Hydrogen is often touted as being a cleaner alternative to burning fossil fuels. One reason for this is that hydrogen burns without the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2). Yet hydrogen, at present, is predominantly manufactured using fossil fuels, including steam methane, reforming resulting in significant CO2 emissions.
However, we know it is possible to produce hydrogen, almost entirely carbon-free, mainly by using either renewable power from solar and wind farms or using a process known as methane pyrolysis. In these instances hydrogen gas can be extracted from water via electrolysis or from natural gas via high temperature heating.
While the processes underlying these hydrogen generation techniques are not new, the commercial technologies deploying these hydrogen generation methods have only recently been deployed at application scale. This means only 0.1% of global hydrogen in 2019 was produced using electrolysis. In 2020 we saw a record increase in production of what was labeled “green hydrogen”, but in reality, there is still a long way to go before hydrogen production (not to mention transportation and storage) is truly green.
So, the question is, if major industrial sectors like power generation, transportation, and others adopted hydrogen on a significant scale, how would all that demand be fulfilled?
What can we do until green hydrogen electrolysis-based production (and the corresponding volume of renewable electricity needed to power green electrolysis) is ready to carry us into the green future? We need a stopgap to help pick up the slack at a scale that’s needed right now.
At the moment, significant policymakers such as the European Commission are, in addition to encouraging green hydrogen production, also promoting “blue” hydrogen products, sometimes referred to as traditional gray hydrogen with added carbon capture and sequestration.
This blue hydrogen system combines the use of fossil fuels with expensive carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) techniques to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and lower the carbon impact..