• About
  • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
BREAKING: 40% of Fossil Fuels Now Under Development Must Stay in the Ground May 17, 2022
Rocky Mountain Glaciers ‘Past Tipping Point’, with Some Expected to Vanish by 2030 May 17, 2022
UK Activists Block Russian Oil Tanker From Docking in Essex May 17, 2022
EXCLUSIVE: Bid to Revive Doomed Nova Scotia LNG Project Collides with Germany’s Net-Zero Plans May 16, 2022
3,800 Residents Ordered to Evacuate after Flooding in Hay River, NWT May 16, 2022
Next
Prev
Home Fossil Fuels CCS & Negative Emissions

Heavily-Hyped ‘Blue’ Hydrogen Produces More Emissions than Burning Natural Gas

August 15, 2021
Reading time: 4 minutes
Primary Author: Mitchell Beer @mitchellbeer

Ottawa Releases Flurry of New Announcements on Tree Planting, Hydrogen, Clean Fuels, SMRs

Joseph Brent/Flickr

11
SHARES
 

Producing “blue” hydrogen from natural gas and adding carbon capture to the process carries a 20% higher greenhouse gas footprint than just burning gas or coal for heat, two eminent U.S. researchers conclude in a new paper in the journal Energy Science & Engineering.

Blue hydrogen has been heavily hyped in Canada and around the world, and derided as greenwashing, as a way to decarbonize fossil fuel production by capturing and storing carbon dioxide emissions. The new study by Robert Howarth of Cornell University and Mark Z. Jacobson of Stanford University focuses in on methane—a greenhouse gas that is about 80 times more potent than CO2 over a 20-year span, a known source of emissions from fracked gas operations, and chronically unmeasured and under-reported.

“Far from being low-carbon, greenhouse gas emissions from the production of blue hydrogen are quite high, particularly due to the release of fugitive methane,” Howarth and Jacobson write. Total emissions of CO2 and equivalent are only 9 to 12% lower than for “grey” hydrogen—the variety produced from gas or coal with no carbon capture. And “while carbon dioxide emissions are lower, fugitive methane emissions for blue hydrogen are higher than for grey hydrogen because of an increased use of natural gas to power the carbon capture.”

The net result: assuming a 3.5% emissions rate for methane, “the greenhouse gas footprint of blue hydrogen is more than 20% greater than burning natural gas or coal for heat and some 60% greater than burning diesel oil for heat.” Even with methane emissions brought down to 1.5%, the resulting emissions are “still greater than from simply burning natural gas, and are only 18 to 25% less than for grey hydrogen.”

The analysis also takes at face value the industry’s promise that captured carbon can be stored indefinitely, even though Howarth and Jacobson describe that assumption as “optimistic and unproven”. Even if it’s true, they say, “the use of blue hydrogen appears difficult to justify on climate grounds”.

One of the biggest takeaways from last week’s blockbuster science report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was that reducing runaway methane emissions from shale gas, oil extraction, and animal farming will be a cornerstone of any effort to get the climate crisis under control. “One of the key action points for policy-makers is likely to be a warning that methane is playing an ever greater role in overheating the planet,” The Guardian reported.

“Cutting methane is the biggest opportunity to slow warming between now and 2040,” said Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development and a lead IPCC reviewer. “We need to face this emergency.”

Beyond the issue with methane, the two authors note that “several non-peer-reviewed reports” promise carbon dioxide capture rates of 56 to 90% for blue hydrogen, depending on the technology a company uses. “However, no data have been presented to support these estimates, and they apparently do not include emissions associated with the energy needed to drive carbon capture,” they write. “Our results using a full life-cycle assessment show [the] assumptions are too optimistic.”

In a separate technical paper published last week, the Pembina Institute lists carbon capture rates of 29 to 43% for existing blue hydrogen projects in Alberta, Oklahoma, and Texas. The chart also shows two projects with “proposed” capture rates of 95% using the newer auto-thermal reforming (ATR) capture process—but their performance can’t be verified, since they won’t go into operation until 2024 or 2026.

Earlier this year, an industry observer said U.S. and potential Canadian tax credits for carbon capture could give plant operators an incentive to extract more fossil fuels.

“You now have a plant that has two products,” David Schlissel, director of resource planning at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, told The Energy Mix. “The more CO2 they produce, the more they can capture, and the higher their revenues are, so they have an incentive to run the plants more to capture more CO2. All in the name of reducing our CO2 emissions in order to help stave off climate change.”

“You could be nice and say this is a perverse incentive,” he added. “But when I’m alone, I just say it’s insane.”

Read the detailed analysis by Robert Howarth and Mark Z. Jacobson here.



in CCS & Negative Emissions, Climate & Society, Community Climate Finance, Fossil Fuels, Hydrogen, Methane, Renewable Energy, Shale & Fracking

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Mounting Drought Risk Confronts London, Other World Cities
Drought, Famine & Wildfires

Mounting Drought Risk Confronts London, Other World Cities

May 19, 2022
74
85,000-Hectare Fort Mac Wildfire Expected to Grow for Days
Drought, Famine & Wildfires

Six Traumatic Years After ‘The Beast’, Fort McMurray Remains Loyal to Big Oil

May 19, 2022
34
‘New New Math’ Means Keeping Even More Fossils in the Ground: McKibben
International Security & War

U.S. Can’t Drill Its Way to Energy Security, Jenkins Warns

May 19, 2022
33

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

BREAKING: 40% of Fossil Fuels Now Under Development Must Stay in the Ground

May 18, 2022
408
Mounting Drought Risk Confronts London, Other World Cities

Mounting Drought Risk Confronts London, Other World Cities

May 19, 2022
74
Lack of Consent Drives Indigenous Opposition to Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mining Plan

Lack of Consent Drives Indigenous Opposition to Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mining Plan

May 17, 2022
205
Wildfire

U.S. Utilities Warn of Hazards, Rolling Blackouts as Heat Waves Increase Demand

May 12, 2022
315
Fossils Fret as McKenna Sends Mammoth LNG Project to Cabinet Review

EXCLUSIVE: Bid to Revive Doomed Nova Scotia LNG Project Collides with Germany’s Net-Zero Plans

May 16, 2022
461
Floating Tidal Project Linked to Nova Scotia Grid in Canadian First

Floating Tidal Project Linked to Nova Scotia Grid in Canadian First

May 17, 2022
151

Recent Posts

85,000-Hectare Fort Mac Wildfire Expected to Grow for Days

Six Traumatic Years After ‘The Beast’, Fort McMurray Remains Loyal to Big Oil

May 19, 2022
34
‘New New Math’ Means Keeping Even More Fossils in the Ground: McKibben

U.S. Can’t Drill Its Way to Energy Security, Jenkins Warns

May 19, 2022
33
Ontario Contemplates ‘Ultra-Low Carbon’ Super-Agency

Ontario’s New Highway 413 Would Boost Emissions, Bake In ‘Auto-Dependent Sprawl’

May 19, 2022
33
Newfoundland Offers Suncor $175 Million to Restart Terra Nova Offshore Oilfield

Newfoundland Opens New Round of Offshore Oil Bidding

May 19, 2022
25
Farmers’ Mental Health Strained by Climate-Driven Weather Extremes

Farmers’ Mental Health Strained by Climate-Driven Weather Extremes

May 19, 2022
25
Calgary Company to Supply 180 MWh of Battery Capacity to Alberta Grid

Calgary Company to Supply 180 MWh of Battery Capacity to Alberta Grid

May 19, 2022
30
Next Post
IRENA Urges $131-Trillion Investment through 2050 to Hit 1.5°C Target

How Much Climate Transition Would $50 Billion Buy? Energy Mix Readers Respond to Fossil’s Subsidy Demand

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}

2022 ONTARIO GENERAL ELECTION

KEEP UP WITH ONTARIO’S CLIMATE CHANGE ELECTION

election-checkmark
Get Election Notifications

2022 ONTARIO GENERAL ELECTION

KEEP UP WITH ONTARIO’S CLIMATE CHANGE ELECTION

election-checkmark
Get Election Notifications
The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

2022 ONTARIO GENERAL ELECTION

KEEP UP WITH ONTARIO’S CLIMATE CHANGE ELECTION

election-checkmark
Get Election Notifications

2022 ONTARIO GENERAL ELECTION

KEEP UP WITH ONTARIO’S CLIMATE CHANGE ELECTION

election-checkmark
Get Election Notifications
The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

2022 Ontario General Election

Keep up with Ontario’s Climate Change Election

election-checkmark
GET THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

2022 Ontario General Election

Keep up with Ontario’s Climate Change Election

election-checkmark
GET THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST
The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

2022 Ontario General Election

Keep up with Ontario’s Climate Change Election

election-checkmark
GET THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

2022 Ontario General Election

Keep up with Ontario’s Climate Change Election

election-checkmark
GET THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST
The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Are you sure want to unlock this post?
Unlock left : 0
Are you sure want to cancel subscription?