Hydrogen will play a key role in the transition to clean energy, but beefing up production is a major challenge, Australia chief scientist Alan Finkel says.
International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) innovation strategies head Paul Durrant, and Finkel hosted a discussion at the World Engineers Convention 2019 in Melbourne on November 20-22 about whether hydrogen is the fuel of the future, particularly for transport such as long range trucks, ships and more.
The convention theme was Engineering a Sustainable World: The Next 100 Years, the convention held every four years attracting more than 3000 engineers from around the world.
Alan Finkel
“Hydrogen used as a fuel, as an energy carrier, is critical to our collective ability to tackle the climate emergency and to contribute on several sustainable development goals,” Durrant says, Manufacturers’ Monthly reports.
A driver of interest in hydrogen identified by IRENA is the drastic fall in price of renewable energy in recent years.
“As a result, renewables are already the lowest cost source of new power generation in many parts of the world today,” Durrant says.
“By early next year, onshore wind and solar photovoltaic will join hydropower in consistently offering cheaper sources of electricity.”
He reckons “molecules as well as electrons” are need in the world’s energy mix to decarbonise.
Finkel says while there’s no limit to the amount of solar and wind energy available, it’s not always consistent and that hydrogen could act as a high-density transport or fuel to solve this issue.
He says hydrogen could be produced through a combination of solar, wind and water using an electrolyser or electrolysis unit.
“The challenge is to make it economical in really large volumes. We’re not talking about doing a beaker in a lab class every second, we’re talking about doing swimming pools of water every second.”
Durrant says hydrogen production should be green.
The discussion followed Finkel’s release of the National Hydrogen Strategy, adopted by a meeting of Council of Australian Governments (COAG) energy ministers on November 22, setting a roadmap for the hydrogen industry in Australia.
