President Gabriel Boric’s decision to establish, through Corfo, a Committee for the Development of the Green Hydrogen Industry in Chile, which will be led by the Ministry of Energy and whose main goal will be to promote the use of this fuel, as outlined in the National H2V Strategy, which will be released in 2020 and is based on a document written by dozens of experts convened by Future Congress.
However, the world’s climate catastrophe, along with the complex diplomatic scenario created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, necessitates the greatest possible daring and decisiveness in transforming Chile into the new Arabian peninsula in terms of energy.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s third report (IPCC 2022), a rise in the global average temperature of 1.5°C can no longer be avoided, and a rise of 2°C would be a point of no return, as the thawing of the polar ice caps would release more than a thousand gigatons of CO2 from permafrost.
According to the International Energy Agency, oil and gas use, as well as CO2 emissions, are continuing to rise. Furthermore, China constructs a coal-fired power plant every week since it has no other options for maintaining economic development. And if Russia follows through on its promise to cut off gas to Europe, forcing Old World countries to resort to coal, this apparently inevitable route to extinction would be eased even more.
This dire scenario may present Chile with a golden chance. The country, because of its exceptional sun irradiation in the north and the powerful winds of the Patagonian south, has a perfect terrain to create Green Hydrogen (H2V) – without CO2 emissions – according to its geographical position and geopolitical status. Of course, measures must be taken, since recognized Magallanes scientific voices warn of the harmful environmental impact that wind turbines may have on bird migration routes. As a result, they recommend using geolocators to identify sensitive regions and develop monitoring and mitigation strategies. All of the suggestions should be considered for each project, particularly the larger ones.
Josep Borrell, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, visited the Cerro Dominador solar thermal project in the Antofagasta Region recently and declared that “The world requires new energy sources, and the development of green hydrogen in Chile is very appealing to European businesses (…). Natural circumstances and a favorable regulatory environment for international investment would help this country become a regional renewable energy exporter “he stated.
Perhaps now is the time to call on the major international H2V research centers, particularly those in Europe, to support the establishment of a world laboratory in Chile to develop viable and efficient storage technologies, such as solid hydrogen, which takes up less space and does not require special temperatures, is activated by light, and is distributed in batteries.
Until recently, the bottleneck of this energy business has been storing hydrogen with high efficiency and cheap cost, which can continue to move the globe but with zero emissions and without endangering life on the planet. Even more so when one considers that the current energy footprint of each person on the planet, 160,000 calories per day, will increase to one million calories in 2050 (there will be over 10 billion people), owing to the digital need for massive data centers and clouds to support the chassis of artificial intelligence and metaverses.
It is critical that the Corfo Committee promotes H2V use in the home – thereby substituting firewood and decontaminating southern towns –, in public and mining transportation, and in smelters so that only concentrate is exported. However, increasing the capacity to generate projects that allow for the generation of 50 thousand gigabytes of photovoltaic and wind energy that can be stored efficiently between now and 2050 is critical, thanks to technology developed by the World Laboratory of H2V, which Chile has been invited to convene.
