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Michael Liebreich Profile picture
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9 Oct, 8 tweets, 5 min read
On the surface, hydrogen looks like the answer to every energy question. Sadly, it displays an impressive list of disadvantages. Even so, it holds a vice-like grip over the imaginations of techno-optimists. Part I of my deep dive into #hydrogen: supply. about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
Jeremy Rifkin captured the millennial zeitgeist in his book "The Hydrogen Economy: The Creation of the Worldwide Energy Web and the Redistribution of Power on Earth". This was not hydrogen as engineering solution so much as hydrogen as liberation theology.
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
Instead of a miraculous ability to redistribute power to the people, one of the main properties of #hydrogen turned out to be relieving its backers of their wealth.
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
The EU Green Deal and Covid recovery budget have at their heart the EU Hydrogen Strategy, a plan to invest €320 billion to €458 billion ($380 to $550 billion) by 2030 in the supply and distribution of green #hydrogen competitive with grey (fossil).
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
Will massive wall of money which is about to break over the hydrogen supply side, work? Sort of. Europe will have cheap green hydrogen, but much of it imported, and much of the rest probably not based on European electrolyzers or European renewable power. about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
Next week, Part II - demand. Where on earth is all this cheap green hydrogen meant to go? You won't want to miss it...
Oh, I almost forgot: "#Nuclear power has two great advantages over renewables for industrial processes like hydrogen production: it likes to run 24/7, and it produces waste heat which can be used. Whether those advantages are enough, remains to be tested."
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
Also: "One final zero-carbon hydrogen concept that is worth mentioning is the elegant 'thermal hydrogen' approach proposed by @Jared_TH2". Burn natural gas in oxygen, produced as a by-product from electrolysis powered by an Allam Cycle, with pure CO2 as exhaust. Elegantissimo!

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More from @MLiebreich

Michael Liebreich Profile picture
7 Aug
The way @MichaelMarmot is pointing the finger exclusively at the government for the deaths of 29 London bus drivers of Covid-19 is outrageous. Read the @UCL IHE report, not just the PR, you'll see it does not establish that late lockdown was *the main factor* at all. 1/n
The IHE Phase 1 report claims "the study reinforces the point that lockdown is the most effective measure for reducing mortality among bus drivers.” But it made no effort whatsoever to look at measures that could have been taken by @MayorofLondon Mayor and @TfL but were not. 2/n
Nor did the IHE Phase 1 report examine whether the bus companies rigorously instituted Covid-19 safety measures when they claimed they did. Nor did it look at the effectiveness of measures taken to protect drivers by other cities around the world. 3/n
Read 22 tweets
Michael Liebreich Profile picture
31 Jul
The long-delayed @LondonAssembly Transport Committee report on bus and tram safety has been published. I speak as a former chair of the TfL board's safety panel, and frankly, I find it an insult to the ~6,000 people killed and injured every year by buses and trams in London. 1/9
Context. In the aftermath of the Sandilands tram crash, @TfL failed to pass on a critical fatigue audit to investigators. The failure was never investigated. In July 2019 the @LondonAssembly passed a resolution calling on the Mayor to appoint an independent investigator. 2/9
I was keen to testify to the @LondonAssembly enquiry, but successive @UKLabour chairs of the Transport Committee tried to block me in order to spare @SadiqKhan from embarassment. In the end they failed, and I did my best to raise my concerns. 3/9
Read 10 tweets
Michael Liebreich Profile picture
1 May
Covid-19 hit the world’s urban transportation systems like a heart attack. As lockdowns are eased, the risk is that they will suffer the equivalent of debilitating chronic heart disease - with low demand but even lower capacity. My latest, with @SamRyan17. liebreich.com/liebreich-publ…
This virus is not going to miraculously disappear; it is here until we have a safe vaccine or until we stamp it out the old-fashioned way with social distancing, testing, tracing and quarantine. 2/n
Transport demand is going to stay low. Discretionary travel will be discouraged; home-working will remain ubiquitous, business travel will be almost non-existent. Consumption is not going to come roaring back, it is going to limp along. 3/n
Read 16 tweets
Michael Liebreich Profile picture
5 Apr
At least 5 London bus drivers have tragically died of Covid-19. Sadiq says "TfL have ensured measures have been taken to keep staff as safe as possible", but bus drivers are contractors, not TfL staff. What did he do to ensure bus companies kept passengers and drivers safe?
This looks like the natural result of TfL's failure to take responsibility for safe provision of contracted services - also implicated in the Sandilands crash - which I described in my evidence to the suspended @LondonAssembly bus and tram safety enquiry:
drive.google.com/open?id=1_3RG7…
We need to know what TfL and its chair @MayorofLondon did to ensure bus companies were enforcing social distancing by drivers and passengers, cleaning vehicles, providing washing facilities and giving PPE to their drivers. These are TfL services, no use blaming government.
Read 13 tweets
Michael Liebreich Profile picture
26 Mar
Covid-19: The Low-Carbon Crisis. My latest for @BloombergNEF is a deep dive into the implications of the pandemic on the energy and transport transition. TLDR: it changes everything: about.bnef.com/blog/covid-19-…
At the end of last year I predicted that energy-related CO2 emissions would peak and then drop by around 5% by 2030.  Never before has one of my big predictions been proven quite so right, so quickly – albeit for entirely unforeseen and tragic reasons. about.bnef.com/blog/covid-19-…
I don’t feel particularly comfortable speculating about the impact of Covid'19 on the low carbon transition, given the scale of the human tragedy that is unfolding. But there is too much talk of quick recoveries and oh-so-clever green stimulus programs. about.bnef.com/blog/covid-19-…
Read 27 tweets
Michael Liebreich Profile picture
24 Feb
After 2 days of negotiation, G20 finance ministers agree that "the FSB is examining the financial stability implications of climate change." At the G20 Energy Ministerial in Argentina, we did no work on energy, just discussed the communiqué. US leadership.
uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/id…
Since you ask, I suspect the Financial Stability Board will conclude climate change poses little systemic financial risk. 1) Per IMF, an individual climate disaster may wipe 0.4% off GDP growth for the countries affected for one year. Globally modest compared to Coronavirus.
2) The catastrophic physical risks - multiple disasters in one year, disasters that span whole continents are not likely for several (or many) decades. I know that's not the @ExtinctionR line, but it's what the @IPCC_CH says and it's also my reading of the science.
Read 11 tweets

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