Prospects and pitfalls for green hydrogen

Only one element has the potential to liberate the world from global warming and the grip of the petrostates - green hydrogen. To achieve this, however, big technical, policy and investment hurdles need to be overcome. So, yesterday the Industry Forum launched the first of a series of meetings on this subject with an expert round table on ‘The prospects and pitfalls for green hydrogen’. The meeting was hosted by BASF and led by renewable energy evangelist, Alan Whitehead MP, Shadow Minister for Energy and the Green New Deal. The other speakers were Darren Budd, Commercial Director of the UK & Ireland Country Cluster, BASF; Diana Casey, Director, Energy and Climate Change, Mineral Products Association; Ian Constance, CEO, Advanced Propulsion Centre UK. Key issues which emerged in discussion of the UK situation were: concerns about the current availability of green hydrogen, doubts about the financial viability of using blue hydrogen plus carbon capture as a means of supplying green hydrogen, agreement that green hydrogen is better than batteries for heavy transport applications, anxiety about the front end investment needed to solve the considerable technical problems and build the large-scale production and distribution network required, unanimity on the need for an overall transition plan. Consumers alone are unlikely to fund a rapid transition, so finance ministers and central banks, world-wide, need to consider whether to provide investment finance for a transition to green hydrogen, or face rising bills from climate-change disasters.

The speakers were:

Alan Whitehead MP, Shadow Minister for Energy and the Green New Deal
Thomas Birk, Vice President UK & Ireland/Managing Director, BASF
Diana Casey, Director, Energy and Climate Change, Mineral Products Association
Ian Constance, CEO, Advanced Propulsion Centre UK

For more information on this event