Clean hydrogen offers real solution to climate crisis as UK swelters
There is no denying that global warming has arrived in the UK, and not just because we’ve recently experienced our warmest ever temperature when the mercury rose above 40 degrees Celsius for the first time in July.
All of the UK’s 10 warmest years on record have been since 2002, while heatwaves are now 30 times more likely to happen, according to the Met Office.
UK winters are projected to become warmer and wetter, while summers become hotter and drier. By 2050, heatwaves of the kind seen in 2018 and 2022 are expected to happen every other year.
There is no denying that global warming has arrived in the UK, and not just because we’ve recently experienced our warmest ever temperature when the mercury rose above 40 degrees Celsius for the first time in July.
Even if the Paris climate goals are reached and warming is limited to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, sea levels around the UK will keep rising beyond 2100 and parts of the UK will be at risk of permanent flooding.
While it’s not the most cheerful thought to ponder this summer, the consequences of not meeting the Paris climate goals are profoundly worse with prolonged heatwaves, droughts and extreme weather events all becoming increasingly common and severe with no part of the world spared.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s April report Mitigation of Climate Change said unequivocally that hydrogen will play a vital role in reaching net-zero emissions, particularly in hard-to-decarbonise areas such as heavy industry, transport and energy storage.
“Hydrogen could provide long-term electricity storage to support high-penetration of intermittent renewables and could enable trading and storage of electricity between different regions to overcome seasonal or production capability differences,” said the IPCC in its report.
“It could also be used in lieu of natural gas for peaking generation, provide process heat for industrial needs, or be used in the metal sector via direct reduction of iron ore,” it said. “Clean hydrogen could be used as a feedstock in the production of various chemicals and synthetic hydrocarbons.”
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s April report Mitigation of Climate Change said unequivocally that hydrogen will play a vital role in reaching net-zero emissions, particularly in hard-to-decarbonise areas such as heavy industry, transport and energy storage.
“Finally, hydrogen-based fuel cells could power vehicles. Fuel cell technology could complement electric vehicles in supporting the decarbonisation of heavy-duty transport segments (e.g., trucks, buses, ships, and trains).”
Hydrogen produces no greenhouse gases when it is combusted or used in fuel cells, and can be created emissions free by powering electrolysers with renewable energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.
There is no time to waste. Clean hydrogen will be responsible for 10% of the world’s emissions reductions by 2030, if the world is to meet its obligations under the Paris Agreement, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).
That’s 3.7 gigatonnes per year of carbon dioxide that won’t be released into the atmosphere if clean hydrogen can be produced in sufficient quantities to decarbonise industries from steel manufacturing and transport to chemicals production and construction.
The ramp up in clean hydrogen production will need to be unprecedented: from close to zero currently to 154 million tonnes per year by 2030 and 614 million tonnes per year by 2050, according to IRENA. Electrolyser capacity, to split water into hydrogen and oxygen with renewable energy, will need to reach 350 GW by 2030.
To make that happen, serious levels of investment in hydrogen is going to be needed. IRENA estimates that about 3% of the $3 trillion a year that needs to be invested in the energy system by 2030 will need to be funnelled into hydrogen. That’s about $90 billion a year or $810 billion in total.
Hydrogen investment is happening. Almost every week, a new government fund or support mechanism is launched, while private sector investment in clean hydrogen is also on the up.
The UK hopes to unlock £9 billion of private sector investment in clean hydrogen and last month appointed its first hydrogen champion, Jane Toogood, with the aim of bringing business and government together in the goal of creating 10 GW of hydrogen production capacity by 2030.
On the same day, green hydrogen projects were able to apply for government funding through the Hydrogen Business Model, a support mechanism that ensures green hydrogen producers can earn a return while reducing the cost of clean hydrogen, and the Net Zero Hydrogen Fund, £240 million of grant funding to support the upfront costs of developing and building low carbon hydrogen production projects.
Clean hydrogen is critical to the world minimising global warming and the potentially devastating consequences of missing the Paris climate goals. Front loading investment in hydrogen today stacks the odds in our favour that we can leave an inhabitable planet for our children the generations that follow.
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