Hydrogen: Germany has always been afraid of risky technologies

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"Hydrogen has many colors, and we should use all of them." RWE boss Rolf Martin Schmitz said last year.

What did he mean by that?

Hydrogen is available in various forms.

As green hydrogen, as gray hydrogen, as blue hydrogen, as turquoise hydrogen and even as colored hydrogen.

Green hydrogen - the one you usually talk about when you talk about hydrogen - is produced by electrolysis of water.

Electrolysers use green electricity to split water into its components oxygen and hydrogen.

Electrolysers come in different sizes.

Usually with capacities of a few megawatts.

Uniper and RWE are also planning systems with up to 100 megawatts.

The problem for green hydrogen, however, is that it is still far too expensive.

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“According to experts, it costs around EUR 5.50 to EUR 6 per kilogram - a good twice as much as gray hydrogen obtained from fossil fuels.

The International Energy Agency believes that green hydrogen will not be competitive until 2050 at the earliest, ”the ARD's stock exchange editorial team recently made clear.

And that brings us first to gray hydrogen.

Steam reforming is understood by this.

Natural gas is converted into hydrogen and CO2 under heat.

So here we are dealing with fossil fuels, and here CO2 is also released in the process.

One ton of hydrogen is produced around ten tons of CO2.

For those who consider gray hydrogen to be evil, the way out of blue hydrogen remains.

This is also produced from natural gas using steam reforming.

Here, however, the CO2 is captured during the production process and stored underground using CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) - for example in exhausted offshore natural gas fields.

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In Germany, CO2 storage is about as popular as fracking or nuclear power.

It is also largely made more difficult or practically impossible.

The German CO2 storage law is more of a CO2 storage prevention law.

German fear stop.

Germany has always been afraid of risky technologies.

Far from being competitive

According to an analysis by the Energy Economics Institute at the University of Cologne (EWI), this blue hydrogen will still be cheaper until 2030.

The numbers fluctuate here.

Until 2050 still gray hydrogen before green (as according to the international energy agency), until at least by 2030 blue hydrogen before green (EWI).

No large study has yet shed light on the darkness.

But there seems to be a consensus: green hydrogen is still a long way from being competitive.

If you consider the possible massive price drop for natural gas caused by Nord Stream2 in Germany and assume a rather moderate CO2 price, there is a lot to suggest that hydrogen from natural gas will be cheaper for a long time - regardless of whether it is blue or gray.

A Desertec-like hydrogen project will not emerge overnight in North Africa either.

Citizens' resistance to onshore wind power plus fatal distance rules for wind turbines in Germany are also known.

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In Germany, at most, offshore wind farms could at some point produce competitive green hydrogen.

We don't have enough space and sun for large photovoltaic systems here either.

So there is not much to be expected with green hydrogen from Germany - which is what drives the German government to hydrogen partnerships with North Africa and Australia.

But that also has a planning horizon of many years.

It is therefore incomprehensible why blue hydrogen only plays an insignificant role in the national hydrogen strategy and why green hydrogen is used as much as possible.

Hydrogen from natural gas - so solutions will be needed.

Blue hydrogen is actually a necessity for the transition to a more climate-neutral economy and the rapid market ramp-up of the hydrogen economy.

Just because the gas lobby is promoting it doesn't mean it's wrong.

Green ideology is something for evenings by the fireplace or brief periods of revolution as a student, which you later look back on with shame.

In any case, an industrialized country cannot afford such a thing - or only to become poorer at the price.

Every sane adult should know this.

But now there is a way out for the opponents of blue hydrogen that does not stand in the way of the high moral standards and green stamps from the rapid transformation into the green wonderland.

This way out on the subject of hydrogen is called "turquoise hydrogen".

Not unimportant for the climate balance

Turquoise hydrogen goes through thermal splitting of methane (like CO2 also a greenhouse gas).

Methane is chemically (CH4) a compound of carbon and hydrogen.

To avoid confusion here: Natural gas is also the foundation for turquoise hydrogen, because it mainly consists of methane.

The cleavage takes place using the methane pyrolysis process - as researched by chemical giant BASF.

The splitting does not produce CO2, but solid carbon.

Carbon can be disposed of without hesitation or, even better, reused.

It can be used in the chemical and electronics industries.

Or in concrete and road construction.

Or further processing into carbon fibers - you can use them to build car bodies, as BMW did with its all-electric i3.

Carbon fibers make cars lighter.

In the case of combustion engines or hybrids, they therefore consume less fuel.

This is also not entirely unimportant for the climate balance.

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Also not entirely unimportant for the carbon footprint: “According to BASF, only 10 MWh of energy are used to produce one ton of turquoise hydrogen with methane pyrolysis, while green hydrogen consumes 55 MWh of energy,” as ARD also reported.

This is not only positive news for the carbon footprint, but also for cost reduction.

Less electricity, less electricity costs in the production of hydrogen.

Methane is simply much easier to split than hydrogen.

That speaks in favor of the process with natural gas as the foundation.

And thus for turquoise hydrogen.

And one more advantage: methane is a much more dangerous greenhouse gas than CO2.

Methane pyrolysis is also doing the climate a favor by breaking down methane into its completely harmless components, hydrogen and carbon.

Isn't chemistry great?

The catch, however, is that methane pyrolysis will only be ready for large-scale industrial use in a good five years, as Stefan Stückrad from the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Potsdam said.

Maybe faster with a little political will.

Turquoise hydrogen is largely climate neutral.

And experts agree that the masses of hydrogen that are necessary for a climate-neutral economy cannot come from green hydrogen sufficiently and quickly enough.

In other words: We need as much hydrogen as possible as quickly as possible, and all processes that can generate competitive prices quickly and at the same time do not pollute the climate should be understood as part of the necessary mix.

Therefore, as is so often the case, political will comes into play again.

The National Hydrogen Strategy has a blind spot.

It's methane pyrolysis - and so is blue hydrogen.

In other words: when will we finally step on the gas with hydrogen?

The author is a social democrat and a publicist.

His book “Responsibility” was recently published by Dietz-Verlag.

Source: picture alliance / dpa