More and more nations are committing to the promise of hydrogen. That promise cannot be kept unless costs come down. A report from IRENA, âGreen Hydrogen Cost Reduction: Scaling up Electrolysers to Meet the 1.5â°C Climate Goalâ, breaks down what needs to be done. Two of its authors, Herib Blanco and Emanuele Taibi, summarise the study and point at the more than 20 countries (and companies like Thyssenkrupp, NEL and ITM) committing to doing it. The … [Read more...]
HYBRIT project: Sweden goes for zero-carbon steel
Europeâs largest iron ore producer, LKAB of Sweden, plans to invest almost âŹ40bn over the next two decades in emissions-free steel production. LKAB, along with Vattenfall and SSAB, are behind the HYBRIT project which intends to grow, fossil-free, Swedenâs steel industry. They will use hydrogen instead of coal as the âreducing agentâ to remove the oxygen from the iron ore. Thomas Koch Blank at RMI runs through their strategy and the implications … [Read more...]
Decarbonising end-use sectors: buildings, transport, industry. Which strategies are best?
The rapid pace of change in the energy sector is a positive sign for the transition. But the disruption it causes creates another big problem. It makes it harder to predict what will happen next. That makes strategies and pathways harder to design, and increases the risk of stranded assets. To try to come to grips with that future, Sean Ratka, Paul Durrant and Francisco Boshell summarise the findings of IRENA's 4-day âInnovation Weekâ held last … [Read more...]
Who will be the Hydrogen superpower? The EU or China
Implicit in the EUâs plans, announced in July, to be the worldâs Hydrogen leader is that this technology will have others competing for the top spot too. When EU nations ramped up their solar PV sector in the 2000s they couldnât survive the arrival and rapid expansion of Chinese production. Will EU Hydrogen meet the same fate? Sören Amelang at CLEW speaks to a wide range of experts to try to answer this vital question from all the relevant … [Read more...]
Hydrogenâs future: reducing costs, finding markets
Although 100Mt/year of hydrogen is produced globally and at scale, itâs overwhelmingly for the chemical industry. So thereâs a long way to go for it to play a role in the energy transition. Itâs not even clear whether hydrogen will be best used directly as a power source or through further conversion into other powerfuels. That's why Dolf Gielen and Emanuele Taibi at IRENA are scoping out the challenges of reducing production costs and finding … [Read more...]