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HTT · Heat Treat Tomorrow: Hydrogen Combustion: Our Future or Hot Air?

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The following transcript has been edited for your reading enjoyment.

Doug Glenn (DG): Welcome to this special edition of Heat Treat Radio, a product of Heat Treat Today.  We’re calling this special episode “Heat Treat Tomorrow, specifically, hydrogen combustion.  Is it our future or is it just a bunch of hot air?”  This discussion, today, is sponsored by the Industrial Heating Equipment Association in cooperation with Heat Treat Today.  You can see the Industrial Heating Equipment Association on the web at ihea.org., and, of course, Heat Treat Today is heattreattoday.com.  I’m your host, Doug Glenn.  I’m the publisher of Heat Treat Today and the host of Heat Treat Radio.  I have the great privilege of moderating this free-for-all discussion today with five industry experts who I’d like to introduce to you now.

First, Perry. (If you don’t mind, just give us a little hand so that we know who you are.)  This is Perry Stephens.  He is the principle technical leader of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and, among other things, currently leads the end use technical subcommittee of the low carbon resource initiative which is a collaborative effort with GTI, the Gas Technology Institute, and nearly 50 sponsor companies and organizations, and they’re aimed at advancing the low carbon fuel pathways on an economy-wide basis for the achievement of decarbonization.  So, that is Perry.

Joachim Wünning, we call Joe Wuenning, is the owner and CEO of WS Thermprocess Technic Gmbh [WS Warmeprozesstechnik GmbH] in Germany and also WS Thermal Process Technology, Inc. here in Elyria, Ohio.  Joe’s company has been on the cutting edge when it comes to hydrogen combustion.  In fact, the last time I heard you, Joe, was at the thermprocess show in Düsseldorf, where you gave the keynote address regarding the advent and development of hydrogen combustion.  Truly, your company, Joe, I think we can say, you guys have been on the cutting edge and a leader in that.  Joe, by the way – and I failed to mention this about Perry – is a member of the Industrial Heating Equipment Association, as is Perry’s company.

John Clarke is the technical director of Helios Corporation, a Fort Wayne, Indiana based company, that specializes in energy and combustion technologies.  John is also a regular columnist for Heat Treat Today (thank you for that, John) and a past president of the Industrial Heating Equipment Association.

Jeff Rafter is VP of sales and marketing for Selas Technologies out of Streetsboro, Ohio and has a rich history in the combustion industry, as well, including many years with Maxon Corporation.  He’s got 28 years of industrial experience in sales, research and development, and marketing.  He’s a combustion applications expert in process heating, metals refining, and power generation and has also served 10 years on the NFPA 86 committee and holds a patent for ultra low NOx burner designs.  He is, also, an IHEA member.

Finally, we have Brian Kelly with an also equally rich history in combustion, spending most of his years at Hauck Manufacturing in Lebanon, PA, where he did a lot in sales and engineering before they were purchased by Honeywell, which is whom he currently serves with.  Brian currently resides in hot, hot Houston and he informed us that he’s got Covid.  So, congratulations, Brian, you’re doing good.  He is, also, an IHEA member.

Gentlemen, thank you for joining us.  Let’s just jump right in.  Brian, since I picked on you last, let’s go to you first on the questions.

DG:  Is this hydrogen combustion thing coming?  And, if so, how soon and what’s driving this thing?

Brian Kelly (BK):  It is coming and there is going to be a lot of back and forth in that it doesn’t make sense and all that.  It is here.  We’re seeing inquiries from customers that ask, “Hey, do we have burners that do this, control systems and stuff that do that?”  The news that I get emails on, for example is that with one of the steel companies in Europe, they already said their plan is totally going to be on hydrogen.  We’re delivering billets right now of hydrogen.

So, yes, it’s coming.  Is it coming really soon?  It’s here today.  Widespread?  That’s going to be a longer road.  I think you’re going to hear from people that know more about it than I do, but, certainly from an industry buzz, we’re testing burners, we’re making sure our burners run on partial hydrogen, full hydrogen, safety valves, control valves and all that is definitely within a lot of the testing that we’re doing right now beyond the usual R&D on lower emissions burners and things of that nature.

DG:  Jeff, what do you think?

Jeff Rafter (JR):  I have a slightly different answer, but I am in agreement with Brian.  I would rephrase the question in the fact that I think hydrogen combustion has been here for over a century.  The difference has been, it’s been largely restrained to a few industries that have a regular hydrogen supply.  A great example would be refining and petrochemical industries.  We have had, for literally decades, burners designed to burn pure hydrogen, for example, in applications like ethylene crackers.

The fundamentals of hydrogen combustion, I think, are very well known.  The next evolution that we’re currently in the process of seeing, I think, is taking more industries into an availability of hydrogen as a fuel and modifying designs and process heating equipment to accept it.  There are fundamentally a lot of changes that occur when you switch the fuel, and we can get into more of those later with more relevant questions, but it doesn’t come without challenges.  There is quite a bit to be done, but I think the fundamental science is already pretty well-known.  There is a lot of design work to be done and there is a lot of economic and supply development still yet to be had.

DG:  John Clark, what do you think?  Is it coming?

John Clarke (JC):  Yes, I certainly think it is coming, but the timing is uncertain.  And, when I say “coming”, I mean deployed in a certain or large volume.  When we simply talk about hydrogen, I do think the order of deployment is somewhat predictable and when it comes to pure hydrogen, I think it will likely be deployed first for transportation, and only after that need is met, as a process heating fuel, widely.

Now, if there is a breakthrough in battery technology, this order of deployment may change.  But, right now, it looks like hydrogen represents an opportunity for higher energy density for long haul transportation.  And, if we’re pushing hard to reduce CO2, or carbon emitted, I think policy will be implemented in a means to maximize a reduction of carbon.  That’s where I think they’ll be pushing harder.

Now, that said, partial hydrogen, blending hydrogen into natural gas, is likely to occur perhaps sooner than that.

DG:  Joe, what do you think?  I failed to mention that Joe is our one European representative here, so you may have a different perspective.  So, what do you think?  Is it coming?

Joachim Wünning (JW):  Not really.  I think a lot of things were said correctly and I strongly believe it has to come.  If you believe in climate change, it has to happen because we cannot use fossil fuels forever.  I also don’t believe that we will have an all electric world.  I don’t believe in nuclear power, so that we can get all the energy by that, so chemical energy carriers will be necessary for storage and long haul transportation.  Is it coming soon?  Of course, it is hard to predict how fast it will be.  At the moment, fossil fuel is cheap so it will be hard to compete with as hydrogen is likely to be more expensive.

But, certainly, what we see is the requirement from our customers to have hydrogen ready burners.  Because, if they invest in equipment at that point, why would they buy a natural gas only burner.  They should, of course, look for burners which are able to do the transition without buying all new equipment again.  So, we have a lot of projects momentarily to demonstrate the ability of the equipment to run with hydrogen or natural gas and, preferably, not even readjusting the burners if you switch from one to another gas.

DG:  Perry, you’ve got the last say on this.

Perry Stephens (PS):  I’ll try to add something a little different.  At EPRI, we’re charged with providing the analysis and data from which other folks, like these gentlemen, are going to try to base important business decisions.  And, so, our work hasn’t focused specifically on hydrogen but, more generally, the class of alternate energy carriers- molecules gas or liquid that can be produced in low carbon first energy ways through renewable energy sources.  A lot of our work is focused on understanding the pathways from the initial energy which as a biomass source, solar, wind, could be nuclear, could be hydro. . . These sources of electric power that ultimately have to be used to produce this low carbon hydrogen.  One other pathway being hydrogen or hydrogen based fuels produce the steam methane reformation process which uses a lot of hydrocarbons but would then require carbon capture and sequestration.  The CO2 from these processes could be employed in a circular economy fashion.  So, we look at all of these.

The real challenge is the challenge of cost.  How do you produce this hydrogen or alternate fuel?  And there are many other potential fuel molecular constructs that could be deployed.  Ammonia is one being discussed in some sectors.  And then how do you transport them, store them, and what is their fuel efficiency and the cost of either new equipment or conversion of existing equipment in order to deploy those.  We’re not specifically focused on hydrogen.  It is a very important energy carrier.  It can be blended with fossil fuels in the near-term and then maybe expanded in the long term to higher percentages up to pure hydrogen depending on the application, depending on where you produce it.  All of these costs have to be evaluated and that is a big job that we’re doing at EPRI with our LCRI initiative right now is trying to understand that techno economic analysis, that is, what makes the most sense for each sector of the economy.

DG:  Thanks, guys.  Joe had mentioned that if you believe in global warming, I forget the exact phrase there, but it seems that that’s the driving force here.  If that is the case, why not electricity?  Why don’t we just convert everything over to electricity?  Perry, you’re with EPRI, let’s start with you on that.  Instead of going just straight out hydrogen or putting our eggs in that basket, why not just go to electricity?

PS:  I think the question again rephrased might be, “when electricity and when hydrogen” because I think that’s really what we’re trying to decide.  There are really interesting areas of research involving catalysis techniques that dramatically improve the net energy efficiency of chemical processes, for example, that might make direct electrification of certain processes more competitive.  There are electric technologies for the low to mid-range temperatures that are pretty attractive and use pieces of the electromagnet spectrum to produce transformation of products, heating and/or other transformations, that are very cost effective today.

So, we judge that a portion, maybe something approaching 30% of the remaining fossil fuel, could be electrified.  A certain chunk, a quarter, maybe reduced consumption through energy efficiency, 30 or more percent through electrification.  It’s that difficult-to-electrify piece.  Steam-based processes and other direct combustion processes where electric technologies, for one reason or another, don’t look like they offer a strong solution, at least today, that we’re really concerned with.  And, both in steam production and direct combustion of fossil fuels today, many cases we’re looking at having to have some sort of alternate combustible fuel.

DG:  John, what about you?  Why not electricity?

JC:  I’m not sure I completely agree with your question.  In some ways, clean hydrogen, or environmentally or low carbon hydrogen, is electricity.  It is simply a different means of storing electric power because the source of that is going to be some sort of renewable power, more likely than not, photovoltaics, wind, hydroelectric; those are going to be the electricity we use to break down the water to generate the hydrogen that we then go ahead and store.  So, the alternative is whether or not we use batteries or hydrogen to store this electricity and make it available either in a mobile setting, in a car or a truck, or off peak times, at times when we are not able to generate electricity from renewable.

I think, the question really is more along the line of end use.  When are we going to be using electricity for the final end use.  We’re kind of process heating guys around this table.  I think it’s going to come down to economics, for the most part.  And, I don’t think we’re quite there yet.

DG:  Joe, what do you think?  Anything as far as electricity and why we’re not going that route?

JW:  Electricity is fine for some applications.  I’ve driven an electric car for the last 10 years, but in long range, I drive the fuel cell hydrogen car from my father, so different technologies for different purposes.  There might be batch processes where I can have a break of a week if there is no sunshine and do the batch processing when electricity is available.  But if I have a continuous furnace with 100 megawatts which should run 365 days a year, it will be a tough time to produce the electricity constantly from a renewable basis to fulfill all these requirements.  I think it’s just more economic and makes more sense to use the right technology for the right processes.  It’s not an either/or.  Use the right technology for the right application.

DG:  Brian or Jeff.  Do either of you want to chime in on this electric question?

BK:  I would just back what Joe says.  It can be selective to industry, the furnace type, or the type of material being processed.  I know I’ve dealt my career in a lot of the higher temperature-type applications – ceramics and heat treating and things of that nature.  If you start getting above 2000 degrees and up, and especially dealing with airspace, uniformity has a lot to do with it.

Electricity can be hard to get that uniformity without moving fans and having fans that operate at higher temperatures is another challenge.  It’s extremely challenging and a big cost factor.  What most people have said here is that it is probably not either/or.  We see a lot of electricity being used but we’re fossil fuel burner guys, so we’re going to push that efficiency and that kind of cost.

DG:  Jeff, let me address the next question to you.  Let’s talk about safety.  Let’s talk about inherent safety issues with hydrogen, delivery issues, equipment issues.  If we convert over to hydrogen, especially for heat treaters, what are we having to look at here, as far as the safety, delivery and equipment?

JR:  It’s a very important topic because, from our perspective, hydrogen is completely different than most carbon based fuels.  Just the size of the molecule, you have to understand what you’re dealing with: hydrogen burns seven times faster than natural gas, it’s three times less energy dense, and frankly it has a flammability window that makes handling inherently more hazardous than natural gas.  Again, this will burn at fuel air ratio seven times wider than natural gas, so any volume of hydrogen should be considered, at least, partially hazardous.

Inherently, the size of the hydrogen molecule creates a helluva challenge for safety, handling, piping, and there is even some discussion that common pipe threads are not adequate to contain hydrogen.  You’ll see hydrogen, often, in welded only assemblies.  It will leak through the seats of many common safety shut off valves.  These types of items, plus the electronics and sensor side of the world, it is more challenging to detect in flame sensors, a hydrogen flame versus a natural gas flame.

And do we have adequate sensor technology to detect leakage?  These are some of the challenges around the control and safety.  When we get into widespread use of hydrogen, you’re likely to see a lot of new and innovative and different equipment, specifically handled for hydrogen.  It is not a simple hydrocarbon fuel switch from propane to methane; it requires a completely different set of technologies and equipment.

DG:  Perry, how about you?  Let’s go to you next and then Brian we’ll come back to you then John and Joe.  What do you think, Perry?

[blockquote author=”Perry Stephens” style=”2″]However, you may be able to take hydrogen transported via a well-designed infrastructure pipeline system to storage and then generate power through a fuel cell technology on a district-wide or neighborhood basis.  So, you sort of circumvent the issues that you might have hydrogen safety, or even at the direct fuel gas-based heat pump kind of technology.  So, there are ways to get around some of these issues by intelligently designing the systems upfront.[/blockquote]

PS:  I don’t have a lot to add on the safety/equipment challenges that Jeff just mentioned.  You can understand the cost of developing those technologies and retrofitting existing systems, so I’ll leave that to others.

I think what it does point out is that there may be other molecular constructs, depending on the application or setting, or we need to think about the deployment of hydrogen.  For example, in the home, it makes folks nervous.  However, you may be able to take hydrogen transported via a well-designed infrastructure pipeline system to storage and then generate power through a fuel cell technology on a district-wide or neighborhood basis.  So, you sort of circumvent the issues that you might have hydrogen safety, or even at the direct fuel gas-based heat pump kind of technology.  So, there are ways to get around some of these issues by intelligently designing the systems upfront.

The other way to address some of that is to think about how we think of other molecules, like ammonia, which is hydrogen-rich and can be deconstructed and to provide pure hydrogen fuel streams for things like onboard, large naval fleets, and so forth, that may be easier to handle but not without its own set of risks.  But, liquid, higher volumetric density, and easily detected are some of the positives for certain end use applications.  Back to an earlier point, it is end use by end use by end use that these problems have to be solved.

DG:  Brian, what do you think?

BK:  Yes, certainly, the points that Perry and Jeff mentioned about safety, the size of the molecule we know it is very, very small.  One of the inherent issues is that we have so much equipment out there that is running on, at least in our realm, the fossil fuels, the natural gases, the propane, all your hydrocarbons.  A lot of that equipment may not be suitable for hydrogen, so you’re talking about a good level of infrastructure and upgrade that needs to take place to go to a fuel that may be bloody expensive when you start.

And it’s getting traction because it’s green, right?  We’ve got to reduce or carbon footprint for the environment.  Cost always matters, but sometimes, the public goodwill matters more.  I just saw something in July from Nucor – “We’re going to be 77% below the industry average on greenhouse gases.  How are we going to do that?  We don’t know, but this is going to be a corporate initiative to do this.”  That’s a lot of fossil fuel changing in big furnaces, right?

I mean, you’re not talking little heat treat furnaces, you’re talking about big steel reheat furnaces with a lot of annealing of a lot of them.  The steel industry is extremely energy intensive.  It is one of the few industries you seen in the U.S. that consistently has low NOx burners driven with preheated air.  You don’t see a lot of preheated air in combustion in the U.S.; it’s because our natural gas is pretty cheap versus Europe and the rest of the world.

There are going to be a lot of different challenges, not just looking at the burner side of it, but, as Jeff said, the safety side, the control valves, the shut off valves.  Most companies that we talk to, our competitors, we’re all doing it, we’re all testing our equipment to make sure that we’re ready.

DG:  You spoke about Nucor, I’m going to give a little plug for our magazine.  I don’t know if you guys have seen the August issue, but Lorenco Goncalves, CEO, president and chairman of the board of Cleveland Cliffs, wrote a column for us entitled “Green American Steel the Envy of the World”.  I heard him speak down at the AIST show and, basically, they’re going green; they’re fully committed to, basically, reducing, if not eliminating, their carbon footprint.  Read the article, it’s got some interesting things in it.

John, how about you?  What are the safety issues, delivery issues, equipment issues?  And, if you don’t mind, guys, I should mention, anything that you can speak directly into the heat treat world would be great, if you’ve go anything you can apply there, that would be super.

JC:  I totally agree with everything that’s been said, but I’d like to bring up one additional point and that is the hazard to the environment that we experience with methane leakage that occurs around our distribution and our extraction system.  We have a fairly significant amount of fugitive natural gas that escapes.  That is the risk to the environment that hydrogen really doesn’t present.  I’m not speaking or in any way minimizing the safety to people or plant or personnel, but I am saying, environmentally, hydrogen is much less hazardous to our environment, potentially.

JW:  I might have a little bit of a different opinion.  I don’t want to make a diddle, but safety-wise, I think, if we would switch from hydrogen to natural gas, we might have more headaches than the other way around.  Think of carbon monoxide being poisonous if you have incomplete combustion.  Also, the flammability limits.  I think it’s an advantage to have it wider in an industrial furnace.  We want to get rid of any flammable mixture so if it burns faster, we can burn it off faster.  We have a lot of experience with hydrogen as an atmosphere in furnaces, so we are able to handle it.

Of course, we have to be careful, but I think there is nothing to be afraid of.  As with any gas, or especially also if it’s pressurized hydrogen or with any pressurized gas, we have to be careful.  With any gas we have to be careful.  For example, in a case of a leakage, if you have propane, you will have a problem because it will collect in your basement.  If you have a hydrogen leak, make sure you have a hole in your roof and it will escape and be gone.

So, you have to be careful.  You have to be careful with your safety procedures, but I think that hydrogen is not more difficult than other hydrocarbons, at least, not a lot more difficult.

DG:  It’s different in the sense that the safety protocols, we have in place now, are not for hydrogen, they’re for other gases.

JP:  But, it can be done.

DG:  It can be done.  Fair enough.

BK:  Something that John brought up was the fugitive methane maybe going in the atmosphere.  Another part of it that we’ve seen, unless specifically designed for it and depending on the burner type, even addition of hydrogen beyond pure hydrogen in conventional burners, you’re going to actually seen an increase in nitrous oxide emissions.  That’s what a lot of people don’t talk about.  Yes, you’re getting rid of the carbon, but maybe we have something else that we need to look at.  I’ve been in plenty of talks in New York and talking to people in California that say, “We’re just going to add 15%”.   It’s like, do you realize you’re not just going to go up?

JW:  We know how to get rid of it.

BK:  Exactly.  But, it’s something to consider, right?

JC:  It’s an investment that we have to make.

JR:  It is an excellent point, and to put it numerically, your theoretical flame temperature on a hydrogen flame, pure hydrogen and air, increases 10% over a typical natural gas flame.  That, indeed, is the root cause of the NOx increase, right?  You’re generating more thermal NOx in a hydrogen flame than you are in a natural gas flame.

It’s true that we can design around that and compensate for it, but we also have to consider that there is a net effect on the design heat transfer of any process piece of equipment.  You now have theoretical flame temperature increasing by 10% and, of course, radiant heat transfer is the temperature differential to the fourth power, so in some applications, you may be seeing radiant heat transfer shift by 15 – 30% in just converting the fuel from natural gas to hydrogen.

Again, it can all be compensated for and designed around, but it also presents the case that you may have a lot of equipment that becomes unusable on hydrogen or, in some cases, needs to be modified or designed or replaced.

PS:  I think one other approach to that issue is oxy-firing.  When you split the water, you end up with a whole bunch of oxygen excess and you can recombine those molecules.  So, direct oxy-firing certainly addresses the presence of nitrogen in the combustion mix and is one way you can deal with that.

DG:  Thinking in the heat treat world, or in industrial applications, generally speaking, what are the main obstacles to this hydrogen combustion being accepted?  John, why don’t we start with you.

JC:  Cost is number one.  Then cost is probably number two and then, number three is cost.  All the technical impediments fall below that.

DG:  Cost of what, though?  Cost of the production of the hydrogen?  Cost of the distribution of the hydrogen?  What are we talking?

JC:  If we’re using steam reformation or reforming using steam, we’re looking at a 3 to 1 BTU loss, so for every BTU of natural gas that enters the process we get one-third of the BTU out.

JW:  It’s better than that.  It’s 70% or so.

JC:  I stand corrected.  The point is, there is a fairly significant loss in all these conversion technologies.  Now, that said, we all expected and all the experts were predicting a certain curve on the efficiency and cost of solar panels.  Correct me, if I’m not wrong, Perry, the market beat the curve significantly over what we expected the cost of photovoltaic electricity to be, what, 15 years ago.  Is that a safe statement?

PS:  I think that’s fair.  I think it’s come down a little faster than expected.

JC:  So, if the technology keeps driving, maybe this whole cost impediment will go away much more rapidly than we anticipate, so I have to say that with a great deal of humility.  If we’re talking out two decades, do we know?  I would argue that it is a “known unknown”. We know that we don’t know necessarily what those costs will be out two decades.

But, as far as other major impediments, as Jeff and everyone had mentioned, we’re looking at scrapping and sidelining a whole lot of equipment, very likely, in the process of making this conversion.  So, we have a lot of capital investment, we have a lot of amortization that is going to have to be realized.

DG:  And thus, what Brian was saying earlier, most of the equipment you guys are putting out now are able to handle both, or that’s what you’re shooting for, so that while you can still burn the natural gas now, later on you don’t have to mothball that equipment if they go hydrogen.

BK:  Yes, some of the things we’re doing is looking at is does it work right out of the box with hydrogen, the nature of the burner?  Does it do certain percentages without modification?   And then, future development, obviously, is we’re looking at fossil fuel base and then what do we replace or how do we modify it if it’s in the field already.  That’s a lot of the stuff that has to be considered because it’s not going to be worldwide in the next ten years probably with our infrastructure, but you’ve got to be ready.  And, especially having some of our major companies in Europe, it’s even more of a spotlight.

DG:  Joe, how about you?  What do you think?  Major impediments to acceptance?

JW:  Of course, cost is a major thing, but there might be other things.  For example, if customers accept non-green steel, if they say, “I don’t want to buy a car which is not made up of green steel,” that could change things pretty quick.  If they accept that the steel costs 30% more, then the hydrogen costs really don’t play a big role.  That is something we don’t know, but that could be a game changer, too.

DG:  Good point.  Perry, how about you?  Any additional thoughts on impediments, here?

PS:  I think there are real regulatory and other sort of externality costs that we need to think through fairly carefully.  All of this hydrogen produced has to be stored and has to be transported and so there are risks that have to be evaluated in terms of what that all means to the environment, as well.  Pipelines aren’t easy to get approved and there is a lot of pipeline that will have to happen, even if it is with a more green product.

And then there is this whole issue of the power grid and how it will support the amount of first energy that has to be replaced, fully, three-quarters of the first energy, at least in the U.S.  These technologies, wind and solar, aren’t viewed universally as positives by the entire environmental community and so there are a lot of issues that we’re going to have to sort through and balance off and I think it’s going to be patchy as we go through; regionally, there will be differences.  The resources are different regionally and so costs are going to be different regionally.  Things may take off in California that don’t take off in Texas or Illinois or wherever.

DG:  Jeff, how about you?  What do you see as major impediments?

JR:  I have two different angles on this.  One is generation technologies.  I caught an article the other day that mentioned that there was something like 60 billion dollars in investment, to try to advance methodologies for generating hydrogen, just in the past year.  So, there are a lot of folks working on this.  There is a lot of fundamental R&D yet to be had because, obviously, our current methods for generating hydrogen really aren’t cost effective.  They are about 8 times more expensive than fossil fuel alternatives per unit of energy.

The flip side of the coin is once we figure out the generation of hydrogen, then you have a problem with distribution and, again, it’s not insurmountable, but to put it in perspective, if you look at the ability to distribute hydrogen currently, it’s going to take new technologies.  We may store hydrogen in other molecules, in solids, we may store it in compressed form, but if you just look at our ability to broadly distribute hydrogen down a pipeline structure, like we have with natural gas, I think the last count is that there’s 1600 miles of hydrogen pipeline in the domestic United States.  There is something like 3 million miles of natural gas pipeline.  So, that puts the scale of the problem in perspective.

Again, there are all kinds of interesting blends to that solution, whether we blend hydrogen into natural gas pipelines, but just on the purest form, hydrogen pipeline versus natural gas pipeline, we haven’t even begun to crack this egg.

DG:  Was it you, Jeff, that mentioned the meeting we had recently regarding old pipelines in New York and/or Boston?

JR:  In many cases—in that 3 million miles of natural gas pipeline, there is a lot of different construction methodologies and, I think, some of the domestic infrastructure distribution, in some cases, is still wood and clay.

DG:  Probably wouldn’t hold hydrogen.

JP:  I think these old structures might hold very well because they used to transport town gas or something like that with 50% hydrogen before natural gas.

DG:  A lot of us are asking pretty standard questions.  This is kind of an ‘out there’ type of question:  Are there questions that we’re not asking about this whole hydrogen move that we ought to be asking?  Are we missing any important questions that we ought to be asking?

JC:  I think we’re going to have to define what out end objective is.  And, if our end objective is to reduce the amount of carbon we’re emitting into the atmosphere, that generates a whole criteria for investment that needs to be evaluated.  This is where, I think, we are on the back end rather than on the front end of the utilization of hydrogen.

I think we’re going to see the hydrogen displacing, first of all, in petroleum products in the form of diesel fuel and gasoline in vehicles, because that technology may well arrive and be more economical as a means to reduce, on a proton CO2 reduction basis, faster than what we do in our industry.  I may be wrong.  There may be breakthrough technologies in batteries that flip the whole thing upside down.  So now, car batteries are significantly more efficient.  But, what we know now, I believe, will push it more, first of all, toward transportation and then, secondarily, to the process heating arena.

That said, to get there in a decade or 15 years or 20 years, we have to get working today in the investments and technology and prototypes and all the good work being done, by Brian and Joe and Jeff, all have to be executed today in order to be prepared for 20 years from now.  But, I expect to see hydrogen used as a transport fuel first and then as a process fuel secondarily.

[blockquote author=”Jeff Rafter” style=”1″]I will throw this out there because we’ve talked a lot about generation, we’ve talked a little bit about utilization and distribution of hydrogen. There is a segment of our industry that also needs to be aware there are challenges, and I would put that at the equipment designers. [/blockquote]

JR:  I will throw this out there because we’ve talked a lot about generation, we’ve talked a little bit about utilization and distribution of hydrogen.  There is a segment of our industry that also needs to be aware there are challenges, and I would put that at the equipment designers.  I think for most of the folks on the call who manufacture and build burner assemblies, again, I said the science is fundamentally well-known, there is not a lot of challenge there, there is a lot of engineering and design yet to be done, but keep in mind that switching to a hydrogen-based combustion process is not likely switching between the fossil fuels we’ve enjoyed in the past.  Because of the changes in the burning speed, the radiant heat transfer, don’t also forget that hydrogen, for per unit energy, generates 50% more water vapor in the exhaust stream.

With that said, some types of equipment are going to be affected by the changes in combustion from a heat transfer, materials of construction perspective, and say, for example, in drying applications.  You, now, are going to have to adjust the process to the fact that you’re trying to drive off and absorb moisture and the burner is contributing to that moisture load within the system.  Those types of examples are probably the next step of evolution.  As hydrogen becomes more available and burner manufacturers solve the challenges around burning the fuel, the next level of evolution is for equipment designers to determine how that impacts their design from heat transfer and the chemical side of moving heat to processes.

DG:  That’s a good point.  So, furnace equipment manufacturers, beware; caveat, equipment manufacturers, beware.  Anybody else want to comment?

PS:  Yes, let me venture a thought here for the group, particularly with respect to the heavy industrial end use, and that is, societally, I think we’re going to have to wrestle with the best end use for each low carbon fuel pathway that we design.  So, if it’s biomass, if it’s renewable natural gas, if it’s hydrogen, hydrogen blends, ammonia, whatever it might be, there is going to be shaking out process in trying to evaluate what end uses should get specific pathways and should be targeted for those in the best interest of all of the societal benefits.

Aviation is a particular challenge.  No one would argue a lot of safety concerns, life safety issues, with a major change in the fueling systems for aviation.  So, should we focus more on very similar drop-in type fuels for aviation which would consume certain low carbon fuels faster than others and preserve those applications?  We need to wrestle with those questions on what types of end fuels make the most sense for what applications.  In this case, because of the potential to move power directly to sites and electrolyze onsite, large, heavy end use industrial applications may be well best suited for pure hydrogen, if you can do it that way.

Those are things we need to think through and ask questions about.  What’s the best fuel for each end use sector?

DG:  Two more, hopefully quick questions, then we’ll wrap up.  First off, I want to talk about geography for a second.  We talked about acceptance of hydrogen technology and things of that sort.  Joe, I think we’ll start with you here on this question:  Does geography make a difference?  Do you anticipate Europe being much quicker to adopt?

JW:  I think, if you look into this round here, it doesn’t seem to be different.  I think, at a different stage, there might be other opinions on the whole topic, as well, so it depends on who you talk to.  I think, here in Europe, we can say human made climate change is pretty much accepted, that it’s something we have to fight.  That might not be the case in every part of the world.

DG:  Does anyone else want to comment on the difference in geography, whether or not we’ll be using hydrogen sooner or later?

BK:  All I know is, here in Texas, there is no climate change.  It’s just hot.  And we love our gas and oil. Come on!

JR:  Doug, I think when we talk about geographies and speed of adoption, again, it’s going to come back to John’s statement:  cost, cost, cost.   The real driver, in addition to just protecting the planet, quite frankly, is the cost of the next best alternative.  Fossil fuels in Europe are inherently more expensive than what they are domestically here in the U.S. and it has a lot to do with any particular country’s access to fossil fuels and their cost of, basically, powering their economies.

So, economics, definitely, is probably the number one driver in everything we’ve discussed, but, frankly, we’re getting to a point where there’s a major resetting of our energy bases.  But, I think, what will affect the regional speed of adoption, is where are they coming from.

JC:  The other thing to point out, and I think Perry brought this up, is the externality of governmental intervention.  So, as much as we sit around and talk about cost and technology impediment, if the government comes down and applies a very large external cost to the use of any carbon-bearing fuel, it could change the economics overnight.  Again, it’s another known unknown.  We don’t know what our government is going to do tomorrow.  They could well change the equation overnight.

DG:  Although, I did find it very interesting the comment that was made earlier, and I forget which one of you gentlemen made it, was if your customers come and say, “Listen, we want only green steel in this” and if that’s widespread, that could be more impactful, to be quite honest, than even government.

Does anyone else want to comment on that?  Then I want to finish up with one final question specific to heat treaters.

PS:  I do think other factors of production are really important and the extent to which the cost of energy is a significant piece of the cost of production for any commodities is a really important factor in determining within an industry, within a particular set of equipment, whether or not they’re going to be able absorb the cost associated with the equipment itself.  Notwithstanding, if you make assumptions that the price of the commodities themselves will come down that you’ll be able to store it and transport it cost effectively, it’s going to come down to where are we producing things?  What’s the infrastructure buildup going to look like?  And so, regionally, that’s going to differ a lot and it’s going to lead to different solutions, region by region.  And, there will be a realigning of certain industries around that.

We’ve already seen it in steel.  It’s been electrified to a large degree with the electric arc furnace, but there is a big chunk of it, better than half of it, that is still, if you EAF everything, you’ve still got a lot of reduction of iron ore that has to happen to continue to supplement that iron content.  But, it’s realigning and that will continue over the next 25-30 years.

DG:  Jeff, did you want to comment here?

JR:  Yes, I was going to add an interesting example.  If you look at today’s carbon economy basis, the geopolitical climate definitely comes into play and, I think, it really comes down to any country’s ability to fund and capitalize these equipment changes, or even current technology.  As a good example, as we sell equipment worldwide for combustion applications today, we often see that developing economies tend to invest and spend their money in decades-old technology.  Their interest, for example, in low NOx burners, is very, very low.  Their interest in higher efficiency systems is very, very low and many of their purchasing decisions are driven, purely, by price and cost total investment.

I suspect, as we try to move from a carbon economy to a decarbonized economy and hydrogen combustion, you’ll see the same types of patterns: there will be early adoption in developed nations and economies that can afford the capital for this new equipment.  There will be a tremendous pace.  It’s a little bit politics, but it’s a heck of a lot of economics.

DG:  For the last question I want to ask you, I need you to put on your “heat treat hats”.  You’re a heat treat manufacturer and you’ve got an in-house heat treat.  What do these individuals need to be doing now to prepare for what, I think most of us agree, is an inevitable move, at some point in time in the future, to either pure hydrogen or hydrogen mix?  What do they need to be doing?  We’re looking for some very practical advice for these heat treaters.

BK:  Probably, don’t be scare of it.  I think Joe brought it up.  We can handle hydrogen.  It’s a situation where it can, actually, maybe a benefit but start doing some research.  Start talking to your suppliers and people that you deal with every day, asking, “What are you doing to look at this industry?  What types of products would you see, Mr. Supplier?” Asking, Are we ready, in the next 10 years, if, all of a sudden, they, on a corporate level, want to move.  That’s, generally, not your mom and pop heat treaters, right?  And, maybe get in line with and start talking to some of the associations – MTI.  MTI is a huge, huge base in the heat treater type market.

So, start aligning with some of the associations.  That could be of benefit to them to have a broader knowledge base to, maybe, know what to expect or have a reference to.  Because, I know some of the associations we deal with the CSA codes and NFPA-86, they’re even scrambling a little bit because it turned a corner a little quicker than they had expected.  So, what, in terms of standards, are going to have to be changed or are going to have to be looked at in the future?

DG:  Joe, what about you?  What can heat treaters be doing now?

JW:  In principle, don’t be afraid of change.  Change will happen.  Be prepared.  You can’t know it now.  We don’t have a “magic ball”.  Things will come and you should be prepared.  Plan on your equipment now, don’t think of the last 20 years and have the last dime out.  Think of the future and be prepared.

DG:  Perry, how about you?  Any thoughts for the heat treat specific market?

PS:  At the risk of sounding a little self-serving for all our electric utilities, I would definitely spend some time looking at highly efficient electric technologies to start with.  That’s two things for you.  First of all, it sort of insulates you from this future risk of having to convert the equipment.  But, there are processes that will not be the best alternative pathway and those have to be evaluated, as well.  The other thing it does for us societally, is it reduces the potential demand for hydrogen and other low carbon fuels.

It is likely to be expensive, it may not be as efficient in the long run and I think, in terms of the infrastructure build-out and all those societal costs that go with the hydrogen or hydrogen-based fuels build-out, it reduces that societal cost if we can directly electrify processes efficiently.  I want to make sure I say “efficiently” in that statement.

DG:  Well, you know, there’s always got to be one bad apple in the group, the guy with electricity.

PS:  I gotta get my plug in, right?

DG:  Thanks, Perry, I appreciate that.  Jeff, why don’t we go to you and then John we’ll give you final say on this one.

JR:  I think I’ll tackle this question in a two-part answer.  I think the first is risk assessment.  It’s definitely not too soon to take stock of all your current equipment and assets, work with your vendors and suppliers to assess your readiness as an operation.  If hydrogen becomes available to your site, as either a partial blend or as a full 100% hydrogen stream, can you utilize it?

Secondarily, don’t forget to monetize the PR and marketing benefit of using hydrogen.  I really think that it has value to a business.  It will help in the future, not only to acquire new customers, but to maintain the customer base you have.  I think the hydrogen economy, the decarbonized economy, is in full force.  It’s going to take a while.  There are a lot of challenges in distribution and generation, but, ultimately, this is the path that probably makes the most sense.

So, get ahead of the curve and don’t forget that that has a value.  Put it on your balance sheet.

DG:  Good advice.  John Clark, why don’t you wrap us up here on this one.

JC:  I absolutely agree with what everyone has said.  I’d like to say that I really do hope that Joe and Jeff are right, that the market is the one that’s going to push people into decarbonize their process.  But, I don’t believe that will happen.  I think the primary driver will be the external driver; it will be some sort of governmental mandate.  So, again, repeating what everyone has said, research, research, research.  Be prepared for a carbon tax that suddenly cripples the cost of your natural gas.  Just keep in mind that the threat of a governmental intervention is, in my humble opinion, the most significant potential driver we have to force us into these paths.

DG:  John, Jeff, Joe, Perry, and Brian, thank you so much.  I really, really appreciate your expertise.  I think we’ve got a lot for people to chew on here.  And, thank you to all of you who are listening to this.  I appreciate your time, as well.  We hope you’ve found this “Heat Treat Tomorrow” discussion very helpful.  If you have questions, for myself or any of these experts on the panel today, please address them to me and I will put you in touch with them.  You can reach me at doug@heattreattoday.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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