Hydrogen vs Fossil Fuels: The Fight of the Century

    "Huge amounts of uncounted emissions of highly warming greenhouse gas methane are being released by "super-emitters" all over the world, satellite observations reveal. 

    Scientists have only recently worked out how to detect methane emissions from space, but what they have seen since has taken them by surprise. The greenhouse gas, which is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide, is leaking from gas pipelines, oil wells, fossil fuel processing plants and landfills all over the world. It is frequently released through negligence and improper operations; the emissions, in many cases, are not accounted for in mandatory greenhouse gas inventories. 

    'We see quite a lot of those super-emitters,' Ilse Aben, senior scientist at the Netherlands Institute for Space Research (SRON) told Space.com. 'These are large emissions, and we see a lot of them on the global scale — much more than we had expected."

 

Source: "Satellites discover huge amounts of undeclared methane emissions", Tereza Pultarova, Space.com, published Nov 15, 2021. 

The above excerpt, as alarming as it sounds, is only part of the existential threat that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions represent. Every life form on earth is being affected by GHG emissions, and the effects are growing by the day.

We are being stalked by an extinction-level monster of our own making. It has been increasing environmental temperatures, raising sea levels, driving ocean acidification, causing more severe weather patterns, increasing wildfires, worsening droughts in some regions, and giving rise to more flooding in others.

Consider the GHG emissions estimates shown at the top of this post from the U.S. Environment Protection Agency (EPA). 92% of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions come from the burning of fossil fuels; and 37% of methane emissions come from coal mining, natural gas and petroleum systems (e.g. leaks). Note that this latter figure is likely much higher due to unreported emissions based on recent satellite data.

But Wait, There’s More

When I was recruited by NASA in 1985 it seemed like a world away from the coal-fired power plant where I had previously worked. I would go on to develop power and propulsion technologies and systems for various rockets, aerospace vehicles, and spacecraft over the next several decades.

However, my first assignment was designing combustion experiments for basic research on the space shuttle. The principal investigator on one of those experiments was an internationally renowned combustion expert from Princeton University. When we started observing unexpected soot formation during one of the tests, he made the following remarks (paraphrased from memory):

"Soot is an interesting topic. There is a soot particle size above which the respiratory system in a healthy person filters it before reaching the lungs. At a smaller size, the soot particle is inhaled into the lungs but can also be exhaled out. Between those two size thresholds are soot particles that don't get filtered and can't be exhaled. These become trapped in the lungs. Diesel soot falls into this category. That's why the exhaust outlets of diesel vehicles are generally positioned so high..."

The casual manner in which he delivered this information stunned me. Stammering in response, I asked "You mean to tell me that diesel soot I've breathed in during my life so far, and all that I'll inhale the rest of my life, may be permanently trapped in my lungs?" "That's right", he matter-of-factly responded.   

We’ve Played This Game Before (Many Times)

Public safety always takes a back seat to profit. It doesn't matter what industry, which company, or who is involved. If there are vested interests making substantial revenue from a product that results in severe health risks, heavy lobbying and campaign contributions will always delay accountability for decades.

It seems to be a consistent pattern of our species that we sacrifice our own collective well being in the name of industrial progress. Asbestos, coal dust, dioxins, lead, mercury, nuclear radiation exposure, oil spills, particulate emissions, PCBs, pharmaceuticals, plastic waste, sulfur emissions, VOCs, … the list goes on and on. GHGs are just another variation on the theme.

Previous cycles of this form of tragedy of the commons have resulted in untold disease and death since the dawn of the industrial revolution. This time, however, the impact is global in reach and catastrophic in consequence for all of us.

In This Corner Weighing in at One Atomic Mass Unit...

After my brief stint in low gravity combustion research, I began developing, testing and deploying liquid hydrogen technologies and systems starting in the mid-1980s. This would become a core part of my career for the next 35 years, and continues to be so.

Most of those liquid hydrogen projects were related to aerospace, defense and energy systems. More recently, this has expanded to transportation vehicles and infrastructure systems. In the early days, the hydrogen community was very concentrated and technically proficient. This has changed considerably in the last few years as mentioned in a previous post.

Transitioning to hydrogen represents one of the fundamental solutions to the GHG emission problem, along with addressing the plethora of public health impacts of fossil fuel usage. Large scale electrolysis plants are coming online at a rapid clip to cleanly produce hydrogen from water using renewable energy resources.

These renewable resources can be from overgeneration capacity; dedicated microgrids; and/or from regions where solar, wind, water, or geothermal energy far exceed the regional electrical demand. The latter case represents a lucrative opportunity for some regions to be primary exporters of hydrogen to the regions with high electrical demand but limited renewable resources (e.g. the recent trade agreement involving Australia exporting liquid hydrogen to Japan).

When hydrogen is fed to a fuel cell for electrical generation, water vapor is the only emission. When burned in a turbine or engine, water vapor and NOx are the only emissions. Note the NOx is a byproduct of all high temperature combustion processes and can be reduced by a variety of methods.

Hydrogen released into water or air readily combines with available oxygen and hydroxides to form water vapor. Preferable to releasing it, however, leaked or vented hydrogen can be used in fuel cells for auxiliary power. It can also be recaptured and compressed or liquefied to minimize waste. If release of hydrogen in air is absolutely necessary for a given system operation, it can also be flared to mitigate unwanted local concentrations.

Made from water with renewable energy. Returned to water in a fuel cell or combustion process. Hydrogen is the infinity fuel for our sustainable future. In future posts, I'll delve more deeply into the details of our shared path to the liquid hydrogen era.

Matt Moran is the Managing Member at Moran Innovation LLC, and previous Managing Partner at Isotherm Energy. He's been developing power and propulsion systems for more than 40 years; and first-of-a-kind liquid, slush and gaseous hydrogen systems since the mid-1980s. Matt was also the Sector Manager for Energy & Materials in his last position at NASA where he worked for 31 years. He's been a cofounder in seven technology based start-ups; and provided R&D and engineering support to many industrial, government and research organizations. Matt has three patents and more than 50 publications including the Cryogenic Fluid Management report series. More about him can be found here.

The Path to Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction (Part 2)

It's been nearly a year and a half since I wrote Part 1 on this topic. At that time, the global community had finally reached a strong consensus on the need for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and the overarching goals as outlined in the Paris Agreement of December, 2015. The forward focus was on defining objectives and strategies that each country needed to pursue in order to meet those goals.

Global Temperature Change (source: U.S. Global Change Research Program)

As the rest of the world has continued down this existentially critical path together, the United States has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement to plumb the depths of incompetence and hypocrisy in energy policy. A case in point is the sycophantic embrace of high carbon emission energy sources, and proposals to prop up noncompetitive power plants with involuntary subsidies from energy consumers and taxpayers. It's interesting to note that competitive pricing was used for decades as a weapon to hamstring the development and adoption of renewable energy. Now the sword is cutting the other way, and some vested interests in legacy systems are crying foul.

Recent changes in U.S. environmental and natural resources policies are equally alarming. Many emerging countries have quickly learned (relative to developed nations' historical timelines) the high intrinsic and extrinsic costs of ignoring the environmental impacts of industrialization, and have adapted their policies accordingly. Meanwhile, the U.S. appears to be on a nihilistic path to unwind decades of environmental protections and return to the era of poisoned water sources, dangerous air quality, and the destruction of irreplaceable resources.

Against this political backdrop, the recent release of the Climate Science Special Report by the U.S. federal government may seem implausibly ironic. Authors of the report include experts from NOAA, NASA, DOE, leading scientific agencies, and academia. A few selected highlights from the report [1]:

• Global annually averaged surface air temperature has increased by about 1.8°F (1.0°C) over the last 115 years (1901–2016). The last few years have also seen record-breaking, climate-related weather extremes, and the last three years have been the warmest years on record for the globe.
• Over the next few decades (2021–2050), annual average temperatures are expected to rise by about 2.5°F for the United States under all plausible future climate scenarios.
• Thousands of studies conducted by researchers around the world have documented changes in surface, atmospheric, and oceanic temperatures; melting glaciers; diminishing snow cover; shrinking sea ice; rising sea levels; ocean acidification; and increasing atmospheric water vapor.

• Global average sea level has risen by about 7–8 inches since 1900, with almost half (about 3 inches) of that rise occurring since 1993, and are expected to continue to rise by at least several inches in the next 15 years and by 1–4 feet by 2100. A rise of as much as 8 feet by 2100 cannot be ruled out.

• Heavy rainfall is increasing in intensity and frequency across the United States and globally and is expected to continue to increase. Heatwaves have become more frequent in the United States since the 1960s, while extreme cold temperatures and cold waves are less frequent.
• The incidence of large forest fires in the western United States and Alaska has increased since the early 1980s and is projected to further increase in those regions as the climate changes, with profound changes to regional ecosystems.
• Annual trends toward earlier spring melt and reduced snowpack are already affecting water resources in the western United States and these trends are expected to continue.
• The magnitude of climate change beyond the next few decades will depend primarily on the amount of greenhouse gases (especially carbon dioxide) emitted globally. Without major reductions in emissions, the increase in annual average global temperature relative to preindustrial times could reach 9°F (5°C) or more by the end of this century

• The global atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration has now passed 400 parts per million (ppm), a level that last occurred about 3 million years ago, when both global average temperature and sea level were significantly higher than today.
• Continued growth in CO2 emissions over this century and beyond would lead to an atmospheric concentration not experienced in tens to hundreds of millions of years.

So what is (or should be) the path forward for the U.S. now? For the individuals and organizations across many sectors - along with some state and local governments - that are continuing to advance sustainability policies in step with the rest of the global community? Or for that matter, those that are waiting to see how the tragedy unfolds before making any commitments? And what about the organizations and individuals that will never support anything that challenges their position of market dominance, political leverage, perceived status, or personal identity and beliefs?

One can envision a spectrum anchored at one end by facts and data ("truth"), and anchored at the opposite end by deliberate manipulation ("doublespeak"). In the middle of the spectrum, closer to truth, is reasoned interpretation ("informed opinion"). It's mirror opposite, closer to manipulation, is self-serving propaganda ("baseless opinion"). At the present time in the U.S., we seem to be fighting a pitched battle on many fronts in the fog at the doublespeak end of this spectrum.

If we are to make critically important progress on energy and environment - and many other vital areas of national policy - we need to ground ourselves in the facts and data end of the spectrum. Then our debates can evolve around the reasoned interpretation of those truths to arrive at a consensus strategy. Above all else, we must move away from the doublespeak end of the spectrum and refuse to engage with the manipulators who thrive there. The alternative is to continue arguing in the fog until we forget which direction the truth lies in, or worse, lose the will to find our way back to it.

[1] "Climate Science Special Report: Fourth National Climate Assessment", U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, USA, 2017.

Matt Moran is the Managing Member at Moran Innovation, and previous Managing Partner at Isotherm Energy. He's been developing power and propulsion systems since 1982. Matt was also the Sector Manager for Energy & Materials in his last position at NASA where he worked for 31 years. He's been involved in seven technology based start-ups; and provided R&D and engineering support to many industrial, government and research organizations.  More about Matt here…

The Path to Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction (Part 1)

Last week I participated in a business roundtable discussion in Toronto hosted by Canada’s Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE).  The focus of the meeting was to bring together industry emitters and solution providers for a collective discussion about how to meet the province’s greenhouse gas emission reduction target of 37% below 1990 levels by the year 2030.

These types of conversations are occurring around the world in various forms as each nation participating in the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris formulate policies to meet the emission goals agreed upon.  Although the implementation details will undoubtedly vary within the global community, many of the key challenges and opportunities are common to all.

In preparation for the meeting, the OCE requested feedback from the invited participants regarding the appropriate path forward, the roles each of us can play, and the barriers to success.  I believe these questions form a useful framework for many governments that are grappling with the same issues.

Clean the Smokestack?

OCE welcomes industry stakeholder feedback on the following questions: Looking forward to 2030 and Ontario’s GHG emissions target of 37% below 1990 levels, what do you view as the path forward for the Province to meet this emission reduction target?

Isotherm Energy: There are two general approaches to lowering emissions:

1. Reduction of emissions between the combustion source and the smokestack. This is a near term solution that reduces atmospheric emissions, but must still address the captured carbon. Enable greater adoption of renewable sources to accelerate transition away from fossil fuels. This is a mid-term solution that addresses the problem at the source by reducing carbon based fuels. A balance of these two approaches is ideal.
2. The “clean the smokestack” approach is by far the historically favored solution to reducing airborne emissions of all kinds.  My experience with this approach started with my first engineering job in 1982 at a 2200 MW coal-fired power plant.  The plant was finishing a nearly half-billion dollar installation of precipitators to remove particulates from the smokestacks to meet regulations.  At the time, the industry was denying any connection between the sulfur contained in the coal being burned and acid rain miles away in the direction of the prevailing winds aloft.  Many years later, the same plant finally made a capital investment of nearly two billion dollars to install flue gas scrubbers that remove most of the sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions, again to meet regulatory requirements.  No doubt, they are now looking at an even larger price tag for reducing carbon emissions.

Of course, this smokestack approach is not unique to the stationary power generation industry.  In 1985, I was recruited by NASA to develop space experiments for the space shuttle to study the effects of low gravity on combustion phenomena.  During our early development testing in drop towers on earth that provide a few seconds of weightlessness, we filmed the formation of soot emanating from liquid hydrocarbon fuel droplets that had never been previously observed nor predicted.

Hydrocarbon droplet combustion soot formed during a drop tower test at NASA

In a subsequent discussion about soot formation with one of our principal investigators, he commented that soot is a big health problem, and used diesel fuel as an example.  He explained that there is an upper limit on size above which the lungs can expel an inhaled particle, and a lower limit below which a particle is absorbed into the body via the alveoli in the lungs.  But for sizes between those upper and lower limits, the lungs can neither expel nor absorb a particle.  And diesel soot particles are in that size range that can become permanently entrapped in the lungs.  That’s why diesel trucks have their tail pipe exit so high above the ground, he concluded.

Observing this smokestack approach to airborne emissions reveals some inherent recurring patterns.  These include very long cycles of:

• Growing evidence regarding the detrimental impacts of a particular emission
• Public denials of the data by entrenched interests
• Eventual policies and regulations to address the issue
• Costly implementation of commercially available systems targeting the emission

These cycles often take decades to culminate in the reduction of the target emission, while it’s detrimental health and environmental impacts continue to grow in the interim.  And in the end, another symptom of the core problem is addressed without addressing the root cause: the combustion of hydrocarbon fuels.

In my next post, I’ll touch on the second part of the answer we gave the OCE for the path forward.  Accelerating the adoption of renewable energy sources requires systems integration, application optimization, and sustainable energy storage.

Matt Moran is the Managing Member at Moran Innovation, and previous Managing Partner at Isotherm Energy. He's been developing power and propulsion systems since 1982. Matt was also the Sector Manager for Energy & Materials in his last position at NASA where he worked for 31 years. He's been involved in seven technology based start-ups; and provided R&D and engineering support to many industrial, government and research organizations.  More about Matt here…