Pedro Barbosa, Fotech, UK, a bp Launchpad company, reviews the various challenges hydrogen presents, and discusses how distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) provides an accurate and faster leak detection solution for smaller leaks.
he oil and gas industry is currently undergoing a major shift as companies look to reduce emissions and achieve net-zero by 2050, or earlier. As well as turning attention towards sustainable energy sources such as wind and solar as part of this energy transition, oil and gas companies are investigating clean hydrogen – produced using renewables, nuclear or fossil fuels with carbon capture – as an alternative fuel source. Indeed, it is anticipated that demand for clean hydrogen will grow fivefold by 2050, avoiding up to 80 Gt CO2 emissions.1,2 There are many hydrogen projects being initiated worldwide, however, there are approximately only 1600 miles of hydrogen pipeline infrastructure that currently exists in the USA compared to 305 000 miles of natural gas pipelines, and 190 000 miles of liquid fuel pipelines.3 According to the Hydrogen Council, there have been more than 520 large-scale projects and 90+ GW of electrolyser production capacity announced globally.4 As part of these projects, companies are building new pipelines while transmission system operators (TSOs) are looking at repurposing existing natural gas pipelines. As the popularity of hydrogen increases, it becomes vital that the pipeline network is robust with systems in place to transport the gas safely. Transporting hydrogen gas is no easy feat, and operators face new challenges not seen with the transport of oil and natural gas.
The challenges of transporting hydrogen Hydrogen is highly flammable Hydrogen presents a higher risk of explosion compared to other fuels because it has a very high energy content per mass. For example, the energy content is approximately
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