Hydrogen Electrolysis with Ben Wiley

(Climate Now) Declining renewable energy costs have sparked a renewed interest in green hydrogen, which has the potential to decarbonize sectors in which electricity cannot.

Because hydrogen doesn’t occur by itself on Earth, it must be separated from other elements, such as oxygen in water. Electrolysis is the process of using electricity from renewable energy to extract hydrogen from water.

Dr. Ben Wiley, Duke University Professor of Chemistry, joins Climate Now to explain hydrogen electrolysis, where it makes sense to integrate into the energy economy, and the technology he is helping develop to improve its productivity. READ MORE/PODCAST

Excerpt from Politico's Morning Energy: HYDROGEN OUTLOOK: Sales of electrolyzers — the devices that produce hydrogen through water and electricity — are set to double this year compared to last, and quadruple in 2022, according to a new report this morning from BloombergNEF. The increase is being driven by Chinese industrial firms, which are planning huge hydrogen projects as the country sets out on its 2060 carbon neutrality target, and despite any clear national policy or incentives.

Green hydrogen is expected to be cheaper than the blue hydrogen that is derived from fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage by 2030 in the 28 countries modeled by BNEF. That includes countries like the U.S. with cheap gas and those with higher-cost renewable power, such as Japan and South Korea. "This puts H2 + CCS projects with planned start dates near 2030 at risk of becoming uncompetitive against renewable H2," the report said.

NUKES FOR SHIPS: A new paper from the Clean Air Task Force argues that nuclear-derived zero-emissions fuels can help cut down emissions in shipping, offering more evidence for greater investment in advanced nuclear technology. Shipping is one of the most difficult sectors to decarbonize, and scientists expect its contributions to global greenhouse gas emissions to increase substantially in the next three decades. The paper lists advantages for nuclear-derived hydrogen, including hydrogen’s current role in nuclear plant operations, nuclear plants’ proximity to waterways and nuclear power’s space efficiency. Read the paper with its policy recommendations here. READ MORE

Excerpt from Politico's Morning Energy: FEELING BLUE? A new study on blue hydrogen caused quite the splash Thursday, with the authors concluding the greenhouse gas footprint over blue hydrogen's lifecycle may not make it the climate solution its backers have made it out to be. In a peer-review study, Robert Howarth of Cornell and Mark Jacobson of Stanford find that the production of blue hydrogen, which is derived from natural gas with the resulting carbon dioxide captured and stowed away, could produce more greenhouse gases than coal — 20 percent more to be exact.

Blue hydrogen has been pushed by the natural gas industry as a clean energy alternative that could take advantage of the U.S.' ample gas reserves and use the existing infrastructure, such as pipelines. When burned itself, hydrogen does not produce carbon dioxide emissions, and hydrogen-powered fuel cells (which creates electricity instead of thermal power) can exceed the efficiency of combustion engines. The bipartisan infrastructure deal includes $8 billion to create regional "clean hydrogen hubs," with some of the locations focused on natural gas-producing areas.

But Howarth and Jacobson report that the natural gas extracted to produced hydrogen and burned to power the carbon capture leads to considerable emissions of fugitive methane — even higher than those for gray hydrogen. They also find carbon dioxide emissions for blue hydrogen only 9 to 12 percent less than for gray hydrogen.

"Often, blue hydrogen is described as having zero or low greenhouse gas emissions," the researchers write. "However, this is not true: not all of carbon dioxide emissions can be captured, and some carbon dioxide is emitted during the production of blue hydrogen."

Green hydrogen, made using renewable energy to pull the hydrogen from water in an extremely energy intensive process, accounts for only a small percentage of hydrogen production today, and 96 percent of hydrogen is generated from fossil fuels. The administration is hoping to expand green hydrogen as part of its jobs plan, but it wasn't explicitly named in the bipartisan infrastructure plan.

Despite the report's findings, hydrogen's backers value it as an important transition fuel, particularly in sectors whose emissions are hard to reduce, and they argue the technology is only getting better. “Hydrogen is not a panacea or a silver bullet, but it appears to be critical for decarbonization of ‘hard-to-electrify’ sectors such as long-haul heavy trucking, international marine shipping and some parts of heavy industry,” Mike Fowler, director of advanced energy technology research at the Clean Air Task Force, told The Guardian. READ MORE