In the next few years, this clean and universally available source of energy will make a growing contribution to the production of electricity and will have uses in all sectors, from industry to heating to transport.
Do we have a hydrogen future ahead of us? Many are convinced of this, starting with the European Union which has placed it at the center of the Green New Deal which will invest a total of € 1,000 billion over the next 10 years. The point of view of Frans Timmermans, Vice-President of the European Commission is very explicit: “Clean hydrogen is a priority in the energy transition and the European Union can and must lead”. But now it's all over the world that looks and invests in this direction: from Biden's United States to Australia, from Holland to Japan. And Italy will not be left behind. On the other hand, the technological evolution in this specific sector has allowed extraordinary developments that have made it possible to drastically reduce production costs in a few years: exactly 20 years ago the price of hydrogen from renewables was 40 times that of oil. Prices will be broadly aligned over the next five years. And this allows some to speak of "Hydrogen revolution"
A zero-emission future
Therefore, a sector that, thanks to the targets of decarbonization of the European (but also world) economy in the coming years, is destined to attract strong investment flows. Already today, however, it is worth over 100 billion euros a year as a whole, half that of gold. It is therefore good to remember some salient facts because, although by now a symbol of the energy of the future, hydrogen has a glorious past behind it.
“Water generator” (hydrogen, in Greek), hydrogen was already used over 200 years ago to power the first combustion engines designed by the French inventor François Isaac de Rivaz (it was in 1806). Everyone knows what H is, the symbol of the chemical element, which is the only substance present in abundance in the universe. It is also the element more light of the periodic table, and has an extremely high energy density by mass 3 ~ 4 times that of common fossil fuels. Furthermore, since water is the only byproduct generated, it follows that hydrogen is extremely clean and has all the credentials to become one of the main fuels of a low-carbon economy. The trend of the heating global and the need to combat, quickly and effectively, the carbon emissions into the atmosphere at the root of climate change.
Hydrogen is multifaceted. It can be burned directly to generate heat, which can be used for the production of steel and glass. It can also serve as an input for fuel cells for electricity generation, which are a highly efficient and clean way of food the vehicles.
New commitment
Interest in hydrogen as an energy source had emerged internationally during the crisis oil of the 1970s, and then resurfaced in the early 2000s when the United States Department of Energy promoted it to the rank of alternative fuel. However, this initial enthusiasm did not lead to a rapid development of the hydrogen industry, as cost-effective technologies were not available at the time. But above all it lacked an adequate support politic, which today is being formed thanks to the push that public opinion is giving to policies to combat the climate change, with the new generations in the front row.
Times have changed, the desire for global decarbonisation to tackle climate change requires a much stronger commitment to energy clean. In Europe, the United States, China, Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand, but also in some oil countries of the Middle East, a series of incentive policies and projects are underway to facilitate production and application of clean hydrogen, i.e. hydrogen produced from renewable electricity, which makes the whole process carbon neutral.
Also, thanks to improvements technological, the cost of clean hydrogen production facilities, such as electrolysers, and of hydrogen consuming devices, such as fuel cells, is significantly lower than in the past. More importantly, the cost of renewable electricity, which is the main one cost operating of clean hydrogen production is at a completely different level than it was 20 or 50 years ago. Over the past 10 years, the cost of wind and solar energy has dropped by 70% and nearly 90%, respectively.
New developments
The use of pure hydrogen nowadays is mostly limited to industry chemistry. The current annual global demand for pure hydrogen is around 70 Mt (million tons), produced mainly from natural gas and coal. This factor is responsible for emissions of 830 million tonnes of CO2 per year, equivalent to the annual emissions of Indonesia and the United Kingdom. In the context of the global project for decarbonisation, the production of hydrogen from fossil fuels will gradually be replaced by low-cost production (for example, electrolysis) and therefore a significant growth in the new hydrogen demand can be easily predicted.
Hydrogen can present clear benefits in many low-carbon applications, such as heavy truck and bus transportation, heavy industry with steel and cement production, and long-life energy storage systems. For example, a 40-tonne electric truck would need eight tons of batteries to cover a 500km radius, making lithium batteries virtually impractical. Hydrogen fuel cells, on the other hand, are able to offer cleaner solutions than lithium batteries, with a relatively small footprint equal to an ordinary diesel engine.
Another interesting opportunity is the potential mass production of passenger cars with fuel cells when the costs of hydrogen and fuel cells become more competitive. As estimated by Hydrogen Council 2 Fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) could make up 20% of the total vehicle fleet by 2050.
With a combination of existing demand for decarbonisation and the emergence of new demand, the pure and clean hydrogen market is expected to grow by more than 20% per year between 2020 and 2030.
