Environment & Energy

NNadir

(34,847 posts) Sat Nov 16, 2024, 08:39 AM Nov 16

Linde Plant Hydrogen Explosion in Germany Leaves 1/4 of Its H2 Filling Stations Closed (Date: 10/29/24)

Germany features some of the worst CO₂ intensity for its electricity in Europe, having averaged 371 CO₂/kWh in 2023, compared to Frances 53 grams CO₂/kWh. This does not that this is preventing Germany with some of the most benighted energy policies in the world from making things worse by using that dirty electricity wastefully to make hydrogen.

Electricity Map, Germany, annual, 2023.

This is a result of German reliance on coal based electricity during episodes of Dunkelflaute

The United States is not the only country in the world where ignorance wins.

There are apparently around 14,700 gasoline stations in Germany, and, oh yeah 83 hydrogen filling stations, Potemkin hydrogen filling stations operating for the purpose of greenwashing fossil fuels. Twenty three of these hydrogen stations are closed as of now because of an explosion at a plant where hydrogen is produced; they can't get hydrogen, which is a good thing to my mind, not a bad thing.

Linde explosion | A quarter of Germany's hydrogen filling stations out of action as supply problem enters eighth week.

Subtitle:

At least 23 of the country’s 83 H2 fuelling stops are currently out of operation, largely due to a lack of H2 as investigation continues into August truck trailer explosion

Excerpts from the text:

A hydrogen fuel supply problem in Germany is continuing into its eighth week following an H2 truck trailer explosion back in August, with at least 23 of the country’s 83 filling stations out of action yesterday evening.

A truck trailer carrying hydrogen cylinders exploded on 26 August at industrial gases giant Linde’s facility at the Leuna Chemical Park in eastern Germany due to a suspected, unexplained H2 leak.

Although no-one was hurt in the deflagration, all trailers of the same type have been taken out of circulation until the cause of the leak has been unidentified and a potential remedy deployed — which means that there is currently no way of getting hydrogen to many filling stations across Germany.

I certainly can understand why they can't seem to figure out the cause of the leak. One of the reasons that hydrogen is unsuitable in every sense of the word as a consumer product, is it's extremely low viscosity and its low explosive limits in air. A pinhole leak owing to hydrogen embrittlement of metals can easily be a big problem.

Don't worry, be happy, no one was killed in the explosion of the Potemkin hydrogen fuel station, unlike the recent hydrogen explosion at a Chevron (nominally named a "renewable energy" plant) hydrogen plant, where two very badly burned workers had to be airlifted out. I'll cover that one down later.

I note that these explosions occur when hydrogen remains, as it has for the last 50 years in the effort to rebrand fossil fuels as "hydrogen," a trivial form of energy.

Since exergy (useful energy) is destroyed when wasted to make dangerous hydrogen using dangerous fossil fuels, these exercises in extreme stupidity should come to an end, but I guarantee that one will see, right here at DU, probably in short order, slick videos featuring bad thinking, "bait and switch" rhetoric claiming that hydrogen is "green."

In honor of this endless graphic advertising, how about a picture of the damaged area?

I personally liked the term proposed by another DUer for pushing this tiresome anti-intellectual hydra of hydrogen fantasies running for the last half a century: "Hydrogen Zombie." If one has lived long enough to have lived through oodles of these fantasies, going back to the days of the dunderhead Amory Lovins and beyond, about a "hydrogen economy" and if one was paying attention, as I have for decades, "Zombie" is the right word.

I think I'll steal that locution frequently, "hydrogen zombie." I really like it.

Have a great weekend.