This "Green" Gas Will Soon Power Your Car and Heat Your Home Office

Entrepreneur

Ready for a new kind of green revolution? It’s happening with hydrogen, and will revolutionize transportation, heating, and other industries. Watch this video to learn more.

Transcript

00:00 The International Energy Agency really expects hydrogen demand to grow by 5 to 7x over the

00:05 next 30 years.

00:06 So we're getting up to like 660 metric tons by 2050 in order to meet our net zero targets.

00:17 Pop quiz!

00:19 What does the future of hydrogen and my shirt have in common?

00:24 The answer?

00:25 They're both green!

00:26 Green hydrogen is going to be central to the way that we get around and the way that we

00:30 heat our homes and offices and best of all, it is very sustainable.

00:35 Maya Gomez at Honeywell told me all about it.

00:38 Maya, we all know that hydrogen is key to a number of industries, but to get to a more

00:43 sustainable future, we really need to understand green hydrogen.

00:47 But wait a second, because I didn't know until we started recording this that there are actually

00:52 many colors of hydrogen.

00:54 So can you take us through the hydrogen rainbow?

00:57 Yeah, absolutely.

00:59 So hydrogen itself is a clean burning, zero carbon fuel source, right?

01:04 But typically it's produced today from carbon dense fuels like natural gas, coal.

01:09 So that's what we would call gray hydrogen.

01:11 If it's being produced from fossil fuels, it's something that's super cheap, but it's

01:15 got a high carbon intensity, but we can do it at large scale.

01:19 So the second one, the second main color that's talked about is blue hydrogen.

01:23 So we're taking that same fossil fuel production, but we're adding carbon capture technologies

01:29 onto the backend.

01:30 And this really enables us to lower the carbon intensity of that hydrogen production with

01:36 just a little bit of extra cost.

01:38 So it's something that can be done at scale today.

01:42 And then what we're talking about here is green hydrogen.

01:44 So green hydrogen is produced by water electrolysis using renewable power.

01:50 So if we break that down a little bit more, water electrolysis is a technology or technology

01:55 category that utilizes an electrically powered electrolyzer to separate water, H2O, into

02:04 hydrogen and oxygen.

02:06 So green hydrogen really has the lowest carbon intensity, but it's a technology, right, that

02:12 has a higher cost today and really looking to advance and scale up the production of

02:17 it.

02:18 So we're not just talking about changing the production methods of hydrogen.

02:22 We're talking about the ways in which hydrogen can be used and the different industries it

02:26 can be used in, right?

02:27 Yeah, absolutely.

02:28 So the International Energy Agency really expects hydrogen demand to grow by five to

02:33 seven X over the next 30 years.

02:36 So we're getting up to like 660 metric tons by 2050 in order to meet our net zero targets.

02:42 So you have existing industry uses today, so manufacturing, refining, steel, et cetera,

02:50 but we're going to be expanding the applications in which green hydrogen can be used in the

02:55 future to powering your vehicles, powering aircrafts, and then also another future use

03:01 case is using hydrogen to heat your building, heat your home.

03:05 Are some of these developed or are we talking theoretical things?

03:09 Like when I think about getting into my car and have it powered by hydrogen, that sounds

03:14 like a totally different world.

03:15 How far away is that world?

03:16 It does, but there are actually hydrogen powered cars available today.

03:21 You'll typically see them maybe like in California.

03:23 I know Toyota's got one.

03:25 There's a few others out there.

03:26 So they're becoming a lot more real, but they're maybe not as mainstream yet, right?

03:32 My closest hydrogen facility, if I were to have a hydrogen car, it's like 300 miles away.

03:38 So it's not a practical application for me today.

03:42 And especially as we go into areas like aircraft, right?

03:45 That one's maybe a little bit further off into the future.

03:49 So definitely opportunities for innovation and kind of new companies and new technology

03:54 to come forward.

03:56 But I imagine this is stuff we want to be rooting for because getting into a green hydrogen

04:01 powered car or airplane is a lot better than the kinds of fuels that today are powering

04:07 most of those things.

04:08 So what does it take for us to get there?

04:11 You know, what's interesting is that it's, you know, we use a lot of battery storage,

04:15 right?

04:16 Lithium batteries for electric cars today.

04:18 But one of the ways that hydrogen is actually going to be used is more for some of that

04:22 like long distance trucking, or it can be used in warehouses where you're utilizing

04:27 fuel cells instead of batteries.

04:29 So it's really going to depend on the application where you can utilize the mobility of that

04:34 fuel.

04:35 Now, whenever entrepreneurs hear about new technologies, new resources, they start thinking,

04:41 are there new opportunities here too?

04:43 And I know that there's a lot of startup activity in the green hydrogen space.

04:47 Can you tell us more about that?

04:49 Yeah, absolutely.

04:50 So this is a very kind of new, new nascent market, let's say.

04:54 And so there's tons of opportunities.

04:56 We're still going to see who the leaders are in this as far as the technology itself.

05:01 So I mentioned AEM is going to be an emerging technology, SOEC is emerging technology.

05:06 So those are ones where they need kind of backing and support to bring those technologies

05:10 to maturity.

05:11 But even with Alkaline and PEM, we're looking to scale the production of this to really

05:17 implement this at a meaningful level.

05:20 And so for that, you start seeing a lot of announcements around gigafactories and building

05:24 up factories to that gigawatt level so that we can deploy this at scale and take advantage

05:30 of a lot of the government subsidies that exist today.

05:34 Maya, look into the future.

05:36 You pick how long, are we talking 10, 20, 50, 100 years where green hydrogen is readily

05:43 available and is powering a lot of things.

05:46 What does that world look like?

05:48 I mean, what's great about that world is that you've brought down the cost so much.

05:53 So really the big change is that we're going to be able to have clean hydrogen at the cost

05:58 that we do this great hydrogen today.

06:00 That's really the goal is for this to become viable technology that doesn't need government

06:06 subsidies, that can kind of exist on its own merits.

06:10 And that's really what we're kind of driving towards is driving down the cost of the electricity,

06:15 driving down the cost of the electrolyzer unit itself, and then also making sure that

06:20 we're able to like utilize the capacity of that electrolyzer by powering it with renewables

06:26 for a higher percentage of the day.

06:28 Well, for non-science nerds, I think what people just heard is very smart people like

06:34 you and the folks at Honeywell are on it and bringing us to a green hydrogen future.

06:38 Maya, thank you so much for walking me through it.

06:41 Thank you.

06:42 [BLANK_AUDIO]

Category

Transcript

Recommended