STORY: Global green hydrogen developers are canceling projects and trimming investments…
Meaning the world may have to rely on fossil fuels for longer than targeted.
Hard-to-electrify industries that were seen as ideal candidates for green hydrogen have found that the transition looks prohibitively expensive.
German forging company Dirostahl depends on furnaces fired by natural gas and is looking to replace the fuel.
But Chief Executive Roman Diederichs says the hurdle of bringing in the sheer amount of hydrogen needed is insurmountable.
“One of the large furnaces in the background would consume some 700 kilogrammes of hydrogen per day. This would be a whole truckload of a 40-tonnes truck. So this is not the future. We would need some pipeline, but these pipelines do not so far exist.”
Adding to the challenge, hydrogen tends to leak, making for risky transportation.
It’s also difficult to store because it requires high-pressure tanks and extremely low temperatures.
Diederichs says the price tag is another problem.
Projections show green hydrogen would cost about five times that of natural gas per megawatt hour.
Meaning a switch would make them less competitive.
“So this would be a really large problem in the field of an international severe competition with all the competitors internationally using natural gas going on.”
Hydrogen is produced through electrolysis that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity from renewables.
Many governments have long supported its development to help decarbonize energy, transport and industry.
“It was over-promised…”
But Peter Schniering, the CEO of the German non-profit think tank Future Cleantech Architects says, as it turns out, hydrogen is not very good as a fuel.
“The high hopes that have been there have not materialized, it takes a lot of clean electricity to produce green hydrogen. And this electricity is still in demand, in high demand worldwide, because a lot of sectors electrify.”
In Europe, some countries have scaled back their ambitions.
Italy recently shifted more than 600 million euros in post-pandemic funds from hydrogen to biomethane.
In April, France lowered its 2030 hydrogen electrolysis capacity target by more than 30%.
