United States

There is growing interest in utilizing existing infrastructure for storage and distribution of hydrogen. Gaseous hydrogen for example could be added to natural gas in the short-term whereas entire systems can be converted to transmission and distribution networks for hydrogen. Many active programs around the world are exploring the safety and feasibility of adding hydrogen to these networks. Concerns have been raised about the structural integrity of materials in these systems when exposed to hydrogen. In general the effects of hydrogen on these materials are grossly misunderstood. Hydrogen unequivocally degrades fatigue and fracture resistance of structural steels in these systems even for low hydrogen partial pressure (-l bar). In most systems however hydrogen effects will not be apparent because the stresses in these systems remain very low. Another misunderstanding results from the kinetics of the hydrogen  effects:  hydrogen  degrades   fatigue  and  fracture  properties  immediately  upon  exposure  to gaseous hydrogen and those effects disappear when the hydrogen environment is removed even after prolonged exposure. There is also a misperception that materials selection can mitigate hydrogen effects. While some classes of materials perform better in hydrogen environments than other classes for most practical   circumstances  the  range  of  response  for  a  given  class  of  material  in  gaseous  hydrogen environments is rather narrow. These observations can be systematically characterized by considering the  intersection  of  materials  environmental  and  mechanical  variables   associated  with  the  service application. Indeed any safety assessment of a hydrogen pressure system must quantitatively consider these aspects. In this report we quantitatively evaluate the importance of the materials environmental and mechanical variables in the context of hydrogen additions to natural gas piping and pipeline systems with  the  aim  of  providing  an  informed   perspective  on  parameters relevant for assessing  structural integrity of natural gas systems in the presence of gaseous hydrogen.

For renewable hydrogen to be a significant part of the future decarbonized energy and transportation sectors a rapid and massive build-out of hydrogen production facilities will be needed. This paper describes a geospatial modeling approach to identifying the optimal locations for renewable hydrogen fuel production throughout the state of California based on least-cost generation and transport. This is accomplished by (1) estimating and projecting California renewable hydrogen demand scenarios through the year 2050 (2) identifying feedstock locations (3) excluding areas not suitable for development and (4) selecting optimal site locations using commercial geospatial modeling software. The findings indicate that there is a need for hundreds of new renewable hydrogen production facilities in the decades preceding the year 2050. In selecting sites for development feedstock availability by technology type is the driving factor."

Industry is frequently framed as hard-to-decarbonize given its diversity of requirements technologies and supply chains many of which are unique to particular sectors. Net zero commitments since 2019 have begun to challenge the carbon intensity of these various industries but progress has been slow globally. Against this backdrop the United Kingdom has emerged as a leader in industrial decarbonization efforts. Their approach is based on industrial clusters which cut across engineering spatial and socio-political dimensions. Two of the largest of these clusters in England in terms of industrial emissions are the Humber and Merseyside. In this paper drawn from a rich mixed methods original dataset involving expert interviews (N = 46 respondents) site visits (N = 20) a review of project documents and the academic literature we explore ongoing efforts to decarbonize both the Humber and Merseyside through the lens of spatially expansive and technically complex megaprojects. Both have aggressive implementation plans in place for the deployment of net-zero infrastructure with Zero Carbon Humber seeking billions in investment to build the country’s first large-scale bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) plant alongside a carbon transport network and hydrogen production infrastructure and HyNet seeking billions in investment to build green and blue hydrogen facilities along with a carbon storage network near Manchester and Liverpool. We draw from the social construction of technology (SCOT) literature to examine the relevant social groups interpretive flexibility and patterns of closure associated with Zero Carbon Humber and HyNet. We connect our findings to eight interpretive frames surrounding the collective projects and make connections to problems contestation and closure.

On today’s episode of Everything About Hydrogen we are speaking with Paul Bogers Vice President for Hydrogen at Shell. As a company Shell needs no introduction but the company’s work and investments in the hydrogen space make it a global leader in the energy transition especially when it comes to the hydrogen component. Paul is amongst the executives at Shell that are working to bring their hydrogen vision to fruition and it is great to have him with us on the show today.

The podcast can be found on their website

Hydrogen can be a renewable energy carrier and is suggested to store renewable energy and mitigate carbon dioxide emissions. Subsurface storage of hydrogen in salt caverns deep saline formations and depleted oil/gas reservoirs would help to overcome imbalances between supply and demand of renewable energy. Hydrogen however is one of the most important electron donors for many subsurface microbial processes including methanogenesis sulfate reduction and acetogenesis. These processes cause hydrogen loss and changes of reservoir properties during geological hydrogen storage operations. Here we report the results of a typical halophilic sulfate-reducing bacterium growing in a microfluidic pore network saturated with hydrogen gas at 35 bar and 37°C. Test duration is 9 days. We observed a significant loss of H2 from microbial consumption after 2 days following injection into a microfluidic device. The consumption rate decreased over time as the microbial activity declined in the pore network. The consumption rate is influenced profoundly by the surface area of H2 bubbles and microbial activity. Microbial growth in the silicon pore network was observed to change the surface wettability from a water-wet to a neutral-wet state. Due to the coupling effect of H2 consumption by microbes and wettability alteration the number of disconnected H2 bubbles in the pore network increased sharply over time. These results may have significant implications for hydrogen recovery and gas injectivity. First pore-scale experimental results reveal the impacts of subsurface microbial growth on H2 in storage which are useful to estimate rapidly the risk of microbial growth during subsurface H2 storage. Second microvisual experiments provide critical observations of bubble-liquid interfacial area and reaction rate that are essential to the modeling that is needed to make long-term predictions. Third results help us to improve the selection criteria for future storage sites.

On this episode the EAH team discusses the role of hydrogen in the energy transition with Michael Liebreich Chairman and CEO of Liebreich Associates. Michael is an acknowledged thought leader on clean energy mobility technology climate sustainability and finance. He is the founder and senior contributor to Bloomberg New Energy Finance a member of numerous industry governmental and multilateral advisory boards an angel investor a former member of the board of Transport for London and an Advisor to the UK Board of Trade.

The podcast can be found on their website

Polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells are electrochemical devices that directly convert the chemical energy stored in fuel into electrical energy with a practical conversion efficiency as high as 65%. In the past years significant progress has been made in PEM fuel cell commercialization. By 2019 there were over 19000 fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) and 340 hydrogen refueling stations (HRF) in the U.S. (~8000 and 44 respectively) Japan (~3600 and 112 respectively) South Korea (~5000 and 34 respectively) Europe (~2500 and 140 respectively) and China (~110 and 12 respectively). Japan South Korea and China plan to build approximately 3000 HRF stations by 2030. In 2019 Hyundai Nexo and Toyota Mirai accounted for approximately 63% and 32% of the total sales with a driving range of 380 and 312 miles and a mile per gallon (MPGe) of 65 and 67 respectively. Fundamentals of PEM fuel cells play a crucial role in the technological advancement to improve fuel cell performance/durability and reduce cost. Several key aspects for fuel cell design operational control and material development such as durability electrocatalyst materials water and thermal management dynamic operation and cold start are briefly explained in this work. Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) have received increasing attention in material/energy development. This review also discusses their applications and potential in the development of fundamental knowledge and correlations material selection and improvement cell design and optimization system control power management and monitoring of operation health for PEM fuel cells along with main physics in PEM fuel cells for physics-informed machine learning. The objective of this review is three fold: (1) to present the most recent status of PEM fuel cell applications in the portable stationary and transportation sectors; (2) to describe the important fundamentals for the further advancement of fuel cell technology in terms of design and control optimization cost reduction and durability improvement; and (3) to explain machine learning physics-informed deep learning and AI methods and describe their significant potentials in PEM fuel cell research and development (R&D).

Ammonia a molecule that is gaining more interest as a fueling vector has been considered as a candidate to power transport produce energy and support heating applications for decades. However the particular characteristics of the molecule always made it a chemical with low if any benefit once compared to conventional fossil fuels. Still the current need to decarbonize our economy makes the search of new methods crucial to use chemicals such as ammonia that can be produced and employed without incurring in the emission of carbon oxides. Therefore current efforts in this field are leading scientists industries and governments to seriously invest efforts in the development of holistic solutions capable of making ammonia a viable fuel for the transition toward a clean future. On that basis this review has approached the subject gathering inputs from scientists actively working on the topic. The review starts from the importance of ammonia as an energy vector moving through all of the steps in the production distribution utilization safety legal considerations and economic aspects of the use of such a molecule to support the future energy mix. Fundamentals of combustion and practical cases for the recovery of energy of ammonia are also addressed thus providing a complete view of what potentially could become a vector of crucial importance to the mitigation of carbon emissions. Different from other works this review seeks to provide a holistic perspective of ammonia as a chemical that presents benefits and constraints for storing energy from sustainable sources. State-of-the-art knowledge provided by academics actively engaged with the topic at various fronts also enables a clear vision of the progress in each of the branches of ammonia as an energy carrier. Further the fundamental boundaries of the use of the molecule are expanded to real technical issues for all potential technologies capable of using it for energy purposes legal barriers that will be faced to achieve its deployment safety and environmental considerations that impose a critical aspect for acceptance and wellbeing and economic implications for the use of ammonia across all aspects approached for the production and implementation of this chemical as a fueling source. Herein this work sets the principles research practicalities and future views of a transition toward a future where ammonia will be a major energy player.

The negative environmental impact of carbon emissions from fossil fuels has promoted hydrogen utilization and storage in underground structures. Hydrogen leakage from storage structures through wells is a major concern due to the small hydrogen molecules that diffuse fast in the porous well cement sheath. The second-order parabolic partial differential equation describing the hydrogen diffusion in well cement was solved numerically using the finite difference method (FDM). The numerical model was verified with an analytical solution for an ideal case where the matrix and fluid have invariant properties. Sensitivity analyses with the model revealed several possibilities. Based on simulation studies and underlying assumptions such as non-dissolvable hydrogen gas in water present in the cement pore spaces constant hydrogen diffusion coefficient cement properties such as porosity and saturation etc. hydrogen should take about 7.5 days to fully penetrate a 35 cm cement sheath under expected well conditions. The relatively short duration for hydrogen breakthrough in the cement sheath is mainly due to the small molecule size and high hydrogen diffusivity. If the hydrogen reaches a vertical channel behind the casing a hydrogen leak from the well is soon expected. Also the simulation result reveals that hydrogen migration along the axial direction of the cement column from a storage reservoir to the top of a 50 m caprock is likely to occur in 500 years. Hydrogen diffusion into cement sheaths increases with increased cement porosity and diffusion coefficient and decreases with water saturation (and increases with hydrogen saturation). Hence cement with a low water-to-cement ratio to reduce water content and low cement porosity is desirable for completing hydrogen storage wells.

The PRHYDE project (PRotocol for heavy duty HYDrogEn refueling) funded by the Clean Hydrogen partnership aims at developing recommendations for heavy-duty refueling protocols used for future standardization activities for trucks and other heavy duty transport systems applying hydrogen technologies. Development of a protocol requires a validated approach. Due to the limited time and budget the experimental data cannot cover the whole possible ranges of protocol parameters such as initial vehicle pressure and temperature ambient and precooling temperatures pressure ramp refueling time hardware specifications etc. Hence a validated numerical tool is essential for a safe and efficient protocol development. For this purpose engineering tools are used. They give good results in a very reasonable computation time of several seconds or minutes. These tools provide the heat parameters estimation in the gas (volume average temperature) and 1D temperature distribution in the tank wall. The following models were used SOFIL (Air Liquide tool) HyFill (by ENGIE) and H2Fills (open access code by NREL). The comparison of modelling results and experimental data demonstrated a good capability of codes to predict the evolution of average gas temperature in function of time. Some recommendations on model validation for the future protocol development are given.

In recent years sustainable development has become a challenge for many societies due to natural or other disruptive events which have disrupted economic environmental and energy infrastructure growth. Developing hydrogen energy infrastructure is crucial for sustainable development because of its numerous benefits over conventional energy sources. However the complexity of hydrogen energy infrastructure including production utilization and storage stages requires accounting for potential vulnerabilities. Therefore resilience needs to be considered along with sustainable development. This paper proposes a decision-making framework to evaluate the resilience of hydrogen energy infrastructure by integrating resilience indicators and sustainability contributing factors. A holistic taxonomy of resilience performance is first developed followed by a qualitative resilience assessment framework using a novel Intuitionistic fuzzy Weighted Influence Nonlinear Gauge System (IFWINGS). The results highlighted that Regulation and legislation Government preparation and Crisis response budget are the most critical resilience indicators in the understudy hydrogen energy infrastructure. A comparative case study demonstrates the practicality capability and effectiveness of the proposed approach. The results suggest that the proposed model can be used for resilience assessment in other areas.

Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS) is one of the key technologies that will determine how humans address global climate change. For captured CO2 in order to avoid the complications associated with two-phase flow most carbon steel pipelines are operated in the supercritical state on a large scale. A pipeline has clear Stress Corrosion Cracking (SCC) sensitivity under the action of stress and corrosion medium which will generally cause serious consequences. In this study X70 steel was selected to simulate an environment in the process of supercritical CO2 transportation by using high-temperature high-pressure Slow Strain Rate Tensile (SSRT) tests and high-temperature high-pressure electrochemical test devices with different O2 and SO2 contents. Studies have shown that 200 ppm SO2 shows a clear SCC sensitivity tendency which is obvious when the SO2 content reaches 600 ppm. The SCC sensitivity increases with the increase of SO2 concentration but the increase amplitude decreases. With the help of advanced microscopic characterization techniques such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) through the analysis of fracture and side morphology the stress corrosion mechanism of a supercritical CO2 pipeline containing SO2 and O2 impurities was obtained by hydrogen embrittlement fracture characteristics. With the increase of SO2 content the content of Fe element decreases and the corrosion increases demonstrating that SO2 plays a leading role in electrochemical corrosion. This study further strengthens the theoretical basis of stress corrosion of supercritical CO2 pipelines plays an important role in preventing leakage of supercritical CO2 pipelines and will provide guidance for the industrial application of CCUS.

Blending hydrogen into natural gas and using existing natural gas infrastructure provides energy storage greenhouse gas emission reduction from combustion and other benefits as the world transitions to a hydrogen economy. Though this seems to be a simple and attractive technique there is a dearth of existing safety codes and standards and understanding the safety implications is warranted before implementation. In this paper we present some preliminary findings on the dispersion characteristics of hydrogen-methane blends performed under controlled conditions inside a laboratory. Experiments were performed at two different upstream pressures of 5 and 10 bar as the blends dispersed into air through a 1 mm diameter orifice. Blends of 25 50 and 75 vol-% hydrogen in methane were tested. Spatially resolved Raman signals from hydrogen methane and nitrogen were acquired simultaneously at 10 Hz using separate ICCD cameras from which the individual concentrations and jet boundaries could be determined. Finally a comparison between dispersion characteristics of blended fuel jets with pure hydrogen and pure methane jets was made.

This paper investigates the untapped potential of the Permian Basin a multifaceted energy axis in Texas and adjoining states in the emerging era of decarbonization. Aligned with current policy directives on regional hydrogen hubs this study explores the viability of developing a hydrogen energy hub in the Permian Basin thereby producing low-carbon intensity hydrogen from natural gas in the Basin and transporting it to the Greater Houston area. Diverging from existing literature this study provides an integrated techno-economic evaluation of the entire hydrogen value chain in the Permian Basin encompassing production storage and transportation. Furthermore it comparatively analyzes the scenario of interest against an optimized base scenario thereby underlining comparative advantages and disadvantages. The paper concludes that the delivered cost of Permian based low-carbon intensity hydrogen to the Greater Houston area is $1.85/kg benchmarked to the scenario with hydrogen produced close to the Greater Houston area and delivered at $1.42/kg. Our findings reveal that Permian-based low-carbon intensity hydrogen production can achieve cost savings in feedstock ($0.25/kg) and potentially accrue a higher production tax credit due to a shorter gas supply chain to production ($0.33/kg). Nevertheless a significant cost barrier is the expense of long-haul pipeline transport ($0.90/kg) from the Permian Basin to Houston as opposed to local production. Despite the obstacles the study identifies a potential breakeven solution where increasing the production scale to at least 412000 metric ton per year (about 3 steam reforming plants) in the Permian Basin can effectively lower costs in the transport sector. Hence a scaled-up production can mitigate the cost difference and establish the Permian Basin as a competitive player in the hydrogen market. In conclusion a SWOT analysis presents Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities and Threats associated with Permian-based hydrogen production.

Hydrogen is an energy carrier with potential applications in decarbonizing difficult-to-electrify energy and industrial systems. The environmental profile of hydrogen varies substantially with its inputs. Water consumption is a particular issue of interest as decisions are made about capital and other investments that will affect the scale and scope of hydrogen use. This study focuses on electrolytic hydrogen due to its path to greenhouse gas neutrality and irreducible water demand (though other pathways might be more water intensive). Specifically it evaluates life cycle consumptive freshwater intensity of electrolytic hydrogen in the United States at volumes associated with 12 scenarios for a deeply decarbonized 2050 US energy system from two modeling efforts for which both electricity fuel mix and electrolytic hydrogen production were projected (America’s Zero Carbon Action Plan and Net Zero America) in addition to volumes for a stylized energy storage project (500 MW hydrogen-fired turbine). Freshwater requirements for hydrogen could be large. Under a central estimate for 2050 US electrolytic hydrogen production electrolytic freshwater demand for process and feedstock inputs alone (i.e. excluding water for electricity) would be about 7.5% of total 2014 US freshwater consumption for energy (1 billion cubic meters/year 109 m3 /y; [0.2% 15%] across scenarios for 2050 electrolytic hydrogen production of [0.3 18] exajoules EJ). Including water associated with production of input electricity doubles this central estimate to 15% (2 × 109 m3 /y; [1% 23%] across scenarios). Turbines using electrolytic hydrogen are estimated to be about as freshwater intensive as a coal or nuclear plant assuming decarbonized low-water electricity inputs. Although a decarbonized energy system is projected to require less water for resource capture and electricity conversion than the current fossil-dominated energy system additional conversion processes supporting decarbonization like electrolysis could offset water savings.

The impact of hydrogen added to natural gas on the performance of commercial domestic water heating devices has been discussed in several recent papers in the literature. Much of the work focuses on performance at specific hydrogen levels (by volume) up to 20–30% as a near term blend target. In the current work new data on several commercial devices have been obtained to help quantify upper limits based on flashback limits. In addition results from 39 individual devices are compiled to help generalize observations regarding performance. The emphasis of this work is on emissions performance and especially NOx emissions. It is important to consider the reporting bases of the emissions numbers to avoid any unitended bias. For water heaters the trends associated with both mass per fuel energy input and concentration-based representation are similar For carbon free fuels bases such as 12% CO2 should be avoided. In general the compiled data shows that NOx NO UHC and CO levels decrease with increasing hydrogen percentage. The % decrease in NOx and NO is greater for low NOx devices (meaning certified to NOx <10 ng/J using premixing with excess air) compared to conventional devices (“pancake burners” partial premixing). Further low NOx devices appear to be able to accept greater amounts of hydrogen above 70% hydrogen in some cases without modification while conventional water heaters appear limited to 40–50% hydrogen. Reporting emissions on a mass basis per unit fuel energy input is preferred to the typical dry concentration basis as the greater amount of water produced by hydrogen results in a perceived increase in NOx when hydrogen is used. While this effort summarizes emissions performance with added hydrogen additional work is needed on transient operation higher levels of hydrogen system durability/reliability and heating efficiency.

This paper presents the results of techno-economic modelling for hydrogen production from a photovoltaic battery electrolyser system (PBES) for injection into a natural gas transmission line. Mellitah in Libya connected to Gela in Italy by the Greenstream subsea gas transmission line is selected as the location for a case study. The PBES includes photovoltaic (PV) arrays battery electrolyser hydrogen compressor and large-scale hydrogen storage to maintain constant hydrogen volume fraction in the pipeline. Two PBES configurations with different large-scale storage methods are evaluated: PBESC with compressed hydrogen stored in buried pipes and PBESL with liquefied hydrogen stored in spherical tanks. Simulated hourly PV electricity generation is used to calculate the specific hourly capacity factor of a hypothetical PV array in Mellitah. This capacity factor is then used with different PV sizes for sizing the PBES. The levelised cost of delivered hydrogen (LCOHD) is used as the key techno-economic parameter to optimise the size of the PBES by equipment sizing. The costs of all equipment except the PV array and batteries are made to be a function of electrolyser size. The equipment sizes are deemed optimal if PBES meets hydrogen demand at the minimum LCOHD. The techno-economic performance of the PBES is evaluated for four scenarios of fixed and constant hydrogen volume fraction targets in the pipeline: 5% 10% 15% and 20%. The PBES can produce up to 106 kilotonnes of hydrogen per year to meet the 20% target at an LCOHD of 3.69 €/kg for compressed hydrogen storage (PBESC) and 2.81 €/kg for liquid hydrogen storage (PBESL). Storing liquid hydrogen at large-scale is significantly cheaper than gaseous hydrogen even with the inclusion of a significantly larger PV array that is required to supply additional electrcitiy for liquefaction.

Hydrogen production via electrochemical water splitting is a promising approach for storing solar energy. For this technology to be economically competitive it is critical to develop water splitting systems with high solar-to-hydrogen (STH) efficiencies. Here we report a photovoltaic-electrolysis system with the highest STH efficiency for any water splitting technology to date to the best of our knowledge. Our system consists of two polymer electrolyte membrane electrolysers in series with one InGaP/GaAs/GaInNAsSb triple-junction solar cell which produces a large-enough voltage to drive both electrolysers with no additional energy input. The solar concentration is adjusted such that the maximum power point of the photovoltaic is well matched to the operating capacity of the electrolysers to optimize the system efficiency. The system achieves a 48-h average STH efficiency of 30%. These results demonstrate the potential of photovoltaic-electrolysis systems for cost-effective solar energy storage.

The European steel industry is experiencing new challenges related to the market situation and climate policy. Experience from the period of pandemic restrictions and the effects of Russia’s armed invasion of Ukraine has given many countries a basis for including steel along with raw materials (coke iron ore electricity) in economic security products (CRMA). Steel is needed for economic infrastructure and construction development as well as a material for other industries (without steel factories will not produce cars machinery ships washing machines etc.). In 2022 steelmakers faced a deepening energy crisis and economic slowdown. The market situation prompted steelmakers to impose restrictions on production volumes (worldwide production fell by 4% compared to the previous year). Despite the difficult economic situation of the steel industry (production in EU countries fell by 11% in 2022 compared to the previous year) the EU is strengthening its industrial decarbonisation policy (“Fit for 55”). The decarbonisation of steel production is set to accelerate by 2050. To sharply reduce carbon emissions steel mills need new steelmaking technologies. The largest global steelmakers are already investing in new technologies that will use green hydrogen (produced from renewable energy sources). Reducing iron ore with hydrogen plasma will drastically reduce CO2 emissions (steel production using hydrogen could emit up to 95% less CO2 than the current BF + BOF blast furnace + basic oxygen furnace integrated method). Investments in new technologies must be tailored to the steel industry. A net zero strategy (deep decarbonisation goal) may have different scenarios in different EU countries. The purpose of this paper was to introduce the conditions for investing in low-carbon steelmaking technologies in the Polish steel market and to develop (based on expert opinion) scenarios for the decarbonisation of the Polish steel industry.

The multi-generation systems with simultaneous production of power by renewable energy in addition to polymer electrolyte membrane electrolyzer and fuel cell (PEMFC-PEMEC) energy storage have become more and more popular over the past few years. The fresh water provision for PEMECs in such systems is taken into account as one of the main challenges for them where conventional desalination technologies such as reverse osmosis (RO) and mechanical vapor compression (MVC) impose high electricity consumption and costs. Taking this point into consideration as a novelty solar still (ST) desalination is applied as an alternative to RO and MVC for better techno-economic justifiability. The comparison made for a residential building complex in Hawaii in the US as the case study demonstrated much higher technical and economic benefits when using ST compared with both MVC and RO. The photovoltaic (PV) installed capacity decreased by 11.6 and 7.3 kW compared with MVC and RO while the size of the electrolyzer declined by 9.44 and 6.13% and the hydrogen storage tank became 522.1 and 319.3 m3 smaller respectively. Thanks to the considerable drop in the purchase price of components the payback period (PBP) dropped by 3.109 years compared with MVC and 2.801 years compared with RO which is significant. Moreover the conducted parametric study implied the high technical and economic viability of the system with ST for a wide range of building loads including high values.

This paper presents a mathematical model for a multi-period hydrogen supply chain design problem considering several design features not addressed in other studies. The model is formulated as a mixed-integer program allowing the production and storage facilities to be extended over time. Pipeline and tube trailer transport modes are considered for carrying hydrogen. The model also allows finding the optimal pipeline routes and the number of transport units. The objective is to obtain an efficient supply chain design within a given time frame in a way that the demand and carbon dioxide emissions constraints are satisfied and the total cost is minimized. A computer program is developed to ease the problem-solving process. The computer program extracts the geographical information from Google Maps and solves the problem using an optimization solver. Finally the applicability of the proposed model is demonstrated in a case study from Oman.

Although energy-intensive industries are often seen as ‘hard-to-decarbonise’ net-zero megaprojects for industrial clusters promise to improve the technical and economic feasibility of hydrogen fuel switching and carbon capture and storage (CCS). Mobilising insights from the megaproject literature this paper analyses the dynamics of an ambitious first-of-kind net-zero megaproject in the Humber industrial cluster in the United Kingdom which includes CCS and hydrogen infrastructure systems industrial fuel switching CO2 capture green and blue hydrogen production and hydrogen storage. To analyse the dynamics of this emerging megaproject the article uses a socio-technical system lens to focus on developments in technology actors and institutions. Synthesising multiple megaproject literature insights the paper develops a comprehensive framework that addresses both aggregate (‘outside-in’) developments and the endogenous (‘inside-out’) experiences and activities regarding three specific challenges: technical system integration actor coordination and institutional alignment. Drawing on an original dataset involving expert interviews (N = 46) site visits (N = 7) and document analysis the ‘outside-in’ analysis finds that the Humber megaproject has progressed rapidly from outline visions to specific technical designs enacted by new coalitions and driven by strengthening policy targets and financial support schemes. The complementary ‘inside-out’ analysis however also finds 12 alignment challenges that can delay or derail materialisation of the plans. While policies are essential aggregate drivers institutional misalignments presently also prevent project-actors from finalising design and investment decisions. Our analysis also finds important tensions between the project's high-pace delivery focus (to meet government targets) and allowing sufficient time for pilot projects learning-by-doing and design iterations.

Safety and reliability are important performance attributes of any engineered system where humanmachine interactions are present. However they are usually approached as afterthoughts or in some cases unintended consequences of the system design and development process that must be addressed and verified in subsequent design stages. In plain words safety and reliability are often seen as constraints that add layers of complexity and extra costs to the minimum functional system of interest. No longer. Shell Hydrogen is embedding the Design for Reliability and Safety approach to engineer our products and assets in such a way that safety and reliability are at the core of a concurrent engineering process throughout the system lifecycle. This has been achieved in practice by leveraging systems reliability and safety engineering methods along with the experience and expertise of Shell Hydrogen original equipment manufacturers and system integrators in designing building and operating hydrogen assets for mobility applications.<br/>The challenges in implementing this approach are many ranging from access to historical data on equipment and component safety and reliability performance to lack of standardization in the industry when dealing with hydrogen related hazards. In this paper we will describe the approach in more detail some of our early successes and failures during deployment and the continual improvement journey that lies ahead.

On this episode of Everything About Hydrogen we are speaking with Nashwa Al Rawahy Director of HMR Environmental Consultants based in Muscat Oman with regional offices in the United Arab Emirates.

We are excited to have an expert like Nashwa join us to discuss environmental and social impact studies their value to the communities and projects and the importance of building long term In Country Value (ICV).

The podcast can be found on their website.

On this episode of Everything About Hydrogen we have Daria Nochevnik the Director of Policy and Partnerships for Hydrogen Council.

The podcast can be found on their website.