Breakingviews - Hydrogen investing is a lottery worth playing
Hydrogen is earth’s most abundant element, but only occurs naturally in compounds. Producing pure hydrogen means breaking those chemical bonds. The most common way to do so is to apply steam to natural gas. This approach accounts for nearly all the 70 million tons of hydrogen produced annually, which is then used to make chemicals like ammonia. This energy intensive process also emits a lot of carbon.
The excitement about hydrogen as an energy source is based on an alternative approach, which involves passing an electric current through a so-called electrolyser. This splits water into its components of hydrogen and oxygen and emits no nasty carbon.
For a world that wants to minimise carbon emissions by 2050, clean hydrogen is seriously interesting. In a best-case scenario, electricity produced by cheap wind and solar power would fuel the electrolysis that creates hydrogen. The output would then be used in a fuel cell which can provide power for vehicles and industrial processes, or electricity when renewable energy sources are not available.
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