Is Hydrogen Fuel the Answer to Reducing Fossil Fuel Usage?

Among other clean energy sources, hydrogen fuel is being considered as a potential replacement for fossil fuels.

Some people have painted hydrogen fuel as the answer to reducing our impact on the environment. In some ways they are correct, if implemented the correct way, hydrogen fuel, which is basically hydrogen gas, could tremendously decrease our usage of fossil fuels and carbon dioxide emissions. However, in order for this to be done, some hurdles will have to be overcome.

Produce Green Hydrogen

First of all, currently over 99% of hydrogen fuel is made from fossil fuels (Sommer, 2022). This pretty much defeats the purpose of creating hydrogen fuel since the fossil fuels still have to be mined and carbon dioxide is still emitted into the atmosphere. Around a third of this hydrogen fuel is blue hydrogen (Sommer, 2022). This blue hydrogen is slightly more environmentally friendly because the carbon dioxide produced is captured and stored, many times underground. However, the long term consequences of storing carbon dioxide are not fully known. Therefore, the most environmentally friendly way to produce hydrogen is by using renewable energy, creating green hydrogen.

Supplement Renewable Energy Sources

Of course, in order for green hydrogen to be produced, we need more renewable energy. Today, we are not using renewable energy sources as much as we could. One reason for this is that people are concerned that renewable energy sources are not reliable enough. One of the main benefits of producing green hydrogen, however, is that it makes renewable energy sources more reliable. This is because when there is more renewable energy being produced than being used, green hydrogen can be made from the excess energy, and then, when there is a lack of the renewable energy source, the hydrogen can be used to supplement it (Lane, 2021).

Create Infrastructure for Producing and Supplying Green Hydrogen

The green hydrogen that is produced can be used to power homes and businesses, and be used in place of natural gas to power appliances. However, hydrogen can not be used if the infrastructure to support its usage isn’t created. First of all, in each of these usage cases, the hydrogen would have to be made since you can’t use hydrogen to make energy without hydrogen. This would require more hydrogen production plants. After that, different things are required for each usage case.

In order for hydrogen fuel to be used as electricity in homes, hydrogen power plants must be created. Today there are just a handful of power plants that use hydrogen fuel to some capacity. One of these power plants is the Long Ridge Energy power plant. This power plant uses a combination of hydrogen and natural gas to produce electricity today, however, they hope to transition to using 100% hydrogen fuel in the future (Long Ridge Energy Generation, n.d.).

In the case of using hydrogen in homes in place of natural gas, a few things would have to happen. Firstly, we would have to figure out a way to get hydrogen to the homes. This could likely be done using the existing natural gas infrastructure, however, we would want to test this for safety and make sure that all current piping is up to current standards before rolling out hydrogen fuel on a large scale (Sansom, n.d.). Secondly, hydrogen fuel compatible appliances would have to be produced in order to use the hydrogen fuel.

Increase the Efficiency of Green Hydrogen

Today, the production and usage of green hydrogen is very energy inefficient. This is because energy is lost when hydrogen is produced, transported, stored, or used (Sommer, 2022). If companies can not come up with innovations that make these processes more efficient, using hydrogen on a large scale would likely not be worth it because so much green hydrogen fuel be used just to produce it.

Maximize Environmental Benefits

While using green hydrogen fuel, we would still have to be careful that the usage of it would not impact the environment. This is because hydrogen can be an indirect greenhouse gas. When hydrogen is released into the atmosphere, it can mess with the distribution of ozone and methane in the atmosphere, causing an increase in the enhanced greenhouse effect. Therefore, if we were to use hydrogen on a large scale, we would have to put measures in place to limit the hydrogen released into the atmosphere.

The Verdict

Overall, hydrogen fuel does have the potential to reduce our impact on the environment as long as a system to use it is implemented properly. This would mean that we would have to use mostly green hydrogen, increase the efficiency of green hydrogen, and limit the amount of hydrogen that is released into the atmosphere. Because of the many obstacles, though, it seems that hydrogen would likely only be used as a supplement to renewable energy sources. No matter what, however, we will not be able to just implement one solution to prevent further climate change. They will have to instead develop a multi-faceted approach to reducing our impact on the environment, and one aspect of this approach could include hydrogen fuel.

Sources

Environmental Impacts of Hydrogen-based Energy Systems. (2006, October 19). European Commission. Retrieved May 23, 2022, from https://ec.europa.eu/environment/integration/research/newsalert/pdf/39na1_en.pdf

Lane, A. (2021, November 3). How might the world meet its clean energy needs. BBC. Retrieved May 23, 2022, from https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211103-can-renewables-replace-fossil-fuels

Long Ridge Energy Generation. (n.d.). Long Ridge Energy. Retrieved May 23, 2022, from https://www.longridgeenergy.com/about

Sansom, R. (n.d.). Transitioning to hydrogen. IET. Retrieved May 23, 2022, from https://www.theiet.org/media/9385/transitioning-to-hydrogen.pdf

Sommer, F. (2022, January 6). What is green hydrogen vs. blue hydrogen and why it matters. CNBC. Retrieved May 22, 2022, from https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/06/what-is-green-hydrogen-vs-blue-hydrogen-and-why-it-matters.html