By Ndubuisi Micheal Obineme
14 July 2022, CANADA – With the current global trends on climate change and discussions for a low-carbon future under the energy transition agenda, coupled with the Net-Zero Emissions target by 2050, Hydrogen will contribute 20% solution in decarbonizing the energy systems, the Executive Director of Hydrogen Council, Daryl Wilson said.
Hydrogen will play a key role in the global energy transition by helping to diversify energy sources worldwide, and foster business and technological innovation as drivers for long-term economic growth, with enormous benefits for both the energy system and other end-use applications in the energy value chain.
Speaking on the Hydrogen outlook in an exclusive interview with The Energy Republic, Daryl Wilson said that Hydrogen will become part of the future energy systems, and it’s a versatile energy carrier that can be used in a wide variety of applications, such as refining gasoline, making ammonia fertilizer, refining liquid fuels for sustainable aviation fuel, transportation, and several other processes.
Over the years, Daryl explained that the main impediment was the perception that Hydrogen is very expensive and it will remain an expensive energy option.
According to him, Hydrogen Council in partnership with McKinsey and Company developed a report which shows that the cost of hydrogen production for transportation, major industries, and energy generation will reduce just like the scenario for wind and solar energy.
“Hydrogen is critical for transportation and there’s been a lot of discussion about electric vehicles and they play an important role. The Hydrogen Council released a report in October last year, showing that our future transportation sector will be served by both hydrogen and batteries. Hydrogen and batteries are not in competition; they are complementary solutions to decarbonize the energy sector.
“There is a special role that hydrogen will play, especially around long distance and heavy transport – whether that’s long-distance passenger cars or long-distance trucks. Hydrogen has a very special role to play there as hydrogen brings more capacity to a vehicle than you will be able to realize from a battery.
“There are also places in the world like Japan, Korea and in eastern China, whether or not substantial renewable energy resources and hydrogen will be a way of bringing clean energy to those geographies so that they can decarbonize their transportation systems directly on hydrogen.
“And, in our report, we communicated our assessment that hydrogen will be 22% of final energy use by 2050. That’s fully 20% of the solution for climate change. It’s not a small contribution that hydrogen will make in the coming decades.
“We’ve been very successful with our mission to convince energy policymakers that hydrogen is a viable part of the future energy system.
“There are many more hydrogen projects on the pipeline to decarbonize the global energy systems. More than 30 countries around the world have announced strategies supporting hydrogen as the main part of their future energy plan. Many of those countries have put in place very significant amounts of funding: exceeding $10 billion in the case of France and Germany, exceeding $20 million in the case of China, and $10 billion in the United States. There have been very large funding commitments as well as policy commitments.
“Now, we’re in the phase of implementation. There have been many announcements and commitments of funding. These now need to be followed up with the actual implementation of these projects so that they have an impact on the energy systems,” Daryl added.