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Hydrogen’s Scalability Essential To Meet Energy Demand

Authored by Robert Hebner via RealClear Wire

Years ago, I attended a lecture featuring a leader of China’s energy program at the University of Hong Kong. The significant investment of time and resources in every energy technology and commitment to scaling solutions with reduced environmental impact was eye-opening, but also struck me as an inefficient approach.

It is now evident that the world must invest in an all-of-the-above method to meet our energy needs with reduced environmental impact. Global energy demand is projected to double due to a growing population; over half do not have adequate energy today, leading to poverty and premature deaths.

Currently, fossil fuel-derived energy is the only source available at the scale required to address the growing demand. Even if the geopolitical issues around fossil fuels were magically eliminated, nature’s conversion of solar power to fossil fuels includes carbon. We now use energy at a rate that carbon emissions change the climate, which also leads to poverty and premature deaths.

We need more and better solutions at a large enough scale to matter. Hydrogen is attractive because it promises to make intermittent renewable energy available 24/7 everywhere. Moreover, the global hydrogen market is more than $150 billion today, with major growth opportunities in the future grid and transportation sectors.

The growing demand for energy means a growth in jobs and profits. But there will be winners and losers even in the growing market. Governments use incentives to support all energy today. Therefore, the integration of hydrogen into the political system is complicated. For example, the Department of Energy has a goal of developing the technology for producing hydrogen for $1/kilogram by the end of the decade. A kilogram of hydrogen has a similar energy to a gallon of gasoline.

Recent research, however, showed that for a wind farm in West Texas, producing and selling hydrogen makes no economic sense unless the cost of hydrogen was about $3.50/kilogram, due to a production tax credit that rewards wind-generated electricity delivered to the electric grid.

Hydrogen’s carbon footprint is high today, but we have the technology to produce it with a smaller carbon footprint. The U.S. is implementing a graduated tax credit to support the scale-up of cleaner hydrogen, no matter its feedstock.

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Zero Hedge

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