New Mexico scientists see promise of hydrogen in energy strategy
Trying to follow the debate over hydrogen as an energy source is like watching a ping pong game: It’s good. It’s bad. It’s good. It’s bad.
So when the U.S. Department of Energy recently declined to fund the Western Interstate Hydrogen Hub (WISHH), which included New Mexico, but did agree to spend billions on seven other projects around the nation, it was discouraging news to the governor and hydrogen supporters but not to environmentalists.
One problem is that most of us aren’t engineers or scientists. Oil, gas, coal, solar and wind are easy to understand. Hydrogen isn’t. So I’ve been casting about for some reasonable explanations.
The state Environment Department’s fact sheet boils it down clearly. Clean hydrogen is made in two ways:
Electrolysis uses electricity to split water molecules and capture hydrogen with oxygen as the byproduct. This is green hydrogen.
Steam methane reformation uses natural gas to produce hydrogen, and a second process captures the carbon byproduct, which can be stored underground in geologic structures, in storage tanks or in cryogenic tanks. This is blue hydrogen.
Each process has drawbacks. Electrolysis is expensive and needs water, which we all know is in short supply. Steam methane reformation releases some carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and carbon capture is still unproven.
Why is it worth the trouble? Hydrogen can generate electricity, fuel long-haul trucks and airplanes, and store electricity, among other things. It could restore jobs lost to power plant closures and create new jobs. In fact, San Juan and McKinley counties are counting on it.
Those are the basics. However – and there are many howevers – a variety of factors change the picture. For example, produced and brackish water could be used. And, the fact sheet notes, the water use would be a small fraction of water previously used by coal-fired power plants.
The whole subject is steadily changing as the scientific community learns more, and a lot of that work is happening in New Mexico’s labs.
I can’t help but notice that scientists are comfortable with hydrogen and see a role for it in the transition to carbon-free sources.
Van Romero, vice president and physics professor at New Mexico Tech, wrote in July, “A true all-of-the-above, forward-thinking energy strategy will require investment in both green and blue hydrogen.” Carbon capture and storage, he said, aren’t new in New Mexico. His institution and the labs have studied it for 20 years and have an active project. Bravo Dome, in northeastern New Mexico, proves that CO2 can stay put for a million years.
Bravo Dome, which I covered in the 1980s, is a natural underground reservoir of CO2, which the oil and gas industry harnessed to coax more oil from wells. CO2 has other uses.
Duncan McBranch, program director for Mission Innovation at Los Alamos National Laboratory, reminded us in June that we can’t just leap instantly to electric everything. You see electric cars but not electric long-haul trucks because the batteries would be too big and heavy. Hydrogen is the solution. Thousands of trucks passing through the state on three interstates create “a strong business case for hydrogen trucking here,” he wrote.
Hydrogen made from natural gas (blue hydrogen) is cheaper than diesel today, McBranch said. If the CO2 is captured and stored (or used), it’s clean hydrogen. And “the technology for carbon capture is ready today and adds a small amount to the cost of hydrogen fuel.” Hydrogen from water (green) is cleaner, but it’s simply not available or affordable to the transportation sector.
“A carbon-neutral energy economy won’t happen overnight,” McBranch wrote, but “hydrogen builds a bridge to get there.”
This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: New Mexico scientists see promise of hydrogen in energy strategy
