US Earthshots | Industrial Heat

Following the increasingly successful greening of the electricity grid, one of the key challenges energy sectors is the approach to be taken to heat, not just domestic but for the ever more prevalent industrial clusters.

Traditionally the only real renewable offering comes in the form of the heat pump of which the UK has committed 600 000 of them in the coming years.

We installed one earlier this year and it is working well with an accompanying app to which for a time I became rather obsessed.?

They are not without difficulties, especially for retrofitting into homes, and there is something of internal debate between the heat pump sector and those of us involved with the nascent hydrogen economy.

Yesterday I was invited to the American industrial ‘heat shot’ kick- off meeting.

?It's one of a series of ‘shots’?of which I've kept the community up to date, including the hydrogen-shot and, the more recent floating-wind-shot .

The heat shot has largely passed under the radar, but yesterday's session involves a whole heap of stakeholders, who acknowledge the increase in electrons which will be emerging from the floating offshore wind sector in the United States and stakeholders including the important the nuclear sector which is still important in America.

The wide-ranging discussion looked at some of the options for industry and the hard to abate sectors and obviously cost will be uppermost in the in the minds of stakeholders

From the hydrogen point of view, in 2019 shared ?Renewable-heat-from-wind-turbines it had previously ?drummed into me that hydrogen is not an energy source but just merely a carrier.

A couple of weeks ago at the Whitby ??hydrogen-experience-centre :

‘I mulled over some of the mantras almost drummed in over the years by experts - some with alphabet-sized string of?letters after their name - that hydrogen is a?carrier?and?not?a source of?energy. The 100%hydrogen gas fire I stood before was happily burning - and giving out heat - I could feel it; We'll perhaps leave it for the community to decide’

This reappraisal seems to turn upside down some of the long-held beliefs about what isn't possible in the interface between electrons molecules and of course in our cold northern climes, heat.

So, some interesting dialogue from the US industrial heat shot with hydrogen, which can be piped via a largely extant grid clearly in the mix

Let's see how things transpire and whether the costs do indeed come down; I'll keep you informed Hydrogen for Heat