Quixoticgeek
Wow. According to the hydrogen industry lobbyist in my mentions I've gaslit you all by suggesting that heat pumps are great.
Which is weird. Cos heat pumps are an amazing technology. There's even moves to develop air/air heat pumps they use propane as the refrigerant, so DIY installers can easily install them. But what's truly amazing about heat pumps is how they can scale. In the city of London they've installed a big ground source heat pump to drive district heating. It's awesome.
davidpmaurer
@quixoticgeek we put a heat pump in one of our stores and it made a huge difference. for the first time, the temperature was consistent on every floor regardless of the season, and it saved us a fortune.
Porcia
@quixoticgeek Having just read through a Hydrogen Safety data sheet, I'd be very worried about (1) the pipe work, are they replacing all the pipe work with Hydrogen tested pipe, Hydrogen dissolves in many metals and in addition to leaking out, may have adverse effects on them, such as hydrogen embrittlement (2) Hydrogen gas leaking into external air may spontaneously ignite. Hydrogen fire, while being extremely hot, is almost invisible, and thus can lead to accidental burns
Tony Hoyle
@Porcia @quixoticgeek Absolutely, the hole in the argument that 'we'll just pipe hydrogen to houses' is that no such pipe work exists. The natural gas piping is, from a hydrogen atom's point of view, full of holes.
This is why nobody is seriously thinking of hydrogen heating any more, except a few lobbyists.
JamesB
@tony @Porcia @quixoticgeek Vacuum person here.
I in no way believe that hydrogen is the answer to energy demands, it's just a thing put up by the dying fossil fuels industry but we normally test for leaks with Helium. It's the smallest thing that's easy to detect for leaks. On paper, Hydrogen is smaller so could leak more but Hydrogen normally comes as H2 so the molecules are bigger than helium in its natural state.
And hydrogen embrittlement is definitely a thing. Hydrogen power is a scam
Quixoticgeek
@antonia @mw1cgg @tony @Porcia I thought their strategy was to close all the nukes and burn coal and then be confused as to why their emissions are so high...
Antonia :streik:
@mw1cgg @tony @Porcia @quixoticgeek Isn't importing hydrogen from Africa in tankers currently the German government's strategy on how to get to 100% renewable?
Quixoticgeek
@antonia @mw1cgg @tony @Porcia there was supposed to be a trial of it in the UK. And some lobbyist blew up my mentions evangelising it earlier this week. It's a stupid idea.
Antonia :streik:
@mw1cgg @tony @Porcia @quixoticgeek however, I think absolutely no one is thinking of piping hydrogen to households.
Galbinus Caeli 🌯
@mackaj @BashStKid @Porcia @quixoticgeek it's worse than that. Raw volume isn't what needs to be delivered, energy is. H2 is 9MJ/l Methane is 55MJ/l. So you need to transport SIX times as much to get the same energy to your destination.
Mackaj
In addition, H2 is a lot less dense than methane. So to achieve a volumetric density that's similar at the point of use H2 has to be pumped at about 3 x the rate of natural gas. Our existing pumping stations can't do that so their pumps would have to be replaced and upgraded to cope.
BashStKid
@Porcia @quixoticgeek
Yes to all of the above. Long story short, the domestic gas network will never be safe for hydrogen - you’d need to replace all the lines, valves, regulators, monitors. Even then it would be uninsurable, no customer would take that risk.
Insurers will be busy offloading customers in all the new flood risk areas, they won’t want every other district blown to hell.
SewBlue
@Porcia @quixoticgeek Leaks aren't the only thing.
Natural gas is flammable between 5-15% gas in air. It is actually rather challenging to get uncontrolled concentrations to ignite, if you remember those episodes of Mybusters. It certainly can ignite but is fairly limited in practice.
Hydrogen has a flammable limit of 4-74%. You also can't scent it like you can natural gas because of that tiny molecule issue, so leaks are incredibly hazardous and difficult to detect.
Outside of industrial applications hydrogen is just too dangerous. The best I've heard of is mixing with natural gas, but that doesn't actually solve the problem.
Right now there is a huge split between gas only utilities and joint gas and electric companies. Gas only companies are hoping for a hail mary with hydrogen and funding scare tactics around keeping gas ranges, while joint utilities are exploring electric conversions.
Eventually electric utilities will need to buy out the gas ones and convert the customer be to full electric.
Quixoticgeek
@BashStKid British not-invented-here syndrome is incredibly infuriating.
BashStKid
@quixoticgeek Beats me. I do wonder if it’s an English not-invented-here thing. Twenty-plus years ago I’d be impressed with district heating, ground-source heat pumps, early Vestas turbines, only to be met with confused stares back in the UK.
mmzeeman
@quixoticgeek A wise man once said to me: “Hydrogen is very safe…. As long as you don’t mix it with oxygen.”
clacke
@Hypx There are plenty of factual comments in this thread about the various issues with a hypothetical hydrogen network.
Hypx
@quixoticgeek Except you clearly stated that hydrogen for heating was a "unviable". You outright called a distraction by fossil fuel companies for politicians. Then went on rant about how many times more efficient heat pumps. Completely unaware of thermally driven heat pumps.
This is all out in the open. It's not like you can deny what was posted online.
Quixoticgeek
@Hypx in fact. All I say is a heat pump is like a fridge run in reverse. You're griping that I didn't mention that fridges can be run on hydrogen. That's your gripe. I'm not misleading anyone. You're just embarrassing yourself here.
Quixoticgeek
@Hypx I did no such thing. Kindly retract your accusations.
Hypx
@quixoticgeek Please don't do revisionist history. You were clearly caught making a fundamental error. You did not know about thermally-driven heat pumps at that moment.
So you unknowingly passed off corporate propaganda as if it were fact. Someone showed you your mistake, at which point you threw a fit. A more reasonable response would be to admit that thermally driven heat pumps exist too, and that your past statements should be adjusted to reflect that knowledge.
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