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The first part of this analysis on the recently released life-cycle assessment of “blue” hydrogen covered the provenance and background for the paper, as well as the significant and questionable assumptions that the authors make about both expected demand for “blue” hydrogen and the scalability of carbon capture and sequestration it would demand. This second half continues the analysis of assumptions and statements in the paper.

“In general, large-scale blue hydrogen production will be connected to the high-pressure natural gas transmission grid and therefore, methane emissions from final distribution to decentralized consumers (i.e., the low-pressure distribution network) should not be included in the quantification of climate impacts of blue hydrogen.”

The first problem with this is the assumption that massive centralized models of hydrogen generation will be preferable to the current highly distributed creation of hydrogen at the point of consumption. The challenges with distributing hydrogen are clear and obvious, so it’s interesting that they make an assumption that is completely contrary to what is occurring today, and wave away the significant additional challenges — including carbon debt — of creating a massive hydrogen distribution system essentially from scratch.

This also assumes that there will continue to be a distribution network for natural gas. Electrification of heat will continue apace, eliminating this market. But supposing that it does continue, this assumes that perpetuating the leakage problem is in line with actual climate mitigation, which is decidedly not the case. This is not the point of the paper, but is in line with the rest of the paper’s assumptions.

“… natural gas supply must be associated with low GHG emissions, which means that natural gas leaks and methane emissions along the entire supply chain, including extraction, storage, and transport, must be minimized.”

This is in context of what requirements “blue” hydrogen would have to meet in order to be low-carbon hydrogen per the paper.

I agree with this statement, but further say that there is zero reason to believe that this will be widely adhered to as the fossil fuel industry is already lagging substantially in maintenance with declining revenues in regions impacted by the Saudi Arabian-Russian price war, the history of the industry consists of a Ponzi-scheme of paying for remediation with far distant and non-existent revenues — witness the $200 billion in unfunded remediation in Alberta’s oil sands as merely the tip of the iceberg, and as long-distance piping and shipping of natural gas requires a great deal of expensive monitoring and maintenance to maintain that standard.

In other words, while the statement is true as far as it goes, it is so unlikely to be common as to be irrelevant to the actual needs of the world for hydrogen, something that the authors barely acknowledge.

“Our assessment is that CO2 capture technology is already sufficiently mature to allow removal rates at the hydrogen production plant of above 90%. Capture rates close to 100% are technically feasible, slightly decreasing energy efficiencies and increasing costs, but have yet to be demonstrated at scale.”

Once again, 90% is inadequate with over a thousand billion tons of excess CO2 already in the atmosphere. Second, carbon capture at source has been being done since the mid-19th century. It’s not getting magically better. The likelihood that approaching 100% capture rate technologies will be deployed by organizations and individuals who think 90% is good enough and are likely to be rewarded handsomely for achieving that level approaches zero. After all, Equinor has received what I estimate to be over a billion USD in tax breaks for its Sleipner facility, which simply pumps CO2 they extracted back underground, and ExxonMobil touts its Shute Creek facility as the best in the world when it pumps CO2 up in one place then back underground in another place for enhanced oil recovery, benefiting nothing except their bottom line.

Removal of carbon from the atmosphere to draw down CO2 levels toward achieving a stable climate will not be realized by “good enough,” and close to 100% will be so rarely realized globally that it’s not worth discussing.

“It is important to reiterate that no single hydrogen production technology (including electrolysis with renewables) is completely net-zero in terms of GHG emissions over its life cycle and will therefore need additional GHG removal from the atmosphere to comply with strict net-zero targets.”

The authors appear to think that the current CO2e emissions from purely renewable energy are going to persist. As mining, processing, distribution, manufacturing and construction processes decarbonize, the currently very low GHG emissions of renewables full lifecycle will fall. This is equivalent to the common argument against electric cars, that grid electricity isn’t pure. It’s also a remarkable oversight for a group of authors committed to a rigorous LCA process.

The argument that “blue” hydrogen at its very best in the best possible cases will be as good as renewably powered electrolysis as it decarbonizes fails the basic tests of logic and reasonableness.

“… natural gas with CCS may be a more sustainable route than hydrogen to decarbonize such applications as power generation.”

This is so completely wrong that it’s remarkable that it made it into the document. First, there is no value in hydrogen as a generation technology. That’s a complete and utter non-starter beginning to end, making electricity vastly more expensive to no climate benefit. Secondly, all bolt-on flue capture programs for electrical generation have cost hundreds of millions or billions and failed. They increase the costs of electrical generation to the level where it was completely uncompetitive in today’s markets.

When wind and solar are trending to $20 per MWh, long-distance transmission of electricity using HVDC exists in lengths thousands of kilometers long and underwater around the world, and there are already 170 GW of grid storage and another 60 GW under construction at the bare beginning of the development of storage, assuming that either natural gas with CCS or hydrogen have any play in electrical generation makes it clear that the authors are simply starting with the assumption that natural gas and hydrogen have a major part to play in the future, and have created an argument for it.


The authors’ argument boils down to that in a perfect world, perfectly monitored and perfectly maintained, “blue” hydrogen would be similar in emissions to green hydrogen today, ignoring the rapidly dropping GHG emissions per MWh of renewables and ignoring that the world of fossil fuels in no way adheres to the premise of perfect monitoring and perfect maintenance.

The authors are performing a life-cycle assessment focusing on greenhouse gas emissions, and it is not scoped to include costs. Having reviewed the costs of the technologies that they are proposing for this hypothetical perfect “blue” hydrogen world, they are vastly higher than just not bothering, shifting to renewables rapidly and electrifying rapidly.

As a contribution to the literature on what will happen in the real world, this is a fairly slight addition, one which is being promoted far beyond its actual merit by the usual suspects.

Featured image by akitada31 from Pixabay

 

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Oil giant Saudi Aramco posts 15% drop in third-quarter profit but maintains dividend

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Oil giant Saudi Aramco posts 15% drop in third-quarter profit but maintains dividend

Saudi Aramco’s Ras Tanura oil refinery and oil terminal

Ahmed Jadallah | Reuters

Saudi state oil giant Aramco reported a 15.4% drop in net profit in the third-quarter on the back of “lower crude oil prices and weakening refining margins,” but maintained a 31.05 billion dividend.

The company reported net income of $27.56 billion in the July-September period, topping a company-provided estimate of $26.9 billion. The print is also a 5% drop from the previous quarter, which came in at $29.1 billion, as lower global oil prices, weaker demand and prolonged OPEC+ production cuts led by Saudi Arabia continue to impact crude prices.

The average selling price of oil for the second quarter of 2024 stood at $85 per barrel, but dropped to $78.7 per barrel during the third quarter, according to Saudi-based bank Al Rajhi capital, as non-OPEC supply volumes grew.

The oil firm said its year-on-year decline was partly offset by a “reduction in selling, administrative and general expenses primarily driven by a gain from derivative instruments, and a decrease in production royalties largely reflecting lower crude oil prices and a lower average effective royalty rate compared to the same quarter last year.”

Aramco’s dividend includes a base payout of $20.3 billion and an atypical performance-linked one of $10.8 billion. The Saudi government and the kingdom’s sovereign wealth vehicle, the Public Investment Fund, are the main beneficiaries of the dividend, holding stakes of roughly 81.5% and 16% in the company.

The remaining shareholding trades freely on Saudi Arabia’s Tadāwul stock exchange, with the company having finalized its second public share offering back in June.

Aramco’s earnings before Interest and Taxes (EBIT) came in at $51.45 billion in the third quarter, down 17% year-on-year. Aramco’s capital expenditure guidance was brought up 20% to $13.23 billion.

The company was trading at 27.45 riyals following the announcement, down 0.18% on the previous day.

The earnings align with a broader trend across oil majors, whose third-quarter profits have also suffered from declines in crude prices and refining margins. Aramco said it achieved average realized crude price of $79.3 per barrel in the third quarter, compared with $89.3 per barrel in the same period of last year.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude exporter who produces roughly 9 million barrels per day of crude at present, serves as the de facto leader of the OPEC+ oil producers’ alliance, a subset of whom agreed over the weekend to delay a planned December output hike by one month.

OPEC chief says delayed December output hike is 'nothing unusual'

“Aramco delivered robust net income and generated strong free cash flow during the third quarter, despite a lower oil price environment,” CEO Amin Nasser said in a statement. “We also progressed our upstream developments, strengthened our downstream value chain, and advanced our new energies program as we continue to invest through cycles.”

The revenues will be a boon to the Saudi economy, which is currently undergoing a diversification process under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s legacy Vision 2030 scheme spanning a slew of high-cost infrastructure “gigaprojects.”

Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Finance cut the kingdom’s growth forecast to 0.8% in 2024, in a steep decline from a previous projection of 4.4%, and raised the outlook for the national budgetary shortfall to roughly 2.9% of GDP, from a prior indication of 1.9%.

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Cybertruck backlog runs out, Model S gets stuck, GM hits a sales milestone

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Cybertruck backlog runs out, Model S gets stuck, GM hits a sales milestone

On today’s episode of Quick Charge, Tesla’s Cybertruck is now available in Canada – and, like in the US, there’s no waiting! Plus, we’ve got an “actually” smart summon Tesla that’s actually stuck, GM reaches a sales milestone, and we get a brand-new title sponsor!

Today’s episode is the first with our new title sponsor, BLUETTI – a leading provider of portable power stations, solar generators, and energy storage systems.

Prefer listening to your podcasts? Audio-only versions of Quick Charge are now available on Apple PodcastsSpotifyTuneIn, and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded, usually, Monday through Thursday (and sometimes Sunday). We’ll be posting bonusLucid proves than an EV company can keep its promises while Xiaomi teams up with Chevrolet and Honda to prove – at least conceptually – that records are made to be broken. audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news!

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Drop us a line at tips@electrek.co. You can also rate us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show!

Read more: Renewables now make up 30% of US utility-scale generating capacity

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This ‘supercharger on wheels’ brings fast charging to you [update]

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This 'supercharger on wheels' brings fast charging to you [update]

Mobile car care company Yoshi Mobility launched a DC fast charging EV mobile unit that it likens to “a supercharger on wheels.”

November 4, 2024 update: Yoshi Mobility will only be charging EVs on the side of the road now – it announced today that it’s selling its fleet fueling operation to EZFill Holdings (Nasdaq: EZFL).

It was originally founded as a direct-to-consumer, mobile fueling business in 2016, but now it’s going to focus on mobile EV charging, virtual vehicle inspections for partners like Uber and Turo, and onsite preventative maintenance.

Bryan Frist, Yoshi Mobility’s CEO & cofounder, said, “By spinning off our fuel business and focusing all of our energy on solving hair-on-fire problems that fleet owners face, we are meeting the changing needs of enterprise customers while making the future of transportation safer, cleaner, and more sustainable.”


May 22, 2024: Yoshi Mobility saw that its existing customers needed mobile EV charging in places where infrastructure has yet to be installed, so the Nashville-based company decided to bring the mountain to Moses.

“We recognized a demand among our customers for convenient daily charging, reliable private charging networks, and proper charging infrastructure to support their fleet vehicles as they transition to electric,” said Dan Hunter, Yoshi Mobility’s chief EV officer and cofounder.

The company says its 240 kW mobile DC fast charger, which can turn “any EV” into a mobile charging unit, is the first fully electric mobile charger available. It can provide multiple charges in a single trip but doesn’t detail how they charge the DC fast charger or who manufactured it. (I asked for more details, and they replied that they won’t disclose client names or the manufacturer of its DC fast charger yet.)

Yoshi is launching its mobile charger on two GM BrightDrop Zevo 600s and will introduce additional vehicles throughout 2024. It aims for full commercialization by Q1 2025. (I wonder if the Zevo 600 ever charges itself? Yes, I asked that too.)

Yoshi Mobility says it’s already deployed its EV charging solutions to service “major OEMs, autonomous vehicle companies, and rideshare operators” across the US. Its initial customers are made up of large EV operators managing “hundreds” of light-duty vehicles requiring up to 1 megawatt of energy per day that don’t yet have grid-connected EV chargers. I’ve asked Yoshi for details of who it’s working with, and will update if they share that info.

The company says pricing is based on location and enterprise charging needs. Once under contract for service, the service will be deployed to US-based customers within 10 days.

To date, Yoshi Mobility has raised more than $60 million, with investments from GM Ventures, Bridgestone, ExxonMobil, and Y-Combinator in Silicon Valley.

Read more: Mercedes-Benz just opened more DC fast chargers at Buc-ee’s in Texas


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