Energy minister says hydrogen will ‘not play a serious function’ in heating houses within the UK

Nov 25, 2023 at 6:14 PM
Energy minister says hydrogen will ‘not play a serious function’ in heating houses within the UK

The authorities has given one in every of its strongest indications but that it’s going chilly on hydrogen for residence heating.

The power minister Lord Callanan instructed The Climate Show with Tom Heap: “It is not going to play a serious function in residence heating.

“There’s no way that could be practically achieved”.

When hydrogen burns, it provides off no carbon dioxide as it’s pure h2 – there isn’t a carbon within the molecule.

Energy minister Lord Callanan speaks to The Climate Show with Tom Heap
Image:
Energy minister Lord Callanan speaks to The Climate Show with Tom Heap

This has led to appreciable curiosity in utilizing it as a home gas for residence heating and cooking to interchange pure gasoline which is methane, a fossil gas that worsens local weather change when it burns.

Natural gasoline remains to be the workhorse of home power with roughly three-quarters of UK houses on the gasoline grid and lots of provide corporations are hoping hydrogen could be near a ‘drop-in substitute’ for his or her present gas.

But opposition has been mounting.

Many scientists level out that it takes monumental quantities of electrical energy to make clear inexperienced hydrogen, and it will be way more environment friendly to make use of that electrical energy immediately in our houses to run warmth pumps.

Read extra from Sky News:
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The National Infrastructure Commission, the physique created by the federal government to advise on crucial material for the nation’s financial system, has mentioned there may be “no public policy case for hydrogen” in home heating.

Lord Martin Callanan mentioned: “It is clear that the vast majority of decarbonisation of home heating in the UK will be electrification.

“If now we have hydrogen manufacturing domestically it would play a small function in some localised areas”.

One of those areas could be the Yorkshire coastal town of Redcar, where a pilot project is proposed to swap natural gas for hydrogen and force people to choose between that or a heat pump.

In the Yorkshire coastal town of Redcar, a pilot project is proposed to swap natural gas for hydrogen and force people to choose between that or a heat pump.
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Some gasoline corporations are nonetheless insisting there’s a function for hydrogen

But there may be appreciable native opposition, with residents questioning the protection of hydrogen and resenting the imposition of a change to their residence heating.

Locals have already rejected the same hydrogen village concept near Ellesmere Port in Cheshire.

However, some gasoline corporations are nonetheless insisting there’s a function for hydrogen.

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Tim Harwood is Hydrogen Programme Director for the provision firm Northern Gas, and they’re backing the Redcar trial.

“We’re doing this project to demonstrate we can convert the gas network over to hydrogen.

“We can do it safely and we are able to present resilience…and prospects prefer it because it does not change their life-style very a lot as it’s just like utilizing pure gasoline.”

Whether the Redcar hydrogen trial will go forward remains to be up within the air, with the federal government promising a call earlier than the top of the 12 months.

But general they appear to be pushing new hydrogen in the direction of business and away from our houses.