Paul Rodden • Season: 2024 • Episode: 328
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Welcome to The Hydrogen Podcast!
In episode 328, SNAM leads the way again, this time in green steel development. Also, will Germany be able to get all the hydrogen they are expecting to require, and Baker Hughes announces new products that can dramatically increase safety for hydrogen movement. I’ll go over all of this and give my thoughts on today’s hydrogen podcast.
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Transcript:
SNAM leads the way again, this time in green steel development. Also, will Germany be able to get all the hydrogen they are expecting to require, and Baker Hughes announces new products that can dramatically increase safety for hydrogen movement. I’ll go over all of this and give my thoughts on today’s hydrogen podcast.
So the big questions in the energy industry today are, how is hydrogen the primary driving force behind the evolution of energy? Where is capital being deployed for hydrogen projects globally, and where are the best investment opportunities for early adopters who recognize the importance hydrogen? I will address the critical issues and give you the information you need to deploy capital. Those are the questions that will unlock the potential of hydrogen, and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Paul Rodden, and welcome to the hydrogen podcast.
In an article in reuters.com Italian steel plant launches trial to use hydrogen to cut emissions. Italian gas grid operator SNAM, steel pipe maker Tenaris and green technology firm Tenova are trialling the use of hydrogen fuel at a Tenaris steel plant in northern Italy in a bid to cut emissions, they said on Wednesday. According to a joint statement from the groups, the trial to use hydrogen fuel in a reheating furnace at the plant in Dalmine, near Bergamo, will last six months.
It will track the performance and reliability of using hydrogen in the steel industry, the statement said, and is part of Snam’s broader move to help industrial companies decarbonise. Hydrogen’s main by-product as a fuel is water vapour, along with small amounts of nitrogen oxides, making it far less polluting than fossil fuels – assuming it does not cause further pollution via leaks. Earlier in May, Italy, Germany and Austria signed a cooperation deal to develop a hydrogen transportation network from the southern Mediterranean to northern Europe. Okay, so SNAM is again taking the lead with hydrogen applications. I’ve reported several times over the course of this podcast where SNAM has led the field in hydrogen research in their gas grid.
And now SNAM, along with Tenaris and Tenova, are applying hydrogen to produce green steel for Tenaris, it seems to be a great project, although without the details on the economics, it’s hard to tell how the finances work out between the three companies. And hopefully the time frame around this trial is long enough to get a clear reading as to the effectiveness of this collaboration. Next in an article from reuters.com Riham Alkousaa writes, Germany could import up to 100 terawatt hours of green hydrogen via pipelines. By 2035 Germany could cover up to 100 terawatt-hours (TWh) of its annual energy needs with imports of green hydrogen via pipelines from neighbouring countries by the mid-2030s, covering a significant share of its projected demand, a study showed on Thursday.
Berlin is seeking to expand the use of hydrogen as an energy source to cut greenhouse emissions for highly polluting industrial sectors that cannot be electrified, such as steel and chemicals, and cut dependency on imported fossil fuel. Produced using solar and wind power, green hydrogen is a pillar of Germany’s planned energy transition, The study by Berlin-based Agora Energiewende and Agora Industry think tanks said that by 2035 hydrogen could cover 11.2% of the country’s projected 894 TWh total energy demand.
But Germany will need to import around 50% to 70% of its hydrogen due to its limited renewable energy resources. Currently, Germany uses around 55-60 TWh of hydrogen per year but it is produced almost exclusively from fossil fuels, data by the economy ministry showed. The study said that by 2030 Germany could produce 11 TWh of hydrogen and import about 17 TWh of green and some 15 TWh of blue hydrogen, produced from natural gas, via pipelines. That would cover less than half of Germany’s total hydrogen demand projected to reach 95 TWh to 130 TWh by the end of the decade. However, by leveraging existing natural gas infrastructure in Europe, Germany could boost pipeline imports to between 60 TWh and 100 TWh by 2035, the study said. “To achieve climate neutrality, Germany needs a secure and cost-effective supply of renewable hydrogen. Pipeline imports from Europe play a crucial role in this,” Simon Mueller, Agora Energiewende director, said in statement.
To reach this imports potential, Germany will need a financing model and will have to move quickly with agreements on cost-sharing among involved countries, Mueller said. “This is the only way the required quantities of green hydrogen can be delivered in the first half of the next decade,” he said. Hydrogen producers and pipeline operators will also need assurances about future hydrogen demand from Germany, Mueller added. The study examined five potential hydrogen pipeline corridors to Germany, considering factors such as production potential, political support, and technical complexity.
Promising corridors include imports from Denmark and Norway via the North Sea, and potentially from Sweden and Finland via the Baltic Sea in a later stage due to the distance and technical complexity, it added. In the long term, pipelines from Southern Europe and North Africa, especially Spain and Tunisia, can play a significant role, in addition to possible imports from the United Kingdom, Portugal, Algeria, Greece, and Ukraine.
Okay, so the outlook for hydrogen use in Germany is steadily increasing, and importing 100 terawatt hours of hydrogen might not even cover their needs, and it’s really going to be interesting to see if there will be enough electrolytic hydrogen produced by that time to cover Germany’s expected usage, as well as all the other European countries trying to do the same. The question is, who will win out and get the bulk of the available hydrogen? If it’s not available? Will Europe consider other low CI score technologies to get the remaining needs addressed? Either way, we’ll know the volume issue well before the 10 year estimate this study shows.
Next in a news article from globalspec.com new safety sensors for oil, gas and hydrogen applications launched by Baker Hughes. Baker Hughes, an energy technology firm, has announced the launch of three gas, flow and moisture measurement sensor technologies designed to improve safety performance and drive productivity in hydrogen and other applications across the energy and industrial sectors.
Building on the drive for greater levels of accuracy across critical measurements and designed to offer long-term stability in harsh environments, Baker Hughes’ three new Panametrics solutions offer advanced levels of accuracy, reliability and durability. The first is the XMTCpro, With electrolyzer production increasing and manufacturers driving improved safety performance to ensure hydrogen and oxygen concentrations are below explosive limits, the XMTCpro provides customers with advanced levels of reliability and accuracy when monitoring gas concentration. Featuring real-time error detection and enhanced signal measurement for fast response in a thermal conductivity-based binary gas analyzer, the Safety Integrity Level (SIL)-certified XMTCpro is contamination-resistant by design, requiring minimal maintenance.
This makes it ideal for widescale adoption across harsh-environment, industrial applications. The second product they make is the HygroPro XP,Designed to protect customers from the product quality related impact of the presence of trace moisture across oil and gas and industrial applications, the HygroPro XP can quickly and accurately measure moisture in gases and hydrocarbon liquids across a wide dew point range.
This loop-powered transmitter features a compact explosion-proof enclosure, live temperature and pressure sensors and HART communication enabling connection between intelligent field instruments. The HygroPro XP can be used across hydrogen transportation, storage, end use and production applications, including accurately measuring trace moisture in electrolyzer production.
And lastly is the T5MAX Transducer, With energy and industrial sectors driving greater pipeline efficiency and productivity, the T5MAX Transducer’s enhanced signal strength (four times stronger than the T5 Transducer) enables a step change in ultrasonic flow meter performance across challenging gas flow measurement applications, including hydrogen. In low-flow rate applications, where accurate measurements are difficult to capture, the stronger signal provides customers with a longer flow path length, and therefore greater accuracy.
Customers following the World Bank GFMR global gas flaring guidelines are already placing advance orders to adhere to zero routine flaring standards, resulting in extremely low flow rates. Baker Hughes’ new measurement sensor technologies can be deployed by customers in sectors including hydrogen, oil and gas, metals, chemicals, biogas, power generation, CCUS and others. Okay, so Baker Hughes going strong in hydrogen, transportation and storage safety.
It’s news and releases like this that highlight how the hydrogen transition is evolving. These parts listed in this release are critical to safely analyze hydrogen through transport and storage, and as more of these products are released, the associated risks attached to hydrogen development drop and project economics look more favorable.
All right, that’s it for me, everyone. If you have a second, I would really appreciate it. If you could leave a good review on whatever platform it is that you listen to Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google, YouTube, whatever it is, that would be a tremendous help to the show. And as always, if you ever have any feedback, you’re welcome to email me directly at info@thehydrogenpodcast.com. So until next time, keep your eyes up and honor one another.
Hey, this is Paul. I hope you liked this podcast. If you did and want to hear more. I’d appreciate it if you would either subscribe to this channel on YouTube, or connect with your favorite platform through my website at www.thehydrogenpodcast.com. Thanks for listening. I very much appreciate it. Have a great day.
