Thread by @ph_jaeg

1/ Green hydrogen is all the buzz right now. In my new policy brief, I take a critical look at hydrogen’s high transport costs, and what it implies for EU policies. To make costs tangible, I created the interactive model below – try it out yourself at hydrogen-model.eu/#model

2/ The EU isn’t as sunny or windy as other regions, so green electricity and hence green H2 production is cheaper elsewhere, like in Chile, many African countries, or Australia. In line with this, the EU and many member states plan to import giant volumes of H2 from abroad.

3/ But H2 has difficult physical properties for transporting it. In gaseous form, it contains little energy per volume. To liquify it, it needs to be cooled to -253°C. To turn it into ammonia, ship it, and reconvert it back to H2, a huge amount of energy is needed.

4/ On the difficulty of hydrogen transport, see also the forceful points made by @MLiebreich, e.g. here

https://twitter.com/MLiebreich/status/1562327883007381504?s=20&t=JvrBRiIVCZXbmsn8jyHDBA

, or (among other import points) here: vimeo.com/761934482

5/ Because of its physical properties, H2 transport will always be expensive, even once economies of scale kick in. Given this locational disadvantage, I argue in my paper that the EU should take actions in three areas:

6/ 1⃣ hydrogen within the EU needs to be as cheap as possible. Besides massive build-up of renewable electricity generation, this requires low hydrogen transport costs on EU territory ➡️more investment in EU energy connectedness, including a hydrogen pipeline network

7/ 2⃣ transport costs of hydrogen imported from other world regions need to be as low as possible ➡️rely mostly on the cheapest import technologies and shortest route, which means mostly pipelines from neighbouring regions like North Africa

8/ 3⃣ Third, even with the cost reductions achievable with 1&2, hydrogen transport will remain very expensive. Some EU industries, therefore, won't be competitive in post-fossil fuel era ➡️subsidy schemes for businesses for the current natural gas crisis should reflect that

9/ The full policy brief and the interactive model is at hydrogen-model.eu . More on hydrogen coming soon!
If this piqued your interest on hydrogen, check out some of the hydrogen twitter sphere by following e.g. @gnievchenko , @MLiebreich, or @anunezjimenez