“Using Hydrogen as an energy carrier has the potential to play a significant role in tackling climate change and poor air quality.”
The Royal Society, through a consultation with the academic community and industry and an analysis of the published evidence, has produced a new policy briefing which looks at the existing and emerging technologies used in the production of hydrogen and explores the barriers and opportunities. This policy briefing considers how hydrogen could be produced at a useful scale to power vehicles, heat homes and supply industrial processes.
Four groups of hydrogen production technologies are examined: i) Thermochemical Routes to Hydrogen, ii) Electrolytic Routes to Hydrogen, iii) Biological Routes to Hydrogen and iv) Solar to Fuels Routes to Hydrogen.
The briefing concludes that steam methane reforming and electrolysis are the most likely technologies to be deployed to produce low-carbon hydrogen at volume in the near to mid-term, providing that the challenges of high levels of carbon capture (for steam methane reforming) and cost reduction and renewable energy sources (for electrolysis) can be overcome.
A summary of the briefing and the paper is available on The Royal Society Page here!