Member Info for toneman

Have you seen the pasting that Plug Power is getting? End of Jan it peaked at $75, today $34. Are we next? Hope not.

Welcome GG. Whilst you're here please sign and share our petition for hydrogen refuelling stations.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/561614

Boaty, if you can utilise the waste heat from some of the processes too, e.g. from the fuel cell operation, you can increase the efficiency even more. When are you going to build it?...I'll invest ;-)

I don't think you'll be able to persuade Cebon though with these sorts of numbers. They're too close to the numbers he already uses and he's already made his interpretation based on them. Effectively all you're trying to do is convince him that it's worth converting the curtailment into hydrogen because the operators can still make money from it. He may well agree to that but only on the understanding that the green hydrogen goes to industrial hydrogen uses and not heat, electricity generation, or transport, because it still doesn't change the fundamentals that, due to efficiency, electricity beats green hydrogen.

Instead he would need to be persuaded that efficiency is irrelevant.

Efficiency is irrelevant to people for whom electricity is not an acceptable solution. e.g. not enough solar or enough wind (e.g Japan), vehicles that can't be charged conveniently from home, vehicles that need to travel long distances with only short refuelling intervals, or even sending energy over 10's of thousands of miles.

The problem with relying solely on electricity to do everything is that it always misses 10-20% of the time. For those cases something else needs to step in...like hydrogen. And if you've had to resort to hydrogen for some use cases like transportation then, for simplicity and overall convenience, you'd be better building your transportation infrastructure around hydrogen instead then you only need one set of infrastructure not two like we're heading for. It's not the most efficient, sure, but it establishes more convenience across the board and makes a simpler global solution. After all the internal combustion engine is way less efficient but it's been a simple global solution for decades.

The observant amongst you will have spotted that I meant megajoules (MJ) as we were talking about megawatts in the multiplication below.

Hi Boaty, yes I think your numbers work out ok in the end. For your future calculations I wouldn't bother with multiplying by seconds, all that does is turn it into Joules only to turn it back again later. e.g. 10*60*60*4380= 157,680,000 Joules, not MW. Instead stick with 10*4380=43800MWh. Then later 43800 * (12/24) = 21900MWh wasted. Same answer, fewer big numbers in the way. Also remember MW is Power, MWh is Energy and Joules is Energy. You were mixing up Joules and MW a few times.

Also he is assuming the requirement is for us to be self-sufficient in all the electricity/energy we need. We are lucky to have such a large potential for offshore wind, but he should consider cases for countries that cannot be self-sufficient in electricity. How then would he suggest they heat homes and drive around? Yes, many can expand grid connections and import electricity over wires, but you're so dependent on the good will of your neighbouring countries for that solution. One of the reasons Japan is still progressing with hydrogen for vehicles is that they determined they can't generate enough domestic electricity since they abandoned their nuclear journey. The proposal to import hydrogen as fuel from Australia (and others) seems like a good solution to me, but I'm sure Prof Cebon would still disagree. I'd like to know what his solution is for Japan.

I totally agree with you Boaty. I think CCS should be the gateway to going fully green. I think it is unfortunate that there is much force against the idea following the opinion that once you start CCS then the greater transition will never come and we'll be forever leaking CO2. That inflexibility to accept the gateway I fear simply leads to neither implementation and accidentally continuing as we are today with raw fossil (at least for too long at any rate).

Fantastic image taskmaster.

SKC, sorry I wasn't clear, the other option is still green hydrogen, just not necessarily generated on UK shores as we don't/won't have sufficient generating capacity to 'waste' in an inefficient process like electrolysis. Cebon is right about the problem, just too dismissive about how it could be resolved.

To me it's inconceivable that vast land masses in Australia's northern territories, North Africa and Middle East just let their massive renewable energy opportunity drift by without starting to capture it. Once captured it has to be distributed. If you can reach areas with a cable, fine. If you can't, you have to convert it into something transportable. Whether that's hydrogen directly, either pressurised or liquified, or whether it's converted to ammonia either way it requires an electrolyser to extract the hydrogen first. So whatever the end use the demand for products from ITM, Nel, McPhy and a few others is essential. Or what am I missing?

I may be a little premature but I'm taking the opportunity to top up on Nel, McPhy and Ceres. ITM would have to go a little further for me to add there too.

In that article Cebon once again shows that he's only considering the possibility of two alternatives either green hydrogen generated at home from scarce renewable electricity or blue hydrogen thus leaking CO2. Naturally he concludes there is no hope, rather than visualising another option.

Where Prof Cebon's analysis goes wrong is it supposes that all our energy in the future has to be home grown e.g. offshore wind, and is therefore a precious resource that must not be wasted. Along with the principle that electrification should be prioritised where practical (which I agree with) leads to the conclusion that there's no role for hydrogen in the larger energy cases such as heating and transport. If instead you consider that green hydrogen can also be imported from North Africa, Middle East and Australia then heavy use cases like transport can still be considered, and actually is preferable over battery vehicles. That simple argument is just the start, there are other reasons why it makes sense, but Cebon obviously isn't taking any of it into consideration.

Did you watch today's parliament tv discussing hydrogen? I'm only half an hour into it so far and Professor Cebon is giving hydrogen a real kicking. He's an 'efficiency is the only consideration' evangelist, so he's putting a lot of effort into pointing out that green hydrogen really has no place in heating, electricity and transportation. As is often the case with that point of view he's missing vital points of consideration. Professor Shah appears more balanced in his views but isn't getting much of a hearing.
https://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/eb6151f0-5ed0-4add-a0e6-a4ee825bddbc

Seaangler, I don't think you've missed anything. I'm pretty sure they view this as a budget to restart the whole economy, not just a fresh green start. So whilst they are already big companies the old traditional ones are actively encouraged to invest as well. Hopefully though even BP would see new oil rigs and tankers as a bit of a nonsense for a long term outlook. Short term though even that would be good for the economy until they turn into stranded assets down the line. A lot of the 'old guard' seem to be doing quite well on the market today.

It seems like we may be observing the limit of newsflow-driven investor speculation and, I guess, it’s all priced in now. Let’s face it not much of the current newsflow around green hydrogen is all that unexpected any more is it? All governments keen to do it…partnerships left right and centre…largest electrolyser project here…massive ammonia production plant there.

So forget Uncle Rishi’s statement, all the big hydrogen and fuel-cell stocks seem to be down heavily today.

We also know a lot of big investments have already been made across the sector. So what’s left to drive these prices higher? Not much. So my guess is that the sector is taking a bit of a breather from here for a while until some of the big projects and big players start to prove that it’s not all talk. A good result would probably be a steady sideways drift and reduced volatility to reduce the day trader appeal, then we’ll see where the true sentiment values the stock. From there I’d like to see nice steady growth in line with order flow and factory production.

If it's dividends you're after within the next 10 years perhaps I can suggest you consider Barclays, Lloyds, Shell, L&G, etc instead?

I think the global drag on these stocks is outweighing anything that Uncle Rishi has to offer. If you're confident in ITM in particular then perhaps you consider this a pull-back top-up opportunity?

Yeah, sorry tiqitiq, I did understand most of that already, and the TV bit was just tongue-in-cheek really. You may be right of course, but I wonder how many vehicles they really have. I'm in Hampshire and most of the services vehicles are outsourced to private companies, same as you mentioned about First/Stagecoach. Our refuse trucks are certainly a private company contract.

To be honest I expect most organisations will attempt battery technology first because it's much easier on the brain - plug it in, drive, plug it in again; and in principle it appears to them to be lower cost to implement. It's quite nuanced to recognise that hydrogen is often a better overall operational experience. I suspect it's a very low return on investment to try and persuade these organisations that they're wrong and they should use hydrogen. I believe the switch to hydrogen transportation will come over time as hydrogen becomes embedded into the energy framework, but until then there is so much other green hydrogen opportunity that green hydrogen for transportation is really just a side-show. It'll be nice to have it eventually but we don't need it yet. I'd even be ok with (grey) hydrogen transportation from fossil until we have enough renewable energy and green hydrogen I just don't see that surplus being available for 10-20 years.