For the Green Deal, hydrogen also needs to be green
The new European Commission is planning a European Green Deal. The goal is to create the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. This cannot happen without using much more hydrogen than at the moment because hydrogen is a zero-emission fuel when burned with oxygen. However, not all forms of hydrogen are alike. We need to shift from grey hydrogen, the production of which causes CO₂ emissions, to climate-neutral green hydrogen. Blue hydrogen, which is produced using carbon capture solutions, can provide at least an intermediate solution during the process of transitioning away from grey hydrogen.
The President of the next European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has said she will propose a European Green Deal in her first 100 days in office [1]. The goal is to achieve climate neutrality in the EU by 2050. Every person and every sector will have to contribute for the EU to reach this goal.
The European Turbine Network ETN is writing a white paper about the role of the industry in reaching the EU goal. Aurelia Turbines and other ETN members see the growing use of hydrogen as a fuel vital for European climate neutrality. Despite the challenges I discussed in my previous article, hydrogen provides a practical way to transfer and store renewable energy.
Hydrogen is not a source of energy but an energy carrier that is derived from a source of energy. There are different ways to produce hydrogen industrially that have radically different impacts on the climate.
Grey, blue, green – and even brown hydrogen
Grey hydrogen is hydrogen produced using fossil fuels. It is mostly obtained from natural gas in an energy-guzzling process that is known as steam methane reforming (SMR). In SMR, steam (water vapour) is mixed with natural gas, which reacts with the methane and breaks the gas down into carbon monoxide and hydrogen. [2]
To a lesser extent, hydrogen is also produced from petroleum and coal. Sometimes this or all hydrogen produced using fossil fuels may also be referred to as brown hydrogen.
These processes release a significant amount of CO₂. Grey hydrogen accounts for some 95% of the hydrogen produced in the world today.
Blue hydrogen is hydrogen that meets the low-carbon threshold but is generated using non-renewable energy sources such as natural gas. Natural gas is decarbonised with Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) solutions during SMR. It is also possible to decarbonise methane of natural gas into hydrogen by decomposing it to solid carbon and gaseous hydrogen without producing carbon dioxide. This can be done for example through decomposition, namely the thermal treatment of methane in the absence of oxygen [3]. Because blue hydrogen is not inherently carbon-free, the production requires carbon-dioxide (CO₂) monitoring, verification, and certification [4].
Green hydrogen is hydrogen that not only meets the low-carbon threshold but is generated using renewable energy sources such as solar or wind. It is an ideal solution, especially now that the price of wind and solar energy has been decreasing. Today, less than 0.1% of global dedicated hydrogen production comes from water electrolysis.
No future for grey hydrogen
Hydrogen is already used industrially at a large scale, especially in ammonia production for fertilisers, in methanol production for plastics and pharmaceutical industries, for removing sulphur from fuels, and in steel production. Grey hydrogen has been useful for creating industrial applications and markets for hydrogen. However, in the long run, the grey hydrogen process is not a viable or environmentally sound way to produce hydrogen.
According to the IEA, 6% of global natural gas and 2% of global coal are currently going towards hydrogen production. As a consequence, the production of hydrogen is responsible for CO₂ emissions of around 830 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, equivalent to the CO₂ emissions of the United Kingdom and Indonesia combined. [5] Natural gas extraction also causes large emissions of methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gas [6].
At the moment, grey hydrogen produced from natural gas is the most commonly used because it is the cheapest to produce. Its price is estimated to be around EUR 1.50 per kilo [7]. Fuel costs are the largest cost component, accounting for between 45% and 75% of production costs as estimated by the IEA. However, as the IEA estimates, the price of natural gas will rise in the future. More importantly, the emissions trading system will markedly increase the future price. Emissions trading alone may increase the price by over 30%.
Another reason is public support. The future of hydrogen cannot be grey - and it especially cannot be brown - because people simply no longer accept fuels that emit CO₂. You can expect that trend only to continue in the coming years. Both consumers and politicians will resist the development of businesses based on hydrogen if it remains grey.