Energy 249 (2022) 123660

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Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/energy

Hydrogen Deep Ocean Link: a global sustainable interconnected

energy grid
Julian David Hunt a, b, *, Andreas Nascimento b, Behnam Zakeri a, c,
Paulo Se
rgio Franco Barbosa d
a
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Austria
b
Federal University of Espírito Santo, Brazil
c
Sustainable Energy Planning Research Group, Aalborg University Copenhagen, Denmark
d
Federal University of Alfenas (UNIFAL), Brazil

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The world is undergoing a substantial energy transition with an increasing share of intermittent sources
Received 15 December 2021 of energy on the grid, which is increasing the challenges to operate the power grid reliably. An option
Received in revised form that has been receiving much focus after the COVID pandemic is the development of a hydrogen
2 March 2022
economy. Challenges for a hydrogen economy are the high investment costs involved in compression,
Accepted 5 March 2022
storage, and long-distance transportation. This paper analyses an innovative proposal for the creation of
Available online 8 March 2022
hydrogen ocean links. It intends to fill existing gaps in the creation of a hydrogen economy with the
increase in flexibility and viability for hydrogen production, consumption, compression, storage, and
Keywords:
Global supergrid
transportation. The main concept behind the proposals presented in this paper consists of using the fact
Offshore wind power that the pressure in the deep sea is very high, which allows a thin and cheap HDPE tank to store and
Electrolysis ship transport large amounts of pressurized hydrogen in the deep sea. This is performed by replacing
Deep sea ocean link seawater with pressurized hydrogen and maintaining the pressure in the pipes similar to the outside
Hydrogen transportation pressure. Hydrogen Deep Ocean Link has the potential of increasing the interconnectivity of different
regional energy grids into a global sustainable interconnected energy system.
© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

1. Introduction especially in countries without an existing natural gas grid [16e18].

There are several solutions proposed for long-term and seasonal
The ever-decreasing cost of variable renewable sources (VRE) hydrogen storage [19e22]. These solutions are mainly based on
such as wind and solar PV has paved the way for large-scale storing hydrogen in underground caverns [23], depleted reservoirs
penetration of such technologies [1e8]. Yet, for achieving climate and salt mines [24]. These solutions are mainly site-specific, limited
targets such as “net zero”, various solutions must be deployed, by geological and accessibility limitations [25]. Other alternatives
including hydrogen [9]. The hydrogen economy has received much for storing energy seasonally are seasonal pumped hydropower
attention after the COVID pandemic [10], as a solution to reduce the storage [26e32], gravity energy storage [33], biomass [34], power
reliance on fossil fuels and the associated risks [11e13]. In many to fuels [35,36] and thermal energy storage [37].
post-pandemic recovery programs, such as the EU Hydrogen Hydrogen long-distance transportation has received a lot of
Strategy, there is an emphasis on renewable hydrogen and ambi- attention in the literature. So far, the most discussed alternatives for
tious plans to expand the hydrogen infrastructure to meet energy transporting hydrogen to long distances are through pipelines, and
and climate targets [14,15]. a few solutions based on liquefaction and shipping [38]. Hydrogen
One of the challenges for expanding the hydrogen economy is could be mixed with natural gas and transferred and stored in the
the transmission and distribution (T&D) and storage of hydrogen, natural gas grid [39]. This is convenient as it transports hydrogen in
a gaseous state without the need and complexity of liquefication
and regasification [40]. However, pipelines could be an issue, as
* Corresponding author. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis such infrastructure is not available everywhere and maybe a risky
(IIASA), Austria. solution, particularly in conflict zones. Hydrogen can be
E-mail address: [email protected] (J.D. Hunt).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2022.123660
0360-5442/© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
J.D. Hunt, A. Nascimento, B. Zakeri et al. Energy 249 (2022) 123660

transported with an intermediate energy carrier such as ammonia, to store large amounts of hydrogen seasonally or pluri-annually in
methylcyclohexane, methanol and other [41e43]. The main issue the deep sea. This is performed by replacing seawater with pres-
with this alternative is the low energy density of the fuels and the surized hydrogen when filling up the tank and replacing the
challenges of producing the fuels and transforming them back to hydrogen with seawater when emptying the tank.
hydrogen. Hydrogen can also be transported in a gaseous state with
airships or balloons [44]. As hydrogen is lighter than air, the airship 2.1.1. Deep ocean H2 isothermal compression
or balloon would be designed to float on the stratosphere, and the The proposed deep ocean H2 isothermal compression in this
wind would blow the hydrogen to its destination [45]. The route paper is shown in Fig. 3. The connection between the continent and
would be controlled by changing the altitude of the airship or the electrolysis ship is done with an underwater transmission line
balloon. Another recent proposal, suggests the transport of pres- (Fig. 3 (a)) [54]. The electrolysis ship uses the electricity to desali-
surized hydrogen with deep ocean H2 pipelines [46]. The advantage nate seawater and produce H2. The H2 is pressurized adiabatically
of this proposal is that given the pressure inside and outside the to a pressure of 100 bar. The pressurized H2 is transported via a
pipeline are the same, the pipeline can be cheap. This paper further pressure pipeline to the isothermal compression device. The
develops this concept. isothermal compression devise consists of 21 HDPE pipes filled
There are also several solutions for highly efficient, isothermal with high porosity sand (where 60% solid and 40% liquid or gas)
hydrogen compression. The AirBattery is an innovative compressed wrapped by cables connected to the electrolysis ship (Fig. 3 (b)).
air storage (CAES) solution that stores air isothermally with the The pressurized H2 (100 bar) replaces the seawater. Once the device
displacement of air with water, at high efficiencies [47]. The water is filled with hydrogen, it starts to descend as the system weight is
pressure is increased with the aid of pumps. The electricity is then higher than the buoyancy forces. The hydrogen and seawater bal-
generated by using compressed air to push water in a hydropower ance to result in a smooth descent is detailed in the Results section.
turbine to generate electricity. A similar system could be imple- As the H2 replaces the seawater in the outer pipes, the hydrogen is
mented to compress and store H2 cheaply and efficiently. This pa- directed to the adjacent pipes increasing the H2 pressure of all pipes
per proposes a similar solution for hydrogen compression named and maintaining the pressure inside the pipes the same as the
deep ocean H2 isothermal compression, however, instead of using outside pressure. Once one outer pipe is filled with water and
turbines to increase the pressure, the pressure is increased by another is about to be filled with water, the first is detached from
increasing the depth of the storage tank in the sea and allowing the cluster of pipes. This is important because if the pipe filled with
seawater to enter the tank and compress the H2. The advantage of sand and seawater reached the bottom of the ocean, the energy
the proposed technology is that the storage tanks are made of required to pull the pipes back to 1000 m would require signifi-
cheap HDEP pipes, while the AirBattery is made of expensive cantly more energy. The proposal in (Fig. 3 (b)) has a compression
pressure tanks. The disadvantage of the proposed technology is efficiency of 90 to 80% efficiency. Once the 5 pipes with pressurized
that it is limited to the deep ocean. The main contributions of this hydrogen at 500 bar and 5000 m depth, the hydrogen is stored in
paper to the literature are to propose the use of the deep ocean of deep ocean H2 long-term storage, pipeline, or submarine, and the 5
hydrogen compression, log-term storage, and transportation. The pipes are filled with seawater. After the H2 is delivered, the ship
use the deep sea high pressure for hydrogen compression, log-term powers a motor to pull the pipes filled with water back to an alti-
storage and transportation has not yet been proposed in the liter- tude of 1000 m, and the cycle restarts.
ature [48e53]. The paper investigates the costs of the technology.
Furthermore, by applying a GIS-based analysis, this study in- 2.1.2. Deep ocean H2 long-term storage
vestigates the global potential of HYDOL, which provides the first- An interesting alternative to store hydrogen long-term cheaply
of-its-kind assessment of the potential contribution of such storage is to use an HDPE tank filled with high porosity sand, as shown in
technology. The proposed designs in this paper have been devel- Fig. 4. The tank is still in the deep ocean bed and always operates
oped by the authors and are considerably different from what has with the same pressure, which can vary from 50 to 600 bar,
been proposed in the literature. depending on the depth where it is located. The tank is filled with
sand to maintain it on the seabed when it is filled with H2. To
2. Methodology discharge the H2 stored, seawater is allowed to flow into the bottom
of the tank, and the H2 leaves the tank from the top. On the other
The methodology implemented in the paper is presented in hand, when the tank is being filled with H2 from the top, seawater
Fig. 1. It is divided into three main steps. Step 1 “HYDOL weight is removed from the bottom of the tank. The sand in the deep ocean
balance at different depths”. This step is divided into four sub-steps H2 long-term storage should have high porosity (60%) so that more
the “Solubility of H2 in water at different pressures”, “Density H2 can be stored in the sand. We propose that this solution should
variation of H2 seawater and sand with depth”, “Volume change at be used for long-term energy storage, because it is not practical to
different starting depth”, “Weight balance of H2 and seawater at store H2 on the deep ocean, however, the costs for storage are low.
different depth”. Step 2 “HYDOL proposed arrangements”. This step
is divided into four sub-steps the “Deep ocean H2 isothermal 2.1.3. Deep ocean H2 pipeline
compression”, “Deep ocean H2 long term storage”, “Deep ocean H2 The deep ocean pipeline is designed to transport a large amount
pipeline”, “Deep ocean H2 submarine”. Step 3 “HYDOL global po- of hydrogen mainly between continents (Fig. 5 (a)), however, as the
tential”. This step is divided into four sub-steps “Selection point price of the pipeline is significantly lower than superficial pipelines,
under analysis (PUA)”, “Find locations with depth equal to 1 or 5 it can also the used to transport hydrogen within the coast of the
thousand”, “Locate deep ocean minimum depth bottlenecks”, same continent. The added benefit is that the pipeline can store
“HYDROL global potential”. large amounts of hydrogen even if it is not used to transport
hydrogen. The pipeline consists of two pipelines, one inside the
2.1. HYDOL proposed arrangements other, as shown in Fig. 5 (c). The outer pipe is filled with sand,
hydrogen, and seawater, and the inner pipe is filled only has
The main concept behind the HYDOL proposed arrangements is hydrogen inside. The weight and buoyancy balance of the pipeline
presented in Fig. 2 and consists of using the fact that the pressure in is controlled by adding or removing hydrogen from the outer
the deep sea is very high, which allows a thin and cheap HDPE tank pipeline, as shown in Fig. 5 (c). For the hydrogen to flow in the
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J.D. Hunt, A. Nascimento, B. Zakeri et al. Energy 249 (2022) 123660

Fig. 1. Flow chart describing the methodology implemented in the paper.

Fig. 2. Main concept behind the HYDOL solutions.

pipeline, the hydrogen pressure in the inlet much be higher than the outer pipeline, and more hydrogen enters the inner pipeline.
the pressure in the outlet. As the pressure inside and outside along The outer pipeline requires a separation layer every 5e10 km, to
the pipeline should be the same, the pipeline has to create a slope avoid hydrogen building up in the outlet side of the pipeline. The
for both requirements to be fulfilled, as shown in Fig. 5 (b). The cables arrangement to control the depth of the pipeline has two
higher the slope, the faster the hydrogen will flow inside the pipes, fixed anchors and one moving weight to allow the pipeline to move
and the higher will be the pressure difference between the pipeline according to its inner pressure and to the deep ocean currents
inlet and outlet. The pipeline will not bend in a straight line, as (Fig. 5 (d)). Pipeline sections close to the cable connections have a
shown in (Fig. 5 (b)), it will bend similarly to an exponential curve. higher floatability to increase pipeline positioning control. The
This is because, as the pressure lowers the velocity of the hydrogen pipeline section far from the cable connections has a weight and
increases and increases the pressure drop in the pipeline. When the buoyancy equilibrium to minimize the stress on the pipeline and
pressure in the inlet increases, some of the hydrogen flows to the structural support, both upwards and downwards.
outer pipeline displacing the seawater and increasing the depth of Equation (1) is used to estimate the flow of hydrogen and energy
the pipeline. On the outlet, the pressure reduces, and water enters transport in the deep ocean H2 pipeline with different pressure

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J.D. Hunt, A. Nascimento, B. Zakeri et al. Energy 249 (2022) 123660

Fig. 3. Deep ocean H2 isothermal compression, (a) connection between the coast, electrolysis ship, isothermal compression and deep ocean pipeline, (b) description of the
isothermal compression devise.

Fig. 4. Deep ocean H2 long-term storage.

drops along the pipeline. amount of hydrogen. However, they are limited to small distances,
as the weight of the submarine is 50e300 times heavier than the
hydrogen transported.
L : fD : v2
Dp ¼ (1)
2D
2.1.4. Deep ocean H2 submarine
where, Dp is the pressure drop of the hydrogen along the pipeline The deep ocean H2 submarine is a similar concept to the deep
in Pa, L is the length of the pipeline in meters, assumed to be ocean H2 pipeline, however, it consists of pipeline sections with are
5,000,000 m, fD is Darcy friction factor (dimensionless), assumed to transported through a submarine (Fig. 6 (b)). This arrangement is
be 0.03 [55], v is the speed of the hydrogen in the pipeline in m/s, D particularly interesting to transport hydrogen to several locations
is the diameter of the pipeline in meters, assumed to be 2 m. with a small demand for hydrogen. The submarine is filled with
A deep ocean H2 pipeline with as little as 3 m diameter would hydrogen and sinks (Fig. 6 (a)). Some hydrogen flows into the outer
transport around 200 GW of energy, which is a lot of energy to be pipeline removing some of the seawater so that the weight and
transported from one place to another. For locations with signifi- buoyancy balance is met. Once the submarine reaches the final
cantly lower demand for H2, this paper proposed to transport destination hydrogen is delivered and the submarine rises. Some
hydrogen in deep ocean H2 submarines. The pressurized hydrogen water enters the outer pipeline to weight and buoyancy balance.
deep-sea submarine, has the advantage of a transporting smaller The main issue of using the submarine for hydrogen transportation
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J.D. Hunt, A. Nascimento, B. Zakeri et al. Energy 249 (2022) 123660

Fig. 5. Deep ocean H2 pipeline, (a) without hydrogen flow, (b) with maximum hydrogen flow, (c) pipeline longitudinal and axial view, (d) pipeline and anchors axial view.

is that to transport 1 kg of hydrogen the submarine must transport

50e100 kg of sand and seawater (depending on the depth). This V  rSW < VS  rS þ VSW  rSW þ VH  rH þ M (2)
significantly increases the fuel costs and limits this technology to
transport hydrogen in small distances. Another challenge for the V  rSW > VS  rS þ VSW  rSW þ VH  rH þ M (3)
submarine propulsion system is that there is no oxygen in the
gaseous state on the deep sea, thus, if the submarine is powered by V  rSW ¼ VS  rS þ VSW  rSW þ VH  rH þ M (4)
diesel or hydrogen, it must carry the oxygen required for propul-
sion. The most practical approach to do this is to carry liquid oxygen where, V is the volume of the proposed solution, rSW is the density
and to use fuel cells, which increase the energy conversion up to of seawater, VS is the volume of sand in the proposed solution [57],
70e80%. These types of submarines are named air-independent rS is the density of sand, which is assumed to be 1900 kg/m3, VSW is
propulsion (AIP) [56]. Another option is to have nuclear sub- the volume of sand in the proposed solution, VH is the volume of
marines, however, they are more expensive and pose the threat of hydrogen in the proposed solution, rH is the density of hydrogen,
nuclear contamination of the deep ocean if there is an accident. which varies significantly at different depths, M is the mass of the
other components of the proposed solution.

3. Results
2.2. Weight and buoyancy equilibrium
The arrangement proposed in this paper assumes that H2 is
For the proposed solution in this paper to be maintained at the replaced by seawater with the intent of compressing the H2 or
designed depth, there is the need to add additional weight to changing the buoyancy of the proposed solution. The mixing of
counterbalance the low density of the pressurized hydrogen. This seawater and hydrogen only makes sense if the solubility of H2 in
paper assumed that the cheapest and most appropriate material to water is small, as the hydrogen solubilized in water would be
counterbalance the buoyancy potential of hydrogen is sand. The wasted in the ocean. The solubility of hydrogen in the liquid phase
deep ocean isothermal compression and deep ocean H2 long-term is low, for example, mole fractions ranging from between 0.0004
energy storage solutions apply Equation (2). The deep ocean H2 and 0.0140 at 0  C and pressures between P ¼ 25 bar and
pipeline solution applies Equation (3), and the deep ocean H2 P ¼ 1000 bar [58]. Fig. 7 (a) present the change in solubility of H2 in
submarine applies Equation (4). water at different pressures. This paper assumes that the solubility
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Fig. 6. Deep ocean H2 submarine, (a) hydrogen delivery path, (b) submarine longitudinal and axial view.

of H2 in seawater is the same as the solubility in water. Note, in the deep ocean H2 pipeline is presented in Fig. 7 (d). The flow of
however, that given that seawater has already several other com- hydrogen is controlled by the slope of the pipeline. The flow of
ponents dissolved, the solubility of H2 in seawater is significantly hydrogen in energy increases exponentially with the diameter of
smaller than in water. Assuming that the hydrogen is stored at the pipelines. If the amount of hydrogen introduced to the pipeline
500 bar in the deep ocean, that xH2 is 0.0064 and that the H2 is higher than the amount removed, the overall altitude of the
volume of the tank is replaced by seawater. This means that the loss pipeline reduces and hydrogen is stored within the pipeline. If the
of H2 in water is only 0.64% for each storage cycle and 99.36% of the average pipeline pressure reduces from 400 bar to 300 bar, the
hydrogen is recuperated. Thus, this paper neglects the H2 losses pipeline can store 93,193 kg of hydrogen, which is equivalent to
through the solubility in seawater. 2.174 TWh of electricity and the supply of electricity at a rate of
The three components utilized to operate the proposed 32 GW for 3 months.
hydrogen compression, storage and transportation arrangements An important aspect of the deep ocean H2 submarine is the
are hydrogen, seawater and a mixture of sand & hydrogen and sand required ballast to avoid it rising to the surface. To maintain the
& seawater. Sand was selected to increase the weight of the system weight and buoyancy capacity of the submarine in equilibrium, the
to avoid it to rising the surface due to its low cost, inert and low H2 density must be compensated with the use of sand or other
appropriate porosity to store hydrogen or seawater. Note that the material to increase the weight of the submarine. Fig. 7 (e)shows
density of the sand selected is slightly higher than the average sand, the required weight multiplication factor, which is inversely pro-
to reduce the volume and dimension of the pipelines. Fig. 7 (b) portional to the hydrogen density, shown in Fig. 7 (b).
shows the change in density of hydrogen, seawater and sand at The density and the costs of several materials have been
different depths. compared in Fig. 7 (f) [59e63]. The larger the volume of the sub-
Fig. 7 (c) presents the seawater volume variation for the outer marine, the higher the energy losses due to friction. This makes
pipeline in the deep ocean H2 pipeline and submarine, with the high-density materials interesting to be implemented in the sub-
intent of maintaining the pipeline and the submarine in each depth. marine. However, due to the vast space available for the submarine
Note that the pipeline operational depths do not vary as much as to navigate and maneuver, the submarine can be very long and,
the submarine. The submarine needs to have a high depth variation thus, reducing the friction for moving underwater. Thus, wet desert
operation due to the need for filling up its tanks with oxygen on the sand is the most interesting alternative due to its low cost.
surface if the submarine stays a long time without operating.
Assuming the pipeline proposed in Fig. 5 (c), the flow of energy

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J.D. Hunt, A. Nascimento, B. Zakeri et al. Energy 249 (2022) 123660

Fig. 7. Results, (a) Solubility of H2 in water at 0  C [58], (b) hydrogen and air density at different depths, (c) volume of seawater required in the outer pipeline in different depths, (d)
flow of energy in the deep ocean H2 pipeline with different slopes with the average pressure of the pipeline at 400 bar, (e) submarine total weight divided by the H2 weight
transported at different depths, (f) density and costs comparison of different materials [59e63].

3.1. HYDOL cost estimation 1000 m deep, Figs. 8 (c), 2000 m deep, Figs. 8 (d), 3000 m deep,
Figs. 8 (e), 4000 m deep, Figs. 8 (f), 5000 m deep. Analysing the
Table 1 presents a cost estimate for an arrangement that oper- potential, at 4000 m depth there is a significant amount of the
ates from 300 bars to 1000 bars with hydrogen. ocean available to transport hydrogen and important bottlenecks
that should be used to connect different countries and continents.
Table 2 present the maximum depth allowed to transport hydrogen
3.2. HYDOL global potential
between locations.
Using the potential from Fig. 8 (d), showing the available ocean
The global potential for HYDOL consists of an analysis of the
at 3000 m depth and the depth limits from Table 2, the global deep
world bathymetry with a 30 arc-seconds resolution (900 m at the
ocean H2 pipeline is proposed in Fig. 8 (g). It consists of pipelines
equator and smaller with the increase or reduction in latitude),
bordering continents and pipelines connecting continents. The
with data obtained from the GEBCO project [69]. The world po-
criteria utilized were to keep the pipeline with a minimum depth of
tential consists of analysing the available depths where deep ocean
3000 m and use the shortest distances to connect major continents.
H2 long-term storage can be built close to the places with high
The coastal deep ocean H2 pipeline sums up to 105,000 km, as
demand (Fig. 8 (a)). It also finds the minimum depths required to
shown in Table 3, which would cost around 40 billion dollars.
transport hydrogen from one continent to another or through the
Pipeline connection between continents of 85,700 km, as shown in
coast of a continent, as shown in (Fig. 8(bef)). The higher the depth
Table 4, which would cost around 33 billion dollars. The sum of
available, the cheaper it is to transport hydrogen with a deep ocean
both pipelines networks is 191,300 km and 73 billion dollars. The
H2 pipeline and submarine. Fig. 8 (b) presents the ocean available at
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Table 1
Cost estimate for HYDOL system components with 70 MW and 7914 MWh capacity.

Component Cost description Cost

Deep ocean H2 isothermal compression

Pipes 21 HDPE pipes with 100 m. Extrapolating the costs in Ref. [64], it is estimated a cost of 120 USD per meter of pipe. 252,000 USD
Pipe sand Desert sand for 1 USD per tonne to fill a volume of 164.850 m3 [63]. Density of 1700 kg/m3. 280,000 USD
Cables 5 km of cables, 285 KN, 8.3 USD/m each [65]. Assuming the cables must support 87,920 tons of sand requires 3026 cables. As the weight 69,773,000 USD
of the sand is distributed through the depth, the cable length is divided by 1.8.
Motor/generator Power capacity of 90 MW to have a compression cycle with an ascending time of 12 h and a power costs of 1000 USD/kW [66]. 90,000,000 USD
Construction 30% of the equipment costs. 48,092,00 USD
Total project cost e 208,397,000
USD
Compression The system can compress isothermally 14,130 m3 of hydrogen per day, from 100 bar to 500 bar, with an efficiency of 80e90%. The cost 14,730 USD/
cost of compressing gas with conventional technologies is estimated at 85,948 USD/(m3/d) [67], which makes deep ocean H2 compression 6 (m3/d)
times cheaper.
Deep ocean H2 long-term storage
Pipe HDPE pipe with 50 m, extrapolating the costs in Ref. [64]. 750,000 USD
Pipe sand Desert sand for 1 USD per tonne to fill a volume of 164.850 m3 [63]. Density of 1700 kg/m3. 835,000 USD
Construction 50% of the equipment costs, as equipment costs are very low. 800,000 USD
Total costs e 2,385,000 USD
Hydrogen The hydrogen storage capacity is 176,625 m3 and 500 bar pressure. 14 USD/m3
storage cost
Energy storage Assuming a generation efficiency of 70% and hydrogen density of 32.8 kg/m3 at 500 bar, the energy storage capacity is 135 GWh. 0.018 USD/kWh
costs
Deep ocean H2 pipeline
Pipes Pipeline with 5000 km with an estimated cost of 120 USD per meter of outer pipe and inner pipe of 60 USD per meter [64]. 99,375,000 USD
Pipe sand Desert sand for 1 USD per tonne to fill a volume of 164.850 m3 [63]. Density of 1700 kg/m3. 46,500,000 USD
Containers Assuming that 5% of the sand in the pipeline is required to keep the pipeline anchored to the deep sea. It is required 20,380 40FT 14,266,000 USD
containers.
Container sand Assuming that there are three 40FT containers to support the pipeline per 100 m. 1,380,000 USD
Cables 2 km of cables, 285 KN, 8.3 USD/m each [65]. Assuming the cables have to support 10% of the weight of the pipeline requires 80,000 1,328,614,000
cables are required, which is equivalent to 4 cables per container. USD
Construction 30% of equipment costs 447,040,000
costs USD
Total costs e 1,937,175,000
USD
3
Hydrogen Assuming a generation efficiency of 70% and hydrogen density of 27.3 kg/m at 400 bar, a pressure drop of 200 bar, a velocity of 4.4 m/s 60,917,453
3
transport in the pipeline, equivalent to 13.9 m /s, 379 kg/s and 31.8 GW of energy. USD/GW
Deep ocean H2 submarine
Pipes Outer and inner pipe costs [64]. 1,536,000 USD
Pipe sand Desert sand for 1 USD per tonne to fill a volume of 2.180 m3 [63]. Density of 1700 kg/m3. 615,000 USD
Propulsion The submarine is assumed to use air independent propulsion (AIP), i.e. it carries liquid oxygen and generates electricity with the 100,000,000
system hydrogen in the submarine [68]. USD
Construction 30% of the equipment costs 30,000,000 USD
costs
Operation costs Variable and fixed costs are estimated to be 70% of total costs. Due to the need to transport large amounts of sand. 400,000,000
USD
Total costs e 564,204,160
USD
3
Hydrogen Assuming a generation efficiency of 70% and hydrogen density of 27.3 kg/m at 400 bar, a 2 day trip, at 20 km/h, 500 km, and 7,5 GW of 37,597,147
transport energy. USD/GW

global potential for deep ocean H2 submarine is limited for short 5. Conclusions
distances and is shown in Table 5.
This paper presented the proposed Hydrogen Deep Ocean Link
4. Discussion to reduce the costs for hydrogen compression, long-term hydrogen
storage, hydrogen intercontinental transportation, and transport
An interesting advantage of the Hydrogen Oceanic Link pro- between islands. This is the first time that the concept of storing
posed in this paper is that it consists of a multiple purpose hydrogen in the deep sea by replacing seawater with pressurized
Hydrogen Oceanic Link an electric transmission link, that can hydrogen is mentioned in the literature. These proposed arrange-
connect to offshore wind plants, hydrogen electrolysis ships, ments benefit from the high pressures at the deep sea, which al-
hydrogen power plant ships and other power plant ships, for lows HDPE pipes to perform these services cheaply. The paper
instance, gas power plant ship, nuclear power plant ship, biomass estimate that the investment costs for H2 isothermal compression
power plant ship and others. This is particularly interesting because from 100 bar to 500 bar is 14,730 USD/(m3/d), for long-term energy
a country that has access to the sea will not have to build peaker storage at 500 bar of 0.018 USD/kWh, for deep ocean H2 pipeline of
power plants that operate at 2% of its capacity, particularly, during 60,917,453 USD/GW at 400 bar and 5000 km, and for deep ocean H2
extremely cold or hot periods when electricity demand rises submarine of 37,597,147 USD/GW at 400 bar and 500 km. These
sharply. The power plant ship can be contracted and connected to costs are 6 times cheaper than business as usual hydrogen
the Hydrogen Oceanic Link and transmit electricity to the coast. compression (compression turbines), 50 times cheaper than busi-
Similarly, an electrolysis ship can generate H2 when the price of ness as usual hydrogen long-term storage (surface pressurized
electricity in the region is cheap so that electricity can be used to storage tanks), and 3 times cheaper than then business as usual
produce H2. long-distance transportation (liquefied hydrogen). However, note
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J.D. Hunt, A. Nascimento, B. Zakeri et al. Energy 249 (2022) 123660

Fig. 8. Global potential for hydrogen ocean link [70], (a) global bathymetry, (b) ocean available at 1000 m deep, (c) 2000 m deep, (d) 3000 m deep, (e) 4000 m deep, (f) 5000 m
deep, (g) proposed deep ocean H2 pipeline.

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Table 2 facilitating the transport of hydrogen within the continents, and

Maximum depth bottlenecks allowed to transport H2 between locations. connecting continents, resulting in a global sustainable energy grid.
Country/continent connections Maximum depth (m)

Mediterranean Sea/Atlantic Ocean 900 Author contributions

Caribbean/Pacific Ocean 1650
Mexico, Equador, Peru, Chile/Pacific Ocean 3500 Conceptualization, methodology, writingdoriginal draft prep-
Colombia/Pacific Ocean 2800
aration, software, J.H.; formal analysis, writingdreview and edit-
Arctic Ocean/North Atlantic 835
Australia/Pacific Ocean 3600 ing, visualization, A.N.; investigation, data curation, project
Africa/Australia 3300 administration, B.Z.; funding acquisition, resources P.B. All authors
Atlantic/Pacific Ocean (Cape Horn) 3300 have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Middle East/Atlantic Ocean 4200
North America/Japan 4500
Americas/Europe/Africa 5200 Declaration of competing interest
China, Philippines/Pacific Ocean 4500
The authors declare that they have no known competing
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
Table 3
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Global deep ocean H2 pipeline for connecting different continents.
Acknowledgements
Country/continent connections Length (km)

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil/Namibia 5400

This research was funded by National Agency of Petroleum,
Paraíba, Brazil/Sierra Leone 2900
Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil/Portugal 5300
Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP), the Financier of Studies and Pro-
Suriname/North Carolina, USA 3400 jects (FINEP) and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innova-
California, USA/Peru 6400 tion (MCTI) through the ANP Human Resources Program for the Oil
Peru/South Pole Circle 6000 and Gas Sector Gas - PRH-ANP/MCTI, in particular PRH-ANP 53.1
Cafifornia, USA/Tokio, Japan 8100
UFES, for all the financial support received through the grant.
South Pole Circle 23,000
Papua, Tokyo, Japan 4100
Sydney, Australia/South New Zealand 1800 References
Perth, Australia/Cape Town, South Africa 8500
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