Featured 25km of hydrogen pipeline constructed in China

There is no technical problem of building new hydrogen pipelines, they simply require more expensive materials and inspections than natural gas pipelines. This means a high quality stainless steel. This starts out more brittle than carbon steel they use on natural gas pipelines, but as the chromium in the steel oxidizes it forms a protective layer, preventing the hydrogen from attacking the carbon in the steel. Still like any pipeline stuff happens so they need period inspections and replacement. At the same pressure a hydrogen pipeline needs a crossesectional area three times bigger to carry the same energy content of gas. That is why the diameter of this pipe is so big. Higher pressure allows a smaller pipe, but then materials get more expensive like carbon fiber, and maintenance is even higher. This is specified at 4 Mpa, or 40 bar, much lower than the 700 bar fueling stations compress up to, so the staion would probably have a low and high pressure tank.

Given the high cost of the pipelines, trucking hydrogen is often much less expensive unless you are close and have high volume.

 

There's a lot of oil being transported through this area via train. A pipeline would be more efficient. But then again, why bother building one for an energy-carrier not able to be renewable based?

 

I did not say it was bad, I was trying to just put out the facts. The diameter needs to be 1.7x larger for the same volume of energy. I know in order to save costs many pipelines have skimped on material, but that is true to of natural gas and oil. Material should be much higher, but IIRC it is thinner, and I don't think labor needs to cost that much more. If stainless was so cheap it would be used more.

The number I have heard is around 70% more expensive than natural gas.

sure in a refinery runs are short and volumes high, it makes sense to build infrastructure. If you are building stations that only dispens a few hundred kg of hydrogen a day, you will never pay for it. This Chinese pipe is a much higher volume and a short run, only 25 km.

If you are talking about lowering the cost of hydrogen, building expensive pipelines won't help, unless its in a very dense city with high throughput (millions of fcv) of hydrogen.

Like I said, I just am reporting facts. you are acting as if facts are your enemy. Your link says 68%, I've heard and said 70%, let's go with your number of 68% from your link. That is for short distances. Long distance is just tough with hydrogen. No one builds 100 mile pipes, and trucking it long distance is pretty bad too, you want to liquify and keep it cold, on truck or ship if you are going more than 20 miles.

Now you have an article that is really new informationto me, that instead of preventing accidents like this NIST wants to lower standards. Maybe it will work. idk.Maybe thinner walls higher strength more inspections.

CSB Releases Analysis Showing Cause of Rupture and Hydrogen Blast in 2009 Silver Eagle Refinery Accident in Woods Cross, Utah; Pipe Walls Thinned due to Corrosion that went Uninspected for Years - General News - News | the U.S. Chemical Safety Board


If they change the law, they can make it cheaper. I don't know why they would not also make natural gas cheaper by lowering those standards, but, anyway. No fight in me against newer standards as long as they up the inspections to reduce accidents.

Again your pricing is based on building infrastructure and lowering standards for pipelines. I don't think you can really accuse me of FUD. Your argument is based on a hypothetical law change.

If you had instead said, there is a X percent chance that california moves money from building hydrogen stations, to building hydrogen pipelines, and changed the law to make it cheaper to make pipelines, I would have simply said that is unlikely to work out.

 

Nonsense. What's dangerous is the unwavering insistence that this pipe dream of hydrogen is somehow going to lead us to health and prosperity. It's not. Seeing your flag-waving meeting with some resistance does not surprise me in the least.

 

This pipeline is being built to feed a petrochemical plant. Petroleum refining and other industrial processes require hydrogen. Building short pipeline between plants to transport this hydrogen isn't a new idea. There is over a 1000 miles of such pipeline already in the US. One or two of California's hydrogen stations might tap into such pipeline.

Nearly everything can be cheaper if you are willing to trade off safety. Perhaps newer materials can lower costs without that trade off. Even with those savings, it will still cost billions to supply a nationwide network of hydrogen stations for cars. Converting NG lines doesn't sound like it will save much, because they will carry less energy with hydrogen than they did with NG, and now you have to transport that NG somehow. People with gas stoves aren't going to be happy with hydrogen.

 

"could-be" doesn't mean reality. Look at a lot of the stuff in china. Quality is better, but a long way to go. For china, "could be" and "what's cheapest" collide. The reality of coal & natural gas is that it's cheapest, so why talk "could be" ??
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Oh I'm sure we wouldn't be building natural gas lines to power civics. They are there for heat and electricity. You need the same energy in the gas to cook food or heat a building. We don't build oil pipelines to gas stations they dimply are too expensive.

sure you need think cables. They are much less expensive per unit energy than natural gas pipelines, which are much less than hydrogen pipelines. What is your point. Do you think people don't want lights in their homes, or tv, or internet. We have built the grid. Still improvements are needed. Natural gas doen't go everywhere yet with about 300,000 miles. and hydrogen pipelines are much more expensive and have about 1000 miles of hydrrogen pipeline in the us.
EIA - Natural Gas Pipeline Network - Transporting Natural Gas in the United States

Your all over the place. Yes your link has 4 MPa, which is a little less than 600 psi. That is low presure. Then your other link said that hydrogen cost 68% more than natural gas, prettey much like I said. I really don't know of any move to change the standards. If that was your point that you think standards need to drop, you should have done that, instead of jumping up and down like a monkey, yelling that I don't understand and am lying because I don't understand that you are talking about some strange legislation that I haven't read. Is it even before the regulating bodies?

That is thinner and cheaper that is called lowering standards. Nothing wrong if it is safe enough but makeing the standard for thinner pipes is lowering the standard for pipe thinkness. It really is not hard to understand. People can us better grades of steel today. We do have pipeline leaks with today's standards. Most of the problems stem from lack of inspections as the pipes get too thin. you can build them thinner and replace the more often. I don't know. I don't build pipelines.

about 68% more expensive than natural gas, which is a lot more than trucking the hydrogen. Yes I say that is a lot.

Well you know if it is so cheap do it, build it. What I hear is people want to raise taxes to build it. If it is cheap and easy and profitable, I'm perfectly happy with you, or linde, or toyota building pipelines to your hearts content.

If you are asking to raise taxes to build it though, and claim its realy really inexpnsive, less than current infrastructure, my question is why you want my tax money to pay for it?

 

The increase in efficiency of a fuel cell isn't enough to account for the energy lost to hydrogen's lower btu's, and powering cars is a minor part of what natural gas is used for. Heating and cooking depend upon those raw btu values coming out of the nozzle. Then there is the safety aspect. Hydrogen range tops will have a near invisible flame, and the gas is odorless. Fuel cells need pure hydrogen. So the simple leak detection method of an odorant is out of the question. which means all those homes and businesses using natural gas now need hydrogen detectors installed.

That sounds like work for no benefit. How about we take all the homes off the grid, and make every one use a generator? Sounds silly right, but at least the house is only without power when the generator is out of fuel, and not because the car had to go somewhere.

China is building new hydrogen pipelines to supply new factories and refineries that are with a hundred miles or less of the hydrogen generations site, which is likely reforming natural gas or coal. FCEVs or even stationary fuel cells have no part into why they are building them.

There really isn't much of a need for new ones in the US.

 

China is so awash in coal pollution, converting its energy to hydrogen (lossy or not) serves other purposes ;
On China's Electricity Grid, East Needs West—for Coal - Businessweek

Burning coal further away from the congested cities (either for use as hydrogen or electricity) does a sort-of NIMBY ... damaging the health of the less populated western region, making filthy air less burdensome for the east - which is much more densely populated.
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And I'm convinced it's a waste of time and money. Suggesting electricity and batteries don't exist at a scale to make an impact is ridiculous. Hydrogen is a battery of sorts - an energy storage system rather than a fuel - but it's more expensive and less efficient. Ever since my childhood experiments with a car battery and a bathtub full of water, I've accepted the fact that hydrogen requires more energy input than it yields in output, and I'm not swayed by the seemingly endless hydrogen hype.

 

Google is your friend!
Hydrogen Pipelines | Department of Energy

 

And the dishonest fuel cell Lobby funded data website where this was posted? Notice no reference to cost? No reference to the revelation of how cheap GM is getting their traction batteries? No data representing how much pound to kWh's improvement is going on with batteries? How the little chart fails to account for the missing natural gas reformed hydrogen's infrastructure as part of their upward moving graph? Nope - a line on a graph is no substitute for the child's needed brain transplant.
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Where do PHEVs go on those graphs?
The gen2 Volt has the same or greater utility as the Mirai, with a ZEV range that will cover most pepople's commutes, while being lighter.