Hydrogen must solve its own climate problem

Ever wonder why hydrogen is pushed as a climate solution and is it really?

The ‘why’ starts with the 2017 creation of the Hydrogen Council, a consortium of oil, gas and other industrial companies, formed to market hydrogen as a solution to the forecasted revenue declines from the clean energy transition. Their website includes such members as Exxon-Mobil, Shell, BP, Chevron, Saudi-Aramco and others. Second, per the International Energy Agency (IEA), 99% of global hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels, mostly from methane (i.e. natural gas). Yes, ‘green’ hydrogen is also produced from the electrolysis of water, but it is less than 0.1%. Third, production of hydrogen is a serious climate problem, per the IEA, contributing over 2% of all global greenhouse gasses. This is because 12 tons of CO2 are emitted per ton of hydrogen produced (IEA). So before hydrogen can be proposed as a climate solution, it must first solve its own carbon emissions problem.

Is there a proposed solution? Yes, it is to apply carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). There are at least two serious climate problems with that, besides the added cost:

1) CCS does not address the problem of upstream methane emissions from natural gas extraction, which have never been solved. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, methane emissions cause 25% of all global warming.

2) CCS, despite rosy claims of 90% + capture, has an actual history of failing to meet operational or economic goals over the dozen or so projects built. … See the 2022 IEEFA report, “Reality Check on CO2 Emissions Capture at HydrogenFrom-Gas Plants”.

As it stands today, producing more fossil hydrogen will make the climate crisis worse. All the marketing in the world will not change that.

TOM SOLOMON Co-coordinator of the climate action non-profit, 350 New Mexico