A couple of days ago, Evan Davis, host of BBC Radio 4’s PM programme interviewed Dr. Jan Rosenow about the recent Government announcement that the planned trial of hydrogen heating in homes at Redcar in Cleveland has been cancelled. I transcribe the interview before, and follow it up with a few thoughts.

The interview

Evan Davis (ED): Now, the Government has abandoned its plan for a hydrogen village in Redcar. It was a section of the town that had been ear-marked to have the ordinary gas supply turned off, to be replaced with a hydrogen supply. And, as this was to be an experiment, everybody would get free, new, hydrogen appliances to replace the old natural gas ones, to test the idea of replacing natural gas with hydrogen. In fact, I even went to visit the hydrogen village at the end of August [cut to August interviews]:

ED: Hello, sorry to disturb you. We’re actually from the BBC, believe it or not. We are looking at this hydrogen village plan.

Female resident: I have been seeing bits and pieces on Facebook, and the opinion I’m getting is that the community are not looking forward to it.

ED: Gents, can we come and talk to you?

Male resident: Depends what about.

ED: So look. You’re in the hydrogen village.

Male resident: I am.

ED: Is that good news, bad news? Are you, what?

Male resident: To me, I’m indifferent. We’re not going to stop it, are we? No matter how many people protest about it, it’s going to happen.

ED: They’re going to give you two options. One is you can have a new boiler – hydrogen.

Male resident: Yeah.

ED: Or an electric alternative. What would you take if they, when they come and offer you that?

Male resident: I’ve tapped me head. Probably the hydrogen, because electricity’s a fortune.

[Back in the studio]

ED: Well, that was…those were comments in Redcar when I went there in August. But the plan has been scrapped. It wasn’t the only hydrogen village proposed – there was another one near Ellesmere Port. That had already been scrapped. There is one, though, in Fife that is proceeding. But the end of the Redcar trial is being seen as perhaps a fatal blow to the idea of using hydrogen to heat homes in this country as we progress to a fossil, erm, to net zero, and transition out of fossil fuels. Jan Rosenow is director of the Regulatory Assistance Project. It’s an energy NGO, and sits on the board of the Energy Institute. Jan, tell us what’s been going on here, and why do you think they have abandoned this particular trial?

Jan Rosenow (JR): I think the UK government has made the right decision, and is setting a clear example globally by backing down from hydrogen for home heating. We’ve seen ministers in recent months say again and again that hydrogen won’t play a major role for home heating, and this cancellation in my view confirms the Government’s increased scepticism that we’re seeing around putting hydrogen in people’s homes. So I think it’s a hugely significant decision and I believe is an indication of what’s to come next year.

ED: Right. And the basic issue they said – I mean it might have been just everyone was saying “I don’t really want hydrogen coming into my home” – because it was a voluntary sign-up. You were certainly going to have the gas turned off, but you had to sign up the hydrogen or you could take electricity. They said the problem is getting green hydrogen, a good supply of hydrogen from renewable electricity, and I guess that is just the problem of heating homes with hydrogen: it just takes a lot of hydrogen, which takes a lot of electricity.

JR: Indeed, and the science is very clear on this. Actually, just today I published a new meta-review of 54 independent studies. And the result from studies are [sic] very clear indeed. They agree that hydrogen is a lot less efficient. It needs a lot more electricity to make green hydrogen compared to using a heat pump, or district heating. It will cost consumers more than the alternatives, and therefore it’s gonna be a lot harder to persuade people to do it. And the supply problems we have with hydrogen are quite stark. Currently 99%+ of global hydrogen production – that is also the case in the UK – are from fossil fuels with no carbon abatement. So we have minuscule amounts of green hydrogen available right now, and they are much needed in other sectors that currently use very dirty and carbon-intensive hydrogen.

ED: What is going on in Fife, though? Because there is – there were three planned, two have gone – what’s happening in Fife? They do seem to be proceeding with one pilot there.

JR: Yeah, we still have the Fife trial going ahead. It remains to be seen to what extent that will succeed. I think a lot depends on the decision that the Government has said it would make in 2026 – although it has indicated that it could happen earlier – about the future of the gas grid more generally, and whether hydrogen will be a scaleable option for the UK to decarbonise home heating. But it’s very uncertain whether that’s going to happen after today’s cancellation of the Redcar trial.

ED: All right. Jan Rosenow, thanks for that, from the Regulatory Assistance Project.

A few thoughts

Alert readers may remember that in A Heated Debate I criticised a Guardian article seeking to suggest that heat pumps are more than twice as efficient as fossil fuels at low temperatures, out-performing oil and gas heating systems even at temperatures as low as -30C. Also that the UK is falling behind with regard to the heat pump roll-out because people have been scared by false information regarding their efficacy at low temperatures. That Guardian article was largely based on a study co-authored by (inter alia) Dr. Rosenow. Two of the other three co-authors also work at the Regulatory Assistance Project. Dr. Rosenow has also written a guest post for CarbonBrief with the title: “How heat pumps became a Nordic success story”.

And there’s this: “Is heating homes with hydrogen all but a pipe dream? An evidence review”, also written by Dr Rosenow (as an aside, in it he says “More than 95% of global hydrogen production is currently based on fossil gas and coal with no carbon abatement” whereas he claimed 99%+ for that figure in his PM interview).

As it happens, I share Dr Rosenow’s doubts about heating homes with hydrogen (though I don’t share his enthusiasm for heat pumps). My point is that he is a heat pump advocate and a critic of heating homes with hydrogen. That is well-known, and I’m sure that the BBC editors are aware of it. I am concerned, then, that Evan Davis simply introduced him thus: “Jan Rosenow is director of the Regulatory Assistance Project. It’s an energy NGO, and sits on the board of the Energy Institute.” I feel this potentially suggested to the programme’s listeners a neutrality that doesn’t exist. Would it have been too much to have introduced him as “a long-standing critic of heating homes with hydrogen and a heat pump enthusiast”? That would have had the benefit of being factually accurate.

Secondly, although the people of Redcar are no doubt pleased that they are no longer to be used as guinea pigs, it’s worth noting the authoritarian nature of the net zero project. It was made clear during the interview that had the trial gone ahead, they would simply have been forced to wave goodbye to natural gas central heating. The sole choice they would have been allowed to make would have been between heat pumps and hydrogen boilers. Given that most of us suspect that neither are as cheap nor as practicable as natural gas heating, what sort of “choice” is that? So much for democracy.

As was said in the interview, the reason the trial has been scrapped is a shortage of “green” hydrogen. That was certainly the reason given in the BBC website article that first mentioned the cancellation:

Northern Gas Networks (NGN), which would have run the Redcar trial, said it was “disappointed”.

The company said the trial was not going ahead because the expected green hydrogen facilities would not now be available.

“We’re disappointed that we won’t be able to take forward our plan to heat homes and businesses in Redcar with low carbon hydrogen,” a spokesperson said.

“Without adequate local hydrogen production, it is no longer possible to deliver the project.”

And that begs the question why the Fife hydrogen trial is still to go ahead (assuming that to be the case). Is this down to perversity on the part of the SNP/Green coalition Government north of the border (it certainly wouldn’t be the first time), or do they actually have some (no doubt expensive and probably futile) plans to create “green” hydrogen locally?

All this while we await the publication of the UK Government’s Hydrogen Roadmap, which is supposed to set out how the UK can build a network of hydrogen production factories, and convert homes, businesses, and transport networks to the “green” fuel. It’s all beginning to look ever more disjointed, but there seems to be no end to the unwarranted optimism and ongoing waste of taxpayer funds.