Hydrogen has swept onto the world’s energy stage as the solution to decarbonization. As the clock ticks fast towards the 2050 carbon neutrality deadline and as global warming accelerates, the pressure to act is palpable. Indeed, hydrogen will play a key role in the energy transition in some sectors, if it is supported by heavy government subsidies to make it efficient and competitive. But in my view it is not the energy of the future across the board and the road to the so-called hydrogen economy is filled with pitfalls.
After many false dawns, all eyes are on hydrogen. Europe, Australia, China, Japan, South Korea are making big bets on hydrogen, and the EU alone estimates up to 470 B€ of investments by 2030 to achieve its hydrogen targets as part of its Green Deal. The private sector is bustling with alliances and announcements of new hydrogen frontiers and applications. But even the greatest enthusiasts agree that this is a colossal experiment: can we really jump-start the hydrogen transition, or are we investing hundreds of billions of euros into what will turn out to be yet another bubble? This time around we have to get it right, and doing so requires less hype, more science and targeted capital allocation.
The advantages to hydrogen are huge when it is made with renewable energy (“green hydrogen”), because it simply emits water. In “hard-to-abate” sectors like steel, cement, shipping and aviation, where green alternatives do not exist, replacing fossil fuels with hydrogen could not only drastically eliminate the world’s CO2 emissions by 15% but also spark a virtuous demand for electrolyzer capacity (+ 5500 GW) which, in turn, would boost renewable electricity capacity by about 8 times the amount installed today, or the entire electricity produced globally in 2019.
But the hydrogen hype also rests on the debatable assumption that hydrogen is the solution in other sectors like cars and heating. Electric cars are simply more efficient than their hydrogen counterparts, and recent advances in battery technology make the range and charging speed of electric batteries much more competitive. In long-haul heavy-duty trucks or any other high energy capacity application with very limited charging range, the jury is still out.
Source: “Hydrogen Is The Energy of The Future, Up To A Point”, Forbes