4/01/2023

Headline, April 02 2022/ AUSTRALIA : ''' '' CLEANS ENERGY CLOSET '' '''


AUSTRALIA : 

''' '' CLEANS ENERGY

 CLOSET '' '''



A COSTLY GAMBLE ON CLEAN ENERGY. BILLIONS are being invested in Australia to turn water into a widely used fuel.

FOR EONS, a remote parcel of the Australian Outback has been a quiet, unremarkable place. Thousands of square miles of flat land covered in shrubs and red dirt. The sun is withering and the wind blows hard.

It is exactly those features that qualify the tract for an imminent transformation. A consortium of energy companies led by BP plans to cover an expanse of land eight times as large as New York City with as many as 1,743 wind turbines.

Each is nearly as tall as the Empire State Building, along with 10 million or so solar panels and more than a thousand miles of access roads to connect them all.

BUT none of the 26 gigawatts of energy the site expects to produce, an equivalent to a third of what Australia's grid currently requires, will go toward public use. Instead, it will be used to manufacture a novel kind of industrial fuel : green hydrogen.

Proponents hope green hydrogen will clean up not only mining but other industries by replacing fossil fuel use in steel making, shipping cement and elsewhere.

GREEN HYDROGEN is made by using renewable electricity to split water's molecules. [ Currently most hydrogen is made by using natural gas, a fossil fuel.]

The hydrogen is then burned to power vehicles or do other work. Because the burning of hydrogen  emits only water vapor, green hydrogen avoids carbon dioxide emissions from beginning to end.

In the Pilbara region of Western Australia and in dozens of other spots around the globe endowed with abundant wind and sun, investors see an opportunity to generate renewable electricity so cheaply that using it to make green hydrogen becomes economical.

Even if only some of the projects come to fruition, vast stretches of land would be transformed.

The project is one example of a global gamble, worth hundreds of billions of dollars, being made by investors including some of the most polluting industries in the world.

''We are about to jump from the starting blocks,'' said Anja-Isabel Dotzenrath, who once led Germany's biggest renewable energy company and now runs BP's gas and low-carbon operations. ''I think hydrogen will grow even faster than wind and solar have.''

Faith Birol, the Turkish economist who leads the International Energy Agency, said he seldom meets people who don't find green hydrogen alluring, with its elegant elementality. His organization forecasts that green hydrogen will fulfill 10 percent of global energy.

A '' Monstrous Challenge '' : For green hydrogen to have a substantial climate impact, its most essential use will be in steel making, a sprawling industry that produces nearly a tenth of global carbon dioxide emissions, more than all the world's cars.

Not everyone sees it that way. Challenges loom at every level, from molecular to geopolitical.

Energy companies already produce most of the world's hydrogen fuel, but they make it from natural gas, which is, of course, a fossil fuel. Some, including BP, stand to receive federal subsidies in the United States because the company plans to capture the carbon and store it rather than release it.

This is called ''blue hydrogen'' and some critics consider it a loophole in the Biden legislation that incentivizes fossil fuel production.

Ms. Dotzenrath said opposing blue hydrogen amounted to letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. ''That's absolutely nonsense,'' she said. ''It's ultimately all about the carbon intensity.''

But in Australia, at least, BP's green hydrogen investments are pushing ahead.

One of the impediments to huge green hydrogen projects is the short supply of electrolyzers, the machines that use electricity to split water molecules apart, isolating the hydrogen.

Despite the challenges, dozens of countries are betting on green hydrogen. Last year, Spain, Portugal and France agreed to build an undersea hydrogen pipeline by 2030 that would eventually supply the rest of Europe.

Japan, Taiwan and Singapore, which import nearly all their energy, have also said hydrogen will be key to becoming carbon neutral economies.

And Fortescue, for its part, is going into the business of making electrolyzers. This month in Australia it is opening its first factory, the world's biggest.

The Honour and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on Green Hydrogen and the Future, continues. The World Students Society thanks author Max Bearak.

With respectful dedication to Mankind's progress, Scientists figuring Clean Energy, and then Leaders, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world.

See Ya all prepare for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society - the exclusive ownership of every student in the world : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter - !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011 :

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless

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