Hydrogen offers a potential solution to the problem of supporting more sustainable industries, but technical, economic, social, and political factors stand in its way, according to a new paper produced by an international team of experts from a variety of disciplines. 

Using decarbonized hydrogen, so-called green hydrogen, is an avenue to a low-carbon economy that is attracting renewed interest. Technological developments and cost reductions could allow hydrogen to contribute significantly to a decarbonized economy as a fuel and a feedstock. As a fuel, hydrogen offers considerable potential because it generates no carbon dioxide on combustion. As a feedstock, low-carbon hydrogen could replace high-carbon feedstocks in processes such as steel production.

At a critical juncture for the industry and global climate, Dr. Steve Griffiths, SVP Research and Development and Professor of Practice, offers a critical, systematic and interdisciplinary assessment of industrial decarbonization via hydrogen. Dr. Griffiths and his team reviewed more than 2,100 sources of evidence, referencing over 700 papers and studies, using a sociotechnical lens to examine hydrogen production and use across multiple industries. The work on hydrogen is part of a broader set of studies that the team has undertaken with support from the Industrial Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre (IDRIC) in the United Kingdom.

Team members were Dr. Benjamin Sovacool, University of Sussex, UK; Dr. Jinsoo Kim, Hanyang University, Republic of Korea; Dr. Morgan Bazilian, Colorado School of Mines, USA; and Joao Uratani, a research engineer also from Khalifa University.

Their review was published in.

“Hydrogen is increasingly being positioned as a key energy vector due to its versatility as a chemical store of energy for use in the power, buildings, transport, and industrial sectors,” Dr. Griffiths said. “More importantly, hydrogen is one of the key options for many decarbonizing industrial sectors, particularly those that require hydrogen as a feedstock for process chemistry.”

Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe but hydrogen atoms do not exist in nature by themselves. To produce hydrogen, its atoms need to be decoupled from other elements in resources like  water, plants or fossil fuels. The method by which hydrogen is produced largely determines its sustainability.

“,” Dr. Griffiths said. “Its properties make it an excellent fuel but hydrogen requires considerable care in processing and handling. Further, transporting it long distances in a liquid form is currently very expensive.”

Although the use of hydrogen is somewhat limited in scope today, a very different future may be on the horizon. The industrial processes used to make steel, cement, ceramics, glass and chemicals all require varying amounts of high-temperature heat. For these sectors, hydrogen is one of the very few long-term options for replacing fossil fuels at large scale.

The use of hydrogen in shipping, particularly in the form of ammonia, is the major opportunity here.

However, the main challenge with scaling up the hydrogen-supply chain is to lower the costs of transporting it. The existing technologies for transporting and distributing hydrogen long distances in a volumetrically energy dense liquid form are still significantly more expensive than those of other fuels, such as oil and natural gas. Hydrogen, or one of its derivatives, particularly ammonia, may play a prominent role in such long distance transport. However, pipeline transmission of hydrogen gas is currently the economic means of moving hydrogen at large scale.

Compressed hydrogen could use converted natural-gas pipelines, or newly built ones, or even be co-transported with natural gas to partially decarbonize natural gas already used in the energy sector. A lack of dedicated global hydrogen pipeline networks is, however, a current challenge to be overcome if regional and national hydrogen trade is to be established. Once transported, hydrogen storage becomes the priority, but hydrogen’s low volumetric energy density can make it difficult to store. Fortunately, there appears to be no insurmountable technical barrier to storing hydrogen over the longer term in high capacity geologic formations like aquifers and rock caverns.

The final cost of hydrogen in international trade will depend on what it costs to produce and transport it, Dr. Griffiths said. “Connecting suppliers and consumers at the global level via the most cost-effective means will be a great challenge.”

Such considerations are particularly relevant for connecting global supply and demand. This said, sociopolitical factors could hinder hydrogen’s growing role in industrial decarbonization and so must also be considered.

The review paper considers the social and technical systems involved in making, distributing, and using hydrogen, with the authors accounting for institutional inputs, policy and regulatory frameworks, and financial and economic enablers. There are many socio-technical elements at play:

“Industry decarbonization via hydrogen will require policy mechanisms that stimulate both hydrogen supply and demand and support development of the necessary supply-chain infrastructure,” Dr. Griffiths said. “While policy toolkits can be built upon existing efforts targeting renewable-energy generation and use, specific hydrogen-targeted policy instruments will be needed.”

Further, policies can spur innovation, and dedicated funds will be required to support research and development in academia and industry.

In this context, dedicated hydrogen-research centers are appearing, and public-private partnerships for the demonstration and scale up of hydrogen technologies and projects can be found around the world. Regulatory and certification frameworks are emerging that cover the production, supply-chain and industrial-use elements of hydrogen at the national level. Internationally, seventeen standards had been published and fifteen more were under development at the time the paper was written. These standards cover most elements of the technical pathways for hydrogen production and use.

However, the degree to which countries have been able to implement regulation varies. National and regional regulatory bodies will need to adopt harmonized policy instruments to avoid being excluded from accessing international hydrogen markets. Additionally, the regulatory frameworks on safety and quality control will need to be particularly robust.

“The absence of comprehensive, national and international policy and regulatory frameworks for hydrogen adoption, particularly for  industrial systems, is a major challenge,” Dr. Griffiths said. “Despite increasing interest in hydrogen, policy support in the form of roadmaps, action and strategic plans is still not fully implemented on a global level.”

The future of hydrogen trade relationships will also rely heavily on geopolitics. The role that renewable hydrogen could play on the energy geopolitics stage remains to be seen. Particularly as transport costs are reduced, the importance of where resources are found will be reduced. Contrasting this to the geopolitical clout afforded to countries located on top of robust oil reserves suggests how global geopolitical dynamics could be affected.

“Whether countries will adopt particular roles in a hydrogen-economy transition is likely to depend on existing resources and infrastructure,” Dr. Griffiths said. “Some countries are more likely than others to lead the global markets in production capacity and export heavily, while others will focus on importation to meet demand. Countries that are more likely to import are already net energy importers under the current fossil-energy paradigm.” Industrial adoption of low-carbon hydrogen still faces a significant number of barriers. Regulatory and standardization instruments are perhaps the key means of driving rapid hydrogen utilization, according to the study authors, but support for R&D is also critical.

“Decarbonizing hydrogen is key to decarbonizing the chemical and refining industries, but it will also help decarbonize a number of other industries,” Dr. Griffiths said.

Applying decarbonized hydrogen across a wide range of sectors could benefit a large number of companies and economies. Of these, perhaps the most significant are the oil and gas firms that are increasingly facing calls to halt fossil-fuel production. As these companies look to diversify their portfolios, green hydrogen or hydrogen produced from fossil sources coupled with carbon capture, could be critical. Cutting the costs to achieve global industrial adoption of low-carbon hydrogen will require massive investment and scale, which oil majors could provide.

The authors noted that moving forward, the most ambitious targets for hydrogen use will require additional study, ranging from R&D to market stimulation, with further consideration of potential geopolitical ramifications and also further consideration of opportunities and challenges for hydrogen adoption in developing countries.

Most articles about hydrogen involve engineering and the natural sciences with social sciences representing a small fraction of total papers published. This suggests there is a lot of room to study in more detail the sociotechnical aspects of hydrogen use.

Jade Sterling
Science Writer
29 September 2021

The post Industrial Decarbonization via Hydrogen appeared first on Khalifa University.

As the world’s leading energy organization reports the radical steps needed to reach net zero emissions by 2050, SVP Research and Development Dr. Steve Griffiths discusses the prospects for the oil-producing GCC countries in a webinar hosted by The Middle East Institute.

By Dr. Steve Griffiths

In May 2021, the International Energy Agency (IEA) published a on a pathway to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Among the many proposals in the report is the call to immediately end new investments in oil and gas exploration and development. Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) economies still depend heavily on oil and gas for their national income, despite economic diversification initiatives over the last several years. How credible is the IEA pathway to Net Zero by 2050 and how will this affect the oil-producing countries in the GCC?

In the 1800s, we went through a period where we were a society based on biomass, then the industrial revolution followed and we switched to coal for a new form of energy. Finally, in the last few decades, coal, oil and gas have become the dominant sources of energy with the proliferation of hydrocarbons, but of course, renewable energy sources have appeared as well. We are seeing sustainability coming into play and as it does, we have to ask the question: what’s going to happen over the next 80 years as we see the end of the ‘oil age’, particularly as we work on limiting the emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels?

The current thinking is it would be much better for the planet to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, because when you get to 2 degrees, the climate issues we’re seeing now will simply be exacerbated. The 2050 dialogue is now on the table, and this creates a discussion about how quickly we can move towards mitigating or eliminating our emissions.

The sustainable development scenario is essentially a net zero solution, but with a postponed deadline: global CO2 emissions from the energy sector and industrial processes would need to fall by more than 70 percent by 2050 to be on track for net-zero by 2070. This would limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius relative to pre-industrial levels.

A shorter timescale, and the one recommended by the recent IEA report,, would see global CO2 emissions reduced to net-zero by 2050, falling around 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030. This would, with high probability, limit global warming to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius relative to pre-industrial levels.

It’s pretty ambitious to aim for Net Zero by 2050, since to see a more than 40 percent decrease in our CO2 emissions by 2030, which is what the pathway suggests, would require a massive change in the way we use and view energy.

There are many net-zero scenarios and the oil and gas sector is heavily impacted in each. All these scenarios have a fairly similar trajectory for oil and gas, and if we follow a Net Zero 2050 pathway, we’ve already hit peak oil.

To reach net zero by 2050, there will need to be a 70 percent reduction from 2020 to 2050 with oil demand never exceeding 100 million barrels a day. In fact, along this trajectory, we’ll see a rapid decline in oil demand, dropping sharply over the next three decades to 25 million barrels a day. On the same path, natural gas is yet to see its peak, but that’ll happen within this decade. With a more gradual decline to 2050 than oil, demand for natural gas will fall off by 40 percent.

OPEC is particularly well situated in the IEA Net Zero scenario with more than half the market share; if you’re a Middle Eastern country producing oil, the situation looks pretty good, so to speak. However, even if you’re still a producer with more than 50 percent market share, you have to consider the impact the reduced demand will have on revenues as diminished demand impacts oil prices. The challenge we’re going to face here is that the economic structures of the GCC countries are generally not compatible with a Net Zero world. While they have made some positive progress in economic diversification between 2010 and 2020, they are still heavily reliant on hydrocarbons for government revenues, exports, and economic activity. Among the GCC countries, the UAE is perhaps best positioned but also needs to make further progress. As it stands, this region, and many others, are not ready to jump straight into a Net Zero world trajectory.

Net Zero by 2050 assumes a very rapid global shift in energy consumption patterns, with a precipitous drop in demand for oil in particular. To follow this IEA recommendation, we would need to stop developing new oil fields immediately, with any new investment directed to maintaining production at existing fields. Likewise for natural gas, all investment would be used to sustain existing production to meet residual demand in the future.

However, many are still assuming that oil demand by 2030 will largely follow a trajectory based on current and announced government policies focused on climate and sustainability. This, coupled with the fact that a number of countries that are heavy energy consumers, such as India, are rejecting a rapid decarbonization trajectory indicates a good chance that demand for oil will increase by 2030. Confirming this notion, consulting firm Wood Makenzie announced recently that they foresee a 2030 oil demand supply gap of about 20 million barrels per day. This is not to say that Net Zero by 2050 is completely out of the question, but it’s unlikely given the fact that the need for increased oil production in the coming decade is a very real possibility.

However, while Net Zero by 2050 is debatable, planning for Net Zero is nonetheless important. There will be a net zero: maybe not by 2050, but someday it’s going to happen, and the low-cost hydrocarbon producers will be the ones that survive or at least last the longest.

When oil demand decreases, which it inevitably will, oil prices will fall and this will lead many oil-producing countries to have uneconomical or stranded oil reserves. If the asking price for a barrel of oil falls below the cost of production, countries will find themselves with oil reserves they cannot exploit without incurring a loss. Therefore, oil demand in the future will be optimally met by low-cost, low-carbon producers located in economies that can remain viable when faced with reduced income from oil and gas exports, such as the GCC producers.

In planning for net zero, companies in the oil and gas industry need to consider strategies involving reducing production costs, moving downstream into refining and petrochemical production, or investing in low-carbon energy, transitioning from ‘oil and gas’ companies to ‘energy’ companies. The strategy that players in this industry will pick is context dependent. National oil companies (NOCs) need to monetize their oil and gas reserves to the extent possible, and selected NOCs have downstream opportunities to explore. Many of these companies with downstream integration, which are located in the Middle East, and particularly in the GCC, can pursue potential long-term opportunities in refining and petrochemicals. Qatar in particular will bet on long-term demand for low-carbon natural gas, particularly LNG, and its derivative. It is expected that under any future scenario in which demand for oil remains, GCC countries will be prominent producers and gain market share, partly due to the low geopolitical risk in the region.

In the long-term, GCC national oil companies will pursue greener oil and gas production while also looking towards low-carbon energy sources that fit with Net Zero ambitions but align with core competencies. In this vein, hydrogen, particularly blue hydrogen, which is hydrogen produced primarily from steam methane reforming coupled with carbon capture, is an opportunity consistent with Net Zero pathways. Qatar, for example, is likely to focus on low-carbon gas supply for the production of blue hydrogen elsewhere, while Saudi Arabia, and perhaps the UAE, may produce blue hydrogen locally and export it or additionally see opportunities for importing and storing CO2 from blue hydrogen production abroad. Hydrogen is a core element of the IEA Net Zero plan, and the GCC countries are poised to produce and export blue hydrogen, its derivatives, and natural gas for hydrogen production elsewhere. However, finding the right business cases for the options to pursue is the current challenge.

As the IEA report says, reaching net zero by 2050 “requires nothing short of a total transformation of the energy systems that underpin our economies.” While 2050 is an ambitious goal, Net Zero will happen eventually and the global energy transition will, over time, reduce dependency on fossil energy sources. It’s clear that oil producers and exporters will increasingly face economic challenges as the transition unfolds but various strategies exist for continued prospects for GCC national oil companies in a Net Zero world. Gas producers and exporters are expected to have opportunities in low-carbon gases, particularly hydrogen, but hydrogen exports will not make up for long-term decline in oil export rents. The economic diversification initiatives currently underway in the region must continue.

Even as the world pursues decarbonization and emission reduction technologies in the pursuit of Net Zero, oil and gas will continue to play a role in many energy systems. It’s clear that oil and gas must be a part of the broader net zero conversation. 

Dr. Steve Griffiths is the Senior Vice President of Research and Development and Professor of Practice at Khalifa University.

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