In mid-March, the Department of Energy announced it was offering $750 million for “research, development, and demonstration efforts to dramatically reduce the cost of clean hydrogen.”
The agency claimed hydrogen is “set to play a vital future role in reducing emissions” and that “hydrogen development will strengthen America’s energy independence.” [emphasis, links added]
On May 22, the DOE announced it was awarding some $42 million that will be spent on 22 projects in 14 states to “advance critical technologies for producing, storing, and deploying clean hydrogen.”
In a press release, the DOE said it was continuing to “make strides toward achieving President Biden’s Investing in America agenda — to reach a 100% clean electricity grid by 2035 and net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.”
The release quoted Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm as saying the spending plan is a “bold step” in the decarbonization effort and that the “bold investments are ensuring the U.S. leads the way in hydrogen technology.”
On June 5, the DOE announced a national “clean hydrogen strategy and roadmap” that “complements a historic $9.5 billion investment for clean hydrogen through the President’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law” and the new “production tax credit for clean hydrogen” in the Inflation Reduction Act.
It dutifully quoted Granholm saying the roadmap will “lay the foundation” for government and industry to “realize the full potential of this incredibly versatile energy resource.”
On June 12, one week after that latest batch of hydrogen hype from the DOE, India’s Ministry of Power ordered 15 power plants that burn imported coal to run at full output through September 30.
As reported by CNBCTV18, the ministry invoked the “Electricity Act of 2003 to avoid any outage due to a sudden rise in power demand.”
The move was the latest effort by the Indian government to avert blackouts as the country continues to grapple with soaring electricity demand growth.
Two days later, on June 14, the Vietnam News Agency reported that the country’s state-owned coal miner, Vinacomin, will boost production by 15% this year so that it can increase supplies of fuel to the country’s power stations.
The announcement follows several weeks of rolling blackouts in Vietnam that are wreaking havoc on the manufacturers that have been flocking to the country.
A June 12 Reuters article quoted Hong Sun, the chairman of the Korean Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam, who said, “Many factories have had to suspend production due to severe power cuts, and the cuts are regular…This is a very serious problem for South Korean companies operating in Vietnam.”
Despite significant investments in hydro, solar, and wind, Vietnam is now getting about 60% of its juice from coal-fired power plants.
Since 2009, Vietnam’s coal-fired electricity output has grown tenfold and more growth is on the way.
Last year, according to Global Energy Monitor, Vietnam commissioned about 1,900 megawatts of new coal-fired capacity. (More on Vietnam in a moment.)
The contrast between the rhetoric coming from the climate claque in Washington and the hard realities of electricity-impoverished countries like India, Vietnam, Pakistan, South Africa, and Bangladesh (which is also in the midst of an electricity crisis), could not be more stark.
While the U.S. government is fire-hosing hundreds of billions of dollars on weather-dependent renewables and blue, green, and tutti-frutti hydrogen, developing countries — as well as advanced economies like Japan and Germany — are burning all the coal they can find.
Why? The Iron Law of Electricity.
The Iron Law of Electricity says that people, businesses, and countries will do whatever they have to do to get the electricity they need. And for countries all over the world, that means burning coal, lots and lots of coal.
There’s no doubt that the Inflation Reduction Act has set off a feeding frenzy as the rent-seekers at big banks, big law firms, and big business look to take advantage of one of the biggest corporate giveaways in American history. (All of it done in the name of climate change, of course.)
But the hard reality is that all that spending won’t make a dent in the world’s unslakable thirst for electricity, which continues to be the globe’s most important and fastest-growing form of energy.
That matters, of course, because the electricity sector is the biggest producer of global CO2 emissions, and coal combustion is the largest single source of those emissions.
To be sure, these coal realities don’t fit the narrative that is relentlessly promoted by the anti-industry industry, elite academics, climate activists, and their myriad allies in the legacy media that we can run the world solely on weather-dependent renewables, batteries, and a big dose of hopium.
Yes, coal use in the U.S. and Europe is falling. But, as can be seen in the graphic above, coal-fired generation in Asia is soaring.
And despite massive spending on renewables, wind and solar still only supply about 10% of global electricity.
Furthermore, coal’s share of global generation hasn’t budged in nearly 40 years. Since 1985, the carbon-heavy fuel has been consistently burned to generate between 36% and 40% of the world’s electricity.
Further, coal will stick around for a long time. Last December, the International Energy Agency reported “the current energy crisis has forced some countries to increase their reliance on coal in spite of climate and energy targets.”
The agency also predicted that global coal demand will likely plateau, but is unlikely to peak until 2025.
Also notable in that report was this line about the world’s most populous country: “India’s coal consumption has doubled since 2007 at an annual growth rate of 6% — and it is set to continue to be the growth engine of global coal demand.”
“…the current energy crisis has forced some countries to increase their reliance on coal in spite of climate and energy targets.”
In March, the IEA released a report on CO2 emissions in 2022. The agency said “emissions from coal grew by 1.6% or 243 million tons” in 2022, “far exceeding the last decade’s average growth rate, and reaching a new all-time high of almost 15.5 billion tons.”
Much of this coal growth is happening in China, which accounts for more than half of all global coal consumption and a shade more than half (52%) of all the electricity generated from coal.
Yesterday, June 16, Reuters reported that during the first five months of this year, coal-fired generation in China jumped by 6.6%. And that trend will continue.
In February, Global Energy Monitor reported that China permitted about two new coal-fired power plants per day in 2022.
The permitted plants will have “a staggering 106 gigawatts of new coal capacity…equivalent to 100 large coal-fired power plants.”
The group also noted that “China has seen a rapid increase in electric peak loads…due to an increase in the prevalence of air conditioners and exceptionally intense heat waves. This is prompting an increase in coal power plant development.”
Read rest at Substack
I guess we’ve got the greatest minds working at the DOE to come up with hydrogen as the new great thing for energy. But gotta ask them: where does this hydrogen come from? There are only two sources, either stripping it from natural gas or splitting H2O into hydrogen and oxygen (we did that on subs but to make oxygen for breathing, expelling the H2 overboard).
The first one (from methane) means continuing to drill for fossil fuels but Biden says no to more drilling. The second requires both lots of water as well as lots of electricity to split the molecules. Where does this electricity come from?
Finally, hydrogen is the smallest element and is therefore difficult to contain so there is lots of leakage of hydrogen. Storing it, pumping it are problematic. But hey, those are all minor details for anybody trying to get rich off government money.
Enviro-Nimby’s don’t want wind turbines in their face, so put them up where nobody lives. Lots of wind far away from power demand, but transmission losses squelch that plan. Put up the turbines and make hydrogen fuel with the electricity? I think that this idea is proof that the Big Green Energy Machine is milking the gullible taxpayer. It has Al Gore’s stamp of approval.