In science, the climatic balance of blue hydrogen is debatable. In August, experts from Cornell and Stanford universities in the United States published a study claiming that blue hydrogen used for combustion is 20 percent worse for the environment than natural gas; however, researchers in Switzerland and Scotland are now drawing a more favorable balance.
According to Christian Bauer of the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Villigen’s Laboratory for Energy System Analysis and Mijndert van der Spek of the University of Edinburgh’s Research Center for Carbon Solutions, it depends on where natural gas is extracted.
In contrast to many other producing countries, Norway, for example, has very few leaks, thus my colleagues’ reasoning does not apply in this situation. They took into consideration the emissions of methane, the primary component of natural gas, which occurs when it is used inefficiently. Methane is 30 times more damaging to the environment than carbon dioxide. Natural gas is steam reformed to produce blue hydrogen. In a reactor, the two components are combined. Carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen are created, and the two gases are separated in a subsequent procedure. CO2 may be utilized or disposed of in old natural gas reserves, which is a tested and true method. Norway, for example, has been vanishing into the depths of CO2 created during the purification of freshly extracted natural gas.
Bauer and van der Spek, like their American counterparts, looked at the full natural gas life cycle, from extraction to transportation to usage. They did this with the help of simulation software developed by the Technical University of Zurich, which recorded the whole procedure. The findings were incorporated into a PSI-developed life cycle assessment model. The team had to agree with their US counterparts in the case of excessive leakage rates. To put it another way, natural gas from the United States and Russia is incompatible with the synthesis of blue hydrogen. According to Bauer, the blue hydrogen, which is created by splitting water with energy from emission-free sources, is almost as climate-friendly as the green hydrogen, which is produced by splitting water with electricity from emission-free sources.
The blue variant’s supporters contend that green hydrogen alone will not be enough to stop climate change. It’s too expensive, and there’s not enough green power to go around. Turquoise hydrogen may also be of assistance. Pyrolysis, or heating natural gas in the absence of air, produces it. This produces hydrogen and solid carbon, both of which are more easily recycled or disposed of than CO2. However, the energy required to produce the turquoise form is significant, and the environment would only benefit if the requisite energy could be made accessible in an emission-free manner.
