What’s all the fuss with hydrogen? Four developments in five days
In the past week hydrogen has had quite its share of attention, with the latest one being the Chair of the UK Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association stepping down. Let’s have a quick look at what happened in the past five days:
1) “How green is blue hydrogen?”
On August 12, a study written by Robert W. Howarth and Mark Z. Jacobson about blue hydrogen was published. The study looked at how “clean” blue hydrogen is and the impact it has.
Quick side note about different types of hydrogen:
You might read in this article and links about three types of hydrogen: grey, blue and green. Grey hydrogen is obtained using fossil fuel (natural gas) and the carbon it emits is not captured. Blue hydrogen is also obtained using fossil fuel but the carbon emissions are captured. Green hydrogen uses renewable energy. This is a simplified explanation of it all, but hopefully it will understand better the developments that happened in the past days
The study cast doubt in the use of fossil gas and the impact it could have by emitting high levels of greenhouse gases because of methane and the focus should be on green hydrogen instead.
The main stumbling block: Most hydrogen used today is extracted from natural gas in a process that requires a lot of energy and emits vast amounts of carbon dioxide. Producing natural gas also releases methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas. (Hiroko Tabuchi, The New York Times)
The article from Hiroko Tabuchi (worth following on Twitter if you’re interested in climate stories) is a good read if you want to explore more about hydrogen, with a bigger focus in the United States. You can also read Jillian Ambrose’s article at The Guardian with a UK focus.
2) Clean Ladder Hydrogen
Michael Liebreich wrote an update of his Clean Ladder Hydrogen chart for uses of hydrogen in different sectors. You can either read a short Twitter thread overviewing each sector with an image or the full article in LinkedIn.
One of the most interesting points is the use of hydrogen for land transportation which has most of the uses not recommending hydrogen, and go for better suited alternatives. According to Martin using hydrogen for cars, trains or buses is not efficient enough and that there are better alternatives, such as BEVs (fully electric cars).
He also explains the use of hydrogen for heating, with the example of the UK’s primary source and why using hydrogen for heating is on the lower end of the ladder.
3) Chair of the UK Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association stepping down
On Monday the 16th, prior to the publication of the UK hydrogen strategy, the Chair of the UK Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association (Chris Jackson) stepped down from his post, stating that he could no longer advocate in good faith on behalf of “blue” hydrogen:
“I believe passionately that I would be betraying future generations by remaining silent on that fact that blue hydrogen is at best an expensive distraction, and at worst a lock-in for continued fossil fuel use that guarantees we will fail to meet our decarbonisation goals,” (BusinessGreen, see link below)
If you want to read more about it, here’s the article from BusinessGreen about the resignation:
4) UK Hydrogen Strategy
On Tuesday the 17th, the UK Government published its hydrogen strategy. Why does it matter? That strategy will shape the road for the country to their transition to net zero, using low carbon hydrogen and will be more scrutinised after the release of the study.
If you don’t want to read the PDF that has more than 100 pages, you can either look at E3G Twitter thread assessing some of the points from the strategy (spoiler alert: it doesn’t look good):
Or Jan Rosenow’s take on the strategy with links to different articles published:
Bonus: Steel made without using coal
Even though this story is not about hydrogen, it does involve it. On Thursday, a Swedish company (Hybrit) managed to make steel without using any coal.
Why is this important? Steel production accounts for around 7 to 8 % of total greenhouse gas emissions. Using green hydrogen to produce it will help reducing the emissions by 10 % in Sweden and 7 % in Finland.
To summarise, all the talk about hydrogen in the past week had blue hydrogen in the hotspot, as it is seen as emitting more greenhouse gases and the focus should go on green hydrogen in order to achieve net zero in the UK.