Hydrogen Energy: Advantages, Disadvantages and Realities
Hydrogen energy is a promising alternative fuel source with tremendous upside. As the world races to reduce and ultimately eliminate its reliance on fossil fuels, hydrogen will play a critical role in replacing natural gas and coal to produce power at grid scale. Thanks to a mix of public and private investment, hydrogen energy generation will play an increasing role in meeting the world’s energy needs in the near term.
What Is Hydrogen Energy?
Hydrogen is a clean fuel source that emits water as a byproduct. Hydrogen power is produced through various processes that rely on primary resources, most readily sourced domestically.
Perhaps hydrogen’s most immediate appeal is its role as an energy carrier. It is often used to store energy from other fuel sources for easy transportation to other use points. This makes it a versatile energy source, but it has drawbacks.
The most common methods of producing hydrogen fuel are thermal, electrolytic, solar, and biological.
Thermal Processes
Thermal processes utilize steam to create hydrocarbon fuel, which is then reformed to produce hydrogen fuel cells. This high-heat process requires substantial initial energy, however. While processing can be achieved with renewable energy sources, most facilities use fossil fuels, including gasified coal and diesel. The primary energy source, however, is natural gas. Nearly 95% of all hydrogen fuel is produced from steam reforming of natural gas.
Electrolytic Processes
This process functions like a hydrogen fuel cell in reverse. Using an electrolyzer, the electrolysis process separates oxygen and hydrogen within water molecules. The process is still in development; its best application may be in powering personal vehicles or off-grid energy production on a small commercial or residential scale.
Solar-driven Processes
To date, solar-driven hydrogen production remains experimental and includes three methods:
Photobiological - Uses bacteria and green algae
Photoelectrochemical - Uses semiconductors to separate hydrogen from water molecules
Solar thermochemical - Uses solar to divide hydrogen and oxygen from water molecules
Biological Processes
There is considerable overlap between photobiological and more traditional biological processes. Both remain largely experimental; these processes have little near-term viability to contribute to energy production.
Is Hydrogen Energy Renewable?
Hydrogen energy, as consumed in fuel cells, is renewable, but creating fuel cells is still almost exclusively powered by natural gas. To make hydrogen truly renewable, it must be generated by wind, solar or nuclear power.
Industry experts have developed several terms to more accurately describe the sustainability of hydrogen energy as an energy source.
Green hydrogen energy encompasses all market-ready hydrogen fuel cells created by renewable energy sources.
Brown hydrogen is created from gasified coal.
Grey hydrogen is derived from natural gas; roughly 96% of global hydrogen energy is coal or gas.
Blue hydrogen also uses natural gas but includes carbon capture technology to mitigate emissions. The fossil fuel industry claims this technology reduces emissions by 80-90%, though a 2021 study found that figure closer to 12%.
Pink hydrogen is created by nuclear power. Many advocates within the energy sector do not consider nuclear a sustainable long-term energy source and parse out nuclear from the share of green hydrogen generated worldwide.
Is Hydrogen Energy Viable?
Most experts agree that hydrogen will play a role in decarbonizing global economies while acknowledging its limitations. Hydrogen requires a tremendous amount of energy to produce; the green energy used to create it may be more efficiently used to power the grid directly. It could be used as an alternative to battery storage, especially as the realities of lithium, nickel and other mining operations sink in.
That hasn’t discouraged investment. The US announced a more than $7 billion investment in seven “hydrogen hubs” in 2023. Private investment in hydrogen energy increased by more than 50% from 2021 to 2022, totaling over $5.7 billion.
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