Although green hydrogen is an emission-free fuel, it may not be the best solution in the transportation or energy sector. The concern is around hydrogen storage, safety and also the complexity of refueling hydrogen vehicles.
This week, the country decided to support several green hydrogen projects worth tens of millions of euros. There are also plans to equip a hydrogen-powered ferry for the inter-island route.
At the same time, hydrogen is not very suitable for the transport sector, said Oliver Järvik, associate professor at the Institute of Energy Technology at Tallinn University of Technology: “I am not a supporter of the use of hydrogen in the sector of transport. predict a very great future.”
The hydrogen chains from production to consumer are complex and therefore expensive, Järvik explained. Firstly because hydrogen is the smallest element in terms of atomic weight and is therefore difficult to store.
“The boiling point is very low. It’s around 20 Kelvin, or minus 253 degrees Celsius. Storage of hydrogen is actually related to quite significant energy costs,” Järvik said. In the worst case, half of the hydrogen stored at refueling stations could be lost, he added.
This also means that hydrogen may not be a good solution to the concerns of the energy sector, where there is sometimes too much and sometimes too little renewable electricity depending on the weather. In the case of an electricity surplus, hydrogen can be produced, but it cannot be stored for a long time without large energy losses, in the same way that oil or oil shale can be stored. It is also true that producing hydrogen requires a lot of electricity. Furthermore, especially in the transport sector, safety is a concern when it comes to hydrogen, the TUT lecturer said.
Oliver Järvik Author/source: Karl-Kristjan Nigesen/TalTech
“In the fuel tank where hydrogen is stored, the pressure is between 200 and 300 atmospheres. If there are also some kind of microcracks, small cracks through which hydrogen can escape, then there is a little static electricity and then there is a very high risk that it will end in an explosion,” Järvik described.
Refueling a hydrogen car is also more complicated than, for example, refueling a petrol car. “There have to be compressors, then there are intermediate tanks, after which compression happens again, i.e. the increase in pressure, and then there is cooling before the car enters the tank,” the professor said.
In other words, hydrogen pumps are much more complicated than petrol pumps and, for example, refueling a Toyota hydrogen car available in Estonia takes about five minutes.
However, hydrogen may be better suited for trucks than the heavy batteries needed for an electric motor, Järvik said. “Hydrogen tanks, which don’t weigh much unlike batteries, we can add them and change the autonomy. It would definitely be an alternative.”
But above all green hydrogen is quite important for the chemical industry. “It is certainly used a lot there and will be used more and more in the future,” believes Järvik.
2023-12-16 07:38:00
the-use-of-hydrogen-in-transport-and-energy-causes-many-concerns-economy