Future of the Gas grid

For me it has gone beyond if going for some form of Hydrogen Strategy vs decommission the Gas Grid in entirety, and onto the debates within the various aspects of Hydrogen Strategy around some of challenges within those. For example hopes to use deblending Hydrogen from (with over 20% vol) blended mix with Natural Gas at offtakes from National Transmission have not been thought through enough and are a distraction, given the energy losses of deblending and the need then required for storage at offtakes given the cycling of demand downstream, unless deblending will load follow and need to be sized for peak. Instead it better to commit to building a (parallel) Hydrogen Transmission System, and once all conversion complete the existing National Gas Transmission can be fully converted to 100% Hydrogen providing additional Linepack (Diurnal daily) Storage (Salt caverns used for seasonal storage).

The key challenge around 100% hydrogen conversion is switching customers over with being off gas for a period (so can only carried out during the in summer), this period will be massively reduced for those that allready have a Hydrogen Ready boiler, which hopefully will be mandated soon. Hopefully with long lead up along with that Mandate mean many boilers will already be Hydrogen Ready, reducing the amount of work required in people homes. Of course conversion was done before with switch from Towns Gas to Natural Gas but utilization and end user expectations are much higher nowadays. But it is the amount of work in people homes required with associated customer issues that will slow effective scaled up of any electric based alternatives also.
Any advance of one will help the other though, if Hydrogen in homes is not going to be ruled out all together. I think the chance for alternative of very high levels of insulation with Heat Pumps to undermine case for Hydrogen conversion has passed with Zero Carbon new build Homes 2016 being canceled. If Heat Pumps are not being used in new builds at scale now, than we need to crack on with preparing for 100% gas grid conversion.

I was at one point was convinced by books such as Without the Hot Air by the late David Mackay  that Heat Pumps were way to go. But it has not quite gone way expected. There is a lot of inertia tied up with the companies, workforce structures, tenants and home owners around home heating, as well as failure of policy.

I myself tend to see bio-methane injection in gas grid as short term distraction too, given they won’t scale up to be the full solution required. It does provide benefits of a Greenhouse Gas reduction in short term, in same way as up to 20% vol hydrogen blending (preferably generated from off peak surplus Renewables). But at the moment bio-methane suffer poor value at small scale with overheads of injection into Gas Network (monitoring, adding smell, and for now adding Propane to keep energy density (Cv) & associcated Wobbe Index within limits etc), and limited capacity for injection away from peak. Although some of these limitation can be overcome to a certain degree. There have been moves afoot in Germany to have an additional pipeline network to gather Green Gases together from separate generation sites to have economy of scale of injection into higher pressure tiers of Gas Network.

Although I am happy to debate many aspects of energy supply with those interested, I have up till now wished to avoid myself out there to be a full on public advocate of pushing forward with investment in switching to using Hydrogen as energy carrier, and don’t wish promote use of hydrogen taking away from investment being increased for retrofitting homes, especially as I see as all supporting each other and all paying for themselves over time.

In the back and forth argument there are too many strawmen attacked from each side. The Hydrogen advocates often point to winter energy peak in gas being six times electric, and so would require unrealistic expansion of electric grid and storage. The switch to electric based on the use of heat pumps needs to be based on  reducing heating requirements massively by full retrofit with high level of insulation but this comes with it own problems, if to be achieved 100% by 2050 or before. Even more limited upgrading of homes under Warmfront, various social housing upgrades to various Standards and recently ECO did not produce results expected, and are lessons being learnt? Often they don’t deliver what originally hoped. I have several personal experiences that inform this view, but that is maybe for another blog post.
Electric advocates point to lower energy density of hydrogen but as far as distribution by pipeline goes the lower viscosity goes a long way to make up for this and reinforcement of network will be small part of switch.
I am convinced at moment that aiming to convert the existing valuable Gas Networks that to 100% Hydrogen is worth pursuing over decommisioning all of them. And will continue to support doing this in most environmental beneficial and cost effective way.

Also see my previous post on this blog at:
https://j12.org/blog/2020/07/18/decarbonise-heat-at-scale/

with links like Gas Goes Green

also listen to Podcast from SGN:

https://sgn.co.uk/news/weve-launched-our-first-podcast-series-exploring-future-uks-energy-system

Decarbonise Heat at Scale

Policy is critical. But it is probably more important to push policy forward with clarity, momentum and critical mass than some of the technology choices within that policy. In fact it makes sense to diversity of approaches to learn as efforts scaled up and shift based on feedback of what works best. If you don’t have overarching cross sector transfers such as Carbon Tax then measures to decarbonise within sectors by customer cost base such as Gas separate from Electric supply helps pushes decarbonisation across sectors by pushing up costs evenly. i.e. a move to hydrogen in gas transortation and supply with additional cost pushing up price of gas from what would be otherwise makes decarbonising electric as well as energy efficiency measures more competitive and visa versa. Banning new connections to Natural Gas Network in 2025 in UK will spur both switch to Heat Pumps as well as make case for conversion of Gas supply to 100% Hydrogen. It is frustrating that the Modelling that investments, renewals & maintenance in Gas Transportation Networks is based on can not be switched to based on Hydrogen until a clear UK wide Hydrogen Strategy. So when assets replaced sized and specified for Hydrogen, and made ready to support conversion area by area later. For example makes sense to add in Valves when a it is on Gas Main replaced that will be used for area isolation as part of conversion than has to dig up road again at great cost to isolate later. Even bigger is need to grow supply chain of Hydrogen ready boilers.

Investment will pay for itself over time and costs saved later pay for investment now.

And ever my posts are going to mostly links of interest:

Future Energy Scenarios (National Grid ESO) as summerised in article on Carbon Brief website.

DNV.GL Energy Scenarios.

Hydrogen Strategy Now!

Hydrogen Task Force.

NW Hydrogen Alliance

Gas goes Green.

100% Hydrogen conversion to help delivering Net Zero.

HyNet as reported on by The Chemical Engineer.

Delivering Net Zero with Heat Pumps.

All Hands to the Pump from IPPR (reported by Business Green).

SUREinsulation.

Embedded Greenhouse Gas emissions

Supplying process heat with low carbon emissions to industry is required to avert climate change. One of most credible viable pathways to this is converting Natural Gas into Hydrogen for transport to industry through pipes but also ability to store in salt caverns. Carbon Dioxide that is a by product but rather than releasing Carbon … Continue reading “Embedded Greenhouse Gas emissions”

Supplying process heat with low carbon emissions to industry is required to avert climate change. One of most credible viable pathways to this is converting Natural Gas into Hydrogen for transport to industry through pipes but also ability to store in salt caverns. Carbon Dioxide that is a by product but rather than releasing Carbon Dioxide to atmosphere capturing the Carbon Dioxide and storing it underground.
This change would increase accounted for costs of energy of industry along the line as would any decarbonisation strategy, but it is quite reasonable for the transition costs to be seen as investment, that is paid back with reduced social costs. It is vital that costs of climate change are (relatively) incorporated into energy use and thus embedded in goods, with any green house emissions. If there is a mis-match between how countries treat these costs it would be reasonable strategy to subsidise these costs to ensure exports still competitive in short term. And a complimentary option is to apply a Carbon Sales Tax where carbon costs not passed through energy costs which would act like tariffs on imports for the embedded emissions within the imported goods, and even services, from countries that did not have equivilant investment in low carbon emission energy. The revenue needs to be recycled to support those affected by costs in form of universal income and/or services, as well as measures supporting translation such as investment in energy saving / decarbonisation. But in medium term if UK had first mover advantage with low carbon emission hydrogen supplied to industry then exports from that industry such as steel and glass and those made with from these such as cars could command a low embedded emission premium, as treaties evolve to take embedded carbon emissions, allowing costs to recovered.

An advantage of moving first to capture carbon dioxide from converting methane to hydrogen is you can do this at a steady state all year round with being able to store large amounts of hydrogen in salt caverns for then supplying the winter heating peak demand as well as industry. With a relatively steady supply of Carbon Dioxide to store this means more efficient sizing of carbon capture and storage, over the sizing just for electric production which would have to be sized for the peak electric and then not used to full outside of that peak time, with vast range of fluctuation. It is critical that we start scaling up rapidly the development of carbon capture and storage. A commitment to convert the gas networks to hydrogen is the best driver for this, underwriting the investment.

Over time you would add in other hydrogen sources than just from Nature Gas (Methane) such as electrolysis using off peak electric surpluses with mass role out of intermittent renewable electric sources such as wind turbines. But at first the best way to scale up is by converting natural gas which leverages the already large amount of valuable assets for supplying natural gas.

For more about converting the existing Gas Distribution Networks to Hydrogen see: https://h21.green/

Also see:

FT on investment costs for decarbonising steel.

Very challenging but credible welcome paths via Labour into the future for reducing impact of heating on climate change in the UK

Some extracts from the Labour Party 2019 Manifesto that I myself find particularly of interest: “Energy use in buildings accounts for 56% of the UK’s total emissions, making it the single most polluting sector. We will develop the recommendations of our ‘30 by 2030’ report to put the UK on track for a net-zero-carbon energy … Continue reading “Very challenging but credible welcome paths via Labour into the future for reducing impact of heating on climate change in the UK”

Some extracts from the Labour Party 2019 Manifesto that I myself find particularly of interest:
“Energy use in buildings accounts for 56% of the UK’s total emissions, making it the single most polluting sector. We will develop the recommendations of our ‘30 by 2030’ report to put the UK on track for a net-zero-carbon energy system within the 2030s – and go faster if credible pathways can be found. We will deliver nearly 90% of electricity and 50% of heat from renewable and low-carbon sources by 2030.”
“As part of heat decarbonisation, we will roll out technologies like heat pumps, solar hot water and hydrogen, and invest in district heat networks using waste heat.” (my emphasis)
“We will support energy workers through transition and guarantee them retraining and a new, unionised job on equivalent terms and conditions.”
“We will provide a strategy to safeguard the people, jobs and skills that depend on the offshore oil and gas industry.”

“Thirty by 30”: recommendations to net zero Green House Gas emissions be carried out in phases towards and beyond 2030.

Net Zero by 2050 is challenging but by 2030 even more so. But the actions that we need to start taking asap are pretty much the same just brought forward and intensified. The “Thirty by 30” report which you can find via link below makes thirty recommendations that aim to put the UK on as … Continue reading ““Thirty by 30”: recommendations to net zero Green House Gas emissions be carried out in phases towards and beyond 2030.”

Net Zero by 2050 is challenging but by 2030 even more so. But the actions that we need to start taking asap are pretty much the same just brought forward and intensified. The “Thirty by 30” report which you can find via link below makes thirty recommendations that aim to put the UK on as fast a path to zero carbon as possible. Like similar reports we need to see it turning into practical plan that gets demonstrated and then built upon. I am myself hope that we start seeing very soon real street by street home heating improvement projects that get people on board with them, and learn lessons to scale up, like we will need to do hydrogen gas distribution conversion at scale. True democratic oversight and strong grassroots public buy in will be needed whatever path at scale we go down. It won’t be unabated fossil methane that is been burnt in homes come 2050.

Labour welcomes report putting UK onto the path to net zero energy emissions in the 2030s


We can all help shape where we are going with this by contributing to consultations:

Green Industrial Revolution – Call for Evidence


and in your local area such as Leeds:
https://www.leeds.gov.uk/your-council/plans-and-strategies/climate-change/

Energy Choices

Links related to future energy debate: General: “Sustainable Energy – Without The Hotair” by David MacKay. David Mackay has recently become an adviser to govt on energy matters. I bought his book a few months ago and thought it was really good, still do, and it got me thinking about energy choices and investigating some … Continue reading “Energy Choices”

Links related to future energy debate:

General:

Sustainable Energy – Without The Hotair” by David MacKay.

David Mackay has recently become an adviser to govt on energy matters. I bought his book a few months ago and thought it was really good, still do, and it got me thinking about energy choices and investigating some areas not really examined before like the heat pumps. It is a good starting point to consider plans. I like that it makes an attempt at comparisons by breaking down amounts of production and consumption into per person per day energy usage, to try to get things to add up. But I believe it has some flaws. He says he is discarding economics often, but then at points makes conclusions that depend on him making (mistaken) economic assumptions. He does not take into account many of the practicalities & costs of transition, starting from where at now. But that is not to say not good to have a vision of where we want to get to and be concerned to make it add up in the final form. But there is a need to have efficient bridges to get to the final vision.
The thinking behind one of his plans of several for energy production, Plan E for economics (page 211), which he says would be the result of free-market with a carbon tax is mistaken as does not take into account lots of factors such as variable cost of capital, technological trends and inertia, the effect of govt ‘picking winners’ (or not) and creating a market on costs. Although I would be guessing too on any plan I would propose, even if I would try and bring in economic, practical and environmental factors to more refined level. There are many variables and many hard to quantify, and much contested. At end of day, there needs to be some plan that adds and move forward with urgency on it.
I think his idea of the big need for pump storage is spot on, sure bet that this will need to be both for expansion of wind and useful with the expansion of nuclear.

He sees Carbon Capture and Storage as only a stopgap. But one reason to develop it is is if ignored then the market will mean others will just burn the carbon saved elsewhere anyway, so best to develop for future use worldwide.

But his general point that we have to start saying yes to change in a big way is right.

Plan B” by Lester R. Brown.

Seems to move towards some sort of detail and ambition that is required.

http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/international/press/reports/energy-revolution-a-sustainab.pdf
Also yet to examine fully this report, although have seen other stuff from Greenpeace and others with that push to localise initiatives local mixes often starting with community Combined Heat and Power, as well as big push for offshore wind, which looked promising but seem to have stalled.

All good plans including above have energy use reduction by efficiency at top of the list as the most cost-effective use of resources.

Nuclear:

Walt Patterson on Nuclear issues including book: Going Critical

The Nuclear Illusion
by AMORY B. LOVINS & IMRAN SHEIKH
A detailed critique of nuclear (Large PDF)
.

Frances Nuclear Power Push article.

Nuclear Engineering International magazine

World Nuclear Association

This Week in Nuclear podcast
Cheerleading nuclear. Some good points, and some overblown. A good listen at times anyway.

Atomic Insights blog with associated
podcast, which learning allot from.

Thorium:

http://energyfromthorium.com/

Video presentation on Thorium
There are several video presentations on Thorium, all super upbeat, with an interesting history of why not chosen path.

Wikipedia article on Thorium

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4971

http://nucleargreen.blogspot.com/2008/04/thorium-fuel-cycle-development-in-india.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/is-thorium-the-answer-to-our-energy-crisis-428279.html

Thorium for the long term will supersede uranium if depletion becomes a limit.

Liquid Salt reactor with continuous processing for less waste per unit of energy, as can covert all the fertile material to fissile and use it all up as an alternative to solid nuclear fuel where lots are leftover, is interesting, but pie in the sky for now, whereas the evolution of present designs more viable for the near term.

Natural Gas:

The GET The Grand Energy Transition

While I find the solid, liquid to gas classification a bit overstretched and enters the almost metaphysical (if not plain wrong), this book does make a good case for the gas bridge to a cleaner future particularly in the U.S. in chapters that focus on the area of expertise of author, such as gas deposits found in contrast to oil.

meanwhile in the U.K. there more efforts to get non-gas households connected up to see links below:

http://www.northerngasnetworks.co.uk/cms/444.html

http://www.northerngasnetworks.co.uk/documents/1235406547.pdf

http://www.sbgi.org.uk/event.aspx/a3ce2416-2748-453b-866c-394f66836f43

more fuel poverty links below

Oil:

The Oil Drum blog

Building energy solutions:

Heat Pumps:

http://heatpumps.co.uk/

http://heatpumps.org.uk/

http://www.icsheatpumps.co.uk/

http://www.kensaengineering.com/

http://www.heatking.co.uk/

http://www.ecovisionsystems.co.uk/

http://www.iceenergy.co.uk/

http://www.gshp.org.uk/

http://www.ehpn.de/

http://www.groundreach.eu/

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=702257&highlight=heat+pump

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c21/page_146.shtml

Renewables:

Renewable Energy Association

http://www.sharenergy.coop/

http://www.energy4all.co.uk

Energy efficiency, transition & Fuel Poverty:

http://www.lowcarboneconomy.com/

http://www.lowcarbonbuildings.org.uk

http://www.claverton-energy.com/

http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/

North Edinburgh Trust
in my area recently launch Net Your Carbons project.

Fuel Poverty:

Community Energy Solutions

EAGA

DTI (now BERR) Design & Demo Unit ‘LEAP-FROGGING THE STATUS QUO’ report

http://heatevidence.dialoguebydesign.net/

Zero Carbon Hub

Misc:

Read your Meter website to record electric, gas and water meter readings, to produce usage graphs over time. Dig out those old bills and put old reading on to see trends.

end of Summer

After windy day yesterday it is calm today and also sunny but cool as summer as come to an end, but I should get out after posting this. I am still cycling to and from work but not sure for how much longer, as a the other really felt need for a that. I had … Continue reading “end of Summer”

After windy day yesterday it is calm today and also sunny but cool as summer as come to an end, but I should get out after posting this. I am still cycling to and from work but not sure for how much longer, as a the other really felt need for a that. I had a late start to cycling this year as took a while to fix my bike and only because my missus helped me, to make sure I started for Bike to Work week.

We have been visiting quite a few trips to various places this summer which has been good. Been adding odd bits to to Open Street Map from them. But not really added much in systematic way.

I have been reading up on various aspects of future trends in energy production. After reading lots I am better informed but still split over some of predictions and not able to say clear which winner to back. I keep meaning to post in this blog my conclusions but one thing holding me back is that conclusions not clear cut. Anyway we will see. But one thing is I think it is going to be interesting to see big changes over next few decades.

Listening to tunes from bands have not heard in while, in Spotify.