I write on fossil energy, climate, and the transition to renewables.
New Mexico in the U.S. is a rich oil state, second only to Texas. So why does New Mexico want a radical new hydrogen-to-heat energy from Australia?
First, the state wants to make energy that’s clean, meaning energy with low carbon emissions (not oil or natural gas). Hydrogen is clean energy, and releases no emissions when it burns in car engines or when it’s converted to electricity.
But the hydrogen itself can be unclean if it’s made from methane (blue hydrogen which is cheap). Or the hydrogen can be clean if it’s made by electrolyzing water (green hydrogen which is expensive).
Second, New Mexico wants hydrogen-to-heat energy from Australia because the country has a new method to convert hydrogen into heat, without combustion. The system can be used directly in heavy industry or converted into electricity for just about any electrical application. Without combustion means avoiding a big mechanical step in power plants that have to burn coal to make heat (which release bad carbon emissions) and then make electricity.
The deal.
An Australian company called Star Scientific has announced it will start building a factory in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2024. The investment is about $100 million, and the plant will eventually employ 200 employees to work at a 50-acre site that will contain up to 10 buildings – that will house all the way from R&D to management.
The deal was announced in Sydney late last month when the state governor, Michelle Lujan-Grisham met with Andrew Horvath, global group chairman of Star Scientific.
The new technology.
Curiously, the company made this discovery while studying nuclear fusion. They found a catalyst that encourages hydrogen gas to combine with oxygen gas to form water, and the reaction releases a large amount of heat. It’s really chemistry, not physics, but it does remind us of two hydrogen atoms fusing to helium and releasing enormous amounts of nuclear energy, which is the basis of the hydrogen bomb.
SOURCE: Forbes
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