Re: “A Few Glimmers of Hope,” Keith Gerein, Edmonton Journal, June 10, 2021
There as been a lot of jubilation about Pennsylvania-based
Air Products’ blue hydrogen project proposed for Edmonton, but I
have some concerns about a process that takes natural gas and splits it into
hydrogen and carbon dioxide.
First, despite what Air Products suggests in its 2021
Sustainability Report, natural gas is not a transition fuel. The environmental
impact of natural gas is significant.
Its primary component, methane, is a hundred times more potent a
greenhouse gas than CO2. Unfortunately, the production of natural gas is
fraught with methane leakage. Has this leakage been accounted for in the
assessment of this project? As well, fracked natural gas poses a serious threat
to the safety of our water supplies. Anyone concerned about our water supply
would say No to using fracked gas.
Secondly, as Gerein indicates, the CO2
generated needs to be captured and stored (CCS). But how feasible is it to bury
tons of carbon produced per year? As Michael Mann, professor of atmospheric
science at Penn State says, “Carelessly sequestered carbon could easily end up
becoming mobilized and belched back into the atmosphere.”
My suspicion is that the carbon will be used for enhanced
oil recovery. Which, according to Dr.
Mann, means “the oil that is recovered, when burned, yields several times as
much carbon dioxide as was sequestered in the first place by CCS.” If enhanced
oil is part of the project, the associated green house gas emissions need to be
accounted for.
My question after looking into this project is, Why blue
hydrogen? Why not green hydrogen?—a process that produces hydrogen and oxygen
using renewable energy sources?
