Adaptive reuse doesn’t just mean turning office buildings into apartments, or warehouses into loft spaces.
Long-abandoned shopping malls are being turned into data centers, and oil refineries are being retrofitted into clean energy facilities.
Accurate, actionable infrastructure data is necessary to ensure the safety and success of these projects.
Netherlands-based petrochemicals manufacturer LyondellBasell announced in November that it plans to convert the soon-to-be-closed oil refinery of its Houston Refining LP unit into a hydrogen facility. According to Engineering News-Record, the 268,000-barrel-per-day plant will be part of Houston’s HyVelocity Hydrogen Hub, one of seven hydrogen hubs in the United States which, collectively, were selected in October to receive up to $7 billion in funding as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
The HyVelocity Hydrogen Hub will receive up to $1.2 billion in funds as part of this award. According to a press release issued by the White House, the hub is expected to create approximately 45,000 direct jobs – 35,000 in construction jobs and 10,000 permanent jobs.
The press release goes on to say that the Houston-based hub “will help kickstart the clean hydrogen economy with its plans for large-scale hydrogen production through both natural gas with carbon capture and renewables-powered electrolysis, leveraging the Gulf Coast region’s abundant renewable energy and natural gas supply to drive down the cost of hydrogen – a crucial step to achieving market liftoff.”
Collectively, the seven hydrogen hubs aim to produce more than three million metric tons of clean hydrogen per year, which would amount to almost a third of the 2030 U.S. clean hydrogen production goal. They are also expected to eliminate 25 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions from end users annually – an amount roughly equivalent to the combined annual emissions of over 5.5 million gasoline-powered cars.
Hydrogen Power Explained
Hydrogen is known as an energy carrier because it does not exist freely in nature and is produced from other sources of energy. When combined with oxygen in a fuel cell, it produces heat and electricity. Its only by-product is water vapor.
There are several ways to produce hydrogen, including using fossil fuels or biomass, or passing electricity through water to extract the hydrogen from the latter.
Today, most hydrogen is produced by steam reforming natural gas. The problem is that natural gas is a fossil fuel, meaning that producing clean hydrogen using this method requires utilizing a resource that is becoming scarcer and more expensive by the day, and emits carbon dioxide.
Efficient transportation and storage solutions for hydrogen are still being developed, and hydrogen fuel cell technology also requires improvements before its efficient and durable enough for widespread adoption. Still, many experts believe that when produced using green processes, hydrogen is an attractive fuel option for transportation and electricity generation applications.
GPRS Services Put You in Control
Whether you’re transforming a mall into a data center, or retrofitting an oil refinery to produce renewable energy, you need accurate, actionable infrastructure data to ensure you stay on time, on budget, and safe.
GPRS has successfully completed as-built utility update projects at many power generation facilities across the United States. With our comprehensive range of reporting options, including marks on the ground, field sketches, detailed CAD reports and satellite image overlays, our energy clients have the peace of mind of knowing they have the most reliable scanning and reporting technology on their job site.
GPRS Project Managers (PMs) have achieved and maintain a 99.8%+ rate of accuracy on the over 500,000 utility locating and concrete scanning projects we’ve completed to date, thanks in large part to our commitment to the Subsurface Investigation Methodology (SIM). This industry-leading training program and specification guides how we conduct not only utility locates and precision concrete scanning, but also video (CCTV) pipe inspections and leak detection.
The data collected on your site by our SIM-certified PMs is at your fingertips 24/7 thanks to SiteMap® (patent pending), GPRS’ project and facility management application that provides accurate existing condition documentation to protect your assets and people.
SiteMap® takes all the field-verified data collected by our PMs and puts it in one place where you can securely access it and share it with your team members from any computer, tablet, or mobile device. It’s a single source of truth for everything you need to plan, design, manage, dig, and ultimately build better.
GPRS’ SiteMap® team members are currently scheduling live, personal demos of SiteMap®. Click below to schedule your demo today!
Frequently Asked Questions
Is hydrogen gas cheaper than traditional gasoline?
No, the current price of hydrogen is higher than traditional gasoline. Hydrogen fuel cells, however, are approximately 2.5 times more efficient than gasoline engines.
What are the Benefits of Underground Utility Mapping?
Having an updated and accurate map of your subsurface infrastructure reduces accidents, budget overruns, change orders, and project downtime caused by dangerous and costly subsurface damage.
How does SiteMap® assist with Utility Mapping?
SiteMap®, powered by GPRS, is the industry-leading infrastructure management program. It is a single source of truth, housing the 99.8%+ accurate utility locating, concrete scanning, video pipe inspection, leak detection, and 3D laser scanning data our Project Managers collect on your job site. And the best part is you get a complimentary SiteMap® Personal Subscription when GPRS performs a utility locate for you.
Click here to learn more.
Does SiteMap® Work with my Existing GIS Platform?
SiteMap® allows for exporting of data to SHP, GeoJSON, GeoPackage, and DXF directly from any user’s account that either owns or has a job shared to their account. All these file formats can be imported and utilized by other GIS packages if manually imported by the user. More information can be found at SiteMap.com.