By Julian Singer The Canadian company GH Power thinks it has found a way to produce green hydrogen at a fraction of the cost of electrolysis. Electrolysis uses electricity, renewable in this case, to separate water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. The process is only moderately efficient with at least 20 per cent of the [...]
By Barney Smith Hydrogen is increasing being talked about as a “Miracle Cure” for those industries which are highly resistant to decarbonisation, like cement and heavy transport . There is no doubt that interest in hydrogen is on the rise worldwide, for hydrogen and its derivatives, ammonia and methanol, have the enormous advantage that they can be consumed [...]
By Julian Singer Pumped hydro storage was the first long term electricity storage system, having been introduced in the 1890’s in Italy and Switzerland. The total capacity of such systems is still more than from any other technique world-wide. However, in most countries there is not much potential for future development. A natural pumped storage [...]
By Julian Singer Hydrogen is often considered as a means for storing electricity, using electrolysers to make the hydrogen and fuel cells to convert it back to electricity. However, there are two downsides to using hydrogen for storage: it has very low density, so that in practice you either need a large underground cavern or, [...]
By Julian Singer The desperate need to store electricity has stimulated the development of some surprising techniques. One of these is based on the rusting of iron. The basic principle is that electrons are produced when iron rusts in the presence of water and oxygen. Conversely, if an electrical current is applied to rust the [...]
By Julian Singer On 7 June, at one of the Oxford Energy seminars, Dr. Chris Ballentine gave a fascinating talk entitled “Natural (gold) Hydrogen – Pipeline or Pipe dream?”. Gold hydrogen is hydrogen that occurs naturally in the earth’s surface. How wonderful if we could just drill for it like methane! The idea seemed absurd [...]
By Julian Singer Tees Valley Lithium (TVL) aims to build what it claims will be the first major low carbon Lithium Hydroxide (LIH) plant in the UK. Currently there are no LIH plants in Europe, even though it is the principal form of lithium required by battery manufacturers, in particular those using the most popular [...]
By Julian Singer Clean Power Hydrogen, or CPH2, manufactures a membrane-free electrolyser to produce so-called green hydrogen from electricity and water. The company was founded in Ireland in 2012 by Dr Nigel Williamson and Joe Scott but established its headquarters in Doncaster in 2018. Dr Williamson had worked for ITM Power, the leading UK electrolyser [...]
By Julian Singer AMTE Power, the Thurso-based manufacturer of lithium-ion and sodium-ion batteries, marked the first anniversary of its AIM listing in February. Its shares were sold for 175p at the initial public offering but have dropped steadily since then to their present value of 90p. This is disappointing, given the need for energy storage [...]
By Julian Singer Nel ASA is a Norwegian company that claims to be not only the first but also the largest manufacturer of electrolysers in the world. It started as a part of Norsk Hydro in 1927 at a time when Norway was beginning to devote some of its huge potential for hydroelectric power to [...]