Achieving a Clean Energy Future with Hydrogen

Adrian Wilson
3 min readSep 30, 2021

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Hydrogen and energy have a long shared history powering the first internal combustion engines over 200 years ago to becoming an integral part of the modern refining industry. It is light, storable, energy-dense, and produces no direct emissions of pollutants or greenhouse gases. But for hydrogen to make a significant contribution to clean energy transitions, it needs to be adopted in sectors where it is almost completely absent, such as transport, buildings, and power generation. The Future of Hydrogen provides an extensive and independent survey of hydrogen that lays out where things stand now; the ways in which hydrogen could help to achieve a clean, secure, and affordable energy future; and how we could go about realizing its potential.

Supplying hydrogen to industrial users is now a major market around the world. The potential demand for hydrogen, which has improved more than threefold since 1975, continues to emerge almost entirely supplied from fossil fuels, with about 6% of global natural gas and approx. 2% of global coal going to hydrogen production. As a consequence, the production of hydrogen is responsible for CO2 emissions of around 830 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, equivalent to the CO2 emissions of the United Kingdom and Indonesia combined. In line with this, (1) Implementation and utilization of hydrogen boiler systems could create a domino effect in reaching the main target of being carbon-neutral in the near future. Hang in there! Keep on crashing another block to recognize these flag bearers of green hydrogen!

The UK policymaker is serious about meeting its carbon-neutral goals and since natural gas is a major contributor to carbon emissions, low carbon alternatives such as hydrogen are likely going to be its replacement in the coming years. One of the major causes of global warming is the production of greenhouse gases through the burning of fossil fuels, like natural gas. These gases couldn’t escape the atmosphere and instead remain trapped, causing the earth’s temperature to emerge. These other industries response to this global climate emergency, in 2016, at the Accord on Climate Change in Paris, the UK policymaker, together with the world’s largest economies agreed to tackle global warming by becoming carbon neutral by 2050.

As a consequencet, traditional heating methods, which currently account for one-third of UK carbon emissions, are at the heart of the policymaker’s low carbon agenda and change is inevitable. Low carbon heating methods are an essential ingredient to achieving the targets; this includes technologies such as heat force, solar, biomass, and the adoption of hydrogen boilers. Residential boilers have already been the target of substantial legislation, including a ban on non-condensing boilers, rendering all new boilers at least 90% efficient, as well as a complete ban on gas boilers in all new build properties from 2025. Moreover, hydrogen could have a large and developing addressable market. In fact, over 45% of energy-related greenhouse gasses could be decarbonized. (2) Bringing up the idea of sustainability and a carbon-free world? Well, hydrogen seems to be the emerging slope for reaching these global goals! Let’s drill down and see how these other sectors set the stage for achieving clean energy sources.

Fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas are all high-carbon fuels that emit carbon dioxide when burned. This is a leading cause of global warming. Hydrogen on the other hand, only produces water, with no carbon dioxide. One of the biggest benefits of hydrogen is that it only means changing to fuel supply, so it is much easier and quicker to roll out nationwide. It also avoids the costs and learning curve of households adopting completely new heating systems. So, why does hydrogen receive so much positive attention? This article could awaken your instinct, a carbon-neutral future is just one tap away!

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Source 1: https://www.iea.org/reports/the-future-of-hydrogen

Source 2: https://heatable.co.uk/boiler-advice/hydrogen-boilers

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