Fear not Houston oil and gas industry. Hydrogen is here to save the day. Well, kinda.
The years of unfulfilled promises were summed up by this saying: “Hydrogen is the fuel of the future, and it always will be.”
That, however, is changing — and rapidly — creating opportunities for Houston to become a center of a global hydrogen industry expected to grow 45 percent to nearly $200 billion in 2030, according to the market analytics company Prescient & Strategic Intelligence. Houston, the capital of the oil and gas industry, already is home to 48 plants that extract hydrogen from natural gas, producing 3.6 metric tons of hydrogen a year or more than one-third of U.S. production, used mostly by refineries and industrial plants.
The region also has one of the most extensive networks of hydrogen pipelines — some 1,600 miles — and storage facilities in the world, according to Brett Perlman, CEO of the Center for Houston’s Future, a local think tank.
The Houston area is well positioned to be a major player in the development of a robust hydrogen energy market in the near future, Perlman said. Energy companies can create a significant market in blue hydrogen within the next two to three years adding carbon capture to gray hydrogen production, he said.
Some end-users already are looking to the Houston area as the source of hydrogen production to fuel their projects. The utility Entergy is developing a project at its Sabine power plant near Port Arthur that would use hydrogen as a fuel to generate electricity.
It should be noted that majority of hydrogen production today uses…fossil fuels as the feedstock.
Per Wikipedia
There are four main sources for the commercial production of hydrogen: natural gas, oil, coal, and electrolysis; which account for 48%, 30%, 18% and 4% of the world’s hydrogen production respectively.
And I would guess you have the carbon problem too from 3 of the 4 production methods - the
gray hydrogen problem ( as opposed to blue and green hydrogen).
The article coog51 posted, with the UH connection, bolsters the method 4 technique. It would seem like
a real breakthrough; but, the article is a bit short on
the costs and yield capability of the catalyst enhancement. Wonder if this method has been patented and how far away it is from commercialization .
I also had no idea that hydrogen production was as large as it is in Texas and Houston already. Great posts guys.
Until then, this may be the intermediate technology for transportation- Lithium-metal batteries.
Predictions of 500-600 miles on charge. No details
on duty cycle. The skeptic in me wonders how
much of this is just press bluster to support market
stock price, or is really a near commercial breakthru.
“Because of the high energy density of lithium metal, it delivers a significantly longer driving range than today’s EV batteries. Our Li-Metal batteries charge quickly, too — up to 80% of battery capacity in just 15 minutes,” said Qichao Hu, SolidEnergy Systems CEO. “Our technology makes these features available at an accessible price by enabling production using traditional lithium-ion manufacturing infrastructure. It’s very cost-effective and suited for large-scale production.”
Yet we have no hydrogen filling stations in Houston or Texas? California does and Toyota (based in Texas) has hydrogen powered cars available in California with so much incentives that its almost free!
It seems these “breakthrough” technologies are always just around the corner !
A few examples come to mind.
Hydrogen - I think this has been touted at car shows back in the 50’s.
True it seems to be nearer now then ever, with widespread use in Large
Material handlers…but still not yet there for widespread public use. Then there is the issue of gray, blue, or Green hydrogen as source…
Fusion - touted as being so close again…any day now !!! Fifty years ago they said it
was about 50 years away. Is the clock under 20 years now ?
Superconductivity - lots of press over last 25-30 years, with UH even being in forefront once.
But really still not yet here in terms of adoption to daily life.
Probably lots of other technology breakthroughs I’m leaving out, but they always seem so tantalizingly close
Who knows, maybe all these, and others not mentioned, will arrive nearly at the same time in
my life. As my kids would say , “Are we there yet” !
Yep, point taken, EVs are becoming common.
I recall reading estimates of 2-3 million EVs being
built this year across all manufacturers compared to
93-95 million internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles . So about 3% of all new vehicles. Guess
I’m looking for the REVOLUTION! and not reality of
slower adoption of new technology (sigh) .
Search of carfax shows a number of used teslas out there too now. And they seem to be holding value pretty good. For ex. $52k for 2014 tesla with 7k miles; $41k for 2017 with 32k miles, etc
Most of these used teslas have ridiculously low mileage which leads me to believe they were trophy
cars purchased by millennials and such . Not really daily workhorses. Having said that, there ARE 2 neighbors on my old street that drive theirs daily.
I was out in the Guadalupe Mountains a couple weeks ago and saw two Tesla cars. One was at the national park. Thought it was crazy to take that out there but I guess that is because I am used to most people having them as you say for “trophy cars”.
You can get a model 3 for under 40k. But people aren’t spending 50-70k on nice BMWs or Audis to not drive them like they are for Teslas. Bunch of people are probably driving a Corolla around and bragging about owning a Tesla.
