green hydrogen
On February 24 Russia started an unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It has resulted in colossal damage and sufferings. How the war will end nobody knows, but it seems clear that Ukraine will remain a free, independent, and democratic nation, while Russia will achieve truly little, if anything of its goals.
The war in Ukraine will also have unintended and significant energy and environmental consequences in all Europe. For some countries there will be changes in the direction of their respective energy structures and plans. In other cases, the direction will remain unchanged, but the speed of change will accelerate.
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From the very start of electricity, supply and demand had to be balanced.
Initially, it could be done by changing the output of the generators. The shifts in load were slow, mostly between day and night, and predictive.
This was the case through VWII, but after the war some fundamental changes, both load as well as of generation, made the balancing more demanding. On the load side the introduction of air conditioning significantly increased the amplitude between the bottom, referred to as the baseload, and the peak of demand. On the generation side nuclear power emerged. These plants had basically no flexibility and had to run all the time. Further, the increasingly large coal plants and the first generations of combined cycle gas turbines (CCGT) had limited flexibility. These generators, so called “baseload generators”, needed to be supplemented with more flexible generation to follow the load, from the baseload all the way to the peak power demand. Hydro power was the main flexible resource.
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Global warming is a global issue. Recognizing this fact, the international community, starting with the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro 1992, has tried to find a comprehensive global solution. Continuing through the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, the Paris Agreement in 2015 and the recently completed (2021) COP26 (the 26th UN Climate Change Conference) in Glasgow, there have been progress. However, the progress seems so far to be more of a deeper understanding of the problem and in setting ambitious targets than reaching a comprehensive solution with all nations committing to firm and specific actions to reduce emissions.
The problem not only remains but keeps growing. Carbon emissions continue to rise and accumulate in the atmosphere. Temperatures are inching up. Some countries have been successful reducing their emissions but taken together the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions worldwide are increasing.
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The Hydrogen Economy refers to a vision of hydrogen becoming the primary energy source. The vision of hydrogen as a primary energy source is compelling. Hydrogen can be a feedstock for chemical processes, as well as a fuel for heat, power generation and propulsion of vehicles. The hydrogen combustion is clean, no CO2 emissions, only water. Hydrogen can be stored and transported. The “only” problem is that hydrogen is not naturally available on the earth. The hydrogen must be produced!
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