The Great Hydrogen Reset - Is It Germany's Turn? Ep176: Eva Schmid

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  • Опубликовано: 9 янв 2025

Комментарии • 125

  • @CleaningUpPod
    @CleaningUpPod  4 месяца назад +10

    Thank you to Eva Schmid from DENA for joining us on Cleaning Up. Find out more about DENA's work on all aspects of the German energy transition at www.dena.de/en

    • @tonywilson4713
      @tonywilson4713 2 месяца назад

      There's a staggeringly stupid item that keeps popping up in all these discussions and that's efficiency.
      Right at 1:15 Michael jumps in about the efficiency of hydrogen and ammonia and THAT'S UTTERLY IRRELEVANT.
      The only thing at the end of the day is can you deliver electricity to the end user at a reasonable COST.
      Does anyone really think for an instant that a householder wont turn on a light because in their mind that the electricity they use was delivered by an inefficient system? I can ask the same question of a factory manager over the cost to run his machines, a mine site superintendent over the cost of running his crusher, a stock broker over the cost of tunning his computers, a dentist over the cost of running his drill OR ANY OTHER PROFESSION.
      Efficiency is a nonsense discussion point for everyone EXCEPT engineers because we have to justify what we deliver. End users do not have to care.
      *AND MOST OF ALL AND THI SREALLY GETS ME FIRED UP*
      We have to replace at least 100 Gigawatts of older power generation for the simple reason *IT IS OLD AND WORN OUT AND NEEDS REPLACING.* While we have these endless circular discussions *NOTHING IS GETTING DONE.*
      That's why I have a very short fuse with talk fest merchants a consultants and Think Tank clowns.
      NONE OF THEM BUILD
      ALL OF THEM WASTE TIME

    • @MLiebreich
      @MLiebreich Месяц назад

      ​@@tonywilson4713 Of course cost is more important than efficiency per se. But efficiency is a good starting point when it comes to comparing running costs. And with hydrogen, not only are you generally losing half to 80% of your money by being inefficient which means you start with a HUGE cost disadvantage, but you are also spending even more on capex and maintenance for the privilege of doing so.
      Now, you can be as insulting as you want, I'm an engineer and financie who can do numbers. I'll keep telling it like it is.
      I suggest you calm down and either listen quietly - you might learn something - or go and find a channel where ignoramuses promote hydrogen to your heart's content.

    • @tonywilson4713
      @tonywilson4713 Месяц назад

      @@MLiebreich AS AN ENGINEER I AM SO TIRED of irrelevant nonsense *I don't mind the fact you put hard questions to people because that does NOT happen enough, but you also need to listen.*
      Apologies up front for the length of this but if you are the MLiebreich I think you are then your an engineer and you KNOW about the Laws of Thermodynamics and things like Carnot Efficiency is 1-(Tc/Th). I certainly learned covered that in college and YES until recently forgotten how useful some of these basic concepts are.
      Here's an example of stupid noise: I saw a recent BBC story on a geothermal powered direct carbon capture system. They claimed $1000/ton with the aim to get that to $300/ton. There's 2.5 Trillion tons of excess CO2 in the atmosphere soon to become 3.5 Trillion tons by the mid 2030s and 4.5 Trillion in the mid 2040s. Even at $300 a ton it would cost more than $1 QUADRILLION. The BBC didn't question that system they praised it.
      ON EFFICIENCY
      Go look at Wikipedia for the Generation 3 and 3+ nuclear reactors and look at thermal to electrical power.
      Hinckley Point C and its EPR 2 36% at a cost of £24Billion each (Hinckley Pt. C)
      Westinghouse-Toshiba AP1000 32.9% at a cost of US$18.4 each (Vogtle)
      SNTPC -Westinghouse CAP1400 34.5%
      KEPCO APR1400 34.7% and APR+ 35.1%
      CANDU ACR-1000 33.9% (that's the advanced CANDU)
      Why are they all about the same efficiency? Simple - Carnot Cycle efficiency. They can't go much over 600C and at a Tc/Th ratio of 285C/600C you get 36.1%. This is also why coal unless they use high temp flash boilers is also limited to about 36%. With the high temp flash boilers they've gotten coal to about 42%.
      This why Gas turbines get about 46% by themselves. A Tc/Th of 800C/1700C gets 45.6% but that 800C exhaust allows you to boil water and that's how cogen systems can get over 64%. GE's data sheet for the 9HA claims 64.7% in cogen mode.
      PLUS the latest available PEM cells for electrolysers have an efficiency of over 90% and there's cells underdevelopment reported at over 94%. I don't know where you get this claim of losing 80% but its just not true. It might have been true once but not anymore.
      No consider an offshore wind turbine dedicated to hydrogen production. Its sole purpose is to pump back to shore hydrogen to a gas turbine with a cogen unit. It would get something like 55-58%.
      The Nhon Trach 3 and 4 Power Plant Project in Vietnam with 2 GE 9HA cogen units has a cost of $1.4 Billion USD. Double that and you have the similar output of Hinckley Point C but you'd need the additional cost of the offshore, electrolysers, gas compressors and pipe back to shore.
      After doing some costs research via google I found estimates for
      CAPEX for Offshore wind in the UK at £2.37M/MW (~ £2.4B/GW )
      PEM Electrolysers at €1,400/KW (~ £1.2B/GW )
      At 55% efficiency to generate 3.2 GW I'd need to start with about 5.2GW of wind power. We'll round that up to 6GW to have some back up and add in £2B for the balance of plant (compressors, pipes, etc).
      Total CAPEX £25.8 Billion for 3.2GW of inertial base load with a basic turn down or 30%.
      Even if we put in 8GW of offshore wind and the BOP cost £4B then its £$35B for 3.2GW.
      Yeah its NOT cheap but compared to the £48 Billion for Hinckley Point C its a lot cheaper and I've exclusively used the more expensive offshore wind.
      Yes there are maintenance costs over the lifetime of the plant but there's also lifetime costs for nuclear.
      MORE IMPORTANTY its *INERTIAL BASE LOAD*
      I say Inertial for a very specific reason. Go watch the video here on YT by Real Engineering on the issues with wind in Ireland. Their wind system runs through inverters its NOT direct of the generator. It has advantages and disadvantages. The major disadvantage is that inverter systems are frequency followers and as such have NO inertia. Giant spinning turbines (gas, coal, nuclear, hydro,...) have actual physical inertia and that inertia helps stabilise the frequency of a power grid.
      For years here in Australia there's been talk of unstable power in various parts of the grid. I had an employer in the late 90s who was asked to help out with the micro grids in large buildings. The problem there was harmonics overlaid on the base 50Hz. *When I watched that video by Real Engineering I suddenly knew these things are all related.* There's now a lot of noise overlaid on the base frequency in our energy grids. Its caused by lots of things like switched mode power supplies used for computers and phone chargers as well as people turning stuff on & off. A major component to that are the inverters that invert DC back into AC which I know about because that's the same tech in the variable speed drives we use in automation in factories, mine sites and other places.
      YES ITS LESS EFFICIENT than direct wind to electricity but that has the issue of BOTH frequency stability and base load stability. A block of gas turbines fueled by hydrogen is substantially cheaper CAPEX than nuclear and doesn't take 10 years to build AND it helps make the rest of the wind & solar sectors more viable. If you want to use the batteries in cars as some suggest to soak up excess wind & solar well that means transmission losses to the car, AC to DC losses, charging losses through heat and the the whole lot again getting that stored energy back out of the cars AND DURING IT ALL you're putting more and more noise onto the network getting it closer and closer to stability collapse.
      *BUT THEN - NONE OF THAT ACTUALLY MATTERS IF WE DO NOT ADDRESS THE OVERALL EFFICIENCY ISSUES* because in the end its also about how society uses the energy that arrives at their door. Right now when you look at the OVERALL efficiency with which we use energy its lucky if its 10% and most of the time its around 5% or less. Don't forget we lose over 60% before it gets to the door and then we have all the heat losses from things like HVAC, cooking food and electronics especially computer systems.
      You had your mate on who talked about efficiency and he kept trying to explain to you the issues with throwing away so much WASTE HEAT. You should go back and listen to what he was saying because he was 100% right. A couple of years ago the Scottish Political economist Mark Blyth mentioned an engineering study where they claimed if Joe Biden simply had the US Government PAY FOR triple glazing all of the glass towers in American cities they'd not only meet America's Paris agreements on emissions easily but the increase tax revenue from the increases in profits to the building owners would pay for it over time.
      I think there's a huge future in capturing what we can from low temp waste heat in the 200-300C range. The energy is there and its free. Like with cogen units on gas turbines they just capture waste heat and produce electricity from it. I came across a company from Finland that does sell such systems. I tried but failed to get them interested in Australia where we have lots of dairy processing and lots of waste heat from it.
      If you look at something like Hinkley Pt C where they will be dumping gigawatts of waste heat through the steam condensers and cooling towers you don't need to capture much and its a huge win. YES the Carnot efficiency of such systems will never be great because they start with a small temperature differential. THAT DOES NOT MATTER because its waste heat. The fuel cost has already been paid.
      The real energy problem is complex.
      I think you're right to put hard questions to people because I know there's things people are saying that are stupid like hydrogen in cars. Just wait until one of them goes bang. Plus there really are a lot of band wagon scammers just soaking up billions in development money all over the world. I could rant for hours on those people.
      BUT YOU ALSO need to listen to people who are actually trying to solve these problems in a practical way.
      I hope you'll appreciate the effort I made for this.

  • @CharlesHaworth
    @CharlesHaworth 3 месяца назад +9

    That had to be one of the best discussions on this topic I ever heard. Bravo to both of you, it takes two to tango.

  • @markgemmell3769
    @markgemmell3769 4 месяца назад +21

    Eva IS pragmatic, but not pragmatic enough. Her substantial intellect should not be wasted on the hydrogen dead-end.
    Feels like a huge sunk-cost fallacy going on.

  • @matthewwakeham2206
    @matthewwakeham2206 4 месяца назад +28

    There is no economic or practical logic to pursuing hydrogen except this - you subsidise and build out infrastructure and establish a hydrogen dependency and then admit that yes green hydrogen is far too expensive and impractical but now we've spent all this money and all these companies are going to go bankrupt and people will lose their jobs but wait, we can steam reform methane to produce hydrogen for a third of the price and I'm sure we'll get carbon capture to work eventually. It's the drug dealer business model. Either that or the whole thing is just a scam and those behind it know it's never going to be viable but can make plenty of money whilst everyone else works that out.

    • @fromatic2
      @fromatic2 4 месяца назад +1

      😂😂😂 so true

    • @aryaman05
      @aryaman05 3 месяца назад

      What's wrong with having coal/gas steam reform as back up ?
      Hydrogen infra is needed no matter what, what's wrong with setting it up now ?
      As Eva clearly explained, eletrolyzer tech is work in progress, point is to get cranking with what's available Now.
      The urgency of the entire movement is a mix of geo-politics and green initiative, nation state can't form strategy based on some fancy-pants ideals of a few select groups.

    • @wilfriedschuler3796
      @wilfriedschuler3796 3 месяца назад +1

      You are right.

    • @johnstubbe3113
      @johnstubbe3113 3 месяца назад +1

      He is saying that electricity will never get cheaper if we continue to install more alternative energy the prices have nowhere to go but down just like our long distance telephone rates have gone from $15 an hour down to zero electricity will do the same
      So this huge cost of making hydrogen will plummet

    • @johnstubbe3113
      @johnstubbe3113 3 месяца назад

      He is saying that electricity will never get cheaper. if we continue to install more alternative energy the prices have nowhere to go but down just like our long distance telephone rates have gone from $15 an hour down to zero electricity will do the same
      So this huge cost of making hydrogen will plummet.
      His 10% utilization, for Curtailed energy will double the next time we double installed solar over double . Then we will double that again will be near 50% if not higher utilization for those electrolyzers.

  • @MattiaMarinelli
    @MattiaMarinelli 2 месяца назад +5

    Really well done and interesting interview. And congrats to Michael for pushing the guest.
    After having listened, I am left with a sense of dread. Like when you are stuck in a nightmare (called hydrogen) and you can't really wake up

  • @andersnoltensmeier4459
    @andersnoltensmeier4459 4 месяца назад +7

    The most important podcasts in a long time, thanks for the deep dive and having Eva Schmid explain in detail why Hydrogen seem to be a serious detour letting Europe fall behind the rest of the world in the green transition. This podcast and Liebreichs “Annual lecture 2024 - Global Energy Transition Trends and Hydrogen” on the same topic, should be mandatory for all politicians in EU and national states.

  • @spitfireresearchinc.7972
    @spitfireresearchinc.7972 4 месяца назад +9

    Eva did a respectable job of trying to make the whole German hydrogen #hopium epidemic sound like it has some basis in reason. But of course as expected, Michael showed that there is very little basis in reason there- it's mostly hot gas and wishes. The "resilience" argument (i.e. H2 for long term energy storage) is but one of MANY options to decarbonize the last perhaps 5% of electricity use, and for certain it isn't the only one nor is it the one that makes the most economic sense. Any seasonal use of hydrogen makes electrolyzer utilization even poorer and makes the hydrogen that much more expensive. Furthermore, Germany is still talking seriously about hydrogen being used to make so-called e-fuels, which fundamentally are going to be much more expensive than fuels made from biomass which at least has SOME chemical potential energy in it, versus CO2 or nitrogen which have NONE. And as a Canadian who is also very experienced making and using hydrogen and syngas, just don't get me started about the INSANE notion of making ammonia from onshore wind in eastern Canada to burn in power plants in Germany- that is nothing other than a predatory delay strategy. And "repurposing" LNG terminals for hydrogen? Give me a f*cking break- that is just a total engineering non-starter.

    • @Zanderzan1983
      @Zanderzan1983 4 месяца назад +1

      "decarbonise the last 5% of electricity"? The buffer for wind and solar is much more than that. Say its 4 weeks, what are the options for long term backup? I dont see any. Especially where i am Ireland where pumped hydro is not an option (no mountains)

  • @martinbachle635
    @martinbachle635 4 месяца назад +12

    @MLiebreich thanks for beeing utterly polite towards Eva. Its awkwardly insulting how German officials neglect facts, physics and economics. Qui bono? Eva at least was brave enough to take the hits in lieu of her superiors. Germany has lost it!

    • @wilfriedschuler3796
      @wilfriedschuler3796 3 месяца назад

      You hit the point. A stunning absence of knowlege amongst Habeck and Graichen. And no intention to accept the brutal technical facts.
      Their real intention is to extract a trillion Euro savings and tax money and give it to big finance. Than they will all run away and leave the wreckage behind.

    • @wilfriedschuler3796
      @wilfriedschuler3796 3 месяца назад

      There is a witten statement issued by the government "No maritime transport for LH2 for the next 10 years." So, case closed.
      No pipeline from Norway. No Pipeline from Denmark. No hydrogen at all.
      The lady is talking just empty utter nonsense.

    • @wilfriedschuler3796
      @wilfriedschuler3796 25 дней назад

      All this will end up in a desaster.

  • @maartenvd2653
    @maartenvd2653 3 месяца назад +2

    "460 billion for production and distribution only"!!!
    To put this into perspective of hydrogen for energy: about 2 billion per iGW 1000km HVDC this would give about, 230000km HVDC. Way more than required for distributing the required energy when using full electric, and also way cheaper because at most half of the generation capacity is needed!

  • @PinataOblongata
    @PinataOblongata 4 месяца назад +7

    A headline from RenewEconomy just today: "Australian green hydrogen project scrapped due to transport costs, pumped hydro on hold"
    The H2 plant would've gone next to a wind farm for renewable power, but Atco, the company responsible, decided that trucking the H2 to where it could be introduced to the gas network would be too expensive to make it a viable project, even with a 28.3 million govt grant.

  • @davidedwards4691
    @davidedwards4691 2 месяца назад +2

    Massive thanks to Eve for allowing scrutiny in this area. Very admirable.

  • @deansharafi3551
    @deansharafi3551 4 месяца назад +2

    This was a great debate on hydrogen and goes a long way to put in perspective what role it plays in energy transition.

  • @dipladonic
    @dipladonic 4 месяца назад +7

    How stupid has humanity become? As a significant store of energy, any type of Hydrogen is nonsense.

    • @aryaman05
      @aryaman05 3 месяца назад

      As discussed above, NH3 as hydrogen storage medium is marine fuel as well, which is fast gaining acceptance, mainly due to zero-carbon nature of this fuel.
      Apart from use as fuel, hydrogen is also a major industrial feedstock, i.e.: truckloads of free hydrogen is needed for industrial processes anyway... where is that gonna come from ?

    • @dipladonic
      @dipladonic 3 месяца назад +1

      @@aryaman05 Tell me...when did NH3 become a "zero carbon" fuel? Ammonia production is one of the most CO2 emitting industrial processes there is!

  • @JillesvanGurp
    @JillesvanGurp 3 месяца назад +4

    Very interesting debate. Eva provided some fair counter points to a few of Michael's usual points. I like her argument that pinning down the numbers right now matters less than putting the wheels in motion to kick start the innovation and iteration. And that argument makes more sense if you consider that it's not just about fixing German's energy market and carbon emissions but also establishing a leadership position for Germany as a technology leader. After all they are an important player in particularly wind energy, via Siemens and other companies.
    I agree with Michael that current policy goals are completely unrealistic (delusional even) and very unlikely to ever be met. But reading between the lines here, Germany might be more pragmatic than they make it appear sometimes. They are walking a tight rope where the e.g. the car industry needs to be entertained in its drive to delay the inevitable by e.g. pretending hydrogen on the roads is going to be a thing. At this point I don't think they believe in this themselves. But they need some excuse to delay the pain. A safe position to take is that having some hydrogen production capability would not be the worst outcome either way.
    So, Germany protects its key industries and buys more time for them to figure out electrification. At the same time, they position their other industries to be providing hydrolysis equipment to the world. And if in the process a few tons of green hydrogen end up being produced; there's not going to be a shortage of takers for that even with the top of the ladder.
    Mostly the actual strategy and fossil fuel posturing on this topic is going to run its natural course. But tapping into the foreign subsidies for this is not going to be bad for Germany.

  • @johnmightymole2284
    @johnmightymole2284 2 месяца назад +4

    Poor Eva , having to talk up hydrogen. Reminds me of people trying to represent the tobacco industry.
    Ludicrous ideas become obvious over time.

  • @ianlighting100
    @ianlighting100 3 месяца назад +2

    57:12 “where is the missing money supposed to come from?”
    This point is briefly expanded on and is really important for the societal acceptance of dealing with climate change.
    We already see reactionary, populist politics that uses climate change as the bogey man that ‘they’ are choosing to do to ‘you’.
    If there comes a point after Germany, or any other state has invested billions, that the whole h2 economy thing collapses, it’s the kind of thing that can bring down governments. And you can bet there will be someone waiting to grab the throne. Maybe they won’t be an extreme right wing party funded by oil companies, but in the current climate I reckon they would be.
    Dealing with climate change is going to be hard enough without this distraction.
    Good episode! I actually think Eva may personally be a bit closer to Michael’s position than the policies suggest. She’s prepared to sort of stand back and let a Darwinian survival of the ‘most appropriate use case’ take place, which might actually end up at Michael’s ladder. It’s all the other grifters in the system that are more of a problem.

  • @ernstgumrich5614
    @ernstgumrich5614 2 месяца назад +2

    Mrs. Schmid seemed to have understood, that she - on major parts of these European/German H2 policies - has to defend untenable positions, in German "Wolkenkuckucksheim", suppose LaLa-Land in the anglosaxon circles. It is very hard me as German audiance to listen to these millions and billions flowing into H2-Gasstations etc, instead of e.g. the national and communal electricity distribution networks or into smart homes and cities initiatives.

  • @winfriedtheis5767
    @winfriedtheis5767 3 месяца назад +1

    Kudos to Eva and Michael for a very informative discussion! The issue I see mainly coming through here is that some lobby groups are so strongly pushing for hydrogen that politics and regulators have no choice but to put it on the agenda. I do agree with you Michael that this strategy will diverge money from where it would have much more profound impact. If that money would be put into a much stronger grid (inner German, but also in er European) the fear of the "Dunkelflaute" would disappear. The chances that in whole Germany but certainly all Europe there is not enough electricity production for a longer period is extremely small. Hydrogen for energy longterm energy storage is in my view even further out in the future than direct hydrogen use in shipping. So putting in the required grid to support charging and heat pumps, build some proper heat storage would be all much better use than the hydrogen play.

  • @derkeniry2008
    @derkeniry2008 3 месяца назад +2

    Very interesting discussion that at some points reveals the political guidelines set out be the political party running the Ministry of Research and Education (BMBF) (refineries at the top of the ladder!) and the problems Eva Schmid has reconciliating them with the factual backgrounds from science. Unfortunately, the ‘H2-problem’ is *not* discussed in the more general frame of energy storage that also involves battery technology and other technologies. In my opinion, this discussion should have taken place from this this more general point of view, since H2 is just one part of!

  • @cliffwilliams8616
    @cliffwilliams8616 4 месяца назад +4

    I'm sorry, but not knowing your yield of hydrogen from an electrolyser is naive and demonstrates a disconnect between regulatory innocence and industrial practicality. So, if you know 10GW of power in, you know the cost, but if you don't know the yield, you don't know the cost per ton - which is the price. Therefore, you cannot know the NPV and IRR of a project if you cannot estimate the revenue. Absolutely woolly thinking. No wonder its not happening!

    • @nickcook2714
      @nickcook2714 4 месяца назад +1

      Just for ref, 5GW 24/7 approx 800,000 tonnes H2 per year @ about 70% efficiency.

    • @dipladonic
      @dipladonic 4 месяца назад +2

      @@nickcook2714 ...and how many wind turbines and electrolysers would it take to make 800.000 tonnes of green H2 per year when a large 3MW wind turbine connected to a large 1MW electrolyser makes on average 25 kg of hydrogen per hour!!!

    • @wizzyno1566
      @wizzyno1566 4 месяца назад

      ​​​@@dipladonic3,652
      But that assumes 24/7 operation.
      So we'll say just under 50% operation, which is generous.
      So thats about 8,000 required.
      Each one is about 4 million dollars installed. So that's a cost of 32 billion dollars.

  • @stephenmcgrail7661
    @stephenmcgrail7661 3 месяца назад +3

    Eva's implicit critique that Michael frequently exhibits excessive certainty in his views/analysis (perhaps dogmatism) feels right to me.
    On the other hand, he does raise many valid concerns and criticisms about the hydrogen agenda - which Eva clearly acknowledges in this discussion.
    We need more conversations like these in which each person provides informed criticism of the other's views. I'm left wondering whether, say, Michael learnt anything or was he just focussed on trying to correct his interlocutor.

    • @MLiebreich
      @MLiebreich 3 месяца назад +6

      I am glad you felt that the conversation was valuable. In response to whether I learned anything, yes, I learned a lot about the German policy-making machine and the fact that it contains at least one very brilliant, thoughtful and well-intentioned person. Did I learn anything about the physics or economics of hydrogen? Absolutely not.
      You may feel that I exhibit excessive certainty in my views/analysis of hydrogen, I guess I think you are wrong. I have done 50 years of physics, 40 years of engineering, 30 years of finance and economics, 20 years energy policy, and 10 years on hydrogen.
      20 years ago, I was so sure wind and solar were going to be a big deal that I dropped everything and started New Energy Finance, now BloombergNEF. Today, I am even more sure that hydrogen will disappoint 90% of the hopes and dreams being placed on it by the German government and others.
      Check back in a decade, you'll see that I was right. In fact you'll get a pretty good sense by 2030.

    • @stephenmcgrail7661
      @stephenmcgrail7661 3 месяца назад

      @MLiebreich I actually agree with you that hydrogen is likely to disappoint many of the hopes and dreams currently being placed on it. But it's possible that I'm wrong about this. I try to remain open to different views when there is irreducible uncertainty.
      The green transition is enormously complex - too complex for any single mind to fully comprehend and/or envisage. I value your experience and expertise but I still think this applies to experienced analysts like yourself.

  • @MrDforget
    @MrDforget 3 месяца назад +2

    Wow..
    Just wow. The level of cluelessness is why Germany's energy costs are so high.

  • @harryadam1671
    @harryadam1671 3 месяца назад +2

    A strategy is a set of actions to achieve a goal. Hydrogen is a strategy? Surely the goal is provision of energy efficiently and practically. Hydrogen seems a pretty poor chemiastry in this objective.

  • @67er_matze97
    @67er_matze97 3 месяца назад +1

    imo a huge part of the misunderstanding is the fact that H2 works exceptionally well in pure research environments. In other words where durability, service-needs, financial constraints etc don't matter that much.
    The situation is completely different when you try to transform hydrogen technology into a large scale application. As a result there are many purely research based scientists looking at hydrogen with a bit of a naively positive attitude because they have never experienced the needs that are inevitably given in an industrieal or large scale environment.
    In my perception this is a huge part of the way that Hydrogen is looked at today. I do believe that tha fact that in the late 90ies and early 2000s to 2010s H2 was hugely pushed in Germany in Universities and also in the Car industry has led to quite a bit of H2-friendly biased attitude imo.
    I was once also an Engineer working in H2-Applications in German Car Industry. But I became critical when I came to the conclusion that this technology is very hard (if not impossible) to be transformed into mass application. So I changed to Battery-driven Propulsion systems for cars in 2008. But from my experience I can say that a lot of my former colleages are still in the hydrogen business and quite a few of them are working in government funded organisations and projects today.
    With all respect to Eva and my colleagues I have to say that imo it makes sense to be self critical and doublecheck if we need to be a bit more critical regarding the feasibility of H2 technology in mass applications.
    I am a huge supporter of technology enthusiasm. But I think it is time to doublecheck if sometimes enthusiasm ends up forming communication bubbles that have a huge risk of not being feasible in the real world and have a huge likelyhood they might not solve the problems that politicians have (created themselves)

  • @mv80401
    @mv80401 4 месяца назад +2

    Visiting my home town Konstanz on the Swiss border I learned that the municipal utility, along with regional power distribution, plans to implement adding H2 to the natural gas flow and revamp this entire delivery system for H2 - and mainly for heating and cooking! So much for the hydrogen ladder...
    Also, on a hydrogen panel at a 2022 conference NREL's David Ginley had a long list of hard to solve tech issues for electrolyzers and fuel cells, most importantly degradation and poor life time (10k hours where +100k hs would be needed.)

    • @MLiebreich
      @MLiebreich 4 месяца назад +2

      I call blending hydrogen the Supidest Idea from Stupidville.

    • @martinbachle635
      @martinbachle635 4 месяца назад +2

      snakegas - comes with snakeoil

    • @ianlighting100
      @ianlighting100 3 месяца назад +1

      A 20% hydrogen blend in with the methane only gives you a 7% CO2 reduction when burnt. Is it worth the effort?

    • @mv80401
      @mv80401 3 месяца назад

      @@ianlighting100 That poor number may be technically true but CO2 reductions totally evaporate if heat pumps take over the task of heating homes. (And yes, as you imply it is not worth the effort/cost).

    • @ianlighting100
      @ianlighting100 3 месяца назад

      Yes, you would heat several more homes to the same temperature green electricity in a heat pump, compared to using that same green electricty to create h2 to burn in a boiler.

  • @martinbachle635
    @martinbachle635 4 месяца назад +4

    heavy industry will leave Germany no matter what, which from a climate perspective is a good thing - shipping iron ore and hydrogen around the world only to produce steel is nonsense and all these inefficiencies are only holding back the cleaning up

    • @aryaman05
      @aryaman05 3 месяца назад +2

      Obviously the UA conflict hasn't taught anyone, vis-a-vis, self sufficiency, Anything !

    • @Delchursing
      @Delchursing 3 месяца назад +1

      Heavy industry being forced out of Germany is not good for environment, quality, health and safety, etc.

  • @rtfazeberdee3519
    @rtfazeberdee3519 4 месяца назад +1

    Great stuff. you'll need to revisit in a year or so to see if your points had an effect

  • @biffstrong1079
    @biffstrong1079 Месяц назад

    Canada is being asked to produce a lot of this green hydrogen with a massive offshore wind component. I don't see how we can produce this at a saleable price. Canada could build a pipeline for NG to the east coast at a fraction of this cost.
    Six Gigawatts of electrolyzers promised and .6 gigawatts produced?
    If Germany pays to produce green hydrogen here than maybe something happens. .

  • @jasc4364
    @jasc4364 3 месяца назад +3

    With or without hydrogen cars, the European car industry will collapse, but the collapse will come faster with this nutty hydrogen initiative.

  • @VitalyGeraskin
    @VitalyGeraskin 4 месяца назад +3

    Disgusting willingness to waste other people's money.

  • @jchidley
    @jchidley Месяц назад +1

    Thank you for this, and your other episodes. I think that hydrogen will only have a small role in our greener future. I think that Germany is massively invested in hydrogen because they see no alternatives - I think that their car industry will be much smaller in the future too.

    • @MLiebreich
      @MLiebreich Месяц назад +2

      They may see no alternatives because they are looking in the wrong place. Electrify (almost) everything.

    • @jchidley
      @jchidley Месяц назад

      @@MLiebreich The amazing thing is that householders can go 100% electric now (for energy, heat and transport). It's better and cheaper. Amazing. I've been waiting for this to happen. No going back!

  • @discusab
    @discusab 4 месяца назад +2

    Great interview. Much respect too for Eva, her intellect and articulate pragmatism. There seems to be from many respected and capable people a big ´´sunk´´ reputational investment in Hydrogen. ( people in R&D, development, engineering, finance, politics & incumbent fossil fuel suppliers) Perhaps the challenge is finding and offering a face saving exit? Its hard and going to inevitably reputationally hurt getting off a fast moving hydrogen train essentially heading to nowhere. Michael does a great job in explaining and extracting the fact and fiction. Stealing from Tony Sebas´ analogy, Hydrogen is more an energy caterpillar with wings and not the energy butterfly sought after and needed. (As is Electricity).

    • @MLiebreich
      @MLiebreich 4 месяца назад

      Thanks for the kind words!
      BTW - you might not want to quote Seba - the man is a clown.

  • @renesmit6774
    @renesmit6774 4 месяца назад +4

    This interview highlights the problem of having a state employee tasked with implementing a state industrial policy with public money 💰
    The only interest any of the players is their continued virtue signalling while sucking off other peoples wages with zero risk to their own well being.
    This whole project is going to end badly

  • @voranartsirisubsoontorn
    @voranartsirisubsoontorn 3 месяца назад +2

    Thinking 2much for 2good an energy H2O😊😊😊

  • @kristiansnelling9576
    @kristiansnelling9576 3 месяца назад +1

    Very interesting and kudos to Eva for articulating the dilemma being worked through.
    I worry about the political situation that this will create. There is already a growing body of the spectrum who deny climate change is even a thing, even despite the blindingly obvious consequences that are being felt by millions, let alone, willing to pay for it. Those folks will not allow the iterative cycle Eva admits to being required to achieve the limited scope that she acknowledged here. It will be a very expensive science project that will collapse and at what cost (not the financial one).... buckle up, it is going to be quite the ride

  • @Zanderzan1983
    @Zanderzan1983 4 месяца назад

    Here in Ireland, the plan is for hydrogen to be used as the long term storage backup. This will probably not work. So what can Ireland do for baseload or long term backup? We have no mountains so pumped storage isnt an option. I cannot see how Ireland can achieve a green transition...

    • @corradoalamanni179
      @corradoalamanni179 3 месяца назад +1

      So nuclear and batteries with interconnections to other countries?

    • @Zanderzan1983
      @Zanderzan1983 3 месяца назад

      @@corradoalamanni179 nuclear isn't an option in Ireland - the government built a bike shed recently for 18 bikes and it cost €336,000. It doesn't even have walls. We have interconnection but building enough for baseload would be very expensive, and even then, who is going to send us all that baseload. I keep hearing fully renewable is possible but im practice, that's not the case.

  • @cliffwilliams8616
    @cliffwilliams8616 4 месяца назад +3

    Hydrogen for resilience only makes sense when you have no mountains. Pumped storage is already cheaper and scaleable in Scotland, Norway, France and Germany. Therefore we don't need hydrogen and surrounding countries could cover the Dutch. So this is attempting to solve a solved problem for many times the price. D'oh!

    • @nickcook2714
      @nickcook2714 4 месяца назад +2

      Sorry, Incorrect.
      You're not comparing apples with apples. Hydrogen storage would be primarily for large scale (TWh+) seasonal Plus duration, which, with extremely few exceptions, would not be economic with pumped Hydro.
      Example:
      The new Coire Glas pump hydro scheme in Scotland will have a capacity of 30GWh and is costing £1.5Bn. The Royal Society has estimated that the UK will need about 100TWh of seasonal plus hydrogen storage by 2050 for renewable electricity generation support. That would require 3,333 Coire Glas pump hydro Systems costing roughly £5 Trillion! That would add several £1,000 a year to every UK customers electricity bill for many decades.
      Hydrogen storage in Salt Caverns at 200 bar with an electricity generation efficiency of 50% can store about 150 x more energy per cubic metre than either the Coire Glas or Dinorwig pump hydro schemes.
      Furthermore, there are much better options than hydrogen for this

    • @mv80401
      @mv80401 4 месяца назад +1

      A key reason is that H2 projects would be performed by the fossil fuel industry which 'coincidentally' (haha) lobbied hard for them.

    • @aryaman05
      @aryaman05 3 месяца назад

      @@nickcook2714
      "Furthermore, there are much better options than hydrogen for this.."
      Would have been nice if you has quoted some e.g.
      CAES is one.
      So too compressed CO2.
      Oxygen storage is good too, but storing oxygen under pressure, in a salt cavern is like tickling Satan's b.lls, way too risky.

    • @w0ttheh3ll
      @w0ttheh3ll 3 месяца назад

      Pumped storage is only economical if you run it at a high utilization, at least several times a week. The vast majority of pumped storage facilities cannot do seasonal storage any more than batteries can.
      One of the more realistic hopes for hydrogen is that you can do economic seasonal storage by storing hydrogen or hydrogen-derived methane or hydrogen-derived ammonia in existing underground gas storage facilities, then burn it for electricity in winter.

  • @nickcook2714
    @nickcook2714 4 месяца назад +1

    As Eva says, it's easy to treat tweak models. However, it's a lot harder to tweak the real world.
    I would say Eva's arguments suggest to me that she might be suffering from a case of #UptonSinclairSyndrome
    To paraphrase something I read about statistical surveys on the back of an England's Glory matchbox back in the 60s; 'A recent economic model proved that economic models can be tweaked to support any desired economic policy'

  • @colinmegson7721
    @colinmegson7721 4 месяца назад +2

    “…The annual cost of the health impacts of fossil fuel-generated electricity in the United States is estimated to be up to $886.5 billion…”
    If this figure is correct, decarbonising the USA electricity grid with Gen III+ nuclear power plants (NPPs) would save the USA ~$500 billion per year - that's $3,800 per household per year.
    About 1/3rd of the NPPs, combined with PEM electrolysers, would be able to operate at 100% availability and load follow demand diurnally in milliseconds. Operators of such combined plants might qualify for up to 4 revenue streams meaning the greener-than-green, nuclear enabled hydrogen (NEH) would sell into the existing [grey] hydrogen markets.
    It's reasonable to suppose the $500 billion per year 'benefit' to household budgets could fully support the build out of a NEH-economy to decarbonise all other sectors of energy use, with money to spare. It's:
    Win: Save at least $500 billion/year ad infinitum
    Win: Dramatically reduce energy bills to benefit the poor
    Win: Save millions of premature deaths/vile illnesses every year
    Win: Healthier/wealthier/longer-lived citizens
    Win: Boost manufacturing with ‘home-made’ technologies
    Win: Minimal use of precious materials and resources
    Win: Minimal environmental footprint
    Win: Minimal ecosystem destruction
    Win: Minimal biodiversity loss
    Win: The safest of all industrial waste control & storage
    substack.com/@colinmegson/p-146111400

  • @louisgiokas2206
    @louisgiokas2206 4 месяца назад

    At about 3:30 you state that if Germany met their target they would be "adding about 20% to the country's generation output". Is that correct? The goal of using hydrogen is to replace current forms of generation, isn't it? The only caveat to that is the extra electricity needed for EVs. Is that your understanding? But that doesn't do much to get to net zero, does it?

    • @MLiebreich
      @MLiebreich 4 месяца назад +2

      The majority of the hydrogen targets in the German hydrogen straty are for chemical feedstocks, industrial heat and transport - none of which are currently electrical.
      Only a small part is for power generation - and even there for every kWh you supply, you would need to generate 3x as much electricity to make green hydrogen.
      So you are right, there is an adjustment to make, but it's 1/3 of

    • @pyroman2918
      @pyroman2918 4 месяца назад +2

      Hydrogen is an energy storage, not energy source. It's essentially a battery, but with around 30-40% efficiency, compared to 90% of batteries. It's role is long term storage of energy, mostly from summer for winter, but it shouldn't be relied on as a major part of the energy mix, because it's expensive.

    • @louisgiokas2206
      @louisgiokas2206 4 месяца назад +1

      @@MLiebreich Thanks for the detailed comment. It adds to our understanding.

    • @louisgiokas2206
      @louisgiokas2206 4 месяца назад +1

      @@pyroman2918 Excellent point.

    • @aryaman05
      @aryaman05 3 месяца назад

      @@pyroman2918
      How is hydrogen not energy when it burns just like gasoline ?
      Pain of making hydrogen is no different from 'making' gasoline.
      However, on storing summer energy for winter use, yes there are plenty of other options as well, but the attraction here with hydrogen molecule is that it's pretty much a universal industrial feedstock, in addition to it being a good combusting Fuel.

  • @Scubongo
    @Scubongo 4 месяца назад +1

    She's where I was last year, before you woke me up. I'm sure she'll think hard about all this before she falls asleep.
    I do wonder why you talked about using blue hydrogen instead of plasma electrolysis. With the utilization of HiiROC's technology, the emission of carbon is no longer necessary for hydrogen production.

    • @MLiebreich
      @MLiebreich 4 месяца назад

      For me HiiRoc is blue hydrogen. I know some people say turquoise, but it's from fossil gas.

    • @Scubongo
      @Scubongo 3 месяца назад

      @@MLiebreich True, but there will be no need to capture the gaseous form of CO2, which is much harder to get rid of than solid carbon.

  • @ta60015i
    @ta60015i 15 дней назад

    A magnitude of 5 is not five times. Michael always wants to get to the point whereas his opponents always tray to distract

  • @manuelneumann6118
    @manuelneumann6118 2 месяца назад

    Electrolyzers will run 24/7 in the summer. It sounds crazy at first but it makes sense with cheap batteries. During the day free electricity from the sun will supply the electrolyzers and charge the batteries at the same time. At night the electrolyzers will be supplied by the batteries. This will be the cheapest solution

    • @MLiebreich
      @MLiebreich 2 месяца назад +1

      Least ludicrously expensive solution, you mean. Once you have added those batteries, why not just... use the power and dispense with the whole hydrogen rigmarole?

  • @clivepierce1816
    @clivepierce1816 4 месяца назад +1

    From an atmospheric scientist’s perspective, a reality check is long overdue. Policy makers must understand that we don’t have decades to re-engineer our economies. Optimistically, the global carbon budget is now 200 Gt, which equates to 25 t per capita - a few years of BAU emissions. Either governments pursue rapid degrowth immediately, or it will be imposed on us all within decades.

  • @jarrodf_
    @jarrodf_ 4 месяца назад

    Kudos for Eva for stepping into the proverbial lion's den.
    May I ask a potentially naive question: In my native Australia, for example, with a grid already at a 'mere' ~40% RE (on track for ~80% RE by 2030, ala Germany) we're already seeing negative wholesale power prices and some high figure of RE curtailment; could not such a scenario result in driving down green H² costs over time, using said negative/curtailed power?

    • @MLiebreich
      @MLiebreich 3 месяца назад +3

      Even if 30% of renewables are curtailed, given that their average capacity factor is only 30%, that means you only have free power 9% of the time. No investor is going to build electrolysers that work only on curtailed power. You will use it, by all means, but the rest of the time you have to buy power like anyone else.

    • @jarrodf_
      @jarrodf_ 3 месяца назад

      Fair enough. Wondered whether they might work as proxy gas peakers, buying/generating cheap and selling high.
      I note South Australia's 200 MW Whyalla hydrogen power plant is set to come online in early 2026. According to SA gov:
      "The project includes:
      * 250MWe of electrolysers (some of the world's largest)
      * 200MW of power generation
      * 100t renewable hydrogen storage facility.
      ...The 200MW renewable hydrogen power plant will be a new source of flexible power, providing additional grid stability for homes and businesses around the state by using excess renewable energy generated from large-scale wind and solar farms to provide a consistent output of supply."

  • @eclecticcyclist
    @eclecticcyclist 4 месяца назад

    Nicely paid job while she has it and if you ignore the economics developing the hydrogen supply industry is a problem which can be solved. Relying on imported hydrogen isn't a ny more reliable than relying on imported 'natural' gas. p.s. hasn't Germany got a lot of pumped storage hydro whivh could do the same job?

    • @w0ttheh3ll
      @w0ttheh3ll 3 месяца назад

      how do you make fertilizer with pumped storage?

  • @KiteTurbine
    @KiteTurbine 4 месяца назад

    It won't be little scraps of wind energy leftover. Statkraft and UK national plans are for exporting huge surpluses from offshore North Sea (especially here in Shetland) in a hydrogen backbone pipeline. Constrained generation exists in the market. it's a huge issue here

  • @politics102
    @politics102 25 дней назад

    ammonia

  • @rushja
    @rushja 4 месяца назад

    I agree with the work Eva/DENA are doing. Green hydrogen will be expensive sure. Right now it is a storage technology that can be scaled. What other energy storage medium can be scaled like hydrogen? I hope that in 20 years time we will have come up with a better solution but if not we should be pushing on with hydrogen

  • @wilfriedschuler3796
    @wilfriedschuler3796 3 месяца назад

    In the meantime it is becoming obvious it is not a reset. It is a complete failure.

  • @nealm1814
    @nealm1814 4 месяца назад +2

    Great watching Eva tying herself up in knots as the cognitive dissonance kicks in.

    • @ozansakarya
      @ozansakarya 3 месяца назад

      To quote master Yoda: "Struggling with cognitive dissonance, she is."

  • @666raki
    @666raki 3 месяца назад

    could have been said the same about solar

    • @MLiebreich
      @MLiebreich 3 месяца назад

      No, no, no. Solar was on a very rapid learning curve driven by the economics of material science and manufacturing. Green hydrogen plants are chemicals plants - just 11% is the cost of the electrolyser stack that is going to get really cheap. 40% of the rest is electricity, another 30% is heavy engineering. So if you are holding your breath for cheap green hydrogen you are going to go blue in the face.
      And that's just the production stage. Hydrogen is expensive to transport, expensive to store, expensive to distribute and expensive to use (unless you are already using it for fertilisers or petrochemicals). There is a reason why 50 years of investment in the hydrogen economy has produced almost exactly zero results.
      The idea that solar got cheap therefore hydrogen will get cheap is simply wrong.

    • @666raki
      @666raki 3 месяца назад

      @@MLiebreich extra renewable can be used as green hydrogen , in time(soon) it’ll cost just 3 times that of renewable energy but it can offset variable nature of renewables .

    • @MLiebreich
      @MLiebreich 3 месяца назад

      @@666raki Please find me an investor who will invest in an electrolyser plant that only works on "extra renewable", i.e. a few percent of the year. Even if you get free electricity 30% of the time, that only saves you 30% of the 40% of your cost that is electricity, i.e. 12%. You have no idea how expensive this stuff is going to be. Srsly, watch and learn.

    • @666raki
      @666raki 3 месяца назад

      @@MLiebreich think man , if cost of the electricity is zero then it would cost just 33% more at current technology . (as you indicated 40% of the cost is electricity)

    • @ralphb7778
      @ralphb7778 3 месяца назад

      Great respect for Eva for putting up with the grilling and having to defend German H2 strategy. Unfortunately her microphone was muted at times but her point that the strategy was to encourage the development of the H2 generation technology makes criticism based on current technology a little churlish.

  • @TheJespersoderlund
    @TheJespersoderlund 3 месяца назад

    Regardless of how you feel about hydrogen this interviewer was terrible. Leading questions galore and a clear agenda from the outset. Approach a subject with curiosity and openness without being gullible

    • @MLiebreich
      @MLiebreich 3 месяца назад +2

      I'm not an interviewer, I'm an analyst. It's not an interview, it's a discussion. Sorry if it's not for you.