The truth about hydrogen fuel ⚡️
The truth about hydrogen fuel ⚡️
And how it can still play a unique role in decarbonization
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Today’s Edition
Story: The truth about hydrogen fuel
Hydrogen’s potential
Why making hydrogen is hard
The ugly truths about hydrogen, including how some researchers discovered a huge problem with blue hydrogen
Why hydrogen isn’t an ideal fuel for cars
How hydrogen fuel can decarbonize some of the most polluting industries
A global round-up of hydrogen news from Africa, North America, and Europe
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The truth about hydrogen fuel ⚡️
Hydrogen’s potential
Hydrogen is the lightest and most abundant element in the universe. It's also a fuel that could help us move closer to a world that relies on clean energy.
But what makes hydrogen so unique? Well, two things:
It has a high energy density which allows it to store significantly more energy than other energy carriers like batteries. Hydrogen can store over 200 times more energy per kilogram than a lithium-ion battery, for example.
It releases a lot of heat when it combusts, which is beneficial for industrial processes like steel manufacturing.
And it does all of this without emitting any greenhouse gases.
Making hydrogen is complicated
Pure hydrogen is hard to find on Earth. It’s usually bound to oxygen in water (H2O) or to carbon in methane (CH4), so we have to separate it.
Depending on how you produce your hydrogen, it falls within a coloured spectrum of cleanliness:
Grey hydrogen is made by combining high-temperature steam with methane, which releases CO2. This process is known as steam-reforming.
Blue hydrogen is like grey hydrogen, with the added benefit of capturing CO2 emissions. This sounds cleaner, but the reality is much different.
Green hydrogen is produced by separating hydrogen atoms from water molecules using electricity powered by renewable energy like solar or wind. This is the cleanest type of hydrogen and produces no CO2. And we could use seawater for this.
Other types of hydrogen:
Pink hydrogen → electrolysis powered by nuclear power.
Black/Brown hydrogen → hydrogen made from coal.
White hydrogen → hydrogen harvested from geological deposits.
Once you have hydrogen, you can use it by:
Putting it in a fuel cell and mixing it with oxygen to produce electricity
Burning it to produce heat
The ugly truths about hydrogen
Hydrogen has to overcome some hurdles before it can achieve its full potential:
Reducing green hydrogen’s production costs
Steering away from blue hydrogen
Improving storage and transportation
#1: Reducing green hydrogen’s production costs
Hydrogen made using renewable energy is expensive (IEA):
Gray hydrogen: $0.5-$1.7 per kg
Blue hydrogen: $1-$2 per kg
Green hydrogen: $3-$8 per kg
Today, over 95% of the hydrogen produced is grey hydrogen, while green hydrogen accounts for less than 0.1%.
But, even if we bring down the costs of green hydrogen, it's still an inefficient fuel for electricity production. Using solar-powered electricity to produce hydrogen so we can produce electricity again is not the best use of renewables. You also lose at least 30% of the energy you started with. Yikes.
On a positive note, the costs of renewable energy and electrolyzers are dropping.
Hydrogen could still make a name for itself as a storage solution for excess renewable energy despite its inefficiencies.
#2: Steering away from blue hydrogen
The middle child, blue hydrogen, is commonly painted as the “bridge” between grey and green. It’s not entirely clean because it uses cheap natural gas. But it’s not totally dirty because we capture the CO2 emissions.
But blue hydrogen is much worse than advertised, and the emissions aren’t as negligible as some claim.
In a peer-reviewed study, Cornell and Stanford researchers found that emissions from blue hydrogen production are only 9%-12% less than those from grey hydrogen.
Blue hydrogen production also releases more methane than grey hydrogen, which traps 80 times more heat than CO2 during its first 20 years in the atmosphere (MIT).
That’s a huge problem when emissions need to quickly decline in the next couple of decades. Claims about blue hydrogen’s low emissions are misleading because they focus on CO2 emissions without factoring in the higher methane emissions.
Unsurprisingly, the Oil & Gas industry has heavily invested in blue hydrogen projects. To be fair, they’re also investing in green hydrogen projects… but it’s to produce fossil fuels.
Green hydrogen is the only truly clean hydrogen. Both the IEA and IRENA expect green hydrogen to undercut blue hydrogen in cost by 2030, so we might as well redirect those investments towards green hydrogen projects to get there faster.
#3: Improving storage and transportation
Hydrogen is fickle to store and transport from where it was produced to the point of use.
Storage: it can either be stored as a gas or liquid.
When it’s stored as a gas, it needs to be compressed which consumes 10% of its energy.
When it’s stored as a liquid, it needs to be cryogenically cooled which can consume up to 40% of its energy.
Why hydrogen is hard to store: hydrogen is extremely light and occupies a much larger volume than other gases. For that reason, it needs to be highly pressurized to be contained and stored as a gas, or cooled to −252.8°C and turned into a liquid.
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Transportation can also lead to leakages according to a Columbia study:
Pipelines are typically used to supply hydrogens for areas with high demand, but they can leak 1%-2% of hydrogen.
Delivery trucks are used to deliver hydrogen on a smaller scale to refuelling stations, but they can leak 2.5%-5% of hydrogen.
The issue becomes finding the right balance of proximity and scale for hydrogen production facilities:
Larger production facilities will have lower production costs, but higher transportation costs if they’re far away from their point of use.
Smaller production facilities will have lower transportation costs, but higher production costs.
Storage and transportation are a few reasons why hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) haven’t really taken off. Only Hyundai and Toyota produce them, and only 15,500 FCVs were sold in 2021. But, China still wants to have 1 million FCVs on its roads by 2030.
If you were to use green hydrogen to power a car, you would lose two-thirds of the energy you started with after taking into account energy losses from production, storage, transport, and re-conversion to electricity.
Direct electrification is still the most efficient approach for cars, although hydrogen is more efficient than diesel or petrol:
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Why hydrogen is still important
Hydrogen won’t solve all our energy problems, but it could satisfy 10% of global energy needs by 2050 according to the IEA.
Hydrogen can help decarbonize industries where direct electrification isn’t feasible:
Steel manufacturing is responsible for 8% of global CO2 emissions. Swedish steel giant SSAB is burning green hydrogen instead of coal to produce green steel at one of its plants.
Chemical production accounts for 5% of global CO2 emissions. Hydrogen can be used as a feedstock to produce ammonia or burned to create heat. The chemical industry already uses hydrogen, but it’s mostly grey.
Long-distance transport like aviation and shipping turn to hydrogen as they replace their polluting fuels. Airbus showed off concepts for an upcoming hydrogen-powered aircraft called ZEROe, but it’s not expected to become operational until 2035.
A global round-up of hydrogen updates
A lot is happening in the hydrogen space, so here are the most interesting developments I’ve come across:
🌍 Africa’s push to become the green hydrogen leader
Kenya, South Africa, Namibia, Egypt, Morocco, and Mauritania have joined forces to accelerate green hydrogen production on the continent under the Africa Green Hydrogen Alliance.
An important partnership since African countries have wide access to solar, wind, and hydropower. Four of these countries have attracted 75% of renewable energy funding in the past decade according to IRENA. Read more
🇩🇪 🤝 🇨🇦 Germany and Canada ink hydrogen deal
Germany recently made headlines after launching the first hydrogen-powered trains. I suspect the hydrogen being used is either grey or blue, but not for long. Canada and Germany signed a deal to set up a green hydrogen plant in Newfoundland and start exports by 2025. A deal that makes sense as Germany tries to find new energy partners and reduce its reliance on Russia. Read more
🇺🇸 The US Inflation Reduction Act is a win for green hydrogen
One of the biggest wins for green hydrogen from the IRA is the $3 tax credit per kg for green hydrogen production. This would achieve price parity with blue hydrogen. Other benefits include tax credits for setting up refuelling stations. Read more
🇮🇪 🤝 🇳🇱 Ireland to supply Europe with green hydrogen through the Port of Amsterdam
Ireland plans to use its offshore wind as a source of energy for green hydrogen production. Its partnership with the Netherlands will enable it to supply it to the rest of Europe. Read more
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Deep dive:
If you enjoyed today’s story, I’ve compiled some additional links to satisfy your curiosity:
How green is blue hydrogen? (Wiley)
Sweden pioneers green steel production, using hydrogen rather than coal (YouTube)
The potential of hydrogen for the chemical industry (Deloitte)
How can countries scale hydrogen and make aviation sustainable? (Arup)
Oil and Gas’s Pivot to Blue Hydrogen Is Falling Through (The Intercept)
This is what the massive international clean hydrogen trade may look like in 2050: Irena (Recharge News)
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How would you rate this week's edition?
Carbon sequestration is possible with plants:
https://pfaf.org/user/cmspage.aspx?pageid=324
I wish more people talked about and encouraged the local planting trees to offset CO2, provide food with fruit and nut trees, and shade for cities, thus reducing the energy / electricity load associated with food transportation and air conditioning.
There are some people who have made it their mission to do that:
Two people, a photographer and his wife, managed to plant 2 million trees in 318 million acres (129 million hectares).
https://t.co/qyViRbeyYO
A couple of organizations work toward the goal of planting more trees across the world:
https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/plant-a-billion/
https://www.arborday.org/about/
https://8billiontrees.com
https://trilliontrees.org
Here are more lists of charities that plant trees:
https://impactful.ninja/best-charities-for-planting-trees/
https://donorbox.org/nonprofit-blog/best-charities-planting-trees
I wish it were possible to tell which of these organizations is the most productive, the most impactful, but we could all try to plant more trees locally on our own property, even in a balcony, or by talking about it with friends and neighbors, and by approaching the local governments to encourage them to plant more trees around towns and cities, near roads and highways, and in parks, etc.
There are other, more beautiful and rewarding, ways to help with climate change that don't include nuclear waste 🤢, or the destruction of the Earth for mining /extracting dangerous chemicals that go into energy production / fuels.
Your piece on hydrogen is great.
Hydrogen is a worthy headline story in the media , but it’s often difficult to follow the articles because hydrogen a complex subject and many parties with self interest (as you so well illustrated)
Your piece cut though all of that. Great job. Thank you.