'Are UK MPs being used by natural-gas interests to promote inefficient hydrogen heating?'
OPINION | Politicians' recommendations to government on domestic heating appear to reflect gas-led lobbying rather than the best route to greener homes, argues Leigh Collins
Gas distributors are facing an existential crisis. If the world is to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, burning natural gas for heating and cooking will have to be outlawed — meaning that methane would no longer be transported under our cities and towns.
The only way that gas distributors can save their businesses is to switch the fuel in their grid infrastructure from natural gas to clean-burning hydrogen.
Hydrogen: hype, hope and the hard truths around its role in the energy transition
Yes, major investment would be required. Not only would all gas-burning appliances — boilers, cookers, ovens, etc — need to be replaced, but the grid network would need a lot of work to handle the smaller hydrogen molecules. All metal pipes would need to be replaced with polyethylene ones — including those ones hidden in walls and under floorboards in people’s homes — while all the valves and compressors across the network would also have to be swapped out.
It might not be cheap or easy, but there is a precedent — between 1967 and 1977, the UK gas supply and about 20 million appliances were converted from using locally produced town gas (derived from coal) to the natural gas discovered under the North Sea. And such a conversion would, of course, solve the problem of how to decarbonise the heating sector.
Heat pumps also have an advantage because they can provide air conditioning during our ever-warmer summers.
“For most sectors, directly using electricity — for instance in battery electric cars or heat pumps — makes more economic sense. Universally relying on hydrogen-based fuels instead and keeping combustion technologies threatens to lock in a further fossil-fuel dependency and greenhouse gases,” said Falko Euckerdt, who lead the study.
Distributors fighting back
Gas distributors and other hydrogen heating proponents are in danger of losing the argument. And like anyone faced with a threat to their survival, they are fighting back — and the modern way for business to do that is to lobby politicians.
In the UK, at least, this lobbying appears to be going well.
The document says it is based on 70 responses to the APPG’s call for evidence. But it was put together, or “researched”, by a PR/communications agency called Connect — which claims to “help organisations to connect with policy making, politics and the media”.
The report was also funded by the APPG’s sponsors — which are mainly interested in hydrogen as a clean replacement for natural gas. They are Baxi (gas boiler maker), Worcester Bosch (gas boiler maker), Cadent (gas distributor), EDF (electricity and gas supplier), Energy and Utilities Alliance (trade association mainly focused on domestic heating), Equinor (oil & gas producer), Johnson Matthey (chemicals and sustainable technologies [including blue hydrogen equipment and fuel cells] company), National Grid (electricity and gas distributor), Northern Gas Networks (gas distributor), SGN (gas distributor) and Shell (oil & gas producer).
In fact, 11 of the report’s 28 pages are given over to the sponsors to present “case studies” on their hydrogen plans — most of which involve converting natural-gas networks to hydrogen, or using hydrogen for domestic heating.
Presenting these “case studies” — which are more like advertorials — to the business-minded Conservative government in a report supposedly focused on decarbonising British industry would be a good way to get ministers on board.
According to the most recent income and expenditure statement from the APPG on Hydrogen, these 11 sponsors each paid £6,000 to the group, totalling £66,000, which was all spent on paying Connect to act as the group’s secretariat.
So these companies are certainly getting value for money.
Baxi and Worcester Bosch previously received government funding to develop their hydrogen combi-boilers, while Northern Gas Networks has received £16m from regulator Ofgem, a non-ministerial government department, for its H21 programme to demonstrate that the gas network can be converted to carry 100% hydrogen to homes and businesses.
Of course, the MPs and Lords on the hydrogen APPG — including former energy secretary Ed Davey and former Conservative Party vice-chairman Sir Roger Gale — would argue that they are not being unduly influenced by the group’s sponsors. But their presence does not exactly give confidence that these politicians are getting the full picture of the energy sector and the opportunities available.
It is clear that — intentionally or unintentionally — the group is clearly acting in the interests of the at-risk gas distributors and boiler makers. Whether they are acting in the best interests of British consumers and the planet is another question.
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