Because it is not as difficult as you think it is. A lot of gas infrastructure can be converted to use hydrogen and we have the technology to handle hydrogen. That basicly means new seals and pumps for pipelines and some storage sites can be converted as well. With that you get a massive storage site. Even more importantly a lot of chemical processes use hydrogen and some steel production processes as well.
The problem is that hydrogen is going to be more expensive then electricity and electrolysis units are very expensive today. So if you can electrify something it propably is smarter to do that then to use hydrogen.
I thought the issue with hydrogen is that it is literally small enough in gas form to just pass through materials used in existing infra.
And storing it in liquid form is very difficult (ie, have to keep it cold, as the high pressure will just force the gaseous hydrogen through the tank/pipe walls).
I wouldn’t be comfortable with the thought of wall/roof cavities filling up with hydrogen.
Did a gig a while ago that ran on hydrogen generators as a publicity stunt.
There was a 10m exclusion zone around the fuel tanks.
I presume that was just “new tech? hyper health&safety”.
A lot of the gas infrastructure was originally built for coal gas and that has a high hydrogen content. Standards have often been kept and so a lot of infrastructure is able to handle it.
Because it is not as difficult as you think it is. A lot of gas infrastructure can be converted to use hydrogen and we have the technology to handle hydrogen. That basicly means new seals and pumps for pipelines and some storage sites can be converted as well. With that you get a massive storage site. Even more importantly a lot of chemical processes use hydrogen and some steel production processes as well.
The problem is that hydrogen is going to be more expensive then electricity and electrolysis units are very expensive today. So if you can electrify something it propably is smarter to do that then to use hydrogen.
I thought the issue with hydrogen is that it is literally small enough in gas form to just pass through materials used in existing infra.
And storing it in liquid form is very difficult (ie, have to keep it cold, as the high pressure will just force the gaseous hydrogen through the tank/pipe walls).
I wouldn’t be comfortable with the thought of wall/roof cavities filling up with hydrogen.
Did a gig a while ago that ran on hydrogen generators as a publicity stunt.
There was a 10m exclusion zone around the fuel tanks.
I presume that was just “new tech? hyper health&safety”.
A lot of the gas infrastructure was originally built for coal gas and that has a high hydrogen content. Standards have often been kept and so a lot of infrastructure is able to handle it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_gas
Did it have high hydrogen? Or was it hydrocarbons rich in hydrogen?
Hydrogen gas. The basic reaction is something like:
3C (i.e., coal) + O2 + H2O → H2 + 3CO
It depends on the process thou and it is usually not super clean.