Hydrogen economic comparison

The price of oil itself is not clearly accounted for until the subsidies for exploration and the actual cost of Middle East defense is added. Only recently have the true costs of fossil fuel energy been studied, from defense commitments to long term health care for nationwide respiratory illnesses. Hydrogen must face economic comparisons to gasoline, but we notice that the oil and gas industries are already investing in the hydrogen economy. 

For the economic comparison of the two storage options, the specific re-electrifi-cation costs of the stored wind energy are calculated. These costs are made up of the investment, operation and maintenance costs, input electricity costs (wind electricity) and the fuel costs (natural gas). As hydrogen technologies are not in a commercial state, the calculation is also performed with target costs for electrolysers. Carbon emissions are also monetarily included, assuming a certificate price of 20/t. Table 16.2 summarises the major economic assumptions. 

Deneuve E, Roncato JP (1981) Thermochemical or hybrid cycles of hydrogen production- technico-economical comparison with water electrolysis. Int J Hydrogen Energy 6 9-23... 

Russell, J.H., Sedlak, Dr. J.M., General Electric Company, Direct Energy Conversion Programs, Economic Comparison of Hydrogen Production Using Solid Polymer Electrolyte Technology for Sulfur Cycle Water Decomposition and Water Electrolysis, EPRI Research Project 1086-3, Final Report, December 1978. 

Farbman, G. H. Krasicki, B. R. Hardman, C. C. Lin, S. S. Parker, G. H. EPRI-EM-789 "Economic Comparison of Hydrogen Production Using Sulfuric Acid Electrolysis and Sulfur Cycle Water Decomposition" March 1978 prepared by Westinghouse AESD for Electric Power Research Institute Palo Alto, California 94304. 

At the outset of the project, we established as a yardstick for economic comparison, an entirely new unit based on the old hydrogenation process technology. No attempt was made to improve it, either in the light of experience or knowledge gained from the study described in this paper. Dubbed irreverently the "Rubber Stamp", the old process, while chemically efficient, was characterized by significantly higher product costs than was the new optimized process. 

Sohns, O., Hydrogenation or recoverv of acetylene An economic comparison Engng Costs and Production Economies (5) 12M28 (1980)l... 

In analogy to photovoltaic and photoelectrochemical devices aimed at electricity production (see Sorensen, 2004), efforts have been made to modify the devices in question to deliver hydrogen directly rather than electricity. Of course, there is always the alternative to convert the electricity to hydrogen in a second step, e.g. by conventional electrolysis. This is conveniently used as a backstop technology for economic comparison with new proposals. 

The synthesis of 1,8-diaminonaphthalene by electrolysis of a suspension of 1,8-dini-tronaphthalene in sulfuric acid containing a titanium salt gives a yield and purity similar to the synthesis by catalytic hydrogenation [160], Technical and economic comparisons show that for large productions (several hundred tons per year) the catalytic hydrogenation is advantageous, whereas for smaller productions (several tons per year) the flexibility of electrolysis has some economic advantages. 

Shinnar, Reuel, et al. Thermochemical and hybrid cycles for hydrogen production A differential economic comparison with electrolysis. ... 

Sohns, D. Hydrogenation or recover of acetylene An economic comparison. Engng Costs and Production Economics (5) 121-128 (1980)... 

Main process parameters used for the techno-economical comparison are summarized in Table 8.1, where the novel process is compared with a conventional Claus unit -I- tail gas treatment (TGT) and steam methane reforming (SMR) for hydrogen production. 

Initially, the combined model was huge, containing more than 1.2 million non-zero terms in its matrix of variables. To allow the model to run in a reasonable amount of time on a Pentium III computer, we made some simplifications. In the reduced model, the four catalyst bed models are still fully rigorous. However, the hydrogen furnaces are represented with a heat-exchanger model, quench valves are modeled with mixers, a component splitter model is used for the wash-water system, and a group of component splitters is used for the fractionation section. These changes reduce the number of equations and non-zeros to 130,000 and 680,000 respectively. Despite these simplifications, the slimmed-down model remains, in our collective opinion, a useful tool for offline what-if studies and for economic comparisons of different process options. 

An economic comparison of the Flexsotb HP Process with a conventional amine-promoted hot potassium carbonate process has been made by Goldstein et al. (1984). The basis of comparison was a 20 MM scfd hydrogen plant with a 250 psia absorber. Assumed gas compositions were 19.9 mole % CO2 for the feed and 0.2 mole % CO2 for the product. The calculated results showed a 19% higher solution circulation rate and 11% higher reboUer duty for the conventional amine-promoted hot potassium carbonate design. 

Comparison to the Raschig Process. The economics of this peroxide process in comparison to the Raschig or hypochlorite—ketazine processes depend on the relative costs of chlorine, caustic, and hydrogen peroxide. An inexpensive source of peroxide would make this process attractive. Its energy consumption could be somewhat less, because the ketazine in the peroxide process is recovered by decantation rather than by distillation as in the hypcochlorite process. A big advantage of the peroxide process is the elimination of sodium chloride as a by-product this is important where salt discharge is an environmental concern. In addition to Elf Atochem, Mitsubishi Gas (Japan) uses a peroxide process. 

Adamson, K.A. and Pearson, P., Hydrogen and methanol A comparison of safety, economics, efficiencies and emissions, /. Power Sourc. 86, 548, 2000. 

Based on the analysis of the potentials and the economics of hydrogen corridors from neighbouring countries and a cost comparison with domestic hydrogen production in the EU25, which is used as a benchmark, the following conclusions can be drawn ... 

Phosphorites are hydrogenous precipitates with phosphorus concentrations greater than 5% w/w P2O5. Concentrations as high as 40% have been observed. In comparison the phosphorus content of most sediments is aroimd 0.3%. Phosphorites represent an important economic ore deposit as shown in Table 18.3, supplying phosphorus for fertilizer use. The United States is the leading supplier of processed phosphates in the world, accounting for about 45% of world trade. 

From an economic point of view, the cost comparison between SR and ATR technologies for a plant with a capacity of 50 m (STP) h of H2, show that in spite of the fairly similar costs of the two technologies, the greater reactor compactness, flexibility and ease of operation of the ATR reactor mean that the natural gas ATR could be an effective option for distributed small-scale hydrogen production. 

Nevertheless, it became evident that reforming processes instituted in many refineries were providing substantial quantities of by-product hydrogen, enough to tip the economic balance in favor of hydrodesulfurization processes. In fact, the need for such commercial operations has become more acute because of a shift in supply trends that has increased the amount of high-sulfur crude oils employed as refinery feedstocks. Because of this, many topping refineries have shut down due to their inability to process these heavier crude oils. In comparison, the total capacity of those processes that are intended for upgrading the heavier distillates of crude oils have increased (Rhodes, 1991). 

An economic analysis of hydrogen production costs indicates that in comparison with hydrogen produced in USA, hydrogen generation in Niyazoba will be much cheaper, particularly if the electricity is supplied at zero cost to the electrolizer plant. In this case, the usage of hydrogen as a fuel in automobiles will be significantly increased because of its low cost and environmental friendly nature. 

The study evaluates the three hydrogen production technologies and processes - S-I, HyS and HTSE - on consistent technical and economic bases. This would be the first such systematic comparison. 

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