SunCast 791: Why Hydrogen (+Solar) Can Replace Natural Gas
Industrial facilities depend heavily on natural gas for steam production; in California, food processing, which is one of the largest users of steam, consumes an incredible amount of energy as a result. Because the price of steam is directly tied to the price of natural gas, industries face volatile costs that can directly impact competitiveness. And there are precious few alternatives for producing the volume of steam required to keep our food industry productive. Yet, by producing hydrogen on-site via solar power, along with high-efficiency hydrogen boilers, that paradigm can shift significantly. As a result, companies can stabilize costs and rethink how industrial steam is supplied and used.
Jim Tyler, CEO of Erthos, explains why industrial steam is the key to making hydrogen cost-competitive, how compressed gas storage compares to batteries, and how a closed-loop system can improve efficiency. Erthos has developed a hydrogen boiler that operates at 98% efficiency, outperforming traditional natural gas systems. He also shares why selling steam, rather than hydrogen itself, is the smartest business model for scaling the technology.
Expect to learn:
- What ‘Fire Water’ is
- How green, high-purity hydrogen can reach cost parity with brown hydrogen from natural gas
- Why hydrogen, when paired with solar, can compete with natural gas for industrial steam production
- The breakthrough in Erthos’s hydrogen boiler design
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