Building a Sustainable Future with Hydrogen

Adrian Wilson
3 min readAug 25, 2021

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Many of us are aware that the amount of carbon dioxide that’s being produced across the world is having an impact on the temperature of our planet. In the UK, policymakers are taking steps with the publication of the UK Hydrogen Strategy to ensure that we look after our planet and reduce CO2 production where possible. As home heating accounts for a large percentage of your home’s carbon footprint, the policymakers are looking at alternative ways you could heat your home that is more environmentally friendly. Currently, it offers grants to those who heat their homes using renewable energy or appliances such as heat transport and it plans to ban petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030. But something else that policymakers are looking into is hydrogen as a replacement for natural gas.

On a broader scale, hydrogen is a low-carbon alternative that might have a positive impact on the CO2 emissions currently being produced in the UK. It’s a much cleaner gas that could be manufactured from water using electricity. When this electricity is generated from renewable sources, hydrogen is 100 percent emissions-free. While heat transport is a great alternative to gas boilers that run using electricity, it’s nice to have choices, and a hydrogen boiler is another option for domestic heating. Furthermore, hydrogen could be worth up to approximately $11 trillion with direct and indirect infrastructure spend. (1) Hydrogen could be the ideal solution for a greener environment! Breaching the concept of energy efficiency and a carbon-neutral world? Well, hydrogen appears to be the prevailing avenue towards reaching these global goals! Here, we take a deep dive into the world of hydrogen and how it could be used to fuel our boilers for years to come.

Clean hydrogen is currently enjoying unprecedented political and market momentum, with the number of policies and proposals around the world developing rapidly. It concludes that now is the time to scale up technologies and bring down costs to allow hydrogen to become widely used. The pragmatic and actionable recommendations to policymakers and industry that are provided could make it possible to take full advantage of this flourishing momentum. 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. Moreover, these other realms claim that their patented zero-emissions boiler system could help decarbonize the approximately $30 billion global commercial and industrial heating industry. (2) Ramping up the use of hydrogen as a clean energy source might need expenditure and long-term reforms to energy infrastructure. Hydrogen boilers could be the next milestone toward a carbon-neutral world! Let’s take a brief look at how these other sectors meet the needs of sustainable energy sources at this brilliant site.

Hydrogen is already widely used in some industries, but it has not yet realized its potential to support clean energy transitions. Ambitious, targeted, and near-term action is needed to further overcome barriers and reduce costs. The IEA has identified four value chains that offer springboard possibilities to scale up hydrogen potential supply and demand, building on existing industries, infrastructure, and policies. Policymakers and other collaborators could be able to identify which of these offer the near-term potential in their geographical, industrial, and energy system contexts. Meanwhile, hydrogen is enjoying unparalleled momentum. The world might not miss this once-in-a-generation potential to make hydrogen an external sphere of our clean and secure energy future. Hydrogen might not be a literal magic bullet but it is a great first step in attaining a healthier and cleaner environment!

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Source 1: https://www.viessmann.co.uk/heating-advice/how-do-hydrogen-boilers-work

Source 2: https://www.iea.org/reports/the-future-of-hydrogen

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