The truth about hydrogen

Some say it's the fuel of the future that will soon power large parts of our economies. Others say it's just a hoax propagated by the oil and gas industry. But either way, EVERYONE in the energy world is talking about hydrogen. Can it really help us get to net zero?

Reporter: Malte Rohwer-Kahlmann
Camera: Christian Caurla
Video Editor: David Jacobi
Supervising Editor: Kiyo Dörrer

We're destroying our environment at an alarming rate. But it doesn't need to be this way. Our new channel Planet A explores the shift towards an eco-friendly world — and challenges our ideas about what dealing with climate change means. We look at the big and the small: What can we do and how the system needs to change. Every Friday we'll take a truly global look at how to get us out of this mess.

#PlanetA #Hydrogen #GreenHydrogen

Special thanks to:
Noel Tomnay, Global Head of Hydrogen Consulting at Wood Mackenzie, for a background interview.

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:37 What is hydrogen?
01:34 How can we use the stuff?
04:41 The hydrogen rainbow
08:49 No silver bullet
10:47 What's next for hydrogen?

[DWPlanetA]

What do you make of the hydrogen hype?

[tommash.r.]

A big misconception about Hydrogen is that its NOT an energy source, but an energy carrier. Alot of people have been talking about it as the solution to our future energy needs without mentioning that we need an enourmous amount of clean energy/renewable energy to produce, store and transport Hydrogen. But Hydrogen still has its uses to clean up some industries!

[GardensoftheAncientsHerbal]

My dad worked for an hydrogen company and he got fired cause he wouldn’t lie about the gas footprint of the industry. He went into petroleum to work on plant emissions and they used him to basically delay and distract. He then quit started an herb farm and quit paying his taxes, sold kratom and legal mushrooms till he died.

[lyubovmatyushkina]

I will recommend my current trader Mr Sam, from USA and he's strategies are earning a lot of profit for me. All you need as a beginner to make good profit from cryptocurrency is a professional trader who will trade on your behalf else you may make losses.

[ryancorkery]

This is a good dissection of the hydrogen issue. One criticism is that you didn’t include nuclear as part of the Green Hydrogen solution

[nesdnarFrangaR]

Hydrogen storage is a big issue. If it's pressurezed, chilled or even liquified it still takes up so much space, leaks, embrittles containing vessels and costs so much to convert. Reacting hydrogen together with nitrogen in a catalytic chamber produces Ammonia, that solves much of the issues of containment since it can be stored at much lower pressures and higher temperatures with conversion efficiencies higher than those of LH2 and much higher energy densities. It can even be used directly in fuel cells just like H2. Thanks for the video, I would love to see your take on this.

[Brurgh]

I saw that in South Australia they are looking into using the excess solar energy produced to create hydrogen. if done like this is can be a very good alternative, and a very good export for very sunny countries.

[etrax]

A group of belgian scientist, Ku Leuven, is developing a solar panel that use the energy created by the sun to power a electrolysis process, and recent tests have found out that one of them could produce up to 250 liters of hydrogen fuel for cars in a day. I hope that they will continue on this path, because it would mean that we almost wouldn't need to pay for fuel at all by producing it at home.

[pspaulstewartinterviewinspires]

I think there was a good comment from an expert at the end there. It showed how these time-based goals are flawed. They create pressure and poor decision making.
To me, it’s more about a balanced approach. Not panic.
We have good sources of energy that we know. But we are also recognizing that we can evolve that and do better. We can do it cleaner.
But can we be honest? Can we be balanced? Some companies seem to struggle with that.
So, we need to proceed with wisdom, pure intention, and steady ease.
It’s not really that difficult.

[mikekelly]

This is surprisingly well balanced. Youtube videos in my experience tend to be almost tribal about alternative fuels, either trying to big them up or debunk anything good that's ever been said about them. This is factual, accessible and unbiased. Well done to all concerned.

[Tombombadillo]

This was like jumping into “renewables” without calculating the long term effects of the extraction of rare metals, recycling of batteries, and efficiency of said tech, etc..which can lead to among other things to the energy crises like we have today.

[AnkitPorwal]

Super simplified explanation of what hydrogen strategy is all about. Such videos which explain more and dont pass a judgement are well appreciated

[cjcormier]

One thing that you didn't mention is that the hydrogen atom is very small in size, so when welding pipes the welds need to be perfect or it will leak, also since the energy content is low you need very high pressure tanks (special welding codes) also quite expensive, finally hydrogen has an invisible flame when burning and is orderless so it's hard to know your system is leaking and or burning.

[TWCHHK]

Overall, I think everyone needs to understand that the energy transition will not happen with ONLY one renewable energy, or green energy storage. Green hydrogen, green ammonia, fuel cells and what not will all be part of this transition, just like wind, solar and other renewable energy sources.

[TheRealXatious]

A big thing that wasn’t mentioned here was how battery tech holds up a lot of the energy crisis, hydrogen is actually really good at storing energy

[marktwain]

As always, the DW Team does a fine job of dissecting the issues, showing alternative technologies, and grounding it all in the real world of costs of production. I see the hydrogen future for humanity and this excellent presentation gives us a solid viewpoint for why that may be so. Zehr gut!

[damienlieber]

Green hydrogen is a solution and a necessary solution, but not the solution. Nothing is binary, especially not in our complex energy systems. Let’s not either discard or solely focus on hydrogen, it’s a piece of the puzzle and that’s how it’s being thought of in the real world

[kentcolgan]

It is refreshing to hear this more complete discussion of hydrogen’s potential role in our energy strategy. Too many people are unaware that it takes energy to create hydrogen - that, on earth at least, hydrogen is an energy storage and transport medium, not an energy source. In effect, hydrogen is a battery alternative. The energy lost in creating, storing, transporting, and using hydrogen is significant.

As with so many social media and regular media energy discussions, there was no discussion of nuclear energy. Generate hydrogen with nuclear power and the result will actually be emission free. No need to drink petroleum industry cool-aid.

[amarnamarpan]

I think discovering an efficient and safe fusion reactor for energy would be the game changer in the coming years. And everything would run on electricity with minimal carbon footprint.

[markputnam]

Very interesting subject. Green Hydrogen is something that here in NZ we should be making by the bucket load since the electrical generation industry is either hydro/wind or geothermal. Still have a number of coal and gas fired industrial sites(mostly Fonterra) due to their remote locations but only two gas power stations for residential output. New Geothermal sites are coming on line all the time but our biggest problem is lack of investment, seems a missed opportunity to me.