H2Tech - Q4 2021 - 22

SPECIAL FOCUS: FUTURE OF HYDROGEN ENERGY
To prepare for a greener tomorrow,
reexamine H2
energy today
S. KWAN, Beyond Limits, Glendale, California
Today, roughly 70 metric MMtpy of
H2 is produced to help meet rising global
energy demands.1
levels in history; however, H2
Those are the highest
comprises
only a small fraction of the current global
energy infrastructure. Despite dramatic
improvements in the methods of producing
H2
in a meaningful way.
That may change,
as governments
and private businesses around the world
seek out more sustainable and economic
means of energy production. H2
industry look like today? What
can play
a key role in preparing the global energy
industry for a cleaner future but only if
action is taken now to prepare. What does
the H2
are the fiscal and environmental factors
driving its expansion? What role can advanced
technologies like artificial intelligence
(AI) play in facilitating the role of
H2
The H2
in the energy needs of tomorrow?
industry. Worldwide demand for
H2 has more than tripled since the 1970s,
when interest in H2
power first spiked
due to oil shortages, rising gas prices and
concerns around the environmental impact
of fossil fuels.2
Sound familiar? Most
of those problems persist today, but demand
for clean H2
alarm over the climate change crisis.
While the use of H2
as an energy source is
rising again, fueled by new capabilities for
H2
been dominated by the industrial sector,
such as oil refining and the automotive
industry in the form of fuel cells, more
recent initiatives are looking at producing
H2
in a low-carbon manner to serve
these same industries, expand into adjacent
industries such as power generation,
as a fuel supplement and even as
22 Q4 2021 | H2-Tech.com
technology and growing international
has traditionally
energy, many regions still lack the
infrastructure and technologies required
to expand production, delivery and usage
of H2
a replacement to existing power grids
with compressed H2
electrolysis process for producing H2
pipelines. In 2020,
The European Union (EU) rolled out its
new Hydrogen Strategy, supporting the
installation of at least 6 GW of renewable
H2
2024, with the goal of increasing renewable
H2
Similar projects-albeit on a smaller
scale-are also underway in Japan.4
If this trend continues, a report from
the Hydrogen Council suggests that
clean H2
of the world's energy needs and generate
a market worth $2.5 T by 2050.5
Cost advantages of H2
cost of producing renewable H2
energy. The
via
electrolysis is around $6/kg, although
those costs are expected to fall as electrolysis
technologies are improved and
production facilities are scaled up.6
The
real benefits come from the transport
costs-it is roughly 10 times cheaper
to transport H2
electricity through cables.7
port materials over long distances in
their molecular form, like H2
energy. This cost efficiency also makes
H2
a much more viable option to transport
across long distances, especially to
more remote regions without existing
energy distribution infrastructure. For
example, H2
lar fashion as LNG.
In addition
can be transported in a simito
already-high transportation
cost savings, H2 can be used
as an effective energy storage medium,
as it can be stored for longer periods of
time with little to no negative impact.
For example, excess energy from renewable
sources (e.g., solar PV and wind)
can be converted (stored) by leveraging
the electricity from these sources in the
through a pipeline than
That is because
it is much more efficient to trans,
than as raw
power could provide up to 24%
electrolysis facilities in the EU by
production to 10 MMt by 2030.3
.
Conversely, traditional fossil fuels have
multiple storage limitations, whether
that is natural gas supplied via a pipe or
environmental degradation and fire danger
in the case of coal storage in a coal
yard. This means that H2
can be sent in
large quantities to remote locations or
regions where demand is anticipated to
grow, and be stored there until it is needed.
For example, The Advanced Clean
Energy Storage (ACES) project is one
group already capitalizing on this potential
with the construction of the world's
largest H2
storage center outside of Salt
Lake City, Utah.8
Environmental impact of H2
When H2
energy.
is used in a fuel cell, the only
emissions are water vapor and warm air.
On the surface, that gives it tremendous
environmental advantages over traditional
fossil fuels, which are responsible
for most of today's CO2
ever, for H2
emissions. Howto
become a truly clean energy
source, it is important to understand
that there are four primary categories of
H2
and green H2
production-called brown, gray, blue
-each with different levels
of emissions during the electrolysis production
process. While other methods
of H2
egories are the most prominent.
Unsurprisingly, brown H2
production exist, these four catis
the dirtiest
form and accounts for roughly 25%
of global H2
production. Brown H2
relies
on a process called coal gasification
and results in around 19 kg of CO2
of H2 produced.9
Gray H2 is produced
from natural gas and emits smaller levels
of CO2
Blue H2
is captured and either stored
underground or repurposed, making it
, but is still not entirely clean.
is created through essentially
the same process; however, the resulting
CO2
/kg
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H2Tech - Q4 2021

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