Hydrogen the Smart Way

Innova was mentioned in this incredibly insightful article published by the BOE Report.

Policymakers around the globe have overlooked a transformative way to transport hydrogen: via natural gas and the trillions of historical investment dollars in associated natural gas pipelines, infrastructure, and workforce.

"One would think and hope that policymakers would, if so enamoured of hydrogen, find ways to utilize the existing infrastructure in any way possible first and foremost, because even in the tar pits of bureaucracy it must be known that building new infrastructure of any stripe is beyond challenging.

"There are ways... to generate hydrogen cleanly and on a massive scale that should be foremost in any government’s mind before pursuing multi-billion dollar thought exercises that 'look good on paper'.

"Consider methane pyrolysis [such as Innova's technology], a process by which natural gas... is heated in a reactor in a way that decomposes the gas into hydrogen and 'carbon black', a substance used in plastics, ink, and rubber products.

"Carbon black can also be configured... into other high-value carbon based materials like carbon nanotubes or carbon fibre or graphene...

"The beauty of methane pyrolysis is that it utilizes to a great degree the trillions of dollars worth of infrastructure and knowledge that has already been developed and time-tested and works incredibly well.

"Consider the challenges of distributing a gas through a pipeline system, all the way from massive 36-inch mainline pipes (or bigger) right down to tiny low pressure lines that provide heat, cooking, and clothes drying services (about half the homes in the US rely on natural gas).

"In addition to residential usage, this same natural gas system fuels much of the world’s industrial processes including fertilizer production and processing of many critical metals/materials.

"Think of the cost of implementing that system, and the cost of duplicating it with something else... Abandoning the natural gas system in pursuit of something else is madness, if there is any alternative at all. And there is."

Methane pyrolysis.

"There are hundreds of thousands of miles of natural gas pipe in the ground, globally. We have vast resources of natural gas around the world. We have a highly-skilled workforce that is incredibly good at finding and producing natural gas. The investment and knowledge base is unbelievably large.

"The technology behind methane pyrolysis is well proven, and the processes involved are well understood (current research is focused on making the process more efficient). Hydrogen can be produced without the construction of wind farms, solar fields and/or the development of carbon capture/sequestration schemes necessary to de-carbonize traditional hydrogen-generating processes.

"This is very exciting stuff. It’s real, the technology works, and it could be a massive boost towards emissions reduction – and it might create a whole new industry. Or industries.

"Hydrogen via methane pyrolysis is the sort of capital-efficient new-energy dream scenario that governments should be most interested in."

Read the full article here.