You know, today is the perfect time to get involved in the potential of hydrogen as it can play a fundamental role in setting to work with the significant challenges related to energy production. The new & modern achievements of electric vehicles and renewable energy technologies have clearly depicted that the policy and technology inventions have the strength & ability to construct clean energy industries all over the world.
Today, hydrogen has already emerged and will continue to grow as one of the most preferable as well as dominant alternatives for stocking energy from renewables that are of hydrogen-based fuels. It has the potential to transfer energy from renewables from really far places, i.e. from countries or regions with ample amounts of energy resources to those areas where there's a crisis over energy, no matter if it is thousands or hundreds of kilometres away from the major area.
Many of you must have seen green hydrogen making its way through the UN Climate Conference. It was featured in a volume of emissions compression pledges taken at the UN Climate Conference, which signifies the decarbonization of giant industries, aviation, long-haul freight and shipping. Governments across the globe and industries, both of them have come forward to accept and declare green hydrogen as a fundamental part of a net-zero economy.
What is green hydrogen?
Basically, green hydrogen is manufactured by a procedure which does not involve any emissions of greenhouse gasses, for example - methane & carbon dioxide, which ultimately means that it is sustainable and doesn't have any negative impacts on the environment. The best way to describe the meaning of green hydrogen is — the hydrogen which is generated by the splitting of water utilizing power from wind turbines or solar power plants.
Hydrogen that is generated by a method that emits some type of carbon footprint cannot be defined as green hydrogen. If you look around, most of the hydrogen is generated by moisture reforming of methane gas, which subsequently contributes to producing carbon dioxide. However, there is no authorized description of what any colour of hydrogen means, it is commonly acknowledged that when someone talks about brown hydrogen, he/she is talking about the hydrogen that is generated from coal. Grey hydrogen is something which is generated from petroleum or natural gas. Lastly, if someone generates brown or grey hydrogen but grasps the carbon dioxide poured out and has stocked it up with all the necessary safety precautions taken, then this type of hydrogen can be defined as blue hydrogen.
ADVANTAGES OF GREEN HYDROGEN
Green hydrogen has a lot of benefits; let's have a look at them right now:
➣ Green hydrogen does not involve itself in emitting gasses that can be harmful to the environment at the time of production and combustion. Thus, this makes green hydrogen 100 % sustainable in nature.
➣ Green hydrogen can be easily stored, which means that it can be utilized thereafter for many different types of objectives and, maybe at times, instantly after its generation.
➣ Green hydrogen is versatile in nature, one can effortlessly convert it into synthetic gas or electricity. Plus, it can be utilized for many purposes such as - industrial, mobility and commercial motives.
Disadvantages Of Green Hydrogen
Nevertheless, everything comes with its own drawbacks as well. Green hydrogen also has unfavourable facets that must be known, here are some of the disadvantages stated below:
➣ Energy, which is obtained from renewable sources and plays a major role in producing green hydrogen via the process of electrolysis, is way too costly. This factor makes green hydrogen much more costly & unaffordable to procure.
➣ The production process of green hydrogen can be labelled as a high energy consumption process. It requires more energy than any other fuel.
➣ As hydrogen is specified as highly flammable & combustible material, it creates safety issues and therefore, it is recommended to take comprehensive safety measures in order to stave off any leakage and outbursts.
The future of green hydrogen
Green hydrogen has numerous advantages, which include reducing the emissions of greenhouse gasses, and it also helps in stabilizing the environment. Green hydrogen is an incredible source of energy for automobiles and conveyance systems. With constant developments and growth in technology and government policies, green hydrogen can be a great weapon that can be used in the battle against major climate changes.
The future of green hydrogen can be seen taking it to the next level, and actually, one can anticipate energy technologies that are relevant to hydrogen getting advanced and gaining a lot of popularity by the end of 2030. What do you think, can you imagine commercial vehicles being powered by hydrogen?
Honestly, we are able to recognize the opportunity for quick success of green hydrogen in the next few years, where demand for hydrogen already prevails, such as iron, decarbonising ammonia and other subsisting items. There are so many industries and the process involved that utilize hydrogen, but now it can be replaced with green, given that CO2 is satisfactorily priced or any other tools for the decarbonisation of those divisions are put in their exact positions.
In the case of the aviation and shipping sectors, the conditions are a little different from others. Specifically, based on green-hydrogen, the drop-in-fuels can be utilized in ships & planes that exist already, and it's interesting that it doesn't require any adjustments or maybe just a little modification can be required. But, the fuels do include CO2 in them, and it has to be seized from somewhere, then it can be mixed with the hydrogen so that it can be discharged at the time of combustion. This somewhat reduces the CO2 emissions, but the problem doesn't get solved here because it is not eliminated fully. Besides, by 2030, synthetic fuels can be taken into account, if the right reasons are given in order to explain the additional cost of less but not completely eliminated emissions of CO2.
Moreover, in the upcoming time, ships can shift to green ammonia, a fuel which is generated from nitrogen(from the air) and green hydrogen. It does not encompass CO2, but investments & a lot of investments are required to be done to replace tanks & engines. And the main thing is that the most expensive thing right now is green ammonia when compared to fuel oil. However, for now, we can say that hydrogen or ammonia planes are a bit far away, and these will be virtually new planes that have to be formulated, created and then it has to be sold to airlines to replace the prevailing planes that are actually powered by jet fuel, which is certainly not workable or possible by the end of 2030. But in simple terms, green jet fuel can be used till the time hydrogen planes come into existence. Green fuel is developed with a mixture of sustainable bio-energy and green hydrogen. This can be a great solution for the time being.
As a result, the major action plans to stimulate decarbonisation between the current time and 2030 should be:
a) The process of decarbonisation of grey hydrogen with green hydrogen, which can be useful in reducing the expense of electrolysis. Therefore, making green hydrogen strong, competitive and prepared for a further scale-up in the 2030s towards the goal of achieving zero emissions by the year 2050.
b) Timely momentum of renewable power generation that can help in reducing the price of renewable electricity, which is already low.
c) Electrification with renewables.
d) Highly energy efficient and productive.
e) Increase in the sustainable, modern bioenergy, which is required to generate green fuels that employ CO2.
Conclusion
The proficiency or capability of generating green hydrogen in huge amounts can play a crucial part in giving an option to fossil fuels as we want to see the transitions to relatively low emissions and endeavour towards a clean, strong and healthy atmosphere setting. Today, with electric cars coming to be more and more prominent & popular among people all across the globe, we will have to reanalyze our theory for electricity production, if we are getting on to supporting the high amount of EV drivers that will be on the highway, in need to charge up their electric cars. With the utilization & practice of green hydrogen, we can anticipate a sustainable outlook in dealing with this intensified demand in recent days.