How to Get Heat And Electricity From Hydrogen

Originally published on Forbes.com on November 9, 2023

Heat to 700 degrees C in a few minutes, without combustion. This could replace industrial coal or oil burners and change the energy paradigm.

New Mexico in the U.S. is a rich oil state, second only to Texas. So why does New Mexico want a radical new hydrogen-to-heat energy from Australia?

First, the state wants to make energy that’s clean, meaning energy with low carbon emissions (not oil or natural gas). Hydrogen is clean energy and releases no emissions when it burns in car engines or when it’s converted to electricity.

But the hydrogen itself can be unclean if it’s made from methane (blue hydrogen which is cheap). Or the hydrogen can be clean if it’s made by electrolyzing water (green hydrogen which is expensive).

Second, New Mexico wants hydrogen-to-heat energy from Australia because the country has a new method to convert hydrogen into heat, without combustion. The system can be used directly in heavy industry or converted into electricity for just about any electrical application. Without combustion means avoiding a big mechanical step in power plants that have to burn coal to make heat (which release bad carbon emissions) and then make electricity.

The deal.

An Australian company called Star Scientific has announced it will start building a factory in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2024. The investment is about $100 million, and the plant will eventually employ 200 employees to work at a 50-acre site that will contain up to 10 buildings – that will house all the way from R&D to management.

The deal was announced in Sydney late last month when the state governor, Michelle Lujan-Grisham met with Andrew Horvath, global group chairman of Star Scientific.

The new technology.

Curiously, the company made this discovery while studying nuclear fusion. They found a catalyst that encourages hydrogen gas to combine with oxygen gas to form water, and the reaction releases a large amount of heat. It’s really chemistry, not physics, but it does remind us of two hydrogen atoms fusing to helium and releasing enormous amounts of nuclear energy, which is the basis of the hydrogen bomb.

In a laboratory demonstration, with inflow pipes for hydrogen and oxygen, within just a few minutes the catalyst became hot and orange in color as its temperature shot up to 713 C degrees. Such a temperature will be sufficient to provide heat for some industrial processes, without combustion, which would definitely simplify the process.

The catalyst is a secret, and of course, it’s patented. The process is called HERO which stands for Hydrogen Energy Release Optimiser.

Any desired temperature up to 700C degrees can be used to heat homes and offices. But it can also heat water into steam to drive turbines that produce electricity. The process is similar to what happens in a coal-fired power plant, except there the coal is combusted and releases heavy carbon emissions. In this case, swapping a coal-fired boiler within an existing power plant with a HERO process would cut emissions, according to Star Scientific.

If the inflow is green hydrogen, there will be no carbon emissions in the entire process. On the other hand, lots of energy will have been used to electrolyze water into hydrogen and oxygen, which is an inefficient process.

If the inflow is blue hydrogen, the full-life advantage of HERO is not clear, because blue hydrogen is produced along with a bi-product, CO2, that will have to be removed from the system by carbon capture and storage (CCS).

How does HERO compare with a hydrogen fuel cell?

A hydrogen fuel cell has an anode and a cathode and it looks a bit like battery action. The system uses a platinum catalyst which is an expensive part.

Fuel cells produce electricity and heat but the heat is rarely used. Also, the electrical power is generally too small for hard-to-abate sectors (about 9%), where HERO should have an advantage. The rest of industry (15%) called industry combustion, is addressable by electrification with batteries according to Rystad Energy. Fuel cells and HERO should have opportunities here.

But fuel cells have a relatively high efficiency, 65%, compared with a coal-fired power plant of 34%. The efficiency of HERO will be critical for its applications. Once HERO’s performance, cost, and durability are demonstrated, it should be able to provide power or heat in many sectors such as transportation, heating commercial and residential buildings, and possibly in reversible grid systems.

Star Scientific is bullish on HERO. “Hydrogen can generate enough heat to be used to fire industrial processes, like a cement plant. It also has applications in other hard-to-decarbonize sectors, like long-haul shipping, or other heavy industrial processes that require immense heat or electricity that today generally come from fossil fuels.”

The political side.  

Star Scientific is just the latest international company to be recruited successfully to New Mexico this year, joining companies from Singapore, Taiwan, and Germany, according to the governor’s office.

Star Scientific, who was also considering whether to locate in Texas, was sold on the “governor’s bullish approach to hydrogen, and our [state’s] bullish approach on climate,” New Mexico Environment Secretary James Kenney said.

The Australian company was also impressed with how innovative people were in various industries in New Mexico. One example of such innovation is BayoTech a company that actually produces and markets hydrogen fuel in New Mexico.

The company makes hydrogen cheaper and with a lower carbon footprint than large centralized plants that deliver hydrogen to chemical plants and refineries. Feedstocks can be clean natural gas or biomethane sources.

BayoTech Inc. announced on November 2, a newly completed hydrogen hub in Wentzville, Missouri.  It can generate 350 tons of hydrogen per year for use in fuel cells and industrial processes. The company also demonstrated an electric semi-truck powered by a Nikola hydrogen fuel cell, and also a New Flyer fuel cell bus. BayoTech plans to buy 50 of these Nikola fuel cell trucks in a partnership with that company.

Before Star Scientific, there had been two other state initiatives to build out hydrogen generation. First was the Hydrogen Hub Act proposed to the legislature of New Mexico. It failed to pass as it was perceived by many as a tax credit subsidy to the oil and gas industry when the goal of many stakeholders was to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energies.

Second was a joint enterprise with three neighboring states called the Western Interstate Hydrogen Hub, or WISHH. This was to compete for several different hydrogen projects for various state-related applications, some green and some blue hydrogen. A proposal that aligned with the goals of the Infrastructure Act of 2021 was submitted to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) that would fund several hydrogen hubs across the country. The proposal passed the first elimination but failed the second. Seven hubs were funded recently for about $1 billion each. It was reported that the governor said the DOE felt that the 4 -states combined had the interest and could find the funding to progress the joint project by themselves.

Takeaways.                                       

New Mexico wants hydrogen-to-heat energy from Australia because the country has a new method to convert hydrogen into heat, without combustion.

The system can be used directly in heavy industry where intense heat is required, or converted into electricity for just about any electrical application.

An Australian company called Star Scientific has announced it will start building a factory in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2024. The investment is about $100 million.

Swapping a coal-fired boiler within an existing power plant by a HERO process would cut emissions, according to Star Scientific, and probably cost less.

If the inflow to HERO is green hydrogen, there will be no carbon emissions in the entire process.

The efficiency of HERO will be critical for its applications. Once HERO’s performance, cost, and durability are demonstrated, it should be able to provide power or heat in many sectors such as transportation, heating commercial and residential buildings, and possibly in reversible grid systems.

HERO also has potential applications in other hard-to-decarbonize sectors, like long-haul shipping, or heavy industrial processes that require intense heat or electricity that today come from fossil fuels

BayoTech Inc., based in New Mexico, announced on November 2, a newly completed hydrogen hub in Wentzville, Missouri.  It can generate 350 tons of hydrogen per year for use in fuel cells and industrial processes. The company also demonstrated an electric semi-truck powered by a Nikola hydrogen fuel cell, and also a New Flyer fuel cell bus. BayoTech plans to buy 50 of these Nikola fuel cell trucks in a partnership with that company.