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South Australian Labor clearly hope their new Hydrogen Plan can help them win back power in the March 2022 state election.<\/p>\r\n
Will their huffing of hydrogen hype lift them higher than a zeppelin, or will it bomb? <\/p>\r\n
Labor’s plan outlines how clean, green South Australian hydrogen will be…<\/p>\r\n
The plan has a tight focus on burning hydrogen to generate electricity. Their goal is to build a hydrogen power station in South Australia.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
In my opinion, this is a lousy idea that will only lose money.\u00a0 I’ll outline a better alternative, but first I’ll give details of their plan so you can decide for yourself if I’m full of hot air.<\/p>\r\n
In a nutshell, SA Labor plans to spend $593 million to build 200 megawatts of dispatchable1<\/a><\/sup> hydrogen generation. \u00a0The fuel for this power plant will be produced and stored in South Australia.\u00a0 The plan also sells the vague hope of a hydrogen export industry years from now.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n While it’s possible South Australia will export considerable quantities of hydrogen in the future, building a hydrogen power station that loses money isn’t a good way to increase the odds of that happening.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n You can read the hydrogen plan here<\/a>.\u00a0 It won’t take long as there’s not a lot of detail in its 19 pages.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n There are three parts:<\/p>\r\n This summary from the plan gives the cost of these components:<\/p>\r\n This is all scheduled to be completed by the end of 2025.\u00a0 So if State Labor — currently in opposition — wins the 2022 election, they’ll have around three and a half years to get the job done.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n Electrolysers extract hydrogen from water, and enough of them will be built to draw 250 megawatts of power.\u00a0 The idea is they’ll operate when electricity is cheap.<\/p>\r\n Electrolysers can be 80% efficient.\u00a0 This means supplying them with 10 kilowatt-hours of electrical energy will produce hydrogen that will provide 8 kilowatt-hours of heat energy when burned.\u00a0 If hydrogen is used for electricity generation rather than just heat, there will be additional losses.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n With a projected cost of $220 million, the electrolysers come to $880 per kilowatt.\u00a0 This is a lot better than the $1,000 a kilowatt figure that recently was considered optimistic for 2030<\/a>. \u00a0But at that price, I don’t expect them to be the highest efficiency electrolysers available.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n Around $31 million will be spent on storage for 3,600 tonnes of liquid hydrogen<\/a>.\u00a0 That seems cheap to me because it’s the sort of thing only space agencies have done before.2<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0 Liquid hydrogen is not easy to produce or store. \u00a0Hydrogen, whether liquid or gas, also embrittles<\/a> many metals.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n Liquid hydrogen is so light, one kilogram has a volume of 14 litres.\u00a0 This means 3,600 tonnes is 50 million litres. or 20 Olympic swimming pools.\u00a0 It’s also 34 times more than the hydrogen consumption of a space shuttle flight and 23 times what a Saturn V<\/a> moon rocket required3<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\r\nA Costly Project<\/h2>\r\n
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<\/p>\r\n250 MW Of Bargain Basement Electrolysers<\/h2>\r\n
A Crap Load Of Liquid Hydrogen Storage<\/h2>\r\n