Can hydrogen help the world reach net zero? | FT Film

Watch FT Moral Money editor Simon Mundy uncover some of the biggest opportunities and challenges within the global shift to cleaner energy. Click the links below for related videos: Fusion power: how close are we? | FT Film on.ft.com/3uo1yvB Inside the global race for lithium batteries | FT Film on.ft.com/46ojrrA

I used to be lukewarm about hydrogen but recently read about a project at the hospital Rijnstate in Elst, the Netherlands which changed my views. They have a huge array of solar panels of which the electricity oversupply will be stored in a local hydrogen tank by electrolysis. When electricity is needed the hydrogen is converted to electricity by a fuel cell. They also use all the waste heat in the entire round trip process for heating the hospital which increases the efficiency significantly. Because of the waste heat re-use and because it takes less area they choose this solution over batteries. The solar panels never feed electricity back into the grid which also prevents those problems. So the grid is not burdened by this renewable solution, and the grid electricity usage has gone down to some 40% of the original grid electricity usage.

The guy at timestamp 10:22 who said "Europe is a little bit too regulated in the way it processes it's knowledge", he seems obsessed with getting rid of regulation. The problem I've always noticed is that when people are complaining that there is too much regulation never seem to explain which bit of regulation is the problem. Normally it's a safety regulation, or a tax regulation, or a money laundering regulation, or something else where there is a very good reason why the regulation is there because it's protecting something or someone. But then come along people who complain about there being too much regulation without explaining which regulation, so you can't have a counter argument to explain the reason why that particular regulation is important. I don't like people who complain about too much regulation without saying exactly which regulation they don't like.

Hydrogen is a key part of the future energy mix, but there are issues with production, transportation, and energy generation that need to be addressed but glossed over in the video, they are better reported on by others on YouTube etc. A major issue ignored in video and by most other commentator is hydrogen's small size, which makes long-term storage challenging as it easily escapes containers to the atmosphere. As hydrogen rises to the ozone layer, where it reacts with ozone to form water, resulting in ozone depletion and the production of water vapor, a potent greenhouse gas. If hydrogen becomes widely used as a fuel, the amount lost to the atmosphere and the resulting damage could be even worse than the concerns about the ozone hole in the 1980s. This highlights the consequences of combining economists and engineers tunnel vision without considering historical lessons. On another note, it's important to clarify that the airships mentioned from the early 20th century used hydrogen for buoyancy, not as a power source, this does not reflect well on quality of video

Perhaps one of the major drawbacks to the whole fuel cell family of industry is the need for iridium and other precious metals in quantities greater than known Earth resources.

Most imp use of hydrogen is industrial, all reducing agents in industry starting steel, and all metals. Petro reduction. Then ammonia production that is majority fertilizer industry.

Great video!

I am pleased that some of the negative points about hydrogen where shared in this video.

Thanks for visiting us and featuring our HYBRIT project for fossil-free steelmaking in the reportage!

This completely glossed over the biggest issue with electrolysed H2 - the awful efficiency, not a lot better than petroleum. The round trip efficiency (electricity to H2 to electricity to power) is around 40%. You have to make a case that it's 2 and a half times better than simply storing the electricity in a battery. There are certainly use cases where the answer to that is "yes", but they're not as many as the proponents think. The second problem is that the fossil fuel industry piggy-backs on the "clean hydrogen" message to push their own hope that making H2 from fossil fuels will save them, always neglecting to mention that "blue" H2 requires CO2 capture & storage, a technology that in 20 years they have completely failed to demonstrate can succeed. In that same 20 years we've gone from no commercial electric cars to the amazing ones we have today and a grid that's rapidly decarbonising.

Could you post links to the other videos in this three part series, please? Or a link to a playlist containing all three?

Amazing movies, please keep this up. Should be getting way more views.

Green hydrogen for iron and steel production, as demonstrated by SSAB at their Lulea plant, is an excellent idea.

A really great film.

The ingenuity surrounding some of these processes fills me with optimism for a clean future, there is not one silver bullet but many solutions to suit the prevailing conditions

The overall cost to produce hydrogen to this scale is cost prohitive and just a dream.

Good video. Thanks for sharing.

Excellent documentary on Hydrogen and zero carbon foot print. Good news for 22st century revolutionary way to save earth..

Thanks for this video. Like any pioneering effort, the early days pose many challenges but we have to press on toward the future. It would be great to see another video on ammonia as a hydrogen carrier, particularly in light of recent news that Japanese scientists have formulated a compound that stores ammonia at ambient temperature and pressure.

It is important to surplace the grey hydrogen we use at the moment with green hydrogen. To be really green the hydrogen must not just be produced from renewable energy, but from surplus renewable energy. In that way it has an important role in compensating for seasonal differences in energy porduction. But it is not a good energy carrier. There are better alternatives for that.