Climate change has turned the future of the energy sector into a puzzle. By 2050, the world must become zero-carbon in order to stave off the progression of the climate crisis, but the way that this shift will occur is yet to be determined. For many, the key to the energy sector’s advancement is the developing field of hydrogen fuel. However, the adoption of hydrogen fuel presents a set of problems pertaining to long-term sustainability that raise the question, is the technology worth adopting at all?
As of 2023, 99.6% of the hydrogen fuel produced globally is “gray hydrogen,” meaning hydrogen whose production causes the emission of greenhouse gasses. This is because the cheapest way to produce hydrogen fuel is by reacting hydrocarbons like methane with superheated water vapor to produce hydrogen gas, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide. To deal with this issue, many figures in the energy sector, Exxon Mobil among them, have endorsed “blue hydrogen” solutions which will supplement current hydrogen production processes with the use of carbon capture technology in order to minimize greenhouse gas emissions. However, “low-carbon” blue hydrogen solutions pose a problem: they do not push us towards carbon zero. Many climate experts have pointed out this problem. Geologist Dr. Drew Shindell claims that long-term use of blue hydrogen is “neither fully accounting for emissions, nor making realistic assumptions.”
Hydrogen still has the potential to become a net-zero fuel through “green hydrogen” fuel. Rather than specifically sequestering hydrogen gas produced by hydrocarbons, green hydrogen production occurs through the process of electrolysis. Hydrogen electrolysis involves running a current through water in a special container called an electrolytic cell, which separates the hydrogen from the water. If implemented, this process could prove vital for the renewable energy transition. However, the energy requirements for implementing green hydrogen are steep. In order for green hydrogen to be renewable, the energy used to kickstart the electrolysis process must be renewable as well. In order to reach the point where the green hydrogen can power itself, around 3000 terawatt hours of electricity are required, which is near the amount of power that the US produces in a year.
The viability of hydrogen fuel is a hotly debated matter among climate experts. While some people, like Shindell, do not have high hopes for the fuel, others, such as Christopher Neidl, the founder of the Open Air Collective, a network of carbon capture and removal advocates, believe that it has potential. “While we’re seeing amazing progress with electric vehicles and even electric heating systems and buildings, there’s still large sectors of the economy that require dense, thermal energy sources,” Neidl said when asked about the potential of hydrogen fuel. In the end, hydrogen’s role in the energy transition seems to lie somewhere in between these two stances. While hydrogen might not be the ultimate solution to the energy crisis, it has the potential to ease the transition to carbon-zero.
