Climate Tech Break – The Hype about Hydrogen (Episode 1)
In this first episode of Climate Tech Break, our team dives into the hype about hydrogen. It may be the world’s simplest and lightest element, but green hydrogen is a heavy hitter in the effort to decarbonize on a global scale.
Green hydrogen is carbon-free, reliable, and flexible, able to be stored and dispatched on demand to complement other renewables. No coincidence that hydrogen is periodic element number 1: it’s poised to be the key player in the global energy transition.
Episode Links
World Hydrogen Summit North America (Houston, May 15-17, 2023)
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I'm Brad Carl, one of the newest members of Silverline Communications, and a former Emmy Award-winning broadcast meteorologist and reporter who has covered climate, sustainability, and clean energy in depth. I'm on a team focused on following energy trends and keeping up on the latest in cleantech innovations.
The time is now for clean energy and climate tech … and this is your Climate Tech Break.
One of the hottest topics right now in the push for decarbonization is hydrogen — specifically green hydrogen. This kind of hydrogen is produced by using renewable energy to split water molecules via electrolysis into their corresponding two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen.
That hydrogen can then be used to provide clean, net-zero energy for difficult to decarbonize sectors – things like freight transport, powering ships, steelmaking, and cement production.
The passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill in Congress back in November 2021 which allowed for the Department of energy to set up nearly 10 billion dollars in funding for clean hydrogen initiatives -- including establishing four clean hydrogen hubs across the U.S.
One renewable hydrogen project is already being developed in Mississippi with many others planned across the us. The ability to store hydrogen energy at scale in large salt caverns beneath the surface allows for an always ready, on-demand renewable energy not just for days or weeks, but for months and seasons at a time.
The majority of the funding for world’s clean hydrogen supply so far has been in the EU and Asia, but the U.S. is catching up…with the Department of Energy’s Hydrogen Shot Initiative aiming to improve manufacturing and technology to bring the cost of clean hydrogen down, from $5 per kilogram now to $1 per kilogram by 2030.
We expect to see investment opportunities in hydrogen going forward since the need for decarbonization is great and with the abundance of federal funding available to scale up utilization.
And many of the big players in energy and hydrogen (including several silverline clients) just wrapped up talking about what we can expect to see in this sector over the next year at World Hydrogen Summit in Houston.
In our next episode, we’ll be focusing on the extreme weather impacts on renewable energy and how the industry is building more resiliency into the operation of solar arrays, wind turbines, and more. I mean weather and clean energy; what more could you really ask for?
From Silverline Studios, I'm Brad Carl. Power through the week.
