Green hydrogen: The details they didn't tell you about the fuel of the future capable of making Brazil a leader in the world race for renewable energies

Green Hydrogen is gaining prominence in the market and, being considered the fuel of the future, generated by renewable energies, it can revolutionize several industries.

For light vehicles, switching to alternatives renewable energy it's in the electric motors and batteries. However, there is a wide range of critical activities for the decarbonization of the economy to which this combo does not apply. This is the case for large planes or ships, which cannot weigh too much or have the luxury of stopping to load halfway, and heavy industries, such as the steel industry, which depends on burning coal to produce steel. Therefore, a fuel of the future is emerging that can meet all these demands, which is green hydrogen.

Green hydrogen production

There are several different ways to obtain this fuel of the future, however the most promising currently is the one that uses only water and renewable energies.

The two inputs are very abundant here and make Brazil one of the candidates to lead this new sector of the energy industry. Hydrogen, or H₂, is the most abundant element in the universe, however it is not found free in nature. It takes some industrial processes to separate the hydrogen molecules contained in other substances such as water or methane gas.

The product that is produced without the emission of gases that cause the greenhouse effect wins the green classification. The world already consumes large amounts of hydrogen, however it is not green.

Currently, the main challenge is to refine the technology and expand the scale to mitigate the cost of producing the fuel of the future. Hydrogen has several names and colors according to the associated emissions, such as Gray Hydrogen, which for each kilogram of hydrogen between 11 and 13 kilograms of CO₂ are released into the atmosphere, Blue Hydrogen, Pink, among others.

Renewable energies and electrolysers

The main projects under development green hydrogen are currently located in regions of the planet where there is a large volume of solar irradiation or strong winds for the generation of renewable energy.

Most of the time, the production of the fuel of the future will be intermittent, according to the availability of energy, however some projects consider the use of batteries to avoid interruptions. 

The heart of hydrogen power plants are electrolysers, which despite being a known and mastered technology for a century, interest in green hydrogen is generating a race for efficiency. Some startups are focusing on critical components of electrolysers versus traditional companies that are getting into the business with an eye on the nascent market.

Functions of Green Hydrogen

In theory, the potential uses of the fuel of the future generated from renewable energies are numerous and range from heating buildings to the turbines of passenger jets. However, large-scale production will take a long time.

The expectation is that it will be used, in principle, in sectors and industries that emit a lot of greenhouse gases and whose decarbonization is particularly complicated. A great example is the billions of tons of steel consumed per year, accounting for 7% of all pollutant emissions.

The world's great steelmakers are creating processes that use green hydrogen instead of coal to transform iron ore and produce the famous green steel. In addition, vehicles such as planes and cargo ships are betting that pure green hydrogen, in the form of ammonia or methanol, is the shortest path to decarbonization.