USA: Air Liquide operates the worlds largest hydrogen storage facility

[OKIsItJustMe]

https://www.airliquide.com/media/usa-air-liquide-operates-world-largest-hydrogen-storage-facility

[font face=Serif][font size=5]USA: Air Liquide operates the world’s largest hydrogen storage facility[/font]

Press release | Tuesday, January 3, 2017

[font size=4]Air Liquide has recently commissioned the largest hydrogen storage facility in the world, an underground cavern in Beaumont, Texas, in the Gulf Coast region of the U.S.[/font]

[font size=3]This unique hydrogen storage cavern complements Air Liquide’s robust supply capabilities along the Gulf Coast, offering greater flexibility and reliable hydrogen supply solutions to customers via Air Liquide’s extensive Gulf Coast Pipeline System.

The underground storage cavern is 1,500 meters deep and nearly 70 meters in diameter. The facility is capable of holding enough hydrogen to back up a large-scale steam methane reformer (SMR) unit for 30 days. Hydrogen is typically reformed from natural gas, since it is present in very small quantity in the air. As such, it is of great benefit to have a large, interconnected storage solution to optimize supply to customers reliably and efficiently. Hydrogen is used in the refining process to desulfurize fuels and in a number of other industrial and manufacturing processes.

Hydrogen’s environmentally sustainable benefits go beyond its industrial applications. As clean energy, hydrogen used for mobility powers fuel cell vehicles with zero emissions, and can be stored and used to help manage electric grid demand.

This new hydrogen cavern follows the commissioning of Air Liquide’s first pure helium storage facility in Germany in July 2016. These initiatives illustrate Air Liquide’s innovative technologies and engineering capabilities to provide a reliable supply chain.

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(Of course, as everyone knows, hydrogen storage isn’t “a thing.”)

[scscholar]

1. How likely is this to leak?

And, how many people will it kill if it does go up?

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. What do you think will happen if it leaks?

Hydrogen is the lightest of all elements (that’s why it was used in Zeppelins like the Hindenburg.) If it leaks, it will rise quite quickly, unlike, gasoline for example, whose heavier-than-air vapors spread out across the ground.

When the Hindenberg exploded (well… burnt very quickly…) were the folks on the ground killed by the burning hydrogen?

There’s no particular reason why a hydrogen leak would lead to an explosion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenburg_disaster#Death_toll

…

Hydrogen fires are notable for being less destructive to immediate surroundings than gasoline explosions because of the buoyancy of H₂, which causes heat of combustion to be released upwards more than circumferentially as the leaked mass ascends in the atmosphere; hydrogen fires are more survivable than fires of gasoline and of wood. The hydrogen in the Hindenburg burned out within about 90 seconds.

…

[mackdaddy]

3. Interesting approach. Leaks could be a problem though.

Hydrogen gas is such a small molecule that it can actually leak THROUGH even metal containers, and embed itself in metal latticework on an atomic level. (see hydrogen enbrittlement of metals).

This cavern is probably left over from a natural gas well or something similar. It would seem that the smaller hydrogen gas atoms would seep into all the porous rock walls. I guess it depends how deep the cavern is as to whether it leaks to the surface. In this area of SE Ohio there are dozens of old gas well caverns tied to gas pipelines that are used to store natural gas. The gas is stored during the summer to be used during the winter.

Fire and explosions are probably not an issue unless there is a leak that the hydrogen mixes with Oxygen.

I also wonder if there would not be some contamination of the pure hydrogen by any residual natural gas or other gases in the rock strata such as sulfur compounds or radon gas.

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. The folks at Air Liquide may be familiar with the characteristics of hydrogen

I mean… it’s possible… (Right?)

They have been working with gasses for a while now…