The new era model for clean energy source, Green Hydrogen has become a new hype and it’s worth it as the alternative fuel which generates clean energy. It was also named the “Freedom Fuel” during the term of United States President George W. Bush.
Whereas, new elected President Joe Biden has promised that the U.S. clean energy plan will access and use green hydrogen at the same cost of the conventional hydrogen in a decade.
Several countries such as Japan, Australia, Germany, Saudi Arabia, and Chile, are investing heavily in green hydrogen.
It is also been estimated and expected that the green hydrogen market will rise exponentially in the coming decade.
Green Hydrogen
Green Hydrogen is the major option when trying to de-carbonize energy and industrial sectors by using clean energy.
The current situation is that we are using, gray hydrogen as the energy source which is produced through fossil fuels and carbon dioxide is emitted in the process. And also blue hydrogen is produced using natural gases and then capturing the emitted carbon dioxide in the process, which makes it cleaner as compared to gray hydrogen.
Whereas, the green hydrogen is made by the process of electrifying the water which splits the hydrogen molecules from the oxygen molecules of the water. The byproduct of the process is only water instead of any kind of carbon dioxide emission.
Julio Friedmann, Senior Scholar – Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University, said that “hydrogen is a better option for the things that can’t be electrified, or can’t be readily placed and that’s an important thing”.
Green hydrogen as Compared to other Clean energy
David Yellen, Program Assistant – Global Energy Center, Atlantic Council, named the green hydrogen as “Swiss Army knife” a way to the transition of clean energy.
Randy Bell, Director – Global Energy Center, Atlantic Council, exclaimed: “Hydrogen has long term storage than batteries”. He added that “the big investments can pay off when it’s (green hydrogen) always being able to compete with batteries”.
And Gregory Nemet, Professor – Public affairs, Wisconsin’s Energy University, said that ”It’s been forecasted that green hydrogen will able to fill 15% to 20% of global energy needs which cannot be achieved through batteries, Solar or wind energy”. He also added that “The cost reductions are seen in solar or wind energy and specifically in batteries but these energy sources will not be able to go with heavy manufacturing, long-distance transport which green hydrogen will be sufficient to do”.
Current Infrastructure Suitable for Green Hydrogen
Green hydrogen is given so much attention, research, interest, investment and enthusiasm because it can be accessed using the existing infrastructure.
It can be pressurized and moved easily through gas pipelines and it goes well with the currently existing pipelines. And it can also have another benefit that it can be blended into natural gases.
Cost
It is been estimated that an amount of $11 trillion will be invested for Green hydrogen in a period of over 30 years. It seems a big amount but it is over a period of 30 years and of the whole energy system and divided across the whole energy sector which is quite big, this amount is not so big.
The U.S. situation on the Green Hydrogen
The experts are saying that the U.S. is lagging in investing in green hydrogen projects. But the new projects are coming up for the same, especially in California.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced in June that it will be providing an amount of $100 million of funding for developing affordable electrolyzers to advance the hydrogen and fuel cell technologies for long-haul trucks.
The Revolution
Green hydrogen has come as a revolution to achieve net-zero emissions and various countries are putting up their goals by the end of 2030, whereas, others have seen their goal is achieved by the end of 2050.
Saudi Arabia is constructing the largest green energy and ammonia plant in Neom, named “City of the Future”.
European Union (EU) is going to invest around $550 billion to expand the green hydrogen on large scale as a clean energy plan.
Spain, Japan and other countries are also going to implement green hydrogen to achieve clean energy as no other energy source is getting you to achieve the net-zero emission results.
