Blue Hydrogen Economy - A New Look at an Old Idea

Abstract

Abstract Previous efforts to promote hydrogen as an energy carrier described a Utopian world in which renewable resources provided all energy for heating, electricity, transportation, and industrial needs. The elegance of this vision overlooked the cost and the footprint represented by the renewable energy resources required to generate so much electricity, and the additional cost required to employ electrolysis to generate hydrogen for energy storage not possible for electricity. Today an abundance of natural gas offers an option for hydrogen generation from methane that can include capturing and storing CO2 produced from the generation process. This results in blue hydrogen, effectively as ecologically attractive as the green hydrogen from electrolysis, and considerably less expensive. This paper evaluates a New Hydrogen Economy employing blue hydrogen as a bridge to net zero greenhouse gas emissions. Of particular interest is the observation that depleted natural gas reservoirs offer pore space sufficient to store about 1.5 times the CO2 coming from hydrogen generation from the produced natural gas. The implication of this observation is that blue hydrogen generation need not rely on saline aquifer storage or on CO2 Enhanced Oil Recovery. We find that blue hydrogen cost is comparable to the cost of current crude oil-based transportation fuels. Further, electricity generated using blue hydrogen is less expensive than decarbonized electricity generated from natural gas with post combustion CO2 capture and storage. The infrastructure required for this energy transition can leverage existing natural gas transport and storage and existing petroleum industry skills. Energy companies committed to net zero emissions need not rely only on renewable energy sources or nuclear power. Further, switching to blue hydrogen reduces or eliminates combustion related pollution including nitrogen and sulfur oxides. Finally, the Blue Hydrogen Economy makes efficient and cost effective use of petroleum engineering core skills, as well as the core skills championed by the petroleum industry.