For a UK running on 100% renewables by 2050 – or as soon as practicable before then – 100percentRenewableUK.org
If there’s ever an example of mistaken groupthink then the case of working out the task of finding the cheapest and most efficient way of long-term storage of renewable energy could well be one of the most shining examples. Hydrogen is the default choice it seems, but defaults can be wrong!
Gas industry lobbyists are working hard to water down the Government’s commitment to ban fossil fuel boilers in new homes from 2026, and there are signs they might win their battle. Not only that, but it looks like there will be no encouragement to install solar panels as a means of achieving carbon emission reductions. … Continue reading “New homes standard could well be watered down with hydrogen greenwash and no support for solar panels”
The Gas industry is boosting its efforts to promote hydrogen heating at homes, and in doing so is likely to derail efforts to ban fossil fuel heating in new buildings by 2025. That is because a key demand of gas lobbyists is to insist that ‘hydrogen ready boilers’ be allowed to continue to be installed … Continue reading “Gas industry in new effort to promote fantasy hydrogen home heating”
The gas industry has announced that it is ready to supply a ’20 per cent’ blend of hydrogen with natural gas next winter in a move that is likely to end all hopes that the Government will ban fossil fuel boilers in new buildings from 2025.
The Government’s newly published hydrogen strategy is looking like a plan to protect the gas industry. It will, in effect if not motivation, be mainly concerned with keeping the supply of unmitigated natural gas flowing in the UK under the guise of promoting ‘blue’ hydrogen.
Windfarms are being delayed and even operating ones forced to shut down sometimes because of delays in securing planning permission for electricity interconnectors. So could green hydrogen production be a solution to this problem? The hydrogen could be produced and used in systems that avoid the need to build interconnectors for the windfarms. The problem … Continue reading “Could green hydrogen get over problems caused by opposition to building electricity interconnectors?”
Doug Parr, Chief Science Officer for Greenpeace, exposes how the Government is using unreasonably pessimistic assumptions about storing renewable energy to bolster the case for its scenarios which involve large amounts of nuclear power and fossil generation with carbon capture and storage How is UK government continuing to justify continued emphasis on nuclear power development … Continue reading “Government rubbishes hydrogen in bid to boost new nuclear power”
We say Yes to hydrogen for: Decarbonising heavy industry Heavy industry requires large amounts of energy, and whilst some industries could be electrified at best this would place significant additional demands on electricity generation and electricity grids, and in many cases is simply not practical or possible. The leading candidate for using hydrogen is the … Continue reading “100% RUK Hydrogen position statement, version 2”
Centrica has announced that it is talking to the Government about using the UK’s largest natural gas storage facility to store hydrogen. Although the stated purpose of the negotiations is to discuss the storage of blue rather than green hydrogen, this is nevertheless a good sign for using hydrogen to store renewable energy. That is … Continue reading “Boost for 100 per cent renewable energy as Centrica goes for hydrogen storage”
We say Yes to hydrogen for: Energy storage for ‘excess output’ from windfarms and other big renewables in remote locations (BIG YES) Shipping fuel We say No to hydrogen for: Domestic heating (energy density issue, distribution issues, need for replacement boilers, cost to householders) Anything to do with fossil fuels, CCS or nuclear (for obvious … Continue reading “100% RUK Hydrogen position statement, version 1”
Reports suggest that domestic heating bills are likely to soar upwards to around three times their current average rate in order to pay for so-called ‘blue hydrogen’ supplies. Blue hydrogen is produced from natural gas with a large proportion of the carbon dioxide captured and stored. As a technology it is competing for public funding … Continue reading “Heating bills set for threefold increase to pay for blue hydrogen”
A leading energy efficiency champion, Andrew Warren, has alleged that the Government is slashing its energy efficiency programme by 80 per cent. The Government’s ten point plan to tackle the climate emergency includes large amounts of money to pave the way for a programme of ‘small modular reactors’ (SMRs) and payments to gas interests to … Continue reading “Government slashes energy efficiency spending to pay for small nuclear power and hydrogen”
Just how many innovations can you pack into a project? Well not many more than the tidal power-flow battery hydrogen project that is set to be deployed at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney! But perhaps newest of all, it is an important step forward towards developing techniques, in this case flow batteries, to … Continue reading “European Marine Energy Centre heralds a triple first project – flow battery, tidal power and hydrogen!”
The oil and gas industry is poised to gain several tens of millions of pounds for what will turn out to be mainly a license to carry on generating carbon dioxide. A flagship ‘blue hydrogen’ scheme, that is one involving production of hydrogen from natural gas and removing part of the carbon dioxide, is to … Continue reading “Green hydrogen sidelined as blue hydrogen is set for green light”
BP is trying to boost production of ‘blue’ hydrogen from natural gas and limit output of ‘green’ hydrogen from renewable energy. It is trying to do this using grossly inflated projections of future hydrogen use and thus claim there will not be enough renewable energy to sustain a global net zero economy. However green … Continue reading “BP pushes ‘blue’ hydrogen at the expense of renewable hydrogen using inflated projections for hydrogen market”