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Caribbeans

(1,074 posts)
Sat Jan 18, 2025, 03:11 PM Jan 18

Hydrogen is transforming a tiny Utah coal town. Could its success hold lessons for similar communities?


The Intermountain Power Project on the outskirts of Delta, a small town of roughly 4,000 residents in Utah’s West Desert. The IPP’s owners, an association of small Utah municipalities, aim to replace the existing coal-fired power plant with two hydrogen-capable gas turbines. Emma Penrod/Utility Dive

Hydrogen is transforming a tiny Utah coal town. Could its success hold lessons for similar communities?

Uutilitydive.com | Emma Penrod | Jan. 15, 2025

The roads in and out of Delta, Utah, are dotted with ghost towns. The oldest date back to the Pony Express. The majority saw their heyday during the gold rush; now they mostly consist of stone markers and the occasional remnants of an old cabin.

And like many of the towns that remain in Utah’s West Desert, Delta has faced the very real possibility that it, too, could be relegated to the dustbin of history sooner rather than later. Town mayor John Niles recalls having conversations with his city council about the possibility that they could face an exodus of residents or even a foreclosure crisis when the Intermountain Power Agency announced in 2017 that it planned to close by 2025 the 1.9 GW coal-fired power plant that accounts for roughly half the town’s total GDP.

In a town of just 3,800 residents, these weren’t anonymous citizens who stood to lose their homes. Niles himself worried that his two sons, who both work at the IPP coal plant just as he did before he ran for city council, would be forced to move away to find work.

Instead, the town today is experiencing something of a housing shortage. Faced with the possibility of losing its largest customer — the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power — if it continued to burn coal, the Intermountain Power Agency decided to replace the coal plant with a pair of gas-fired turbines with a combined capacity of 840 MW designed to run on 100% green hydrogen by 2045...more
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/hydrogen-transforming-utah-coal-town-aces-delta-intermountain-power-project-ladwp/731685/

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Hydrogen is transforming a tiny Utah coal town. Could its success hold lessons for similar communities? (Original Post) Caribbeans Jan 18 OP
The bullshit never stops, does it? People build gas plants with idiot promises about some future where they'll be dead. NNadir Jan 18 #1
100% Nigrum Cattus Jan 18 #4
Note that the green H generator is Japanese isitreal Jan 18 #2
China is about to take the lead - if it hasn't already Caribbeans Jan 18 #3
As opposed to cheap fossil fuel greenwashing marketing videos, the scientific literature makes clear that Chinese... NNadir Jan 18 #5
No. hatrack Jan 19 #6

NNadir

(35,010 posts)
1. The bullshit never stops, does it? People build gas plants with idiot promises about some future where they'll be dead.
Sat Jan 18, 2025, 03:40 PM
Jan 18

"By 2045" sounds exactly like the "by 2000."

From the abstract of this particular line of crap, found in the OP.

nstead, the town today is experiencing something of a housing shortage. Faced with the possibility of losing its largest customer — the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power — if it continued to burn coal, the Intermountain Power Agency decided to replace the coal plant with a pair of gas-fired turbines with a combined capacity of 840 MW designed to run on 100% green hydrogen by 2045..


Emphasis mine.

Every single bit of hydrogen bullshit published - every last word - is meant to greenwash and excuse fossil fuels. There are no exceptions.

Here's an example of "by 2000" hydrogen miracles published in 1981.

The market potential for electrolytic hydrogen, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, Volume 6, Issue 1, 1981, Pages 53-65

The abstract:

By the year 2000, the potential market for advanced technology electrolytic hydrogen among specialty users is projected to be about half of what the merchant hydrogen market would be in the absence of electrolytic hydrogen. This potential market, representing an annual demand of about 16 billion SCF of hydrogen (approx. 200 MW of installed electrolyzer capacity), will develop from market penetrations of electrolyzers assumed to begin in the early 1980s.


The bold is mine.

It seems difficult to believe that the people attempting to rebrand fossil fuels as "hydrogen" haven't noticed - not that they give a rat's ass about the world at large - that a prediction in 2000 that the planet will be burning, as it is, "by 2025" would be accurate, no matter how much more hydrogen bullshit would be piled on.

There are two possibilities: Number one, they are stupid and disconnected from reality. Number two, they just don't give a shit, and are counting on vast public stupidity, always a good bet, since money (and the environment) are being squandered on hydrogen bullshit.

Neither is very appealing.


isitreal

(55 posts)
2. Note that the green H generator is Japanese
Sat Jan 18, 2025, 03:56 PM
Jan 18

I tell ya Japan has been working on H for a while. Watching NHK I often see segments about things they are working on. There is a business park that is set up for companies to build facilities that are H related from producing the H to exploring how to use it.

The Neanderthals' in this country just don't see clean energy as the profit producer that it will become. The USA should be leading the world in the tech to deal with reducing energy use by being more efficient and the shift away from carbon fuels.

The world has been begging for simple solutions that reduce energy use and provide cheap local supply that people can use to light their homes and now power their phones.

Caribbeans

(1,074 posts)
3. China is about to take the lead - if it hasn't already
Sat Jan 18, 2025, 04:08 PM
Jan 18

For example, there are about 167 Hydrogen stations in Japan now.

China just started building them around 2016 and there are now over 450 stations there.

https://chinahydrogen.substack.com

Some Chinese cities have over 500 hydrogen trucks on the roads right now





NNadir

(35,010 posts)
5. As opposed to cheap fossil fuel greenwashing marketing videos, the scientific literature makes clear that Chinese...
Sat Jan 18, 2025, 07:22 PM
Jan 18

...hydrogen is a filthy enterprise.

The laws of thermodynamics are subject to being reversed because of marketing videos.

I can post this link as many times as fossil fuels disguised as hydrogen are marketed here:

Subsidizing Grid-Based Electrolytic Hydrogen Will Increase Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Coal Dominated Power Systems Liqun Peng, Yang Guo, Shangwei Liu, Gang He, and Denise L. Mauzerall Environmental Science & Technology 2024 58 (12), 5187-5195

The text is clear enough.

From the introductory text:

... Currently, nearly all hydrogen in China is either produced directly from fossil fuels (55% from coal gasification and 14% from steam methane reforming (SMR)) or as a byproduct of petroleum refining (28%), with only 1% coming from water electrolysis. (2) Producing 1 kg of coal- or SMR-based hydrogen emits roughly 19 and 10 kg of CO2, respectively. (3) In 2020, hydrogen production from fossil fuels in China emitted ∼322Tg of CO2, equivalent to 25% of total CO2 emissions from industrial processes, a number expected to rise with increasing hydrogen demand. (4) Industrial processes include production of nonmetallic mineral products, chemical, and metal products, as well as production and consumption of halocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride. (4)
.

The bold, italics and underlining is mine.

EST: Chinese Hydrogen Production Is Making Climate Change Worse.

China emitted 322 million tons of CO2 to make hydrogen in 2023. Pretending hydrogen is "green," is an overt and obvious lie, and anyone with a modicum of scientific education can see it if they look.
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