The Shell Blue Hydrogen Process: The most cost-effective technology for avoiding CO₂ emissions¹
The Shell Blue Hydrogen Process has the lowest carbon footprint and lowest levellised cost compared to other decarbonised hydrogen (blue hydrogen) production methods like steam methane reforming and autothermal reforming.
By Chris Egby, Decarbonisation Marketing Manager, Shell Catalysts & Technologies
Before Shell Catalysts & Technologies developed the SBHP in 2020, decarbonised hydrogen (blue hydrogen) project developers only had SMR or ATR technologies to choose from. Now, the SBHP provides a third option. It uses Shell gas partial oxidation (POx) technology and, compared with SMR and ATR, it captures carbon dioxide (CO2) at higher pressures and at larger scales. Furthermore, a recent report from the IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme (IEAGHG) – Low-Carbon Hydrogen from Natural Gas: Global Roadmap (PDF) – has found that POx offers significant advantages compared to those alternatives.
The report compared the deployment of SMR, ATR, POx, and also electrified-SMR (E-SMR), which is an emerging variant of SMR, with carbon capture and storage (CCS) in the Netherlands to produce decarbonised hydrogen (blue hydrogen). The two stand-out findings, shared in this article, are:
POx technology has the lowest carbon footprint when set against traditional hydrogen (grey hydrogen) (SMR without CCS) as a reference; and
POx technology has the lowest LCOH, just 10.2% higher than the reference traditional hydrogen production case.
A brief look at the SBHP process line-up
Before we look at what the report says about the SBHP, let us first remind ourselves what the SBHP lineup looks like and how it differs from SMR and ATR. The SBHP process (Figure 1) integrates two proven technologies: POx and ADIP ULTRA. It is a non-catalytic system, whereby the proven POx technology, an oxygen-based system with direct firing in a refractory-lined reactor, is utilised to manufacture syngas. POx requires little or no feed-gas pretreatment, it produces high-pressure steam from waste heat rather than consuming it, and has no direct CO2 emissions.
After the water–gas shift reaction, CO2 is removed with ADIP ULTRA, a proven solvent technology for capturing CO2 from high-pressure process streams. This leaves a hydrogen stream for further purification. Shell began developing the gas treating ADIP technology in the 1950s. By 2020, the insights and learning from more than 500 ADIP references were pieced together and leveraged to develop a new integrated line-up to produce hydrogen from any hydrocarbon feedstock, with CO2 capture.
A deeper dive into the benefits of the SBHP, revealed in a recent techno-economic and environmental study
The recent IEAGHG technical report compared the deployment of four decarbonised hydrogen (blue hydrogen) technologies, with the assumption that they would be based in the Netherlands, against SMR without CCS. The Netherlands is one of the countries in Europe most active in the natural gas, hydrogen and CCS space.
As a general overview, the study found that a reduction of the carbon footprint, ranging between 43–76%, can be achieved in the Netherlands for all the investigated decarbonised hydrogen (blue hydrogen) technologies, when set against traditional hydrogen (without CCS) with a carbon footprint of 10.13 kg CO2e/kg H2 as a reference.
POx technology has the lowest carbon footprint
In terms of carbon footprint, the report’s key findings include:
POx technology produces decarbonised hydrogen (blue hydrogen) with the lowest carbon footprint, as shown in Figure 2. This is about 13% lower than SMR + CCS and 25% lower than ATR + CCS.
Electrified SMR (E-SMR) produces decarbonised hydrogen (blue hydrogen) with the highest carbon footprint – more than twice as high as POx. This is primarily because of the utilisation of high-carbon-intensity electricity in the Netherlands grid (480 gCO2/kWh in 2020).
POx has the second lowest project lifetime emissions, as shown in Figure 3. The lowest, E-SMR, is assumed to benefit from a substantially decarbonised electricity grid by 2050. However, it currently has the lowest technology readiness level (TRL 4) of all the technologies investigated.
POx technology has the lowest LCOH
In terms of costs, the report concludes that:
- POx is the most cost-effective process for avoiding CO2 emissions, with an abatement cost in the region of €65–100/tCO2 (Figure 4).
- SMR and ATR, which have a cost of CO2 abatement of about €110/tCO2, are approximately 28% more expensive than POx.
- E-SMR, using grid electricity, had the highest cost of CO2 abatement (about €145/tCO2) in the Netherlands in 2020.
- The LCOH for decarbonised hydrogen (blue hydrogen) production using POx technology was found to be just 10.2% higher than the reference traditional hydrogen production case (SMR without CCS) (Figure 5).
Conclusions
The report reveals that in the short term, all the decarbonised hydrogen (blue hydrogen) production technologies analysed are likely to cost more than established traditional hydrogen production, without CCS. However, as carbon pricing will likely increase, CCS integration will be crucial for reducing the cost of natural-gas-based hydrogen production.
The development of shared CCS infrastructure in industrial clusters, taking advantage of economies of scale, will ensure CO2 transport and storage costs are reduced. An example of this type of proposal is Uniper and Shell’s Humber H2ub project in the UK, which aims to produce low-carbon hydrogen that could be used to decarbonise industry, transport and power throughout the Humber region.
In the long term, decarbonised hydrogen (blue hydrogen) production will be lower cost than traditional hydrogen because of higher carbon prices. The SBHP will then offer a highly cost-competitive option, with a low carbon footprint, compared with alternative technologies.
To learn more about the Shell Blue Hydrogen Process, visit: www.shell.com/CT
1 According to a recent report from the IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme (IEAGHG) – Low-Carbon Hydrogen from Natural Gas: Global Roadmap – which compared the deployment of a number of decarbonised hydrogen (blue hydrogen) technologies for a specific scenario in the Netherlands
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