What exactly is green hydrogen and will it be the fuel of the future?

Firstly, hydrogen can be used in broadly two ways. It can be burnt to produce heat or fed into a fuel cell to make electricity.

Hyderabad: Union Minister Nitin Gadkari recently said it is now time for using green hydrogen as energy in the cement and steel industry in place of coal. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated that India will turn out to be the world’s biggest Green Hydrogen hub.   

Now it looks like green hydrogen is the future. So, what exactly is green hydrogen? 

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Firstly, hydrogen can be used in broadly two ways. It can be burnt to produce heat or fed into a fuel cell to make electricity.

Most of the gas that is widely used currently as an industrial chemical is either brown or gray. While brown gas is made through the gasification of coal or lignite, gray is made through steam methane reformation. Neither of these processes is carbon-friendly.

Blue hydrogen is a cleaner version for which the gas is produced by steam methane reformation but the emissions are curtailed using carbon capture and storage. On the other hand, green hydrogen has been identified as the clean energy source that could help bring the world to net-zero emissions. It could almost eliminate emissions by using renewable energy to power the electrolysis of water.  

Green hydrogen is produced by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using an electrolyzer powered by electricity from green energy sources such as wind and solar.  The high cost of production is the main factor behind the low use of this type of hydrogen.

How can green hydrogen be used?

Green hydrogen can be used in industry and can also be used with fuel cells to power anything that uses electricity including electric vehicles and electronic devices. The majority of the electricity produced in India right now comes from thermal power, by burning coal.

Hydrogen fuel cells don’t need to be recharged and won’t run down. The vehicles that can run on green hydrogen are not limited to automobiles. Trucks are also being designed to run on green hydrogen. In 2020, major European companies announced plans to switch their truck fleets to hydrogen power. In addition, hydrogen-powered aircraft are already being designed by Airbus.

Hydrogen can be used as a substitute for natural gas for cooking and heating within homes. Hydrogen heating is expected to power most homes in the United Kingdom by 2050.   

At present, green hydrogen technologies are still at a stage of emergence, whereby markets are still developing and manufacturers are engaged in experimentalist learning. 

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