1. Though hydrogen is crucial, renewables and electrification are still the most important drivers of emissions reductions.
2. 70% of flights could be electrified with fuel cells, but that would only account for 30% of fuel use.
Most fuel is burned on long range flights. Synthetic kerosene mitigates only about 50% of emissions. New engine types are a must.
3. Electric trucks, whether hydrogen or battery powered, will overtake diesel ICE's by 2030.
BEV has the upper hand into the 2040s for trips under 500km. These account for 80% of all trucking trips. Eventually fuel cell vehicles become cheaper. 2050 is only 30 years away.
4. Though producing renewable hydrogen locally is expensive in a number of geographies today, by 2050 practically everyone bar Japan will be able to source it at below $2/kg.
Many, could produce at $1/kg, that's practically natural gas parity.
5. And finally, where is venture captial flowing to? Non-electrolytic H2 production is attracting some investment. There's of course vehicles and refuelling. But the real star is project development. Europe very much leading this space.
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🚨ICYMI: Last week, @ETC_energy released two exciting deep dives; one on electrification, the other on #hydrogen
🧵with some of my favorite charts 👇(1/9)
🏭Debates around future hydrogen demand are heated, but we can all agree on it's importance for the industrial sector.
🔥 Small role in building heat
🚛🚢✈️Important role in transport, but sub-sectoral allocation varies
⚡️I'd say power is the wildcard here (2/9)
Here's a more detailed breakdown of ETC's scenarios. Power sector demand could be x3 what's displayed in the previous tweet. My takeaway is that the power sector could very well turn out to be the largest consumer of hydrogen. (3/9)
Electrolysers are the single biggest market. OEMs active across electrolysers and fuel cells can leverage manufacturing synergies to accelerate the cost curve for competitive advantage.
But stack manufacturing synergies will only get you so far. Balance of plant can account for as much as half of electrolyser system costs.
“e-hydrogen could turn into the largest electricity consumer and double power demand in Europe”
This idea is of course borne out of some outlandish hydrogen demand scenarios. The analysis we did with Aurora showed there’s no way we could power all that electrolysis affordably.
“The reconversion of gas plants into hydrogen turbines could lift combined cycle gas turbine operators Uniper, Engie and RWE.”
I have two words for the Goldman team: fuel cells.
I am convinced these will eat turbines in long term. Thermal assets are stranded assets.
Recent EU hydrogen strategy aims for 2x40 GW electrolyser deployment by 2030. Half within the EU, half in neighboring countries like Morocco and Ukraine.
What will EU hydrogen strategy mean for electrolyser prices? A minithread 👇👇👇 (1/7)
1) Assuming alkaline electrolysers 2) Using nel-Nikola deal with $350/kW as a reference point, realized in 2023 3) Applying 17% learning rate
Gives $112-136/kW by 2030, depending on deployment targets. (2/7)
By coincidence, these prices reminded me of batteries, another storage technology with a learning rate of ~18%. Plotting indexed prices shows similar pathways. But I believe that my electrolyser curve is not steep enough. (3/7)