A victory by Republican Donald Trump in the US presidential election threatens $1 trillion in energy investments and future support for low-carbon energy sources, according to a Wood Mackenzie report.
The UK has signed a new trade pact with Texas, the second-largest state in the US, in an effort to boost cooperation in green energy, aerospace and advanced technologies.
Hydrogen can already be a profitable and competitive alternative to petrol and diesel fuels, at least in world energy capital Houston, researchers claim.
Report shows the pace of development in the global hydrogen sector is accelerating, and the researchers are warning the UK is at risk of falling further behind the European Union and the United States.
“With our European neighbours we could have a pipeline of green hydrogen to provide a clean fuel stock to German industry and coming back the other way carbon to the UK [for storage],” he said.
In addition, the Biden administration has announced plans to award $1 billion to stimulate demand for hydrogen to provide “market certainty” and ensure demand.
Chevron (NYSE:CVX) will become majority owner of what’s expected to be the world’s largest hydrogen production and storage facility as the oil giant invests in tech aimed at addressing the intermittency that plagues wind and solar power.
“Government funding is phenomenal but it will have to be repaid. The headwind will be the realisation that the energy transition will cost a lot of money,” DeCotis said. “We have to communicate, though, that the cost of doing nothing is higher.”
The demonstration project will use DAC or CO2 captured from industrial emitters. Santos aims to use its existing infrastructure to “generate, liquefy and export” e-methane to Japan.
The challenge over the next 10 years will be in scaling up SAF production. Green hydrogen production is relatively niche, as yet. “A lack of green power and electrolysis capacity, this will not make a dent” in the projected SAF demand.
Atome Energy has doubled the planned capacity of its project in Paraguay, while announcing the appointment of engineering companies to carry out design work.
A number of key uncertainties remain over the deployment of hydrogen, but one point of agreement from Adipec this week has been the need for long-term contracts.
Japan’s JERA and Germany’s Uniper have teamed up to back an ammonia project in the US Gulf Coast, with a focus on exports to Germany. In the near term, it should also secure new LNG supplies.
Germany has been on the hunt for new LNG supplies in order to stave off the near term crisis of stuttering Russian gas supplies. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s visit to Canada did not come through on the LNG front, but he did seal an ambitious deal on hydrogen.
While Europe has been grappling with the impacts of the war in Ukraine and the huge price rises in oil and gas that it has brought, in the US, the energy landscape looks very different.
Electric Hydrogen, a startup aiming to slash the cost of green hydrogen by offering pre-designed manufacturing facilities, raised $198 million in a series B funding round, as investors bet on a future powered by the climate-friendly fuel.
A rush of announcements on green hydrogen in the US highlights that the received wisdom, that blue hydrogen has the price advantage, does not tell the entire story.