Latin America can become a world power in low-cost hydrogen production as a clean fuel to replace fossil fuels, said Alfonso Blanco, executive secretary of the Latin American Energy Organization (Olade).
During a conference held in Quito, where Olade’s headquarters are located, the Uruguayan Blanco pointed to the production of green hydrogen as one of the great opportunities in the region.
The Olade leader affirmed that Latin America has “great storage capacity” and the ability to produce it at a much lower price than other regions of the world. “It is a great opportunity for our region,” he remarked.
Blanco also pointed out that Latin America has an advantage over the rest of the world in achieving the goal of zero carbon emissions, as it is the region with the highest share of clean and renewable energies in its energy matrix.
He pointed out that 30% of the energy consumed in Latin America comes from clean and renewable sources, compared to the world average of 13%.
“It is an issue that we have to take into consideration. Latin America and the Caribbean have renewability in their DNA,” he said.
In this sense, the executive secretary of Olade advocated achieving greater integrity of the continent’s energy markets and “reaching a production of renewables that reaches 70% (of the energy matrix) in 2030”.
“Renewable energies are abundant in our region and enter through market mechanisms without the need to apply price mechanisms and other instruments that make energy costs be perceived by consumers as high,” he commented.
The German ambassador to Ecuador, Philipp Schauer, and the director of the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs at Yale University (United States), Paul Simons, until recently deputy director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), also took part in the conference.
In his speech, Schauer agreed in highlighting the potential of Latin America for hydrogen production and recalled that the German government is allocating some 2,000 million euros outside his country to the creation of a world market for this energy.
Meanwhile, Simons stressed that it is possible to avoid the goal of the global average temperature increasing by two degrees Celsius by 2050 if all the commitments announced so far by the different countries are fulfilled.
However, the U.S. specialist admitted that he sees it as complicated for these intentions to crystallize, mainly because of China, which does not plan to reduce its emissions before 2030, which would imply an unusual abandonment of coal-fired plants in the following years while increasing the supply of renewables.
Simons was also skeptical because of the great demand for minerals such as copper and lithium and for rare earths, which require the new technologies needed to abandon fossil fuel sources, materials that are concentrated in a few countries and whose processing is practically monopolized by China.
