110. Decarbonizing the World: Hydrogen Technology Is the Next Big Thing

Many experts believe hydrogen holds great promise as a clean energy resource that can help nations achieve carbon-free goals. Green hydrogen, which is made from water through electrolysis powered by renewable energy, could be used to decarbonize a wide range of hard-to-abate industries, including petrochemical, cement, and steel, which often require high temperatures and combustion that cannot be achieved with standard wind and solar power. Hydrogen can also be used in mobility applications and as an energy storage medium, among other things, so the future looks very bright for this up-and-coming energy sector. “Looking at this large, growing market; the projects that we see emerging so fastly; the transport and the pipeline tasks in front of us—the infrastructure; and the industry use sectors just starting to be developed, it looks like we are all climbing the Himalaya and we have just left the base camp, but we are very motivated to go further,” Dr. Hans Dieter Hermes, vice president Clean Hydrogen with Worley, said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. Hermes is “very excited” about the hydrogen market. Worley, an engineering company headquartered in Australia with a worldwide team of about 48,000 consultants, engineers, construction workers, and data scientists, is currently implementing more than 120 hydrogen projects worldwide, he said. While that number may seem large from a historical perspective, the growth in hydrogen projects required to decarbonize even a few of the sectors mentioned above is mindboggling. For example, Hermes, who is based in Berlin, said if Germany’s heavy-truck fleet were to be powered from hydrogen instead of fossil fuels, the country would need to ramp up today’s production of hydrogen by a factor of 100. “And I’m not talking about buses, not talking about trains, not even talking about fertilizer industry, chemical industry, or steel, or heating the houses, just only the heavy-truck fleet,” he said. As another example, Hermes pointed to household heating. To supply all German households with hydrogen heating fuel, existing production would need to be increased by a factor of 830. “This gives us an idea of the size of the task that is in front of us,” he said. While many companies are investing in green hydrogen technology, high production costs currently pose a barrier to widespread adoption. Today, most hydrogen is produced from natural gas, which is typically considered grey hydrogen, or blue hydrogen when carbon capture technology is utilized. For green hydrogen production costs to come down, facilities will need an accessible and abundant renewable energy supply, and, perhaps even more importantly, further advancement and scale-up of electrolyzer technology. Still, Hermes expects that to happen fairly quickly based on cost curves observed in other developing power sectors. Specifically, he pointed to the offshore wind industry as an example. He said 10 or 20 years ago, every offshore foundation was a pilot project and costs were very high. Nowadays, the industry is very mature and costs have come down dramatically. “I expect that the same will happen with the hydrogen sector. We already see a very steep cost reduction,” he said. Cost reductions to date have come by integrating lessons learned from earlier projects and also through new developments that have been triggered by a growing market demand. Looking ahead to 2050, Hermes sees several “boosts and barriers” along the way. “On the positive side, I could already mention technology development, the market development, and cooperation,” he said. “On the barrier side, the regulatory frameworks, and the infrastructure, and how to get finance into that sector.”