Whitaker Irvin, Jr. is CEO of Q Hydrogen, which is developing a new technology for turning water into clean, efficient, renewable hydrogen.
We need clean energy for two key reasons right now: to meet an ever-growing worldwide demand for fuel and to reduce carbon emissions scientists have demonstrated are warming our atmosphere. According to NASA, “It is undeniable that human activities have warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land and that widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and biosphere have occurred.” In February 2021, the U.S. became one of 195 signatories to the Paris Agreement, a United Nations initiative to strengthen the global response to climate change.
Coal and oil has been our preferred sources of energy since the 19th century, but nearly 200 years of global consumption of fossil fuels has depleted their supply and created other environmental consequences. There has been much discussion lately of solar and wind power, as well as nuclear power alternatives. To date, hydrogen has only played a small supporting role in the world’s energy story, but that may be about to change.
Hydrogen As Energy
Hydrogen is a potentially carbon-free fuel that, when consumed in a fuel cell, produces only water vapor. It is also an energy carrier that can store, move and deliver energy produced from other sources. It’s a truly attractive fuel option for transportation and electricity generation applications. The emerging applications of hydrogen today include the industrial sector (e.g., metals refining), liquid fuels (e.g., biofuels and synfuels), heat generation, energy storage and transportation.
The problem with hydrogen is how it is produced. The two industrial methods for production, steam reformation of methane and electrolysis, are more energy-intensive than the hydrogen they create. This is the largest hurdle between where we are now and the hydrogen economy.
Producing Hydrogen: Gray, Blue And Green
Producing hydrogen from natural gas gives us gray hydrogen. This is the most cost-effective method of producing hydrogen fuel, but it requires enormous amounts of natural gas and produces a significant amount of carbon dioxide, one of the main causes of global warming (hydrogen can also be extracted from methane, but this also results in the release of carbon). When the carbon dioxide released during the production of gray hydrogen is stored underground, the resulting hydrogen fuel is known as blue hydrogen. Blue hydrogen, while better for the environment than gray hydrogen, is more expensive to produce.
As you might have guessed, green hydrogen is hydrogen fuel produced without any carbon emissions. The problem? Green hydrogen is currently produced by electrolyzing water, but this process requires a green power source such as solar or wind power. While this sounds attractive, the amount of energy required is massive. The U.S., for example, hasn’t yet sufficiently developed the solar and wind energy plants required to power electrolyzers at scale. Currently only 1% of all hydrogen fuel is created using green technology.
The Hydrogen Market
For a long time, it seemed we were decades from an economically viable method of producing this truly clean fuel at scale and, even then, the costs would only approximate those of producing gray hydrogen.
Even with these significant challenges to the creation of the hydrogen economy, Goldman Sachs predicts the hydrogen generation market may exceed $11 trillion by 2050, driven by global demand for zero-carbon emissions. According to a 2020 study by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, demand for hydrogen in the U.S. could reach 41 million metric tons per year by 2050, up from only 10 million today. In April of this year, the White House announced its plan to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by no later than 2050 and to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. This will further drive clean energy production and, specifically, our nascent hydrogen economy.
New Frontiers In Hydrogen Production
So, is it possible to produce green hydrogen from water with no carbon emissions and at a lower cost than any other method? With only water vapor as a byproduct? With no excess heat? The answer is yes, thanks to turbines, which have been with us since James Watt patented reaction and impulse turbines in 1784. Though they are almost 250 years old, a new type of turbine (full disclosure: produced by my company) may have found the greenest possible method to produce hydrogen fuel. The use of these turbines neither requires nor creates heat, and the price is expected to be competitive.
My company’s turbines are just one of many competing initiatives aimed at bringing down the price of green hydrogen and kicking off a viable hydrogen economy. These range from enhancing conventional steam reforming of methane and “burying” the co-produced carbon dioxide, thereby producing blue hydrogen, to using plasma technology to separate biological wastes. Nuclear reactors are being used to produce hydrogen, with the excess heat used to enhance the efficiency of electrolysis. Another type of green hydrogen is produced using pyrolysis, heating methane and potentially other hydrocarbons in an oxygen-free reactor to produce hydrogen and solid carbon products. Hydrogen can also be directly produced using solar power to drive electrolysis in stand-alone panels.
The acid test is, of course, how much green hydrogen produced using these methods will cost. All these new technologies are fighting the difficult developmental battle to lower costs to economical ranges. In the end, it’s best if multiple methods succeed in driving down prices to make hydrogen a truly cost-efficient and green power source for everyone. The hydrogen economy? Coming soon.
Source: forbes
