march 2023

Comment by the Chief Technologist of ANO «HTS» on the article «A Bold Project in the North of Russia That Could Transform the World Energy Industry»

The beginning of the article sounds intriguing:

«It would seem to be a wild land, there are almost no people, there are no roads, and there is no industry. But why is there a dam? And this is very interesting. It could bring tens of billions of dollars to the Russian budget, but not without difficulties...

I draw attention to the phrase «not without difficulties». I wonder what difficulties are mentioned in this article, and which ones are not mentioned. So, in order to...

Quote from the article: «There is such a place in the Sea of Okhotsk - Penzhinskaya Bay... Most people have not heard about this place, and yet it is the champion of the entire Pacific Ocean in terms of tidal height. Just imagine, during high tide, the water in this bay rises by 9 metres, and sometimes up to 13 metres! At the same time, the area of Penzhinsk Bay's water area is 21,000 square kilometres (comparable to the area of Crimea). Thus, if you calculate, up to 500 cubic kilometres of water moves through «the gate» of the bay every day! To understand how much that is, it's enough to remember that the Volga River carries that amount of water in two years, and the Don River in twenty-five years. Even the Amazon, the world's most powerful river, is able to move 500 kilometres cubed of water only in twenty-six days. Now do you understand why a dam is necessary there?»

Do you understand? I don't. I don't understand why, if the Volga carries 500 cubic kilometers of water in two years, the Don in 25 years, and the Amazon in 25 days, so should the Penzhinsky Bay be blocked?

I suggest you to consider the differences between rivers and the Penzhinskaya Bay:

Water in the rivers is fresh, but in the Penzhinska Bay it is salty!
Water flows in one direction in the rivers, but it flows in both directions in the Bay.

How important are these differences? As a non-professional builder, I want to draw your attention to the fact that constructing and operating a dam in seawater requires different technical solutions than building one in fresh water.

In the case of construction of a hydroelectric power plant on the river, the turbines rotate in one direction, while the power generated by the turbines depends on the water level in the reservoir. As noted above, the water level in Penzhinskaya Bay varies very significantly, up to 13 meters. It should be noted that the change in the water level in the Lip occurs once a day. Consequently, the load on the turbines of the tidal power plant (TPP) will be cyclical. The load range will vary from zero to maximum load. What is the maximum power of the TPP in question?

The author of the article enthusiastically informs us about this in his article: «And now, let's evaluate the potential of Penzhinskaya TPP - over 100 GW per hour!»

However, it is unclear what unit of measurement KW/hour refers to. If we are talking about power, then we need to use GW. If we are talking about energy, then we use kWh. Apparently, we are discussing power, so we will consider 100 GW. Let me remind you that the installed capacity of all power plants in the Russian Federation today is 250 GW. This means that the addition of 100 GW would increase the installed capacity to 350 GW, or 40% more than today's capacity. Is this additional capacity needed in this region (Kamchatka)? It's unclear at this time.

But the author of the article already has an answer to this question: «After all, there are no people living in that region, there is no industry there. That's where we started. The nearest consumers – Kamchatka, Primorye, Khabarovsk Territory, Sakhalin, Magadan – are already provided with energy and it is still unclear where to put another 100 GW. We could try to extend lines to Japan, China, Korea – but all this:

A. It is even more expensive than building the station itself (taking into account the complexities of climate and geography).
В. They also have power plants there.
С. Energy losses during transmission over such distances (3-4 thousand kilometers) are colossal and unjustified.

Nevertheless, there are cautious assumptions that the Penzhinskaya TPP is able to pay for itself, but in a somewhat non-standard way. The fact is that you can try to sell not the electricity itself, but the product created with its help. Namely, hydrogen. Hydrogen is 100% environmentally friendly and inexhaustible. However, there is a problem – it is quite expensive to extract it. A lot of electricity is required. However, if we have the Penzhinskaya TPP with almost 100 GW of electricity for free, we can: build a plant for extracting hydrogen from water right in the bay to liquefy hydrogen and deliver it by gas carriers around the world».

Let's try to figure it out. Hydrogen is 100% eco-friendly! Should we assume that the method of hydrogen production doesn't affect the "environmental friendliness" of hydrogen? Is hydrogen inexhaustible? It's not clear what that means.

Does the fact that to produce hydrogen, it's necessary to block the Penzhinsky Bay and disrupt the vital activity of living beings in the area not count?

Does the fact of having to produce a huge amount of concrete and equipment for the dam construction not take into account the environmental impact?

In addition to the equipment needed for production, we will also need equipment for hydrogen production. This includes a seawater desalination plant, a hydrogen production plant with electrolyzers, and a hydrogen storage facility.

It is curious about how many electrolyzers we will need to produce hydrogen and where we can obtain them. With a maximum power TPP of 100 kW per hour, we can produce 20,000,00 m³ of hydrogen per hour. If we use electrolyzers with a capacity of 1,000 m³/h, which are not yet available in Russia, we would need 20 million electrolyzers! That is, we would require 2,00 thousand electrolyzers with a capacity of 1 m³/hour each. Let's estimate how much hydrogen we can generate annually using TPP with a maximum capacity of 50 GW. What will be the installed capacity utilization factor of TPP? According to my calculations, it will be less than 50%. Considering the uneven load on the TPP, the average daily electricity production will be 120 million kWh.

To produce one kilogram of hydrogen, electrolysis requires approximately 55 kWh of electricity. Therefore, 2.181 million kilograms (or 218.1 thousand tons) of H2 can be produced each day. By multiplying this number by 365 days per year, we get 8 million tonnes of hydrogen annually. To produce this amount, approximately 9 litres of deionized water are needed. This means 72 million tonnes of deionised water would be required each year. During the process, brine forms and needs to be disposed of. The author suggests it may be disposed in Penzhinsky Bay. How will this affect the environment and marine life?

Further questions:

How will the hydrogen be stored?
In what form will it be transported?
By what means of transport?

The author of the article reports that the hydrogen will be transported by gas carriers. Are there any available and how many?

Unlike liquefied natural gas, which is transported at a temperature of -162 degrees Celsius, the storage temperature of liquid hydrogen is -254 degrees Celsius. Therefore, gas carriers designed for the transportation of liquefied natural gas are unlikely to be suitable for transporting liquid hydrogen. To date, only one hydrogen tanker has been developed in the world by Kawasaki.

Will ships and whales be able to navigate into the Penzhinsky Bay after construction of the dam?

Will fish protection measures be implemented in the dam, or will hydro turbines function like a meat grinder?

We can agree with the headline of this article, «A Bold Project», but how well-thought-out is it?

The full article can be accessed at the link provided.

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