IGas has unveiled plans to produce hydrogen from methane at two of its sites in Surrey.
One is the Albury gasfield, near Guildford, in the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
The other site has not yet been named.
IGas said hydrogen production would help the UK meet its net zero target in carbon emissions. It would, the company said, provide a clean source of fuel and heat for homes, transport and industry.
Opponents of hydrogen from unabated fossil fuels said the process produced large amounts of pollution and contributed to climate change.
Consultation
IGas has launched an online exhibition on the Albury proposals.
IGas’s spokesperson said the consultation would last for three weeks and a planning application was expected in early to mid July.
The location of the second site was “still up for discussion”, the company told DrillOrDrop. It said there should be a firm answer in “the next couple of weeks”.
The IGas spokesperson confirmed that the second site was operated by the company and a consultation on it would be launched “in a few weeks”.
Hydrogen production
Production of hydrogen from methane releases carbon emissions.
IGas has previously said it would produce grey hydrogen – made from fossil fuels without carbon capture and storage (CCS).
Asked today whether a planning application would include onsite CCS, the IGas spokesperson said:
“We are actively exploring both storage and/or utilisation but have not finalised our concept and are talking to technology suppliers and potential end-users.
“The UK Government’s Hydrogen Advisory Committee has announced that they are working on a standard to define what constitutes low carbon hydrogen, and we await that guidance and will factor that into our thinking on potential approaches.”
Hydrogen produced at Albury would use steam methane reformation (SMR), IGas said.
This takes methane and reacts it with steam to produce a mixture of hydrogen and carbon dioxide (CO2).
The hydrogen produced would be “ultra-pure”, the company said, and could be used in electrical fuel cells to replace diesel in large vehicles. IGas estimated the release of about 3kg of CO2 was avoided for every litre of petrol or diesel displaced from transport.
The company said the CO2 released would be “the same amount as if the gas were burnt in a boiler or gas engine”. It added:
“The overall environmental emissions (even accounting for the CO2 released as part of the SMR process) are reduced because there are no diesel-combustion-related bi-products of NOx [nitrogen oxide], Sox [sulphur dioxide], or other harmful particulates, which constitutes a significant environmental improvement.”
IGas said hydrogen produced at Albury would be transported off the site by road. The production process would generate daily journeys by four heavy goods vehicles and four light goods vehicles, it said.
The company said all plant and equipment would be “fully containerised and contained within the existing fenced compound” at Albury. This would “further reduce the potential for visual harm as viewed from the wider area”, it added.
IGas’s spokesperson said the SMR generator would be 7.6m tall, with a 10.9m flue:
“The visual impact of this new equipment will be minimal as the site is currently bounded by a 2m high security fence, and woodland on all four sides at heights averaging between 20m and 25m.”
Surrey sites
IGas estimates that about half of its current oil and gas production is from the Weald Basin.
The UK Onshore Geophysical Library lists six IGas exploration and production licences in Surrey.
They include wells at Albury, Bletchingley, Godley Bridge, Palmers Wood, Lingfield and Bramley.
Of these, only Albury is listed by the Oil & Gas Authority as a gas production site.
But gas has been found at one of the Bletchingley wells and IGas estimated in 2016 that production there would be up to 34,000m3 a day.
According to an IGas report, a well drilled at Godley Bridge has an economic presence of gas in the Portland sandstone.
Almost two years ago, IGas announced plans to drill two exploration wells in the Godley Bridge licence (PEDL235). But a public consultation event, planned for later that summer, was cancelled and the project suspended. At the time of writing, IGas’s website described Godley Bridge as a development project.
“Hydrogen no justification for oil and gas expansion”
Last year, the Weald Action Group, a network opposing hydrocarbon developments in southern England, argued there was no need to make hydrogen from fossil fuels.
In a briefing paper, it said blue hydrogen – hydrogen produced from fossil fuels with carbon, capture and storage – was “still a pipe dream”. It said the UK was unlikely to have sufficient CCS capacity in the coming decades to reach net zero by 2050. It also said CCS itself was carbon intensive.
Author Ann Stewart said:
“Instead of using yet more fossil fuels with their devastating impact on the climate, hydrogen can be made from water, with very low emissions. There is absolutely no justification for producing more fossil gas, in the Weald or elsewhere.”
DRILL OR DROP? 
Igas bought Dart energy on the Kent Surrey border.
It’s a very private site right on the M25.
I wouldn’t be supprised if that’s the in named site.
Have we gone mad? Are we going perhaps to frack for methane in order to produce hydrogen which is supposed to stop us fracking?
Nope, 1720. There is a moratorium on fracking in UK. So, perhaps others will frack to produce hydrogen and then we can import it. That should fit your agenda.
We await this government’s definition of what constitutes low carbon hydrogen, fearing the kind of industry friendly fudge they made with their definition of hydraulic fracturing, which effectively classed around 80% of fracking in the US as not fracking. Some day one hopes a Conservative government actually gets actively serious about addressing climate change, hopefully before time runs out for meeting the 2050 targets.
Here we go again!
Advances to improve the environment are not the advances individuals prefer, so they are not advances.
Whilst I can understand a reluctance for some to give up a reason to protest, steps in the right direction should be embraced otherwise many will just dismiss taking any steps. On shore wind turbines were initially subsidized to the hilt just so a narrative of land owners embracing them could be created. But, now we have gone through that, and plonked them in the sea and managed to get the companies to make them economic.
Progress is more important than protest. Ironic that the antis who claim to be supporting the environment rarely seem to do it in reality.
“Progress is more important than protest.” Protest for the sake of protest is foolish. How true, Martin. The problems arise in discerning and defining ‘progress’.
Well, self definition may be good for the soul, 1720, but we already had been informed about the matter!
“I attended the second vote demonstrations at Westminster and elsewhere last year travelling “significant distances”. This legislation would make me a criminal because I believed HMG had engineered the result by lying and I was anxious to test the result….”
(1720, 11/3/21)
As you have declared your love of accurate English, then your posts reflect accurate statements???
Nope. HMG did actually campaign to stay in the EU and lost. Oops.
Progress would start with knowing something about the protest attended, for some. Once that is achieved, then things like transfer of production to a local source could be examined-but, without the first bit, then the second bit is a long way off. There are many though who have reached beyond the first bit.
I can think of a lot of progress from a move to hydrogen whatever the source, and I would prefer such progress is facilitated as quickly as possible and not limited and delayed whilst a few argue about it’s colour.
So, having ‘trashed’ the recommendations of the responsible scientific bodies – including no doubt mathematicians and physicists – you now advocate polluting sine die in order not to pollute. That’s a sensible position.
I don’t think the world has time for the likes of your arguments, Martin; as Naomi Klein said this evening, “We are not winning…….We are dangling over the edge now.”
And still you produce your rubbish just as the ‘leave’-embracing section of the government did before and after the Brexit referendum. And the catastrophe occurred because of arguments such as these. Second thoughts were possible after Brexit – hence my demonstration – they will not be possible if the climate catastrophe, the imminence of which you deny by virtue of your reluctance to accept the obvious, passes too many more tipping points.
For heaven’s sake, wake up!
Oh dear!
Once again you are unable to defend what YOU stated, nobody else, so try to deflect to someone else is responsible for erm… something!
Indeed second thoughts are always possible, but first it might be wise to know what the first thought was all about. And maybe not to play your correct English card when you have to correct your own so often? (A section of the Government now, not HMG!?)
And, yes, I clearly stated I believe in what some scientists state. You obviously chose some different ones, and ignore others, but arithmetic and physics are still vital whichever you chose. Perhaps start with the laws of physics and arithmetic apply to all scientists and that may help thin out which ones to believe? Those that defy the laws of physics and arithmetic are not scientists as far as I am concerned.
What I advocate is to pollute less if you are going to use a resource-and, at 10.46pm you showed you do use that resource. You have squirmed continuously to try and disprove that local production pollutes less than imports for oil. Well, that is a fake argument and if you need that to support your scientists then there is a problem. Maybe you have interests in those who export to UK, but the argument is still fake. Unless you even except common sense, then you are indeed part of the problem, not the solution.
I’ve only just found this, coming very late to Mann. Mann- ‘The New Climate War’ – “Outright denial of the physical evidence of climate change simply isn’t credible any more. So they [the fossil fuel companies] have shifted to a softer form of denialism while keeping the oil flowing and fossil fuels burning, engaging in a multi pronged offensive based on deception, distraction and delay. This is the new climate war, and the planet is losing.” p3.
More squirming.
If that was a reply to myself, we have already discussed climate change on many occasions. I have always agreed that there is climate change, and not denied that. What I am interested in are practical and sensible ways to start mitigating against it, without the sort of dogma that certain antis find more important than physics or arithmetic. So, for instance, I support HS2 for those reasons, you object but have yet to propose anything to replace other than more efficient use of the existing line, which has been rejected because the capacity required would not be deliverable.
However, it is quite refreshing that when fake, and obviously, fake news is peddled with regard to transfer of production there are not too many antis who are that keen to trash their credibility by joining in. Plonking “fracking” into non fracking situations, may gain a few helpers, but not many.
“Credibility, integrity and virginity, once lost, are never regained”. Source-Man (MFC).
Additionally, if Naomi is the source of inspiration, then there is always Naomi Seibt:
“I don’t want you to panic. I want you to think.”
I shall attempt to respect those who are able to think, and even if they have their own dogma, do not expect others to accept that replaces facts. (Brent Crude still above $70/barrel.)