A brief guide on how to use energy wisely
If someone ever told you: ‘Don’t worry, this won’t hurt anyone!’, they were probably lying. Almost everything in life has contraindications. Despite belonging to the same species, all humans have our own peculiarities – we are all a little bit different. What works for me might cause a problem for you, and vice versa, and this fundamental principle applies to almost everything. It is the same with technology; there are great inventions that make our lives much easier, but it may not make sense for all applications. The fan, for example, is a lifesaver for those who live in an arid area with high temperatures. However, I am pretty sure that if you travel to Siberia in December you will not find this item laying around.
At ASTERISK, we work in the energy sector, specifically in the production of green hydrogen. We study how to make it efficiently, and towards that end of our project we want to design a very special electrolyser: one that uses seawater instead of fresh water, which also recovers salts, reduces the reliance on critical raw materials and avoids toxic or harmful compounds, among other things.
But let’s not be naive: we know there’s no magic solution to everything. While we recognise the potential of hydrogen, we don’t believe it is infallible. We want to have access to a new form of clean energy, but learning from past mistakes using it wisely, which basically means asking ourselves some serious questions. For example: in what applications does it really make sense to use hydrogen? And that, obviously, leads us to the other side of the coin: which purposes will not make sense?
Hang on, because things are about to get bumpy!
For now, let’s focus on hydrogen as an energy vector, regardless of whether it’s renewable –i.e. green hydrogen – or not. Let’s stick with the name and leave the surname aside.
A bit about our main character – hydrogen
The starring actor in this story is a gas: we cannot see it, nor smell it. It is the lightest chemical element in the periodic table, but we should not underestimate it, as it is also highly flammable. Hydrogen has become one of the big promises for decarbonising the global economy, and Europe is betting heavily on funding research and innovation to make its production more efficient and eco-friendlier.
However, hydrogen is more of an energy vector, rather than a primary energy source, because in nature it is always found bound to other elements. To obtain pure hydrogen, we first need to carry out a physical or chemical process to isolate it, which, surprise, surprise, requires external energy. If the energy used in this process comes from renewable power, then we get green hydrogen.
We can obtain green hydrogen through the process of electrolysis, which breaks water down into its most basic elements. To do this, the electricity we use must come from renewable energy sources.
For this very reason, it makes no sense to use hydrogen in processes where clean electricity could be applied directly, such as power coming straight from a solar farm.
So, from a technical and ethical point of view, this issue is our first limitation. It should guide us towards sectors that are referred to as ‘non-electrifiable’, where clean electricity would simply not do the trick, but hydrogen could create a seamless solution.
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My non–plug-in baby
Today, there are two categories that cover the uses we can make of hydrogen:
- Traditional applications: these include chemical refining (i.e. using hydrogen as a feedstock to produce ammonia, methanol and other chemicals), as well as its use to reduce iron ore and obtain very high-quality steel. Hydrogen is also used for other purposes, such as in electronics, glassmaking and metal processing, albeit on a very small scale
- New and potential applications: include the use of hydrogen in transport, the production of clean fuels (such as synthetic hydrocarbons), improving the quality of current biofuels, providing high-temperature heating for industrial processes, and storing and generating electricity.
For many traditional uses, hydrogen is not obtained from renewable energy sources. And that’s understandable: think about any disruptive technology, it takes time to take off. When a new way of generating energy emerges, it’s expensive to implement. It takes a massive investment to turn lab-scale science into something that works reliably in industry. And investment doesn’t just mean money –it also means human resources, scarce materials, and a long list of other bits and bobs. Still, if we want a clean energy future, we need to invest at all levels, including research and innovation projects like ASTERISK.
Without going into too much detail, we will focus on sectors where green hydrogen, obtained from other clean energy sources, could help decarbonise the economy. We are talking about sectors where implementing the use of electricity would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, at least for now:
- Heavy transport: can you imagine a ship, a city bus or a train powered by hydrogen? This is already a reality in several countries, both within and outside Europe, thanks to fuel cells. The great advantage of hydrogen-based transport is that the only by-product is water, which means it does not contribute to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
- Industry: burning hydrogen generates extremely high heat, which is particularly important in many industries, such as iron
- Electricity storage: the big drawback of renewable energy is that it doesn’t guarantee a constant electricity supply, because sunlight and wind aren’t always available. However, we can use some surplus energy from renewables to produce green hydrogen, an energy vector that is easier to store.
- New kind of fuels: if we combine hydrogen with captured CO₂, we can produce methanol, as well as other hydrocarbons compatible with current internal combustion engines. Capturing CO₂ also helps reduce its atmospheric concentration. The final product is an e-fuel, one of the major bets the automotive and aviation industries are making today.
We started this story by talking about fans, explaining why their use does not always make sense. With hydrogen, there are also contexts where it simply isn’t viable –either from an economic point of view or taking into account the use of scarce resources.
- Decarbonising heating in our homes: one of the key challenges in reducing greenhouse gas emissions is improving the energy efficiency of homes and buildings. In Europe, heating accounts for up to 25% of these emissions. For this reason, green hydrogen has been proposed as an alternative to current systems, based mostly on fossil fuels like natural. However, there are several drawbacks to this: to obtain green hydrogen, we must first rely on other renewable energy sources, which is still expensive and using it would require changes to building infrastructure. Currently, there are other more viable alternatives, such as installing electric heat pumps or using an approach based on passive houses when designing new buildings, where the architecture itself helps us to achieve energy efficiency.
- Individual transport: a combination of factors makes this solution unsustainable, and very expensive. These include the need to use other renewable sources to obtain hydrogen, the cost of compressing and transporting this gas and the manufacture of the fuel cell, the device to convert hydrogen into and electricity. Car models such as the Toyota Mirai or the Hyundai Nexo have a market price of around €75,000. Another issue is that currently there are only around 250 hydrogen fuel filling stations throughout Europe, with most of them (around 100) located in Germany. Although this number is expected to increase in the coming years, these facilities are currently complex and extremely expensive.
- Aviation: it should come as no surprise that aviation is one of the most polluting industries in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. For this reason, many companies are committed to decarbonising their business model by designing hydrogen-powered aircraft. Companies such as Airbus and start-up Beyond Aero have been trying to achieve this for years, but the challenges are huge: hydrogen takes up a lot of volume, and this inevitably leads to a redesign of the aircraft structure. Additionally, hydrogen must be stored at extremely low temperatures (around -250°C), reducing the available space for passengers.
Turn off the air!
As we can see, the use of hydrogen has certain drawbacks, mainly associated with its price. However, this does not mean that it does not make sense to continue researching its use in new contexts. Can you imagine what would have happened if no one had supported steam engines because of the price of coal in the past? We should not demonise the advancement of new technologies, nor should we trust that they will solve all our problems.
Finally, we mustn’t forget one thing: our planet’s resources are finite and, in many cases, scarce. We can’t change that, no matter how much technical progress we make. The most efficient form of energy is using it wisely: let’s not turn on the air conditioner in Siberia, at least not in December!
Contact for media:
ASTERISK Press Office
Fernando Gomollón-Bel and Lucía Casas Piñeiro
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