is what happens if you switch from natural gas to hydrogen.
Gas explosions are more common than you'd like them to be. Another home was destroyed in Ayr from a gas explosion yesterday. I was woken up by the Police and ordered to evacuate my own home in the week after the London Riots after a lone copycat moron chose to go on an arson campaign and set fire to the gas pipe going into one of my neighbours leading to a fear the entire bloc could go up.
I'm no chemist but from what I understand hydrogen seems even riskier than natural gas to be connected to homes for if things go wrong.
Safety studies have been performed, and more are ongoing. On balance, the risk from hydrogen is roughly the same as that from natural gas. While, for example, there is a greater leakage potential, hydrogen is less likely to achieve a fuel-air mixture in the explosive region. Also, no carbon monoxide deaths from hydrogen.
More to the point, how will it ever be economic ?
Once we fully internalise the negative externalities of burning unabated fossil fuels, then low-carbon technologies will be cheaper.
In other words, tax the feck out of CO2 emissions.
We think we've been having a free lunch since the dawn of the industrial revolution. Now the earth has presented us with the bill.
I'm not asking about the economics versus fossil fuels. I'm asking how producing hydrogen to heat homes will ever be economic versus doing so with green electricity.
Yup, hydrogen seems like a fool's errand. It would require ripping out and replacing our existing natural gas infrastructure to accommodate how tiny hydrogen molecules are.
The nation has got to look beyond gas delivery and move towards electrical heating for everything with electricity generated by SMR/mini-nukes and renewable energy with compressed air battery storage.
In the end hydrogen will prove to be unfeasible due to the hugely explosive nature and inability to safely transport and pipe it to homes it as we do with natural gas.
Over 80% of the existing infrastructure is hydrogen compatible and it is already being trialled. The large boiler companies are heavily investing in it. The issue is the safety.
Is it really that much more explosive than our current gas supply? I can't imagine it collecting in the air in the same way as methane unless a house is extremely well sealed.
The fuel-air mixes are different - the real issue is that hydrogen can leak much more easily. Proving that a set of pipework is hydrogen tight is an interesting challenge.
Yes, which is why the 80% number is a load of rubbish.
Who to believe, industry experts or a London based pensions man.
Will that be industry experts with or without an agenda?
Any time a so called expert speaks the first question you should stop and ask yourself is "who are they and what is their agenda?"
If their agenda is to ensure hydrogen is in the mix in the future because that's their business model then that makes them an actor in this, not an independent expert.
Hydrogen may have some use as an industrial fuel, but for domestic heating it's likely to be marginal or a non event.
I expect that around 80% of homes that currently have a natural gas supply will end up being switched to a hydrogen supply.
So neither marginal nor a non-event.
You still haven't explained where it's going to come from.
In the short to medium term, blue hydrogen will be the primary source of decarbonised hydrogen. Natural gas reforming with carbon capture. Expect to see plants built as part of the clusters announced today.
Longer term, the cost of green hydrogen will come down and become the preferred source - for example as part of integrated offshore wind/electrolysis plants with the hydrogen piped to shore.
So we're going to burn gas for energy to turn other gas into hydrogen? Even if we say gas prices fall in the medium term how is that even close to economically viable? That's without addressing the CO2 storage costs, the cost of upgrading the existing natural gas storage distribution network to accept hydrogen. Who's investing all of this money?
It is economically viable when you internalise the negative externalities associated with CO2 emissions. A high enough carbon tax, and blue hydrogen is a lower cost option than just burning the natural gas.
As with other low carbon technologies, the government will give it a kick start through public sector funding. Co-funding CAPEX, support per tonne of decarbonised hydrogen produced, support for the costs of CO2 transport and storage.
Either the taxpayer pays, business pays, the consumer pays or the planet is buggered. Our choice.
But hydrogen is still competing with renewable electricity and electric water heating. It doesn't exist in isolation. With a high CO2 tax like that hydrogen would lose to electric. The automotive industry has already realised this, it won't be long until water heating goes the same way.
Why, if I had £1bn to invest in green energy, would I look at hydrogen instead of offshore wind plus compressed air batteries? The cost of the latter is lower and it doesn't rely on nice Mr Putin keeping the pipelines open.
Meeting the peak winter demand for heating (and the huge difference between summer and winter demand) is the challenge. We achieve this today with natural gas - line pack, salt cavern storage, LNG. I consider that it is much easier (and lower cost) to meet this challenge through hydrogen using a similar approach than with electricity.
None of this is easy or cheap. But if we want to achieve net zero, we need to do it - and pay for it.
But the economics of hydrogen don't make sense against renewable electricity even with an energy storage solution included in the LCOE. Again, I'll pose the question, why, as an investor with £1bn, would I invest in hydrogen vs renewable electricity? Even under your system of very high CO2 taxes the case for hydrogen against renewable electricity seems marginal to non-existent. The existing infrastructure of natural gas isn't as compatible as advertised either so there's a real chicken/egg situation too. Every household has got an electricity connection, though.
As an investor, you don't care whether people go cold in the winter. You want the biggest return on your investment. Depending on how the various grant and subsidy schemes work out, that could be in hydrogen, it could be in renewables, it could be in CCGT with carbon capture for power generation. In Northern Ireland it was from burning biomass and claiming a subsidy - happy days for those who got on board.
That is a different question to what is the most technically achievable and economically optimised solution of meeting the UK's energy needs as part of a net zero strategy.
Decarbonised electricity is clearly part of the solution - for lighting, transport and a proportion of heating. However, I consider that for the bulk of heating (domestic, commercial and industrial) a decarbonised fuel is required. There will be applications for biogas, bioliquids, wood, etc., but I see hydrogen as a central plank of the solution.
As a consumer, it is the easiest solution. New boiler for old, everything else stays the same. Happy days.
Why would the state subsidise hydrogen when renewable electricity is already a decarbonised source of energy? Hydrogen, especially blue hydrogen, is actively competing with renewable electricity generation and it loses on every metric.
Also your idea that you can simply install a new hydrogen boiler into a domestic scenario is laughable. You're welcome to do it in your own place.
At the current price of natural gas, it's economically daft anyway. But the state is subsidising quite a lot of research into hydrogen - a lot going on the Sheffield City Region. https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/energy/our-research/hydrogen-0
I'm old enough to remember Labour's Green Deal, and then I look at the size, complications and cost of heat pumps and I think...ok, good luck with that.
That was before the cost of gas quadrupled in the space of a couple of months. Alternative heating solutions and/or improved insulation might look rather more interesting to consumers now.
Its a lot of equipment to fit in a standard three bed semi.
Despite what is says if you are going to use the ASHP a lot then the radiators and pipework will need to changed, as pumping 40 degree water through 15mm pipework into a standard radiator will provide very limited heat.
Agree on the lot of equipment.
That looks like someone trying to create an opportunity to keep their technology in the game. It's problematic because 1 - we are pivoting away from gas, 2 - because it is a more complex install which will requite you to eg have 2 annual services not one (gas engineers will love you), 3 - because there are far simpler solutions available.
The stuff about always needing new pipework is for an ASHP is baloney, btw. You perhaps resize your rads (or use a double of the same size). Once you have improved your fabric you do a heat demand model for your house, and a calculation which will tell you what kit you need. Replacing rads is cheap. And then set the appropriate flow rate.
Keeping the same radiators is even cheaper. Which is what happens if you switch from natural gas to hydrogen.
Gas explosions are more common than you'd like them to be. Another home was destroyed in Ayr from a gas explosion yesterday. I was woken up by the Police and ordered to evacuate my own home in the week after the London Riots after a lone copycat moron chose to go on an arson campaign and set fire to the gas pipe going into one of my neighbours leading to a fear the entire bloc could go up.
I'm no chemist but from what I understand hydrogen seems even riskier than natural gas to be connected to homes for if things go wrong.
Safety studies have been performed, and more are ongoing. On balance, the risk from hydrogen is roughly the same as that from natural gas. While, for example, there is a greater leakage potential, hydrogen is less likely to achieve a fuel-air mixture in the explosive region. Also, no carbon monoxide deaths from hydrogen.
More to the point, how will it ever be economic ?
Once we fully internalise the negative externalities of burning unabated fossil fuels, then low-carbon technologies will be cheaper.
In other words, tax the feck out of CO2 emissions.
We think we've been having a free lunch since the dawn of the industrial revolution. Now the earth has presented us with the bill.
I'm not asking about the economics versus fossil fuels. I'm asking how producing hydrogen to heat homes will ever be economic versus doing so with green electricity.
Yup, hydrogen seems like a fool's errand. It would require ripping out and replacing our existing natural gas infrastructure to accommodate how tiny hydrogen molecules are.
The nation has got to look beyond gas delivery and move towards electrical heating for everything with electricity generated by SMR/mini-nukes and renewable energy with compressed air battery storage.
In the end hydrogen will prove to be unfeasible due to the hugely explosive nature and inability to safely transport and pipe it to homes it as we do with natural gas.
Over 80% of the existing infrastructure is hydrogen compatible and it is already being trialled. The large boiler companies are heavily investing in it. The issue is the safety.
Is it really that much more explosive than our current gas supply? I can't imagine it collecting in the air in the same way as methane unless a house is extremely well sealed.
The fuel-air mixes are different - the real issue is that hydrogen can leak much more easily. Proving that a set of pipework is hydrogen tight is an interesting challenge.
Yes, which is why the 80% number is a load of rubbish.
Who to believe, industry experts or a London based pensions man.
Will that be industry experts with or without an agenda?
Any time a so called expert speaks the first question you should stop and ask yourself is "who are they and what is their agenda?"
If their agenda is to ensure hydrogen is in the mix in the future because that's their business model then that makes them an actor in this, not an independent expert.
Hydrogen may have some use as an industrial fuel, but for domestic heating it's likely to be marginal or a non event.
I expect that around 80% of homes that currently have a natural gas supply will end up being switched to a hydrogen supply.
So neither marginal nor a non-event.
You still haven't explained where it's going to come from.
In the short to medium term, blue hydrogen will be the primary source of decarbonised hydrogen. Natural gas reforming with carbon capture. Expect to see plants built as part of the clusters announced today.
Longer term, the cost of green hydrogen will come down and become the preferred source - for example as part of integrated offshore wind/electrolysis plants with the hydrogen piped to shore.
So we're going to burn gas for energy to turn other gas into hydrogen? Even if we say gas prices fall in the medium term how is that even close to economically viable? That's without addressing the CO2 storage costs, the cost of upgrading the existing natural gas storage distribution network to accept hydrogen. Who's investing all of this money?
It is economically viable when you internalise the negative externalities associated with CO2 emissions. A high enough carbon tax, and blue hydrogen is a lower cost option than just burning the natural gas.
As with other low carbon technologies, the government will give it a kick start through public sector funding. Co-funding CAPEX, support per tonne of decarbonised hydrogen produced, support for the costs of CO2 transport and storage.
Either the taxpayer pays, business pays, the consumer pays or the planet is buggered. Our choice.
But hydrogen is still competing with renewable electricity and electric water heating. It doesn't exist in isolation. With a high CO2 tax like that hydrogen would lose to electric. The automotive industry has already realised this, it won't be long until water heating goes the same way.
Why, if I had £1bn to invest in green energy, would I look at hydrogen instead of offshore wind plus compressed air batteries? The cost of the latter is lower and it doesn't rely on nice Mr Putin keeping the pipelines open.
Meeting the peak winter demand for heating (and the huge difference between summer and winter demand) is the challenge. We achieve this today with natural gas - line pack, salt cavern storage, LNG. I consider that it is much easier (and lower cost) to meet this challenge through hydrogen using a similar approach than with electricity.
None of this is easy or cheap. But if we want to achieve net zero, we need to do it - and pay for it.
But the economics of hydrogen don't make sense against renewable electricity even with an energy storage solution included in the LCOE. Again, I'll pose the question, why, as an investor with £1bn, would I invest in hydrogen vs renewable electricity? Even under your system of very high CO2 taxes the case for hydrogen against renewable electricity seems marginal to non-existent. The existing infrastructure of natural gas isn't as compatible as advertised either so there's a real chicken/egg situation too. Every household has got an electricity connection, though.
The big problem is the amount of energy that has to be expended in making hydrogen. Then storing and transporting it is a pain.
The classic is the hydrogen powered car.
1) To get decent range needs to use a fuel cell to generate electricity, rather than an ICE. 2) So you have an electric car driven by a hydrogen fuel cell. 3) But for efficiency, too get more range, you need regenerative braking. 4) So you add a battery, controllers etc. 5) So you now have a fuel cell, hydrogen, a battery and electric power train. 6) But hydrogen refuels so much more quickly? or does it? 7) Cryogenic (liquid) hydrogen has interesting handling problems. Oh, and you can't pump it quickly. 8) Compressed gas hydrogen is extremely dangerous. Look up the handling rules for that.
or
You make the battery bigger and have an EV.
Hydrogen cars also offer a worse consumer experience than either EVs or ICEs. You lose trunk space and you get pretty rubbish performance.
The Information Commissioner’s Office has announced that as part of their pursuit of a “Single View of the Customer” (SVoC), it is their intention that all “behavioural data” of gamblers will be shared from a centralised store. The genesis of the SVoC, which began in November 2020, was to ensure operators and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) together with the Gambling Commission had an overview of data, which would help identify problem gamblers before it became an issue. Why this role has fallen to the Information Commissioner is not clear to Guido.
In summary:
Bookies will be forced to share “behavioural data” of current customers with other gambling firms and the government-run ICO and Gambling Commission.
The ICO has said it expects – in addition to behavioural data – for the Gambling Commission to collect “credit reference data on personal income.”
Any gambler who has more than one gambling account will be added to a register of gamblers, which all operators and government will have access to.
The SVoC plan poses a clear and unprecedented level of privacy infringement. Bookies will be forced to share personal data with government agencies, including: how much is deposited, where people live, names, addresses. This will develop into the government having the power to oversee credit-referenced data and, ultimately, decide if the person can gamble. Regular gamblers, like the Queen, will have to be on the government’s gamblers’ register just to have a flutter on the Derby.
One way to reduce your boiler's carbon footprint is to get the flame yellow so CO is produced. CO is far less forcing than CO2. There are err .. downsides to this though.
Re. Colin Powell I could never work out why his name was pronounced CO-LYN and not Colin as expected?
It used to be pronounced in the usual way. He decided himself to change the pronunciation of his name because he liked the fact that World War Two pilot Colin Kelly used that pronunciation.
"Colin Powell adopted the pronunciation /ˈkoʊlɪn/ after friends who were impressed by Kelly began pronouncing Powell's name the same way.[12]"
Statement by Donald J Trump, 45th President of the USA, on the death of Colin Powell.
'Wonderful to see Colin Powell, who made big mistakes on Iraq and famously, so-called weapons of mass destruction, be treated in death so beautifully by the Fake News Media. Hope that happens to me someday. He was a classic RINO, if even that, always being the first to attack other Republicans. He made plenty of mistakes, but anyway, may he rest in peace!'
Interesting to see Corbynites and Trump and his fans all slagging off Powell though on twitter, suggests he did something right if they were his enemies!
OJ -
"While the likes of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney were pantomime villains, Colin Powell acted to provide 'moderate' veneer for the Bush regime, and played a pivotal role in an Iraq war which remains one of the greatest human catastrophes of our time."
Same sentiment minus the egomania and passive aggressive snark.
The Information Commissioner’s Office has announced that as part of their pursuit of a “Single View of the Customer” (SVoC), it is their intention that all “behavioural data” of gamblers will be shared from a centralised store. The genesis of the SVoC, which began in November 2020, was to ensure operators and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) together with the Gambling Commission had an overview of data, which would help identify problem gamblers before it became an issue. Why this role has fallen to the Information Commissioner is not clear to Guido.
In summary:
Bookies will be forced to share “behavioural data” of current customers with other gambling firms and the government-run ICO and Gambling Commission.
The ICO has said it expects – in addition to behavioural data – for the Gambling Commission to collect “credit reference data on personal income.”
Any gambler who has more than one gambling account will be added to a register of gamblers, which all operators and government will have access to.
The SVoC plan poses a clear and unprecedented level of privacy infringement. Bookies will be forced to share personal data with government agencies, including: how much is deposited, where people live, names, addresses. This will develop into the government having the power to oversee credit-referenced data and, ultimately, decide if the person can gamble. Regular gamblers, like the Queen, will have to be on the government’s gamblers’ register just to have a flutter on the Derby.
I've only seen 3 of the top 25. Fleabag, Office, Sherlock. All trad BRITISH shows. And people say I'm not a patriot.
You spend too long a) on PB: and/or b) playing golf; and/or c) at that little bar you know down the road.
It's fair criticism. Box sets are the high art of our day and I'm woefully underexposed. The actual real reason for this is I have a pretty basic TV set-up.
Fair enough. There is some cracking drama out there.
I'm old enough to remember Labour's Green Deal, and then I look at the size, complications and cost of heat pumps and I think...ok, good luck with that.
That was before the cost of gas quadrupled in the space of a couple of months. Alternative heating solutions and/or improved insulation might look rather more interesting to consumers now.
Its a lot of equipment to fit in a standard three bed semi.
Despite what is says if you are going to use the ASHP a lot then the radiators and pipework will need to changed, as pumping 40 degree water through 15mm pipework into a standard radiator will provide very limited heat.
Agree on the lot of equipment.
That looks like someone trying to create an opportunity to keep their technology in the game. It's problematic because 1 - we are pivoting away from gas, 2 - because it is a more complex install which will requite you to eg have 2 annual services not one (gas engineers will love you), 3 - because there are far simpler solutions available.
The stuff about always needing new pipework is for an ASHP is baloney, btw. You perhaps resize your rads (or use a double of the same size). Once you have improved your fabric you do a heat demand model for your house, and a calculation which will tell you what kit you need. Replacing rads is cheap. And then set the appropriate flow rate.
Keeping the same radiators is even cheaper. Which is what happens if you switch from natural gas to hydrogen.
Gas explosions are more common than you'd like them to be. Another home was destroyed in Ayr from a gas explosion yesterday. I was woken up by the Police and ordered to evacuate my own home in the week after the London Riots after a lone copycat moron chose to go on an arson campaign and set fire to the gas pipe going into one of my neighbours leading to a fear the entire bloc could go up.
I'm no chemist but from what I understand hydrogen seems even riskier than natural gas to be connected to homes for if things go wrong.
Safety studies have been performed, and more are ongoing. On balance, the risk from hydrogen is roughly the same as that from natural gas. While, for example, there is a greater leakage potential, hydrogen is less likely to achieve a fuel-air mixture in the explosive region. Also, no carbon monoxide deaths from hydrogen.
More to the point, how will it ever be economic ?
Once we fully internalise the negative externalities of burning unabated fossil fuels, then low-carbon technologies will be cheaper.
In other words, tax the feck out of CO2 emissions.
We think we've been having a free lunch since the dawn of the industrial revolution. Now the earth has presented us with the bill.
I'm not asking about the economics versus fossil fuels. I'm asking how producing hydrogen to heat homes will ever be economic versus doing so with green electricity.
Yup, hydrogen seems like a fool's errand. It would require ripping out and replacing our existing natural gas infrastructure to accommodate how tiny hydrogen molecules are.
The nation has got to look beyond gas delivery and move towards electrical heating for everything with electricity generated by SMR/mini-nukes and renewable energy with compressed air battery storage.
In the end hydrogen will prove to be unfeasible due to the hugely explosive nature and inability to safely transport and pipe it to homes it as we do with natural gas.
Over 80% of the existing infrastructure is hydrogen compatible and it is already being trialled. The large boiler companies are heavily investing in it. The issue is the safety.
Is it really that much more explosive than our current gas supply? I can't imagine it collecting in the air in the same way as methane unless a house is extremely well sealed.
The fuel-air mixes are different - the real issue is that hydrogen can leak much more easily. Proving that a set of pipework is hydrogen tight is an interesting challenge.
Yes, which is why the 80% number is a load of rubbish.
Who to believe, industry experts or a London based pensions man.
Will that be industry experts with or without an agenda?
Any time a so called expert speaks the first question you should stop and ask yourself is "who are they and what is their agenda?"
If their agenda is to ensure hydrogen is in the mix in the future because that's their business model then that makes them an actor in this, not an independent expert.
Hydrogen may have some use as an industrial fuel, but for domestic heating it's likely to be marginal or a non event.
I expect that around 80% of homes that currently have a natural gas supply will end up being switched to a hydrogen supply.
So neither marginal nor a non-event.
You still haven't explained where it's going to come from.
In the short to medium term, blue hydrogen will be the primary source of decarbonised hydrogen. Natural gas reforming with carbon capture. Expect to see plants built as part of the clusters announced today.
Longer term, the cost of green hydrogen will come down and become the preferred source - for example as part of integrated offshore wind/electrolysis plants with the hydrogen piped to shore.
So we're going to burn gas for energy to turn other gas into hydrogen? Even if we say gas prices fall in the medium term how is that even close to economically viable? That's without addressing the CO2 storage costs, the cost of upgrading the existing natural gas storage distribution network to accept hydrogen. Who's investing all of this money?
It is economically viable when you internalise the negative externalities associated with CO2 emissions. A high enough carbon tax, and blue hydrogen is a lower cost option than just burning the natural gas.
As with other low carbon technologies, the government will give it a kick start through public sector funding. Co-funding CAPEX, support per tonne of decarbonised hydrogen produced, support for the costs of CO2 transport and storage.
Either the taxpayer pays, business pays, the consumer pays or the planet is buggered. Our choice.
But hydrogen is still competing with renewable electricity and electric water heating. It doesn't exist in isolation. With a high CO2 tax like that hydrogen would lose to electric. The automotive industry has already realised this, it won't be long until water heating goes the same way.
Why, if I had £1bn to invest in green energy, would I look at hydrogen instead of offshore wind plus compressed air batteries? The cost of the latter is lower and it doesn't rely on nice Mr Putin keeping the pipelines open.
Meeting the peak winter demand for heating (and the huge difference between summer and winter demand) is the challenge. We achieve this today with natural gas - line pack, salt cavern storage, LNG. I consider that it is much easier (and lower cost) to meet this challenge through hydrogen using a similar approach than with electricity.
None of this is easy or cheap. But if we want to achieve net zero, we need to do it - and pay for it.
But the economics of hydrogen don't make sense against renewable electricity even with an energy storage solution included in the LCOE. Again, I'll pose the question, why, as an investor with £1bn, would I invest in hydrogen vs renewable electricity? Even under your system of very high CO2 taxes the case for hydrogen against renewable electricity seems marginal to non-existent. The existing infrastructure of natural gas isn't as compatible as advertised either so there's a real chicken/egg situation too. Every household has got an electricity connection, though.
As an investor, you don't care whether people go cold in the winter. You want the biggest return on your investment. Depending on how the various grant and subsidy schemes work out, that could be in hydrogen, it could be in renewables, it could be in CCGT with carbon capture for power generation. In Northern Ireland it was from burning biomass and claiming a subsidy - happy days for those who got on board.
That is a different question to what is the most technically achievable and economically optimised solution of meeting the UK's energy needs as part of a net zero strategy.
Decarbonised electricity is clearly part of the solution - for lighting, transport and a proportion of heating. However, I consider that for the bulk of heating (domestic, commercial and industrial) a decarbonised fuel is required. There will be applications for biogas, bioliquids, wood, etc., but I see hydrogen as a central plank of the solution.
As a consumer, it is the easiest solution. New boiler for old, everything else stays the same. Happy days.
Why would the state subsidise hydrogen when renewable electricity is already a decarbonised source of energy? Hydrogen, especially blue hydrogen, is actively competing with renewable electricity generation and it loses on every metric.
Also your idea that you can simply install a new hydrogen boiler into a domestic scenario is laughable. You're welcome to do it in your own place.
At the current price of natural gas, it's economically daft anyway. But the state is subsidising quite a lot of research into hydrogen - a lot going on the Sheffield City Region. https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/energy/our-research/hydrogen-0
Research yes, energy subsidies beyond what is available for renewables? No. That's what this whole house of cards is relying on, that the state will go beyond existing subsidies for this class of energy (that isn't particularly green) vs other classes of energy that are actually green.
Blue hydrogen is nothing more than an oil and gas industry scam and hydrogen from electrolysis needs a gigantic energy surplus to work. It may make sense in the all-year sunny countries but not really in the UK.
I'm old enough to remember Labour's Green Deal, and then I look at the size, complications and cost of heat pumps and I think...ok, good luck with that.
That was before the cost of gas quadrupled in the space of a couple of months. Alternative heating solutions and/or improved insulation might look rather more interesting to consumers now.
Its a lot of equipment to fit in a standard three bed semi.
Despite what is says if you are going to use the ASHP a lot then the radiators and pipework will need to changed, as pumping 40 degree water through 15mm pipework into a standard radiator will provide very limited heat.
Agree on the lot of equipment.
That looks like someone trying to create an opportunity to keep their technology in the game. It's problematic because 1 - we are pivoting away from gas, 2 - because it is a more complex install which will requite you to eg have 2 annual services not one (gas engineers will love you), 3 - because there are far simpler solutions available.
The stuff about always needing new pipework is for an ASHP is baloney, btw. You perhaps resize your rads (or use a double of the same size). Once you have improved your fabric you do a heat demand model for your house, and a calculation which will tell you what kit you need. Replacing rads is cheap. And then set the appropriate flow rate.
Keeping the same radiators is even cheaper. Which is what happens if you switch from natural gas to hydrogen.
Gas explosions are more common than you'd like them to be. Another home was destroyed in Ayr from a gas explosion yesterday. I was woken up by the Police and ordered to evacuate my own home in the week after the London Riots after a lone copycat moron chose to go on an arson campaign and set fire to the gas pipe going into one of my neighbours leading to a fear the entire bloc could go up.
I'm no chemist but from what I understand hydrogen seems even riskier than natural gas to be connected to homes for if things go wrong.
Safety studies have been performed, and more are ongoing. On balance, the risk from hydrogen is roughly the same as that from natural gas. While, for example, there is a greater leakage potential, hydrogen is less likely to achieve a fuel-air mixture in the explosive region. Also, no carbon monoxide deaths from hydrogen.
More to the point, how will it ever be economic ?
Once we fully internalise the negative externalities of burning unabated fossil fuels, then low-carbon technologies will be cheaper.
In other words, tax the feck out of CO2 emissions.
We think we've been having a free lunch since the dawn of the industrial revolution. Now the earth has presented us with the bill.
I'm not asking about the economics versus fossil fuels. I'm asking how producing hydrogen to heat homes will ever be economic versus doing so with green electricity.
Yup, hydrogen seems like a fool's errand. It would require ripping out and replacing our existing natural gas infrastructure to accommodate how tiny hydrogen molecules are.
The nation has got to look beyond gas delivery and move towards electrical heating for everything with electricity generated by SMR/mini-nukes and renewable energy with compressed air battery storage.
In the end hydrogen will prove to be unfeasible due to the hugely explosive nature and inability to safely transport and pipe it to homes it as we do with natural gas.
Over 80% of the existing infrastructure is hydrogen compatible and it is already being trialled. The large boiler companies are heavily investing in it. The issue is the safety.
Is it really that much more explosive than our current gas supply? I can't imagine it collecting in the air in the same way as methane unless a house is extremely well sealed.
The fuel-air mixes are different - the real issue is that hydrogen can leak much more easily. Proving that a set of pipework is hydrogen tight is an interesting challenge.
Yes, which is why the 80% number is a load of rubbish.
Who to believe, industry experts or a London based pensions man.
Will that be industry experts with or without an agenda?
Any time a so called expert speaks the first question you should stop and ask yourself is "who are they and what is their agenda?"
If their agenda is to ensure hydrogen is in the mix in the future because that's their business model then that makes them an actor in this, not an independent expert.
Hydrogen may have some use as an industrial fuel, but for domestic heating it's likely to be marginal or a non event.
I expect that around 80% of homes that currently have a natural gas supply will end up being switched to a hydrogen supply.
So neither marginal nor a non-event.
You still haven't explained where it's going to come from.
In the short to medium term, blue hydrogen will be the primary source of decarbonised hydrogen. Natural gas reforming with carbon capture. Expect to see plants built as part of the clusters announced today.
Longer term, the cost of green hydrogen will come down and become the preferred source - for example as part of integrated offshore wind/electrolysis plants with the hydrogen piped to shore.
So we're going to burn gas for energy to turn other gas into hydrogen? Even if we say gas prices fall in the medium term how is that even close to economically viable? That's without addressing the CO2 storage costs, the cost of upgrading the existing natural gas storage distribution network to accept hydrogen. Who's investing all of this money?
It is economically viable when you internalise the negative externalities associated with CO2 emissions. A high enough carbon tax, and blue hydrogen is a lower cost option than just burning the natural gas.
As with other low carbon technologies, the government will give it a kick start through public sector funding. Co-funding CAPEX, support per tonne of decarbonised hydrogen produced, support for the costs of CO2 transport and storage.
Either the taxpayer pays, business pays, the consumer pays or the planet is buggered. Our choice.
But hydrogen is still competing with renewable electricity and electric water heating. It doesn't exist in isolation. With a high CO2 tax like that hydrogen would lose to electric. The automotive industry has already realised this, it won't be long until water heating goes the same way.
Why, if I had £1bn to invest in green energy, would I look at hydrogen instead of offshore wind plus compressed air batteries? The cost of the latter is lower and it doesn't rely on nice Mr Putin keeping the pipelines open.
Meeting the peak winter demand for heating (and the huge difference between summer and winter demand) is the challenge. We achieve this today with natural gas - line pack, salt cavern storage, LNG. I consider that it is much easier (and lower cost) to meet this challenge through hydrogen using a similar approach than with electricity.
None of this is easy or cheap. But if we want to achieve net zero, we need to do it - and pay for it.
But the economics of hydrogen don't make sense against renewable electricity even with an energy storage solution included in the LCOE. Again, I'll pose the question, why, as an investor with £1bn, would I invest in hydrogen vs renewable electricity? Even under your system of very high CO2 taxes the case for hydrogen against renewable electricity seems marginal to non-existent. The existing infrastructure of natural gas isn't as compatible as advertised either so there's a real chicken/egg situation too. Every household has got an electricity connection, though.
As an investor, you don't care whether people go cold in the winter. You want the biggest return on your investment. Depending on how the various grant and subsidy schemes work out, that could be in hydrogen, it could be in renewables, it could be in CCGT with carbon capture for power generation. In Northern Ireland it was from burning biomass and claiming a subsidy - happy days for those who got on board.
That is a different question to what is the most technically achievable and economically optimised solution of meeting the UK's energy needs as part of a net zero strategy.
Decarbonised electricity is clearly part of the solution - for lighting, transport and a proportion of heating. However, I consider that for the bulk of heating (domestic, commercial and industrial) a decarbonised fuel is required. There will be applications for biogas, bioliquids, wood, etc., but I see hydrogen as a central plank of the solution.
As a consumer, it is the easiest solution. New boiler for old, everything else stays the same. Happy days.
Why would the state subsidise hydrogen when renewable electricity is already a decarbonised source of energy? Hydrogen, especially blue hydrogen, is actively competing with renewable electricity generation and it loses on every metric.
Also your idea that you can simply install a new hydrogen boiler into a domestic scenario is laughable. You're welcome to do it in your own place.
Seasonal storage. Peak winter demand for heat. Hydrogen delivers this much more easily than electricity.
Hydrogen-ready boilers will soon be the norm. I imagine most of us will get one by default when our existing boiler packs in from 2025 onwards. Then, when our bit of the network switches over, our homes will be hydrogen-ready.
Honestly, you seem a bit delusional about all of this. I'd like for you to install that hydrogen boiler in your own home without making any changes to the other infrastructure in your property, the no additional cost option as you are trying to imply.
Re. Colin Powell I could never work out why his name was pronounced CO-LYN and not Colin as expected?
It used to be pronounced in the usual way. He decided himself to change the pronunciation of his name because he liked the fact that World War Two pilot Colin Kelly used that pronunciation.
"Colin Powell adopted the pronunciation /ˈkoʊlɪn/ after friends who were impressed by Kelly began pronouncing Powell's name the same way.[12]"
It is almost like Khan is a qualified solicitor who knows the temperate and non prejudicial language to be used.
No, I’m afraid you’re wrong. He uses “it appears” with “was another attempt to divide us”. “Horrific killing” is stated as fact
You need to go to Specsavers.
'it appears that the horrific killing'
No sorry, afraid you are wrong. I can read written English perfectly well. He wasn’t saying ‘it appears TO BE a horrific killing’ he’s saying ‘it appears that this horrific killing is attempting to divide us’
The ‘appears’ relates to the ‘another attempt to divide us’, not to the nature of the killing
I've only seen 3 of the top 25. Fleabag, Office, Sherlock. All trad BRITISH shows. And people say I'm not a patriot.
I've seen at least one episode of 37 of the top 100 shows. I don't think that I watch a lot of TV, probably well under an hour a day on average, but I try to watch something good whenever I do.
Ah hang on, I'm not counting a series unless I've seen a good chunk of it. If I count ones where I've caught the odd epi (eg as with GoT at my brother's place) I'd be at more than 3/25. Although not massively more tbf.
Most of the 27 I've seen a good chunk of, if not every episode. But I think if you watch one episode and decide not to watch any more because you thought it was crap (Downton Abbey, I am looking at you) then you can claim to have watched it. Never seen a single second of GoT, though.
The Information Commissioner’s Office has announced that as part of their pursuit of a “Single View of the Customer” (SVoC), it is their intention that all “behavioural data” of gamblers will be shared from a centralised store. The genesis of the SVoC, which began in November 2020, was to ensure operators and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) together with the Gambling Commission had an overview of data, which would help identify problem gamblers before it became an issue. Why this role has fallen to the Information Commissioner is not clear to Guido.
In summary:
Bookies will be forced to share “behavioural data” of current customers with other gambling firms and the government-run ICO and Gambling Commission....
My guess is that the definition of "problem" gambler will be different for the gambling firms than the government.
Also, it's a blackmailers charter for anyone with access to the data.
Re. Colin Powell I could never work out why his name was pronounced CO-LYN and not Colin as expected?
It used to be pronounced in the usual way. He decided himself to change the pronunciation of his name because he liked the fact that World War Two pilot Colin Kelly used that pronunciation.
"Colin Powell adopted the pronunciation /ˈkoʊlɪn/ after friends who were impressed by Kelly began pronouncing Powell's name the same way.[12]"
The Information Commissioner’s Office has announced that as part of their pursuit of a “Single View of the Customer” (SVoC), it is their intention that all “behavioural data” of gamblers will be shared from a centralised store. The genesis of the SVoC, which began in November 2020, was to ensure operators and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) together with the Gambling Commission had an overview of data, which would help identify problem gamblers before it became an issue. Why this role has fallen to the Information Commissioner is not clear to Guido.
In summary:
Bookies will be forced to share “behavioural data” of current customers with other gambling firms and the government-run ICO and Gambling Commission....
My guess is that the definition of "problem" gambler will be different for the gambling firms than the government.
Also, it's a blackmailers charter for anyone with access to the data.
Also mission creep - to identify problem gamblers in a timely manner, you'll have to identify 'pre-problem but moving in the wrong direction' gamblers.
The Information Commissioner’s Office has announced that as part of their pursuit of a “Single View of the Customer” (SVoC), it is their intention that all “behavioural data” of gamblers will be shared from a centralised store. The genesis of the SVoC, which began in November 2020, was to ensure operators and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) together with the Gambling Commission had an overview of data, which would help identify problem gamblers before it became an issue. Why this role has fallen to the Information Commissioner is not clear to Guido.
In summary:
Bookies will be forced to share “behavioural data” of current customers with other gambling firms and the government-run ICO and Gambling Commission....
My guess is that the definition of "problem" gambler will be different for the gambling firms than the government.
Also, it's a blackmailers charter for anyone with access to the data.
Cant have people crying about having a gambling problem at all. It's their fault, no one elses. What a joke
I'm old enough to remember Labour's Green Deal, and then I look at the size, complications and cost of heat pumps and I think...ok, good luck with that.
That was before the cost of gas quadrupled in the space of a couple of months. Alternative heating solutions and/or improved insulation might look rather more interesting to consumers now.
Its a lot of equipment to fit in a standard three bed semi.
Despite what is says if you are going to use the ASHP a lot then the radiators and pipework will need to changed, as pumping 40 degree water through 15mm pipework into a standard radiator will provide very limited heat.
Agree on the lot of equipment.
That looks like someone trying to create an opportunity to keep their technology in the game. It's problematic because 1 - we are pivoting away from gas, 2 - because it is a more complex install which will requite you to eg have 2 annual services not one (gas engineers will love you), 3 - because there are far simpler solutions available.
The stuff about always needing new pipework is for an ASHP is baloney, btw. You perhaps resize your rads (or use a double of the same size). Once you have improved your fabric you do a heat demand model for your house, and a calculation which will tell you what kit you need. Replacing rads is cheap. And then set the appropriate flow rate.
Keeping the same radiators is even cheaper. Which is what happens if you switch from natural gas to hydrogen.
Gas explosions are more common than you'd like them to be. Another home was destroyed in Ayr from a gas explosion yesterday. I was woken up by the Police and ordered to evacuate my own home in the week after the London Riots after a lone copycat moron chose to go on an arson campaign and set fire to the gas pipe going into one of my neighbours leading to a fear the entire bloc could go up.
I'm no chemist but from what I understand hydrogen seems even riskier than natural gas to be connected to homes for if things go wrong.
Safety studies have been performed, and more are ongoing. On balance, the risk from hydrogen is roughly the same as that from natural gas. While, for example, there is a greater leakage potential, hydrogen is less likely to achieve a fuel-air mixture in the explosive region. Also, no carbon monoxide deaths from hydrogen.
More to the point, how will it ever be economic ?
Once we fully internalise the negative externalities of burning unabated fossil fuels, then low-carbon technologies will be cheaper.
In other words, tax the feck out of CO2 emissions.
We think we've been having a free lunch since the dawn of the industrial revolution. Now the earth has presented us with the bill.
I'm not asking about the economics versus fossil fuels. I'm asking how producing hydrogen to heat homes will ever be economic versus doing so with green electricity.
Yup, hydrogen seems like a fool's errand. It would require ripping out and replacing our existing natural gas infrastructure to accommodate how tiny hydrogen molecules are.
The nation has got to look beyond gas delivery and move towards electrical heating for everything with electricity generated by SMR/mini-nukes and renewable energy with compressed air battery storage.
In the end hydrogen will prove to be unfeasible due to the hugely explosive nature and inability to safely transport and pipe it to homes it as we do with natural gas.
Over 80% of the existing infrastructure is hydrogen compatible and it is already being trialled. The large boiler companies are heavily investing in it. The issue is the safety.
Is it really that much more explosive than our current gas supply? I can't imagine it collecting in the air in the same way as methane unless a house is extremely well sealed.
The fuel-air mixes are different - the real issue is that hydrogen can leak much more easily. Proving that a set of pipework is hydrogen tight is an interesting challenge.
Yes, which is why the 80% number is a load of rubbish.
Who to believe, industry experts or a London based pensions man.
Will that be industry experts with or without an agenda?
Any time a so called expert speaks the first question you should stop and ask yourself is "who are they and what is their agenda?"
If their agenda is to ensure hydrogen is in the mix in the future because that's their business model then that makes them an actor in this, not an independent expert.
Hydrogen may have some use as an industrial fuel, but for domestic heating it's likely to be marginal or a non event.
I expect that around 80% of homes that currently have a natural gas supply will end up being switched to a hydrogen supply.
So neither marginal nor a non-event.
You still haven't explained where it's going to come from.
In the short to medium term, blue hydrogen will be the primary source of decarbonised hydrogen. Natural gas reforming with carbon capture. Expect to see plants built as part of the clusters announced today.
Longer term, the cost of green hydrogen will come down and become the preferred source - for example as part of integrated offshore wind/electrolysis plants with the hydrogen piped to shore.
So we're going to burn gas for energy to turn other gas into hydrogen? Even if we say gas prices fall in the medium term how is that even close to economically viable? That's without addressing the CO2 storage costs, the cost of upgrading the existing natural gas storage distribution network to accept hydrogen. Who's investing all of this money?
It is economically viable when you internalise the negative externalities associated with CO2 emissions. A high enough carbon tax, and blue hydrogen is a lower cost option than just burning the natural gas.
As with other low carbon technologies, the government will give it a kick start through public sector funding. Co-funding CAPEX, support per tonne of decarbonised hydrogen produced, support for the costs of CO2 transport and storage.
Either the taxpayer pays, business pays, the consumer pays or the planet is buggered. Our choice.
But hydrogen is still competing with renewable electricity and electric water heating. It doesn't exist in isolation. With a high CO2 tax like that hydrogen would lose to electric. The automotive industry has already realised this, it won't be long until water heating goes the same way.
Why, if I had £1bn to invest in green energy, would I look at hydrogen instead of offshore wind plus compressed air batteries? The cost of the latter is lower and it doesn't rely on nice Mr Putin keeping the pipelines open.
Meeting the peak winter demand for heating (and the huge difference between summer and winter demand) is the challenge. We achieve this today with natural gas - line pack, salt cavern storage, LNG. I consider that it is much easier (and lower cost) to meet this challenge through hydrogen using a similar approach than with electricity.
None of this is easy or cheap. But if we want to achieve net zero, we need to do it - and pay for it.
But the economics of hydrogen don't make sense against renewable electricity even with an energy storage solution included in the LCOE. Again, I'll pose the question, why, as an investor with £1bn, would I invest in hydrogen vs renewable electricity? Even under your system of very high CO2 taxes the case for hydrogen against renewable electricity seems marginal to non-existent. The existing infrastructure of natural gas isn't as compatible as advertised either so there's a real chicken/egg situation too. Every household has got an electricity connection, though.
As an investor, you don't care whether people go cold in the winter. You want the biggest return on your investment. Depending on how the various grant and subsidy schemes work out, that could be in hydrogen, it could be in renewables, it could be in CCGT with carbon capture for power generation. In Northern Ireland it was from burning biomass and claiming a subsidy - happy days for those who got on board.
That is a different question to what is the most technically achievable and economically optimised solution of meeting the UK's energy needs as part of a net zero strategy.
Decarbonised electricity is clearly part of the solution - for lighting, transport and a proportion of heating. However, I consider that for the bulk of heating (domestic, commercial and industrial) a decarbonised fuel is required. There will be applications for biogas, bioliquids, wood, etc., but I see hydrogen as a central plank of the solution.
As a consumer, it is the easiest solution. New boiler for old, everything else stays the same. Happy days.
Why would the state subsidise hydrogen when renewable electricity is already a decarbonised source of energy? Hydrogen, especially blue hydrogen, is actively competing with renewable electricity generation and it loses on every metric.
Also your idea that you can simply install a new hydrogen boiler into a domestic scenario is laughable. You're welcome to do it in your own place.
Seasonal storage. Peak winter demand for heat. Hydrogen delivers this much more easily than electricity.
Hydrogen-ready boilers will soon be the norm. I imagine most of us will get one by default when our existing boiler packs in from 2025 onwards. Then, when our bit of the network switches over, our homes will be hydrogen-ready.
Honestly, you seem a bit delusional about all of this. I'd like for you to install that hydrogen boiler in your own home without making any changes to the other infrastructure in your property, the no additional cost option as you are trying to imply.
Within the house - no change. Outside the house - no change in the pipework; PE is good to go with hydrogen. The gas meter may need recalibration or possibly replacement (we got a new meter last year so I would hope it can be recalibrated).
Instead of all these horseshit picking the winners and losers, why don't we have a straight carbon tax paid immediately back out to people on a per capita basis. It'd encourage the lowish fertility rate a bit too done that way.
It is almost like Khan is a qualified solicitor who knows the temperate and non prejudicial language to be used.
No, I’m afraid you’re wrong. He uses “it appears” with “was another attempt to divide us”. “Horrific killing” is stated as fact
You need to go to Specsavers.
'it appears that the horrific killing'
No sorry, afraid you are wrong. I can read written English perfectly well. He wasn’t saying ‘it appears TO BE a horrific killing’ he’s saying ‘it appears that this horrific killing is attempting to divide us’
The ‘appears’ relates to the ‘another attempt to divide us’, not to the nature of the killing
And what is bugging you about it exactly?
I think Lozza Fox has the issues - Khan used 'passed away' instead of 'been killed', although Khan did use 'horrifically killed' in his official statement.
It is almost like Khan is a qualified solicitor who knows the temperate and non prejudicial language to be used.
No, I’m afraid you’re wrong. He uses “it appears” with “was another attempt to divide us”. “Horrific killing” is stated as fact
You need to go to Specsavers.
'it appears that the horrific killing'
No sorry, afraid you are wrong. I can read written English perfectly well. He wasn’t saying ‘it appears TO BE a horrific killing’ he’s saying ‘it appears that this horrific killing is attempting to divide us’
The ‘appears’ relates to the ‘another attempt to divide us’, not to the nature of the killing
The Information Commissioner’s Office has announced that as part of their pursuit of a “Single View of the Customer” (SVoC), it is their intention that all “behavioural data” of gamblers will be shared from a centralised store. The genesis of the SVoC, which began in November 2020, was to ensure operators and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) together with the Gambling Commission had an overview of data, which would help identify problem gamblers before it became an issue. Why this role has fallen to the Information Commissioner is not clear to Guido.
In summary:
Bookies will be forced to share “behavioural data” of current customers with other gambling firms and the government-run ICO and Gambling Commission....
My guess is that the definition of "problem" gambler will be different for the gambling firms than the government.
Also, it's a blackmailers charter for anyone with access to the data.
It's going to be a nightmare for those who rack up losses at the traditional bookies which we trade out for profit on Betfair.
The Information Commissioner’s Office has announced that as part of their pursuit of a “Single View of the Customer” (SVoC), it is their intention that all “behavioural data” of gamblers will be shared from a centralised store. The genesis of the SVoC, which began in November 2020, was to ensure operators and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) together with the Gambling Commission had an overview of data, which would help identify problem gamblers before it became an issue. Why this role has fallen to the Information Commissioner is not clear to Guido.
In summary:
Bookies will be forced to share “behavioural data” of current customers with other gambling firms and the government-run ICO and Gambling Commission....
My guess is that the definition of "problem" gambler will be different for the gambling firms than the government.
Also, it's a blackmailers charter for anyone with access to the data.
Also mission creep - to identify problem gamblers in a timely manner, you'll have to identify 'pre-problem but moving in the wrong direction' gamblers.
If it's anything like the daily/weekly levels for booze, it'll be the first time you loose over 50p.
Statement by Donald J Trump, 45th President of the USA, on the death of Colin Powell.
'Wonderful to see Colin Powell, who made big mistakes on Iraq and famously, so-called weapons of mass destruction, be treated in death so beautifully by the Fake News Media. Hope that happens to me someday. He was a classic RINO, if even that, always being the first to attack other Republicans. He made plenty of mistakes, but anyway, may he rest in peace!'
Just put a wind turbine on top of every car. As you drive along, the wind powers the motor. Simples.
There's a standard experiment for checking whether young children have developed a theory of mind and I think you could devise something similar from your example to test whether a person has has understood the principle of conservation of energy.
You could use it in place of the captcha tests as a screen for posting on social media.
I've only seen 3 of the top 25. Fleabag, Office, Sherlock. All trad BRITISH shows. And people say I'm not a patriot.
I've seen at least one episode of 37 of the top 100 shows. I don't think that I watch a lot of TV, probably well under an hour a day on average, but I try to watch something good whenever I do.
Ah hang on, I'm not counting a series unless I've seen a good chunk of it. If I count ones where I've caught the odd epi (eg as with GoT at my brother's place) I'd be at more than 3/25. Although not massively more tbf.
Most of the 27 I've seen a good chunk of, if not every episode. But I think if you watch one episode and decide not to watch any more because you thought it was crap (Downton Abbey, I am looking at you) then you can claim to have watched it. Never seen a single second of GoT, though.
Yes, ok, that's fair. Thrones, the episode I watched at my brother's, that was a long long however long it was, and although I couldn't have continued with it (unless I moved in with him) I can certify quite solemnly that I wouldn't have done anyway. So I HAVE watched Game of Thrones.
Just put a wind turbine on top of every car. As you drive along, the wind powers the motor. Simples.
There's a standard experiment for checking whether young children have developed a theory of mind and I think you could devise something similar from your example to test whether a person has has understood the principle of conservation of energy.
You could use it in place of the captcha tests as a screen for posting on social media.
If anyone can make it through the conveyor belt runway problem and adequately explain the Monty Hall solution, they deserve to be let in and have their say. Everyone else, sit doon.
Deaths also consistently rising - look at date of report graph which bottomed out on 4 Oct. 7 day averages:
4 Oct - 108 16 Oct - 130
NB. Above are the correct centred 7 day averages - ie 16 Oct figure is the 7 days from 13 Oct to 19 Oct inclusive.
Don't be fooled by date of death graph where backdating will always catch you out.
Today's case numbers were up rather less vs last Monday than the last few week on week rises.
I'd guess we'll start to see cases levelling off or starting to drop by the end of this week. We've also got half term coming up which will provide a bit of a fire break.
Hospital / Death may continue rising for a bit yet as the latest mini-wave does seem to have leaked into the elderly.
Needed to get jabbing! What _were_ the JCVI playing at over the summer?
The Information Commissioner’s Office has announced that as part of their pursuit of a “Single View of the Customer” (SVoC), it is their intention that all “behavioural data” of gamblers will be shared from a centralised store. The genesis of the SVoC, which began in November 2020, was to ensure operators and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) together with the Gambling Commission had an overview of data, which would help identify problem gamblers before it became an issue. Why this role has fallen to the Information Commissioner is not clear to Guido.
In summary:
Bookies will be forced to share “behavioural data” of current customers with other gambling firms and the government-run ICO and Gambling Commission....
My guess is that the definition of "problem" gambler will be different for the gambling firms than the government.
Also, it's a blackmailers charter for anyone with access to the data.
From the bookies point of view is a problem gambler not one who wins?
Just put a wind turbine on top of every car. As you drive along, the wind powers the motor. Simples.
There's a standard experiment for checking whether young children have developed a theory of mind and I think you could devise something similar from your example to test whether a person has has understood the principle of conservation of energy.
You could use it in place of the captcha tests as a screen for posting on social media.
If anyone can make it through the conveyor belt runway problem and adequately explain the Monty Hall solution, they deserve to be let in and have their say. Everyone else, sit doon.
I think your idea works just fine. High performance sailing vessels can travel a fuck of a lot faster than the actual wind speed and this is usually explained as "they are creating their own wind."
Just put a wind turbine on top of every car. As you drive along, the wind powers the motor. Simples.
There's a standard experiment for checking whether young children have developed a theory of mind and I think you could devise something similar from your example to test whether a person has has understood the principle of conservation of energy.
You could use it in place of the captcha tests as a screen for posting on social media.
If anyone can make it through the conveyor belt runway problem and adequately explain the Monty Hall solution, they deserve to be let in and have their say. Everyone else, sit doon.
I think your idea works just fine. High performance sailing vessels can travel a fuck of a lot faster than the actual wind speed and this is usually explained as "they are creating their own wind."
I'm staring at your post with scepticism. I can imagine that torque from a long mast could generate that effect, but I'd need more convincing before I believe you.
It is almost like Khan is a qualified solicitor who knows the temperate and non prejudicial language to be used.
No, I’m afraid you’re wrong. He uses “it appears” with “was another attempt to divide us”. “Horrific killing” is stated as fact
You need to go to Specsavers.
'it appears that the horrific killing'
No sorry, afraid you are wrong. I can read written English perfectly well. He wasn’t saying ‘it appears TO BE a horrific killing’ he’s saying ‘it appears that this horrific killing is attempting to divide us’
The ‘appears’ relates to the ‘another attempt to divide us’, not to the nature of the killing
The Information Commissioner’s Office has announced that as part of their pursuit of a “Single View of the Customer” (SVoC), it is their intention that all “behavioural data” of gamblers will be shared from a centralised store. The genesis of the SVoC, which began in November 2020, was to ensure operators and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) together with the Gambling Commission had an overview of data, which would help identify problem gamblers before it became an issue. Why this role has fallen to the Information Commissioner is not clear to Guido.
In summary:
Bookies will be forced to share “behavioural data” of current customers with other gambling firms and the government-run ICO and Gambling Commission....
My guess is that the definition of "problem" gambler will be different for the gambling firms than the government.
Also, it's a blackmailers charter for anyone with access to the data.
From the bookies point of view is a problem gambler not one who wins?
Comments
That is a different question to what is the most technically achievable and economically optimised solution of meeting the UK's energy needs as part of a net zero strategy.
Decarbonised electricity is clearly part of the solution - for lighting, transport and a proportion of heating. However, I consider that for the bulk of heating (domestic, commercial and industrial) a decarbonised fuel is required. There will be applications for biogas, bioliquids, wood, etc., but I see hydrogen as a central plank of the solution.
As a consumer, it is the easiest solution. New boiler for old, everything else stays the same. Happy days.
It's quite a long way from the principle of open justice.
Hydrogen is not even remotely economic via electrolysis at present, and it's completely uncertain as to when it might be. You can't plan a nation's domestic heating on that basis.
And if the tech for electrolysis ever does become economic, it would be far more practical to then make synthetic fuels rather than hydrogen.
In the meantime, storage technology is already a commercial reality and will improve year on year. And a Europe wide grid with interconnects to N Africa* will be a reality long before commercial hydrogen - which will deal with 9)% of the intermittency problem anyway.
*This might only be a decade out, and is entirely based on technology already available.
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/04/22/submarine-cable-to-connect-10-5-gw-wind-solar-complex-in-morocco-to-the-uk-grid/
Which is the essential component of a reliable heat pump...
He's clearly pitching for the moderate vote in 24. Worrying.
It took him three months to realise people were talking to him when they said 'Creg'.
Also your idea that you can simply install a new hydrogen boiler into a domestic scenario is laughable. You're welcome to do it in your own place.
Retrospective legislation, particularly if targeted at an individual, is simply unacceptable.
Just shun the f8cker.
The Information Commissioner’s Office has announced that as part of their pursuit of a “Single View of the Customer” (SVoC), it is their intention that all “behavioural data” of gamblers will be shared from a centralised store. The genesis of the SVoC, which began in November 2020, was to ensure operators and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) together with the Gambling Commission had an overview of data, which would help identify problem gamblers before it became an issue. Why this role has fallen to the Information Commissioner is not clear to Guido.
In summary:
Bookies will be forced to share “behavioural data” of current customers with other gambling firms and the government-run ICO and Gambling Commission.
The ICO has said it expects – in addition to behavioural data – for the Gambling Commission to collect “credit reference data on personal income.”
Any gambler who has more than one gambling account will be added to a register of gamblers, which all operators and government will have access to.
The SVoC plan poses a clear and unprecedented level of privacy infringement. Bookies will be forced to share personal data with government agencies, including: how much is deposited, where people live, names, addresses. This will develop into the government having the power to oversee credit-referenced data and, ultimately, decide if the person can gamble. Regular gamblers, like the Queen, will have to be on the government’s gamblers’ register just to have a flutter on the Derby.
https://order-order.com/2021/10/19/queen-will-have-to-go-on-gamblers-register/
Extracting it from water not as easy as one would hope, then
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-19/russia-signals-europe-won-t-get-extra-gas-without-nord-stream-2
Hydrogen isn't necessarily green (unless through electrolysis, which is a long way from being economical) nor does it easily fit in with our existing infrastructure. I fear it is a red herring.
The implication of no gas/hydrogen is, however, that we would need to have huge amounts of surplus electricity during summer months, which we would need to either store or export.
CO is far less forcing than CO2.
There are err .. downsides to this though.
Hydrogen-ready boilers will soon be the norm. I imagine most of us will get one by default when our existing boiler packs in from 2025 onwards. Then, when our bit of the network switches over, our homes will be hydrogen-ready.
But the state is subsidising quite a lot of research into hydrogen - a lot going on the Sheffield City Region.
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/energy/our-research/hydrogen-0
The only thing you gain in return is range.
"Colin Powell adopted the pronunciation /ˈkoʊlɪn/ after friends who were impressed by Kelly began pronouncing Powell's name the same way.[12]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Kelly#Honors
"While the likes of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney were pantomime villains, Colin Powell acted to provide 'moderate' veneer for the Bush regime, and played a pivotal role in an Iraq war which remains one of the greatest human catastrophes of our time."
Same sentiment minus the egomania and passive aggressive snark.
Blue hydrogen is nothing more than an oil and gas industry scam and hydrogen from electrolysis needs a gigantic energy surplus to work. It may make sense in the all-year sunny countries but not really in the UK.
Number in hospital up 600 in 2 days:
16 Oct - 7,136
18 Oct - 7,749
Deaths also consistently rising - look at date of report graph which bottomed out on 4 Oct. 7 day averages:
4 Oct - 108
16 Oct - 130
NB. Above are the correct centred 7 day averages - ie 16 Oct figure is the 7 days from 13 Oct to 19 Oct inclusive.
Don't be fooled by date of death graph where backdating will always catch you out.
Also, it's a blackmailers charter for anyone with access to the data.
If these figures scare people to go and get their jabs if they are eligible right now to do so then it's IMO worth publicising them.
It'd encourage the lowish fertility rate a bit too done that way.
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/furious-motorist-drives-into-eco-protesters-blocking-road-near-dartford-crossing/
You could use it in place of the captcha tests as a screen for posting on social media.
I'd guess we'll start to see cases levelling off or starting to drop by the end of this week. We've also got half term coming up which will provide a bit of a fire break.
Hospital / Death may continue rising for a bit yet as the latest mini-wave does seem to have leaked into the elderly.
Needed to get jabbing! What _were_ the JCVI playing at over the summer?