I never thought it was a good idea anyway from a safety point of view particularly using the current gas distribution system. Here is a very interesting video of where JCB have got to with their hydrogen gas engines They are putting a phenomenal amount of money and effort behind it British engineering at its best. Guess they are pushing against an open door though, unlike the Hydrogen boilers.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=jcb+hydrogen+engine&docid=603544983609558942&mid=2D2DE240944D2CAB6A482D2DE240944D2CAB6A48&view=detail&FORM=VIRE

In the interests of balance, the Labour party held pretty much the same position, posing out frying eggs on hydrogen hobs with encouragement from the GMB.
https://labourlist.org/2022/03/reeves-calls-for-ambitious-hydrogen-targets-to-increase-uk-energy-security/

Think it was the costs that became the problem. Gov recently withdrew plans to add a levy onto domestic energy bills to pay for the hydrogen infrastructure, so there's no obvious source of funding for it just now. https://www.edie.net/hydrogen-not-a-silver-bullet-for-net-zero-heating-and-transport-mps-warn/

There will be costs either way : thermodynamics says that hydrogen is more expensive than the electricity/gas it is made from, and the electrolyser plants have to get paid for somehow. Those costs show up in monthly energy bills.

Heat pumps are currently more expensive to install than gas boilers, those costs show up in installation bills.

Problem is, which bills do we want to pay more for, and how should either get levied/ subsidised by govt? Some people are looking at this balance in the round (see commons select cttee report via edie.net link above) but there is no awareness for voters.

Nope, overthrown by the new pretender: fracking for geological hydrogen! :-)

https://www.science.org/content/article/hidden-hydrogen-earth-may-hold-vast-stores-renewable-carbon-free-fuel

Posted By: WillInAberdeenProblem is, which bills do we want to pay more for, and how should either get levied/ subsidised by govt?

It's still political suicide (gift to the gutter media, red flag to the ideological financial markets) to mention Modern Monetary Theory (except as May's Magic Money Tree - code to those in the know) even though it's universal practice already - that govts of countries having their own sovereign currency (UK, US, Japan etc, EU but not individual EU states, and not lesser currencies which are just rebranded dollars) are free to print money, to not treat taxation as the only income that the books have to be 'balanced' against, and to not even borrow (at interest, vast free gift to the rich/banks). So it's not nec a matter of "which bills do we want to pay more for, and how should either get levied".

The conventional/ideological wisdom is that printing money is sure to increase inflation, which it sure did in many cases in history, like post-WW1 Germany. That because it's assumed that the 'paper' money will go into consumers' pockets but there will be no extra goods to spend it on, so prices just get bid upward. However, the 'paper' money can equally be chanelled into increased production, consumer income remaining static, which would be deflationary (tho increased production would mean increased employment/wages as well).

Just as the current set of 'tools' to manage the economy have to be (?) wisely deployed, amongst potential pitfalls and unintended consequences, so any MMT scheme to print money e.g. to finance 'green' hydrogen or any other desirable policy, would have to be carefully designed and regulated, to minimise the default way that useful cash from govt (and from the real economy of investment, work and sales) gets syphoned off soon enough as fuel for the parasitic financial-speculation un-economy, locked away whence never to return to useful cash, e.g in the arms race to maximise stock values (tokens of relative power), futilely inflating indicies but leaving corporations' relative valuations unchanged.

Biden's 'supply side' spending packages seem a well judged at-least-halfway-house to such MMT policy, tho he's still gifts massive passive income to the lenders he borrows from, rather than just printing the dosh. Unlimited (just ask, and we'll add a bit) US military and police spending gets patriotically nodded through, thus 'unbalanced', while any social spending gets shredded as 'how's it going to be paid for?'.

Posted By: WillInAberdeenThere will be costs either way : thermodynamics says that hydrogen is more expensive than the electricity/gas it is made from, and the electrolyser plants have to get paid for somehow. Those costs show up in monthly energy bills.

Heat pumps are currently more expensive to install than gas boilers, those costs show up in installation bills.

Yes, but it's not just those costs, and especially their relative magnitudes, that matter. There's also the question of the total energy budget and the feasibility of the demands.

Problem is, which bills do we want to pay more for, and how should either get levied/ subsidised by govt? Some people are looking at this balance in the round (see commons select cttee report via edie.net link above)

The select committee's idea of round is somewhat square. While they talk about the possibility of hydrogen for long range trucks, the EU changes its laws to permit heavier electrically-powered lorries so they are cost competitive per tonne loaded. So pie in the sky against reality. Burning anything, including hydrogen, in air produces oxides of nitrogen, so needs limiting anyway in urban areas.

The Telegraph have recently started on white hydrogen.

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fbusiness%2F2023%2F07%2F13%2Fwhite-hydrogen-disrupt-global-energy-net-zero%2F

Apparently it's incredibly cheap, once you've drilled a well it carries on coming out indefinitely and there might be loads of it.

There's some grains of truth in there but I suspect that this is more intended to add just enough uncertainty to justify continued inaction on electrifying heating and cars.

Posted By: jms452Apparently it's incredibly cheap, once you've drilled a well it carries on coming out indefinitely and there might be loads of it.

There's some grains of truth in there but I suspect that this is more intended to add just enough uncertainty to justify continued inaction on electrifying heating and cars.

To a first approximation, burning any mined fuel is going to add to global warming. But if it is real at least it will kill off the blue and green efforts.

+1, there will need to be lots of green/blue hydrogen for sectors that cannot electrify fast enough.

The government's concern about using hydrogen for the domestic heating sector, is that the street-by-street changes to infrastructure and distribution network will be expensive, take too long and have safety problems. Can't see how geological hydrogen solves those, any differently than electrolytic or CCS hydrogen does.

Also this week, Nat grid released their annual update to their "Future energy scenarios". Actually fairly upbeat, they think on the supply side that low-carbon supplies are developing on track for net zero electricity by 2035 and general net zero by 2050, or even a few years early.

They have two scenarios where that energy supply is mostly distributed as electricity, or distributed partly (30%) as hydrogen, both work.

The unknown is with the users taking up that supply fast enough IE societal readiness to switch to electric/hydrogen aviation/steelmaking/heating/transport. They have two scenarios where uptake is faster, or slower (in which case 2050 is missed).

https://www.nationalgrideso.com/future-energy/future-energy-scenarios