Articles

Burning hydrogen for heating

To find a mechanism for providing low carbon heating to combat climate change it has been suggested that one solution would be to burn hydrogen instead of burning natural gas. The advantages and disadvantages are discussed below:

Advantages of hydrogen boilers for low carbon heating

When hydrogen is burnt with pure oxygen the end products are heat and water – the big advantage is that no greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, are produced. This sounds like the answer to low carbon heating.

However, a number of practical issues arise which prevent hydrogen being supplied now through the existing gas grid as the solution to low carbon heating:

Disadvantages of hydrogen boilers for low carbon heating

Many of the problems with using hydrogen for combustion and heating arise from its very light weight: hydrogen is the lightest element in the periodic table with an atomic mass of 1. Hydrogen appears in nature as a gas molecule (H₂) with very light weight and therefore floats up into the upper atmosphere. It is not found naturally in high concentration on Earth so it has to be produced and then compressed so that it can be transported to where it is needed.

Hydrogen gas can be produced in quantity using the Steam Methane Reformation process by combining natural gas (methane - CH₄) and steam at around 1,000°C. However, this process, like burning methane, releases CO₂: so to obtain hydrogen for carbon-free heating from Steam Methane Reformation merely pushes the release of CO₂ back up the supply chain. There is also the cost and limited efficiency (around 70%) of the process to be paid for.

Those who support the production of hydrogen from the Steam Methane Reformation argue that most of the CO₂ released in the process can be captured and stored away from the atmosphere: Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). However, this process of CCS is currently in Research & Development because it is expensive and requires additional consumption of methane to compensate for the inefficiencies inherent in the process.

For these reasons it is thought that practical commercial production of hydrogen for heating via the gas grid is likely to be at least ten years away. It is also estimated that production of hydrogen in this way will cost up to 4 times as much as the production of natural gas.

There are also issues in relation to safety and to health.

Safety concerns on burning hydrogen to provide low carbon heating

Hydrogen fuel is a source of safety concern because of its low ignition energy and high combustion energy. There are also explosion risks as hydrogen gas is so light that it has to be stored under very high pressure for a useful amount of it to be stored. Because hydrogen molecules are so small they have a much greater chance of escaping from storage tanks or natural gas pipelines than molecules of methane.

As hydrogen burns with an invisible flame, there would be safety concerns of using pure hydrogen in the national gas grid for the purposes of cooking.

Health concerns on using hydrogen boilers to provide low carbon heating

There are already health issues arising from the high levels of NOx emissions in major cities like London in relation to asthma and respiratory diseases. While much of the NO_x emissions come from the exhausts of petrol and diesel engines, it is estimated that up to 22% of NO_x emissions in London come from gas boilers used for heating. This proportion is likely to increase as the UK moves away from using internal combustion engines for transport to using electric vehicles.

Burning methane in pure oxygen produces CO₂ and H₂O. However, methane is normally burnt in air (which is 78% nitrogen) and some of the ferociously active oxygen atoms combine with nitrogen in the air to form NO_x, while most of the oxygen atoms combine with carbon atoms, which are more reactive than nitrogen, to form CO then CO₂.

Burning hydrogen in pure oxygen just produces H₂O. However, hydrogen would normally be burnt in air and some of the ferociously active oxygen atoms combine with nitrogen in the air to form NO_x. There are no carbon atoms for the oxygen atoms to combine with so a higher proportion combine with nitrogen from the air to form NO_x. For this reason burning hydrogen in air produces up to six times as many NO_x emissions as burning methane in air. There is therefore a seriously increased health risk of burning hydrogen for heating as compared to burning natural gas.

Hydrogen from electrolysis of water

An alternative means of producing hydrogen is from electrolysis of water. This has the major advantage of producing H₂ without emitting CO₂ (or any NO_x). The disadvantage is the cost of electricity incurred in separating H₂O into H₂ and O₂. As the cost of electricity varies over each 24 hour cycle it can be possible to employ electrolysis only in off peak times of night when electricity is cheapest.

However, this is a very inefficient route to achieving heating when a well proven and highly efficient mechanism already exists for arranging heat transfer without using combustion.

Alternative means of providing heating without any emissions

There is a well proven way of providing heating which emits no CO₂, no NO_x and no other emissions either, because it does not involve combustion: heat pumps are already widely used in Sweden, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and many other countries.

Heat pumps provide the elegant solution of how to provide low-carbon heating to meet climate change objectives without side effects.

In order to avoid the need to upgrade radiators within existing buildings, high temperature heat pumps can be used in substitution for gas boilers.