Hydrogen has been heralded as the ultimate green fuel for a long time. Almost like clockwork, the British periodical "The Economist" runs an article every decade how the hydrogen economy is imminent. There were articles in 1997, 2010 and quite recently in 2020 and now 2021 that raise the familiar questions and doubts, however restate their belief in the future of a hydrogen economy.
But this time, something has changed. As the world has switched to renewable power sources, its lack of reliability has raised major concerns.
- Renewable electricity cannot be turned on or off on demand. It means electricity transmission and distribution companies cannot plan their baseloads around renewable generation.
- Renewable sources have caused havoc on electricity grid stability. Traditional transmission and distribution grids were designed based on one-way traffic, from generators to consumers. With distributed generation like roof top solar and wind, transmission and distribution companies need innovations in balancing loads.
- While Battery Electricity Vehicles (BEVs) have finally taken off, this cannot be extended to bigger forms of transport like trains, ships and freight trucks due to the considerable weight of chemical batteries that makes these applications uneconomical.
- Renewable power sources alone are not adequate to allow countries to meet their net zero and decarbonization targets. Alternate strategies need to be considered to reduce dependance on carbon based energy sources at a faster rate.
- Finally countries are also realizing that decarbonization would mean loss of jobs for many energy professionals, especially those tied to transportation of fuels. This could become a secondary crisis on its own.
The answer to many of these concerns has surprisingly turned out to be hydrogen as fuel source.
- Renewable sources like solar and wind can be used to generate hydrogen during times when generation exceeds demand. Once generated, hydrogen can then be stored or transported as fuel.
- Hydrogen fuel cells are being used by electricity grid operators to balance their grids.
- Hydrogen is very efficient as a fuel on weight basis (per kilogram) though a poor energy source on a volume basis (per litre/ per gallon). This means it can be used to power fleets of large vehicles like trains, ships and freight trucks that worry about weight but are not concerned with large volumes.
- Hydrogen fuel cells are also becoming the backup power of choice for large box retailers in North America like Home Depot, Walmart, Amazon and others.
- Hydrogen can be transported in trains, pipelines and ships very much like petroleum and its derivatives. All this means many jobs in the fuel transportation sector can be saved/ re-purposed.
- European Union came out with their strategy in July 2020
- This was followed by countries in different continents
- Japan released their strategy in 2017 and a roadmap as well.
- Norway, as a country with a strong history of environmental advocacy released their hydrogen strategy in 2019.
- US released their strategy in July 2020 followed by a roadmap in 2021
- Government of Canada announced their national hydrogen strategy in December 2020
- Not to be left behind, the UK announced their national hydrogen strategy in August 2021
- Even states and provinces came out with their strategies
- Alberta in Canada released their hydrogen roadmap in November 2021.
All the above have prompted consultants to look deeper and present their analysis of what is being said. Yele Consulting from France has published one such comparison. KPMG has published another one.
This yet does not change the fundamentals. Hydrogen will need a lot of investment on the demand, supply and transmission side to become a viable alternate fuel. Government investments in demand mean that private sector will have an incentive to invest in this sector. This may drive innovation and reduce costs.
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