http://www.decarboni.se/publications/ccs-roadmap-industry-high-purity-co2-sources-sectoral-assessment-%E2%80%93-final-draft-report-1

Also you can see "Hydrogen Production Portfolio".

Dear Seyfi şevik:

I thank you for your time, but if you look closely at the data presented on both sources you will find that it is precisely the same data that I mentioned before.

In your first source they present the data as a pie chart distributing the amount of H2 (in Mton) produced annually by each technology, however if you convert those number into percentages you get the same distribution of 48%, 30%, 18% and 4% that has been bothering me for a while.

On your second source the IEA does not mention an specific number on the current distribution of commercial technologies for H2 productions. It just list technologies being used now and technologies in development.

I would greatly appreciate further insights from you on this topic, considering the aforementioned comments.

Best regards.

Nicolás.

Curiously enough, I kept on researching this topic during the weekend and was able to find a quite recent report released by the IEA titled The Future of Hydrogen (https://webstore.iea.org/download/summary/2803?fileName=English-Future-Hydrogen-ES.pdf). Here most of my previous doubts were comprehensively answered.

Almost all of the current hydrogen production technologies are using fossil fuels, being SMR the most popular (76%) followed by coal gasification (23%), ending with water electrolysis (0.7%) and other technologies.

Further datasets are more than welcome to improve this discussion.

Best regards.

Nicolás.

Dear Nicolás,

There is no big difference between the two references.

The global hydrogen production matrix:

Reference 1;

48% methane steam reforming

30% oil/naphtha reforming

18% coal gasification

4% water electrolysis

Reference 2;

76% SMR

23% coal gasification

0.7% water electrolysis

and other technologies.

Dear Seyfi şevik:

Thanks for your comment, but it is actually quite interesting to note that Reference 1 corresponds to the global hydrogen production from 1988 and Reference 2 states the hydrogen production 30 years later.

And if they are compared in more detail, you may see that H2 production has remained almost purely dependant on fossil fuels, displacing water electrolysis from the mainstream commercial methods.

Additionally, the use of oil/naphtha seems to have disapeared as feedstock for H2 production.

Then, if you compare the amount of H2 produced world wide (as reported by both references), in 1988 almost 45 Mt H2 and in 2018 almost 120 MtH2 . That's an annual growth of just over 3%.

Seems like a quite dormant industry for all the global interest in developing a Hydrogen Economy.

What do you think about this?

Best regards.

Nicolás

The IEA report is a useful resource so thanks to Nicolas for identifying this. I have found that definitions of the hydrogen market size (value and/or tonnage) vary depending on the source. Some reports include H2 manufactured for captive conversion to large tonnage chemicals such as ammonia and methanol whereas other reports may exclude these products because the H2 is produced and consumed in the same flowsheet. Another potential confusion in terms of the H2 market size is whether "by product" H2 is included as well as "on purpose" H2 production. For example, oil refineries recover a lot of by-product H2 especially from catalytic reformer off gases and then use this H2 in other unit operations within the refinery. Also, olefin crackers produce and may export by-product H2.

Dear Peter Broadhurst:

Thanks for your insights. I would like to add that there is also a lack of rigor regarding the thermodynamic state at which H2 production is reported. More specifically, when H2 production is reported as Mt-H2 we have a precise idea of the amount of H2 mass being produced, but no idea regarding its temperature and pressure, which are critical for understanding the overall conversion efficiency of H2 when compared to other energy processes.This issue becomes more relevant when a proper comparisson of energy availability of H2 for transport processes is to be made. Where its storage is usually over 400 bar and up to 800 bar.

I would greatly appreciate if you had any information about an international consensus (if there is any) on reporting H2-production which addresses these concerns.

Best regards,

Nicolás.

I'm not sure if these comments assist. H2 plant design capacities are usually quoted as kNm3/h (thousand normal cubic metres per hour), MMSCFD (million standard cubic feet per day) and less often in tonnes per day or year. NH3 and MeOH plants generally quote mtpd or stpd (metric tonnes or short tons per day) of NH3 and MeOH respectively. Therefore, when the total H2 market is quoted in tonnes/year it is a calculation from a mix of units for different units.

H2 manufacturing units operate at various pressures. Approximately, SMRs are in the range 10 - 40 bara; small units tend to be at lower pressure; larger at 25 - 40 bara. Gasifiers operate in the range 50 - 80 bara depending on the gasifier design. Downstream conversion and clean up of the H2 will drop these pressures a little. I'm not sure about electrolyser, membrane H2 recovery, etc. Product H2 may well be re-compressed if the downstream user process requires higher pressure (e.g. hydrocrackers on refineries). Hopefully, other commentators to this discussion can add to this view.

As of 2014 there as about 220,000 MMSCFD of H2 production at refineries around the world. A little over 60% from the united states. I believe there are currently a little less than 500 commercial units that do steam methane reforming H2 production around the world and around 20 or 30 with "other" technology (mostly POX, and Auto-thermal Reforming ) the count gets a little confusing because multiple trains at the same location are considered to be 1 plant by some and considered to be multiple plants by others. Synthetic crude plants like those operated by Sasol often gasify coal to make syngas they don't usually produce much H2 - but they could.

Also to clarify how and why H2 is sometimes produced vial electrolysis. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water

“About five percent of hydrogen gas produced worldwide is created by electrolysis. The majority of this hydrogen produced through electrolysis is a side product in the production of chlorine and caustic soda. 2NaCl + 2H2O → Cl2 + H2 + 2NaOH”

Splitting water via electrolysis too produce H2 is rarely used to produce commercial quantities of H2. It would be very expensive and inefficient to do it that way

Dear Peter Broadhurst:

Thanks for your comprehensive reply. That is precisely what I wanted to highlight. H2 comes from different sources and is used in several processes at specific thermodynamic states (pressure- and temperaturewise). Therefore, I find it neccesary to express not only the amount of H2 being produced, but also the energy associated to it as an energy carrier. For example, if you produce an amount of H2 through SMR it will carry less energy as if you produce the same amount of H2 obtained from a gasifier (due to the difference in pressure). So it may be the same amount of H2 mass but carrying more energy. The best way to avoid this issue is standarizing the use of Nm3/h or MMSCFD as a way to report H2 production in order to link it directly to its energy content, instead of speaking about Mt-H2/yr or similar.

What do you think about this point?

Best regards.

Nicolás

Most H2 plants are in the US. - So MMSCFD is used. In Europe NM3/Hr is preferred but MTonne/D is is also used.

The typical efficiency of the radiant section of an SMR is about 50%. Waste heat from the convection section and cooling effluent typically recovers up to another 30% of the heat - but as high pressure (typically 600 PSIG) steam not as additional H2 . Very high efficiency H2 plants with combustion air preheat can get as high as 90% efficiency (65% to process 25% to HP steam).

H2 is not usually used as fuel. It is a valuable product that is used to upgrade oil at various hydroprocessing units at a refinery.

Naphtha reforming of naphtha to produce high octane gasoline blend components produces about the same total amount of H2 as SMR (less per unit but many more units) at lower purity typical 80-85% H2. H2 purification (membrane, cryogenic or PSA) can be used to improve purity if/when necessary.

Just to be clear H2 is produced at refineries and petrochemical plants in order to upgrade sour and heavy hydrocarbons via Hydrotreating and Hydrocracking processes. It is a valuable reactant - not a fuel. Low purity H2 streams that are not high enough purity for Hydroprocessing units is typically burned as a low quality fuel gas, At some locations it is flared.

Dear Rick Manner:

Thanks for your comprehensive replies. However, I would greatly appreaciate if you could share your sources so that I could analyze further into the details. I am very much interested in understanding both global and local hydrogen production and use. As I stated before, a few days after starting this discussion I found the IEA 2019 report on the Future of Hydrogen, which presents and extensive research over the current status of global H2 both on a technical and political level. I invite you to check that report and share with us if you have data that somehow differs with it.

Best regards.

Nicolás.

The Oil and Gas Journal does a world refinery survey every year along with their December addition. The information I posted is from a recent year end edition the numbers don't change much from year to year. IEA is also a good source but it is more difficult to get this type of information from them because it is more scattered.

In 2017, I prepared a report for a consulting client which included a high level analysis of the main segments of the syngas market (NH3/MeOH/H2/DRI plus XTL/acetic acid/oxo-alc/power(IGCC)/town gas/SNG). For the market size and forward projections in the big segments (NH3/MeOH/H2) there was variability between sources. (A lot of these sources were only the summary of market reports from consulting organisations which wanted many $$$ for the detailed report.) The IEA report is one of the best high level free of charge reports covering this area. Rick mentioned the OGJ survey but this will cover refinery H2.

Other web sites with relevant information about some of the segments are

* https://h2tools.org/

* https://www.methanol.org/

* https://www.midrex.com/news-literature/news-releases/world-dri-statistics.

My experience is that you can spend a lot of time finding and cross checking market size information but there is variability due to the definition of the market, timing of the survey/report and accuracy/availability of information. If possible find one good recent source (e.g. the IEA report), try to understand the underlying definitions and assumptions (I think the IEA report says that there's more information on this on its web site) and find sufficient high level data from other sources to confirm your core report (e.g.the IEA report) is accurate within, say, +/-10%.

There are several sources for hydrogen production available. You may care to view the following references. A little boring but may help, at least for the UK.

(i) Dept. for Business, Energy or Industrial Strategy. "Energy Consumption in the UK: Statistics for 2018". July 2018.

(ii) Hirayuki Fulem et al. "Hydrogen - Tracking Clean Energy Progress"; IEA 2018.

Regards, Stephen Lloyd.

Dear Stephen Anthony Lloyd :

Thanks for your references, I will surely consider them for future analyses.

Best Regards.

Nicolás

Steam reforming of methane is the most important source of hydrogen production. but due to dependency of fossil fuels, there are so many renewable alternatives, such as biomass steam gasification, and super-critical water gasification of biomass. According to my experiences in thermochemical biomass gasification( Steam gasification, high temperature gasification , plasma gasification and supercritical water gasification), Super-critical water gasification by the use of Nickel based catalysis would be a great alternative for methane steam reforming

People don't seem to understand that producing a renewable fuel is only the first step towards acting responsibly. You also need to select the fossil fuel you are replacing wisely. The first fuel that should be replaced by renewable energy is coal

Biomass can be burned directly to reduce coal use. It could also be gasified to augment natural gas at locations where it is not practical to replace coal or heavy hydrocarbons. This should be the last option not the first. Replace the dirtiest fuels first not the cleanest!

Commercial H2 is produced very efficiently often >80% on a LHV basis. It must be produced continuously and reliably often for 4 yr + run lengths. The Biomass gasification process is not nearly as reliable as Steam Methane Reforming or Auto-thermal Reforming of natural gas and/or light hydrocarbons. It could be made more reliable with generous equipment sparing and experience but that could be a very expensive option

The IEA report that Nicolas identified near the start of this discussion tends to support Rick's view where a carbon containing raw material is used and an ultimate goal of renewable sources of electricity such that H2O electrolysis can be used without CO2 generations. Bio-mass may have a place especially if this is being generated as a waste product from other manufacturing (maybe palm oil or similar?) that would otherwise be discarded so that it can be regarded as utilisation of waste that would rot and generate greenhouse gases, however, if the biomass is generated with the application of fertilizer there is also the environmental burden of any NH3 derived fertilizer to consider. As Griphook says in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt 2, "It's complicated"!

Hello Nicolas, have you found the new figures how hydrogen is produced today. I would be interested in because I´m currently doing a research about hydrogen. Thanks Nicolas