Hydrogen and carbon dioxide pipelines – why a different engineering approach is required

Abstract

Australia is planning to construct a network of hydrogen (H₂) pipelines to deliver H₂ to hard-to-abate industries. Similarly, a network of carbon dioxide (CO₂) pipelines will be required to deliver captured CO₂ from industry and direct air capture (DAC) facilities to sequestration sites, and to enable beneficial use of CO₂. Major universities in Australia partnered with Princeton University to prepare the Net Zero Australia Study. They created a model to determine the lowest cost physical infrastructure required for Australia to reach net zero for both domestic energy and exports. The model showed that for Australia to reach net zero using today’s technology, it could need nearly 15,000 km of H₂ pipelines, 20,000 km of CO₂ pipelines and approximately 8000 km of water pipelines depending on the scenario. Australia currently has approximately 42,000 km of gas pipelines. This study showed that we need to build around another 42,000 km of pipelines to achieve net zero. It has taken us over 60 years to build the first 42,000 km and now we need to build the next 42,000 in just 25 years. To efficiently transport CO₂ via pipelines, it is compressed to a super-critical phase liquid which can cause long running fractures in the event of failure requiring a very different approach to their design. Similarly, H₂ pipelines require a very different approach due to the potential for embrittlement and need to also provide storage. This paper describes the alternative engineering approach to designing these pipelines to safely transport and store these energy transition fluids.