Hydrogen: from Element to Instrument

Hydrogen: Element with return

Hydrogen gas is the most efficient element when storing energy. Hydrogen is not an element that exists in nature. Therefore, it needs to be ‘produced’. After production, the gas needs to be stored in a tank and possibly transported by pipeline to a location where it will be used as fuel to generate heat. The use of hydrogen for industrial purposes is yet commonly known or accepted. Unfortunately, the production of hydrogen demands extreme quantities of energy. About 95% of all global hydrogen production occurs by transposition of natural gas or other fossil fuels. Less than 5% is being produced by electrolysis.

Transposition of natural gas

Methane (CH4) is the main component of natural gas. During the industrial transposition process, methane (CH4) reacts with water (H2O) under high temperatures (700 – 1100C) and under high pressure (25 bar). This process generates hydrogen (H2) and carbon dioxide (CO2). The required heat for this process is generally obtained by burning part of the methane. In practice, the efficiency of this process is about 75%. This means that 75% of the energy covered by natural gas will be ‘stored’ by the generated hydrogen. The remaining 25% is lost. This process has two main disadvantages. The first is the loss of energy. The second is the damaging carbon dioxide (CO2) emission.

By electrolysis.

Most of us learned about electrolysis during chemistry lessons at school. Simply explained, electricity will be driven through water (H2O). This process splits the water into hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O). This process, when used for industrial purposes, has an efficiency rate of 50 to 70%. This means that 50 to 70% of the electrical energy put into the process will be stored by the generated hydrogen.

Proponents call this process the green way to produce hydrogen, particularly when the electricity is generated by solar panels or wind turbines. Unfortunately, industrial electrolysis causes a great loss of energy.

The price of hydrogen.

You cannot simply buy hydrogen at a store. There are only a limited number of filling stations where hydrogen can be obtained by people who own hydrogen powered cars. A kilogram of hydrogen will cost about € 10 (yr 2020, excl. tax). A hydrogen car consumes about 1 kilogram of hydrogen per 100 kilometers. This means that it will cost about €10 to drive 100 kilometers when using hydrogen as fuel. This is more expensive than driving a car powered by electricity, diesel or gasoline when considering an average mid-sized car. However, according to expectations, the price will drop to about €5 when hydrogen production takes place on a large industrial scale. For other applications or devices, hydrogen is simply not available to consumers at this time.