By Mark Selby

World leaders can’t stop enthusing about using the gas to combat climate change. Our own Boris Johnson aspires to make Britain the “Qatar of hydrogen”, no less. The UK government wants hydrogen to supply up to 35 per cent of Britain’s energy needs by 2050. Germany, meanwhile, has announced some EUR 8 billion of funding support for 62 hydrogen projects as part of its plan to help decarbonise the economy via electrolysis to extract green hydrogen from water and China is not far behind with 50 hydrogen projects worth more than Chinese Yuan 110 billion already announced.

But if global governments aren’t careful, their fanciful pledges will reignite the hydrogen punchline if their promises turn out to be little more than hot air. Of course, we all hope hydrogen is the solution but hoping won’t solve the environmental problems caused by fossil fuels: it’s time to look at what’s actually happening. Plenty of action is underway and we need to follow the money rather than the commitments for a flavour of the agenda.

Hydrogen isn’t ready for the man on the street – yet

For all that Toyota longs to make its dream of fuel-cell electric cars a reality – and for all the billions the Japanese automobile giant has invested in the technology since the early 1990s – hydrogen isn’t going to happen there, just look at all the charging points and electrics cars already on ours roads: the market has spoken.

Cars aside, the situation gets more interesting elsewhere in the corporate world. The Hydrogen Council, an industry consortium, reckons some 350 big projects are underway globally to develop clean-hydrogen production, hydrogen-distribution facilities and industrial plants which will use hydrogen for processes which now use fossil fuels. These span the globe with the bulk in Europe but the rest of the world is playing catch up, fast. Cumulative public and private investment could reach USD 500 billion between now and 2030.

Take Britain where Ineos, the chemical giant, announced in October what it claims to be the largest investment in Europe in green hydrogen production. The company is ploughing more than EUR 2 billion into electrolysis projects to make green hydrogen at several of its sites across Europe. Ineos plans to build plants in Norway, Germany and Belgium over the next 10 years, while also investing in plants in the UK and France.  The Norwegian plant will be a 20- megawatt electrolyser that will reduce the carbon footprint of its petroleum and plastics complex at Rafnes, which is southwest of Oslo, by at least 22,000 tonnes per annum of carbon dioxide. While modest in scale, this is still an important step to demonstrate the enormous value of green hydrogen in an industrial context.

In Germany, a 100MW electrolyser project will decarbonise its operations in Cologne by more than 120,000 tpa of CO2. Hydrogen from the Cologne site will be used to produce green ammonia, which Ineos hopes will open opportunities to develop e-fuels through power- to-methanol applications on an industrial scale. Across the Atlantic, CF Industries Holdings, which is the largest producer of ammonia in the US, has signed a contract with Thyssenkrupp for a 20MW green hydrogen project at its Louisiana factory. This will be the first commercial-scale green ammonia project in North America, according to Tony Will, CF Industries’ president and CEO.

This is significant because most of the world’s industrial ammonia is grey: it is made from grey hydrogen, produced from fossil fuels. That’s why processes using fossil-based, high-carbon hydrogen are among the first to transition and scale up.

Keep your eyes peeled on steel

In Sweden SSAB, the largest steel sheet manufacturer in Scandinavia, plans to deliver green steel on an industrial basis by 2026 and to become fossil free by 2045. This won’t come cheap. ArcelorMittal, Europe’s biggest steelmaker, has estimated that decarbonising its facilities on the continent in line with the EU’s drive to eliminate net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 will cost as much as EUR40 billion. But given that SSAB accounts for 10 per cent of Sweden’s and 7 per cent of Finland’s carbon dioxide emissions, the steel giant’s green agenda is very important for the climate. What’s more, SSAB’s strategy alone has more capital behind it than the UK’s entire green hydrogen policy strategy. Government money will always matter but real investment is already starting to flow from big industrial companies.

SSAB is already making progress. Hybrit, a Swedish consortium owned by SSAB, state-owned utility Vattenfall and miner LKAB, recently sold the world’s first fossil-free steel made by substituting green hydrogen for dirty coal. In Lulea, the Hybrit plant burns green hydrogen to remove oxygen from iron ore, resulting in fossil-free sponge iron brickets. These get shipped to SSAB’s plant in Oxelosund, south of Stockholm where they are turned into steel plates. And in October 2021, Volvo unveiled the first vehicle made with green steel: an eight-ton electric dump truck.

SSAB has also announced a partnership with Daimler’s Mercedes- Benz to introduce fossil fuel-free steel into its vehicle production, with prototype body shells planned for next year. Mercedes-Benz has stated its intention to have a carbon neutral vehicle fleet by 2039, a full 11 years before EU legislation requires. Refuelling passenger cars with hydrogen will probably never happen, but you can bet the gas will play a key role in reducing the carbon intensity of the vehicles we drive even if it isn’t instantly visible.

Where companies lead, governments will follow, which happily for hydrogen is no laughing matter.