Green Hydrogen: benefits, obstacles, importance

Hydrogen is the most abundant chemical in the world. It turns out that hydrogen is actually a really effective fuel, however, it does not exist alone in nature. Hydrogen is a diatomic element meaning that it always appears as H2, among other elements in compounds and molecules, such as our favorite, water. In order for hydrogen to be useful though, we need to separate it from other elements. For anyone who knows about chemistry, it takes energy to chemically separate a pure substance into its elements. And, as you all know, energy can come from many places, such as fossil fuels, and renewable sources. So, let’s talk about each.

There are a few different kinds of hydrogen which you may have heard of: gray, blue, and green hydrogen. These colors don’t actually change the appearance of the hydrogen, or the usage, they are just indicating how the hydrogen was produced and its nuances.

Let’s start with gray hydrogen. We typically associate gray with unnatural things, like sidewalks, pavement, buildings, so you probably guess that gray hydrogen is created with fossil fuels, typically coal or natural gas. Just like many other processes that use fossil fuels, the cheapest and most widely-used way to produce hydrogen is using fossil fuels, however, there are extremely high CO2 emissions from this; 830 million tonnes a year, to be exact.

What’s blue hydrogen? Blue hydrogen is much less known and used, but it is hydrogen that is produced using fossil fuels, however it has a slight nuance. It can store the CO2 emissions that it produces, meaning that most of the emissions from the process don’t make it to the atmosphere and go underground instead, which is good. However, this process still requires obtaining and burning natural resources, which is bad, even if the hydrogen can sequester the carbon emitted.

The third, best color of hydrogen, is green. Green hydrogen is what it sounds like. Hydrogen produced with green processes. Green hydrogen production is powered with renewable sources of energy such as solar and wind. The actual process which is powered renewably, is done through electrolysis. Electrolysis is when you pass an electric current through a liquid, such as water, and it results in chemical decomposition. The only byproduct of this process is water, no CO2 is emitted at all.

All three forms of hydrogen production generate the same product: hydrogen. However, each process has its own byproducts, such as CO2, which is very harmful to the planet. As of today, only 0.1% of the hydrogen we produce is green, and the rest is produced with fossil fuels.

So, how can green hydrogen be used? Green hydrogen is a fuel, and can replace many fuels which emit CO2. It also has a potential for energy storage, solving the problem of when excess renewable energy is produced. Because of its light weight, it can be transported easily, and its versatility allows for easy storage. Green hydrogen can replace fossil fuels in almost every industry and area, commercially, personally, and industrially.

So, why hasn’t it been widely implemented? The main reason, as always, is cost. It is expensive to produce green hydrogen, since it uses so much energy, and many companies don’t see a reason to do it when they can get the exact same product with fossil fuels. There are also various environmental harms. It isn’t as efficient as renewably-powered batteries. Green hydrogen consumes a lot of water. It consumes a lot of energy. Since it’s such a small molecule, it is likely to leak, and since hydrogen has 11 times more global warming potential than carbon dioxide, if it does leak, we’d have some problems.

However, while these obstacles may exist, the truth is green hydrogen is better than gray hydrogen in any world, simply because of the fact that it is produced with renewable energy. Even if there are better fuel and energy sources, the question is not is green hydrogen the best, the question is: Is green hydrogen better than gray, which it is.