This chapter examines the history of hydrogen production and use. It examines changes in perception and perspectives in hydrogen production and use and serves as an introduction to hydrogen as a fuel source. It examines the various uses of hydrogen in different sectors.
Overview
Hydrogen gas was first produced artificially from the reaction of acids and metals in the early 16th century. In 1766, Henry Cavendish was the first to identify it as a discrete substance and recognize that it produces water when burnt. This latter attribute led to the name – Greek for “born of water”.
The production of hydrogen from water and electricity through the process of electrolysis – using direct current to drive a non-spontaneous chemical reaction – was first discovered in the year 1800. Chemists achieved this by taking a voltaic pile (battery), invented by Alessandro Volta in the same year, and placing the poles in a container of water. Current flowed and hydrogen and oxygen appeared at the electrodes. The theoretical concept of the fuel cell followed shortly thereafter in 1801. Michael Faraday published his Laws of Electrolysis in 1834, setting the scientific foundation for that method of hydrogen generation.
The 20th century saw rapid growth in hydrogen generation and use, with steam reforming, the most widely used method today, being developed in 1923. Industrial hydrogen use and production flourished as well. Recent concerns over climate change have now imbued the technological and market developments in the production and use of hydrogen with new life, creating a myriad of investment opportunities across a wide range of technologies, sectors, and applications.
Applications
Applications
Hydrogen is used in the refining industry as a petrochemical for hydrocracking1 and desulphurization.2 In the chemical industry, it is used for ammonia production and for agricultural fertilizers. It is also used for applications in the metal production and fabrication, methanol production, food processing, and electronics sectors.
Other uses include commercial fixation of nitrogen from the air in the Haber ammonia process, the hydrogenation of fats and oils, methanol production, in hydrodealkylation3 as a rocket fuel, for welding, the production of hydrochloric acid, the reduction of metallic ores, filling balloons, in cryogenics, and in superconductivity applications, to mention but a few.
As an industrial gas, hydrogen is a big global business with strong fundamentals. The market comprises two segments: “merchant” hydrogen – i.e., hydrogen generated on site or in a central production facility and sold to a consumer by pipeline, bulk tank, or cylinder truck delivery; and “captive” hydrogen that is produced by the consumer for internal use and consumed at the point of usage.
Newer applications target transport, high-energy industry, and distributed energy generation and storage.
Typology of hydrogen sourcing
Typology of hydrogen sourcing
Hydrogen production is categorized based on the energy source and production process involved in its manufacture. Hydrogen produced using clean renewable energy is generally termed “green hydrogen”, as the energy used to generate the hydrogen does not produce any carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Green hydrogen is taking off around the globe. Its boosters say the fuel could play an important role in decarbonizing hard-to-green sectors of the economy, such as long-haul trucking, aviation, and heavy manufacturing.
To produce large amounts of green hydrogen requires considerably larger electricity generation capacities from renewable energies. Also, green electricity prices must be affordable if green hydrogen is to be economically competitive.
Where the hydrogen is produced by reforming natural gas or through coal gasification, and the resultant CO2 emissions are captured, the classification “blue hydrogen” is generally used. Blue hydrogen has some attractive features, but it is not inherently carbon-free. Fossil fuels with carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) must have CO2 monitoring, verification, and certification to record non-captured emissions and monitor the retention of stored CO2. Such transparency is essential for ensuring a level playing field in the global hydrogen commodity trade, but adds cost and complexity.
Where the CO2 emitted during hydrogen manufacture is not captured, the term “grey hydrogen” is used. Today, most hydrogen production uses fossil fuels and emits greenhouse gasses that contribute to climate change, and thus falls in this category.
A technology that is not new, but is gaining traction as a possible player in the hydrogen space is “turquoise hydrogen”. It is produced by using heat to split methane. The process is also known as pyrolysis, methane cracking, or methane decarbonization. Rather than CO2, it produces solid carbon that can be used to produce tires, plastics, paints, inks, and other goods. An advantage of turquoise hydrogen over green hydrogen is that it does not need purified fresh water. This makes it possible to obtain turquoise hydrogen directly at gas fields – whether in deserts or on sea.
However, recent research shows that turquoise hydrogen is likely to be no more carbon-free than blue hydrogen, owing to emissions from the up-chain natural-gas supplies and the generation of the process heat required for the reaction, since high temperatures are needed to melt either iron or iron-sodium-potassium chloride salts to serve as a catalyst.
Milestones on the path towards Green H2
Milestones on the path towards Green H2
1838
The fuel cell effect, where hydrogen and oxygen gases are combined to produce water and an electric current, is discovered.
1845
Sir William Grove demonstrates this effect on a practical scale by creating a “gas battery”.
1889
Ludwig Mond and Charles Langer coin the term “fuel cell” and attempt to build the first such device using air and industrial coal gas.
1920
German engineer Rudolf Erren converts the internal combustion engines of trucks, buses, and submarines to use hydrogen or hydrogen mixtures.
1958
The US founds the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Its space program currently uses the most liquid hydrogen worldwide, primarily for rocket propulsion and as a fuel for fuel cells.
1959
Francis T. Bacon of the University of Cambridge builds the first practical five-kilowatt hydrogen-air fuel cell.
1970
Electrochemist John O’M. Bockris coins the term “hydrogen economy” during a discussion at the General Motors (GM) Technical Center in Warren, Michigan.
1973
The OPEC oil embargo and the resulting supply shocks accelerate the development of hydrogen fuel cells for conventional commercial applications.
1988
The Soviet Union’s Tupolev Design Bureau successfully converts a 164-passenger Tu-154 commercial jet to operate one of the jet’s three engines on liquid hydrogen.
1990
The world’s first solar-powered hydrogen production plant at Solar-Wasserstoff-Bayern, a research and testing facility in southern Germany, becomes operational.
1994
Daimler-Benz demonstrates its first New Electric CAR (NECAR I) fuel-cell vehicle.
1998
Iceland unveils a plan to create the first hydrogen economy by 2030 with Daimler-Benz and Ballard Power Systems.
1999
The Royal Dutch Shell company commits to a hydrogen future by forming a hydrogen division.
2000
Ballard Power Systems presents the world’s first production-ready polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell for automotive applications.
2003
US President George W. Bush announces a US$1.2 billion hydrogen fuel initiative.
2004
The world’s first fuel cell-powered submarine undergoes deepwater trials.
2005
Twenty-three states in the US have hydrogen initiatives in place.
2015
The UNFCC Paris Agreement is signed, committing more than 190 countries to robust increases in hydrogen production and use.
Status quo
Status quo
The massive growth in interest in green hydrogen is currently fueled by the need to decarbonize the economy in the face of climate change. It can potentially be used in many applications to decarbonize industrial processes, the transport sector, and other economic activities that are today responsible for CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions.
In order to decarbonize the global economy, the national governments that are parties to the UN Climate Convention Paris Agreement have committed to robust increases in green hydrogen production, as part of the Agreement’s aim to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping the global temperature rise this century well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels.
1 EJ is roughly equivalent to one day of the world's total final energy demand, the energy consumed in two years by the transportation sector in the New York metropolitan area, the heat used by Germany's steel industry in one year, or the energy required to heat all of the houses in France for one winter.
1 EJ is provided by 7 million tonnes or 78 billion m3 of gaseous hydrogen. It is equivalent to 278 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity, and roughly 170 million barrels of oil or 290 billion cubic feet of natural gas.
Currently, 70 million tonnes of hydrogen are produced annually worldwide. Of that, 7.4 million tonnes is supplied by green hydrogen.
The Paris Agreement sees global production of green hydrogen rising to 3 exajoules (EJ) by 2030, around 8 EJ by 2040, and 19 EJ by 2050. By comparison, the global transport sector today uses 12.3 EJ worth of energy.
The EU alone has allocated US$550 billion to its Hydrogen Strategy. In the first phase, from 2020 to 2024, the objective is to install at least 6 gigawatts (GW) of renewable hydrogen electrolyzers in the EU and to produce up to 1 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen to decarbonize existing hydrogen production. The target for 2030 is 10 million tonnes of green hydrogen production. The impact on peripheral markets will also be huge – the installation of 120 GW of solar and wind energy generation capacity is foreseen for direct connection to electrolyzers.
In the US, hydrogen could become a US$130 billion industry by 2050, according to Forbes. Following the US government’s decision to rejoin the Paris Agreement, this can and should significantly increase if significant federal aid is provided for the development of a US hydrogen industry. California alone has a target of 200 hydrogen fueling stations and over 47,000 hydrogen vehicles by 2025. The US Department of Energy’s H2@Scale initiative has been analyzing requirements for a hydrogen economy in the US since 2016 and is making a series of strong growth recommendations to federal and state governments, while at the same time identifying markets and value chains that will support that growth.
Japan plans to have 800,000 hydrogen-powered vehicles on its roads by 2030 and to reduce the cost of hydrogen production by as much as 90 percent by 2050 – making it cheaper than natural gas. China’s hydrogen policy has focused on the promotion of fuel cells, which convert hydrogen back into electricity to power cars, buses, and heating, for example. The country is considered a pioneer and is aiming for 5,000 fuel-cell vehicles by 2020 and as many as one million by 2030.
All these climate change-driven public policies will induce massive growth in the generation and use of hydrogen. When we add to that the need to make better use of renewable energy generation facilities that are often prevented from delivering available power in low-demand situations, the ability of distributed hydrogen storage to be a levelizer will see green electricity prices stabilize and a more predictable investment climate take shape.
Brief outlook
Brief outlook
In view of the actions by governments outlined above, the pressure on industries to decarbonize in the face of potential sanctions brought on by tougher emissions regimes required by those same governments, and the drive by cities to tackle pollution by moving away from fossil fuels in public and private vehicles, the pressure is on to improve hydrogen generation and end-use technologies, reduce generation costs, and improve transport and storage technologies.
The focus on green hydrogen means moving from conventional production methods with heavy CO2 loads such as steam reforming to clean forms of production, ideally without any CO2 emissions. Generation technologies that sequester emitted CO2 could make the grade if sufficiently low residual emissions can be proven and maintained. However, technical challenges persist, and not all locations where hydrogen is needed lend themselves to sequestration.
Thermochemical water splitting integrates well with solar thermal collectors and uses close-cycle processes, rendering it useful for green hydrogen production. The development focus here is likely to be on efficiency and durability of reactant materials, more robust reactor designs, and reducing the cost of the concentrating mirror systems, a target shared with the concentrating solar power sector.
Newer and in some cases experimental technologies for the generation of hydrogen from primary energy sources such as algae and sunlight, or biomass (forestry and crop residue, human and animal waste, municipal solid biowaste, etc.) through biochemical or thermochemical conversion are actively being explored.
On the use side, more efficient transport and conversion to heat and electricity will be a strong focus, as will solutions for high-energy industrial processes. Better fuel cells, more versatile hydrogen combined with heat and power (CHP, also known as cogeneration) applications, and innovative storage and transport technologies such as Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carrier (LOHC) will also drive the sector forward and bring costs down to levels competitive with other, non-green generation technologies.
1Hydrocracking is a flexible catalytic refining process that can upgrade a large variety of petroleum fractions. It is commonly applied to upgrade the heavier fractions obtained from the distillation of crude oils, including residue.
2This process is one of the ways to catalytically remove sulphur compounds in hydrocarbon fuels using hydrogen.
3The process is used for the catalytic removal of alkyl groups from an aromatic compound in the presence of hydrogen.