Lots to do today for a hydrogen tomorrow

By COLLIN GALLANT on July 8, 2022.

cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant

City officials say one of the first questions they get about an ongoing effort to make Medicine Hat a hydrogen fuel hub is whether it’s all “science fiction,” the stuff of the future, but near-term steps are called for in a new report into developing the industry here.

The “Towards Hydrogen” report recommends reaching out to industry and potential customers to create a co-ordinated effort to build local demand and eventual sales of the clean-burning fuel in utility and transportation sectors.

Administrators held a webinar on Thursday to further explain the report and “clear up misconceptions” about the fuel that governments see as key to hitting climate targets over the next three decades.

“Southeast Alberta has tremendous potential to become a hydrogen superpower,” utility commissioner Brad Maynes told a later meeting of council’s utility and infrastructure committee.

“We’ve said that one entity cannot make this happen – the federal government can say ‘hydrogen will happen’ and make it happen.

“The demand has to show up, supply and cars have to be available. We have that potential to blend hydrogen into our utility operations.”

City officials say the first near-term projects could help build market demand that could lead to a knock on investments by companies, either to produce or use hydrogen.

Transportation is an immediate target as hydrogen fuel cells are now advancing for long-distance heavy transport, railway locomotives and farm machinery.

The itself city has a large vehicle fleet which Maynes said Wednesday that by 2030 could be changed over time to operate on hydrogen, just as it was buses and garbage trucks run on compressed natural gas today.

Report author Randy Litun told 50 attendees to the webinar, which will be posted to the city’s website soon, it’s likely a commercial hydrogen fuelling station would be built in Medicine Hat in the next three to five years if an Alberta trucking association pilot program is expanded.

“Hydrogen has been used for years,” he said. “It’s a matter of getting it accepted going forward as the go-to fuel. When you get rid of all the social concerns you want energy sources at a lowest cost.

“As a society we’re saying that we want to care about the environment, and that will drive people to products like hydrogen,” and the low cost again becomes a factor.

Two major chemical plants in Medicine Hat already produce about 10 per cent of the industrial hydrogen in Alberta, according to the report.

Currently, the Methanex methanol plant and CF Industries fertilizer plant already use that entire amount – about 1,200 tonnes of synthetic gas per day – in their own production lines. Both however have expressed strong interest in moving into the hydrogen market, with the methanol (made up mostly of hydrogen with carbon and oxygen), or ammonia (hydrogen and nitrogen), as more easily transportable carriers of the gas.

Both are partners in the initial report, with CF going further having approved green and low carbon ammonia projects at one U.S. plant site while it says it evaluates other production facilities.

Utility and infrastructure committee chair Coun. Alison Van Dyke told the News that the council will evaluate interest, but is likely prepared to make some investment itself.

“The new budget (for 2023-24) request will come out later this year and I imagine there will be some representation for hydrogen in that,” she said.

“In some ways it’s long existing technology, but there are innovative ways that it is being used that are relatively new.

“There will have to be some choices about what we pursue initially dependent on budgets.”

City officials are watching the results of an Atco pilot program in Fort Saskatchewan to blend levels of hydrogen into natural gas used for residential heating and cooking.

The city’s report assumes that hydrogen made with excess renewable energy could become a valuable tool to fuel base-load thermal power plants that currently use natural gas.

Locally, city utility administrators believe some level of hydrogen blending in the fuel mix at the north side power plant complex, could be attained.

That would reduce carbon dioxide emissions and therefore reduce the city’s carbon TIER levy compliance cost on one third of the city’s power production that was only commissioned in the last four years.

However, the main benefit could be felt at the much larger river valley plant that still operates steam driven turbines, which have become relatively inefficient compared to new technology.

When burned, hydrogen produces water vapour (steam) and – as refitting to use hydrogen fuel at the main facility occurs when major maintenance is expected by 2030 – could lower costs and extend the life of the site, administrators said earlier this year.

27
-26