Paul Rodden • Season: 2024 • Episode: 343
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Welcome to The Hydrogen Podcast!
In episode 343, Linde makes a massive investment in blue ammonia in Canada. And should we put the brakes on natural hydrogen development to avoid potential hurdles down the road? I’ll go over the news and give my thoughts on today’s hydrogen podcast.
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Transcript:
Linde makes a massive investment in blue ammonia in Canada. And should we put the brakes on natural hydrogen development to avoid potential hurdles down the road? I’ll go over the news 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 of 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.
First today, in a press release on August 27 Linde Signs Long-Term Agreement to Supply Clean Hydrogen to Dow’s Path2Zero Project in Canada. Linde announced on August 27 it has signed a long-term agreement for the supply of clean hydrogen to Dow’s Fort Saskatchewan Path2Zero Project. The company will invest more than $2 billion to build, own and operate a world-scale integrated clean hydrogen and atmospheric gases facility in Alberta, Canada.
Linde’s new on-site complex will use autothermal reforming, combined with Linde’s proprietary HISORP® carbon capture technology, to produce clean hydrogen and will also recover hydrogen contained in off-gases from Dow’s ethylene cracker. In the first phase, Linde will supply the clean hydrogen, nitrogen and other services to support Dow’s world-first net-zero emissions integrated ethylene cracker and derivatives site1. Linde’s new facility will also supply clean hydrogen to existing and new industrial customers seeking to decarbonize their operations. In total, Linde’s complex will capture carbon dioxide emissions for sequestration in excess of 2 million metric tons each year.
Upon completion in 2028, Linde’s new complex in Alberta will be the largest clean hydrogen production facility in Canada, and one of the largest globally. It will be Linde’s largest single investment and its second new world-scale clean hydrogen project, following the announcement of its project to supply clean hydrogen to a major blue ammonia project in the U.S. Gulf Coast.
“Linde is helping to build a more sustainable future,” said Sanjiv Lamba, Chief Executive Officer, Linde. “This landmark project aligns with our strategy of developing high-quality projects with secured off-take. Our technology, experience and execution are enabling the transition to a cleaner economy. We are proud to partner with Dow in its mission to decarbonize its Fort Saskatchewan site and are appreciative of the support of the Province of Alberta and the Federal Government.”
“Our business strategy to decarbonize our assets and drive growth while enabling higher shareholder returns is central to Dow’s long-term success,” said Jim Fitterling, Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Dow. “Having support from collaborators and partners across the value chain is essential. We’re glad to have Linde as a partner on this industry-leading project.”
As one of the world’s leading industrial gases and engineering companies, Linde is playing a key role in the clean energy transition. The company is actively helping its customers to decarbonize their operations with the latest hydrogen technologies through its world-class engineering organization, key alliances and ventures, and leveraging its extensive experience and infrastructure. Linde is developing clean hydrogen projects across a range of applications and industries and growing its established hydrogen business along the entire value chain.
Okay, so, another big win with Linde, and another big step forward for the Canadian hydrogen economy, which really seems to be a very large part of the hydrogen news feed lately, and for good reason, with all the talk of green projects pushing forward, we now have a blue ammonia project moving forward, one of which is getting a $2 billion investment from Linde to run the operation. But what we also know from this press release is that there are already long term off takers, including Dow, that I would bet have already signed up for long term agreements for hydrogen from this facility. So great news for Linde and again, for Canada. I look forward to seeing what’s next on the horizon for both.
Next in an article in wired.com Marta Abba writes The Quest to Uncover the Secrets of Gold Hydrogen. Marta writes, In the quest to decarbonize the world, one element gets a lot of hype: hydrogen. “If you burn it, it produces only water, with no impact on the environment,” explains Alberto Vitale Brovarone, a professor in the Department of Biological, Geological, and Environmental Sciences at the University of Bologna in Italy. Hydrogen’s supporters believe it can be a solution for cleaning up everything from transport to agriculture to heavy industry.
But its green credentials only stack up if you can produce it without emitting carbon. And this is why some are getting very excited about geological or “gold” hydrogen, the name given to the element when it forms naturally underground. This can happen as a result of a chemical reaction between water and iron-rich rocks, or by radiolysis, the splitting of water molecules by radiation into hydrogen and oxygen.
“Compared to other types of hydrogen, it does not require energy to be produced,” says Vitale Brovarone. He therefore predicts a gold hydrogen rush is on the horizon. The problem is we know very little about the element when it forms naturally underground, and so the research world is in a race against time to find out more before hasty and blind mass mining begins. “From the industry’s point of view, it simply has to be extracted,” says Vitale Brovarone. “Instead, first it has to be understood how simply that can be done and with what consequences.”
Vitale Brovarone and his colleagues believed Greenland could help answer these questions, and so they organized a special mission to the Arctic territory to hunt for more information, as part of the five-year ERC CoG DeepSeep program funded by the European Union.
Alongside Vitale Brovarone were four scientists from the University of Bologna, one from the Institute of Geosciences and Georesources at Italy’s National Research Center, and one from the University of Copenhagen. They spent 10 days in this land of nearly 2-billion-year-old rocks, having spent six months preparing their mission using maps and satellite data. Despite their meticulous planning, they had to be adaptable. Due to “unforeseen icebergs” the researchers had to change areas, while at one point a bear spotted in their vicinity forced them to seek shelter in a school. But in the end, the trip was worthwhile: It gave them samples rich in H2 to study.
Across the world, gold hydrogen is popping up where we don’t expect it, creating questions about the dynamics by which the element accumulates in reservoirs and the role it plays in subsurface ecosystems. There are already some concerns: If the hydrogen reacts with geological substrates or is processed by certain microorganisms, geological hydrogen can produce methane or hydrogen sulfide. Vitale Brovarone uses these two examples to explain to why diving headfirst into extracting gold hydrogen risks creating new problems instead of solving existing ones, and why more information is needed.
Since we do not fully know what has been regulating the presence of H2 rocks for millions or billions of years, it is better to wait before breaking them by extracting the element, Vitale Brovarone says. The same goes for storing artificially produced hydrogen in reserves underground, he says. The idea of being able to do so has already excited industry, prompting them to move in a timeframe that is not compatible with what the research world needs to understand how the gas behaves.
“We travel on different lines and at different pace,” he says. “We need to understand how hydrogen behaves in nature, because many dynamics only emerge after years. Industry would like quick and decisive answers; science needs time, and also funds, which, for hydrogen, are still scarce.” Unlike France, Australia, and the United States, which have their sights set on harvesting gold hydrogen, Italy has not yet invested in gathering it, preferring to bet on hydrogen production instead. Thanks in part to the University of Bologna expedition, however, Italy becomes one of the few countries in the world looking to understand more about it.
Okay, so this article was originally written in Wired Italy and translated over to English, but it gives a unique perspective from the scientific point of view of how to proceed with natural hydrogen. Now, I understand the hesitancy to begin drilling for and extracting hydrogen. There are many unknowns that could be encountered with something this new. But to that point, it’s important to note that at least here in the US ARPA E is doing extensive testing with different production methodologies, in coordination with the USGS to review subsurface concerns that may arise. And also, just because we don’t have a full and complete understanding of the subsurface geology at play here doesn’t mean we must wait a decade or more before commercial extraction commences. After all, two of Vitale Brovarone issues where the possibility of methane or hydrogen sulfide developing, luckily, the same exploration and production companies in oil and gas that will most likely migrate to hydrogen know very well how to deal with both gasses, and that’s also what makes human ingenuity so great, is that we adapt so well and overcome obstacles to make things better. And I fully believe we will encounter unforeseen challenges, not just in natural hydrogen, but in every single production methodology Gas the hydrogen transition moves forward. And I also believe that if the economic potential is there, we will ultimately overcome those challenges.
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.
