Hydrogen industry: many industrial hydrogen applications are facing the "valley of death"

　　Danish researchers develop environmentally friendly syngas generation technology to reduce CO2 emissions

　　Important judgment and initiation

　　1. Priority should be given to industrial hydrogen economic layout

　　The EU target is to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Nowadays, different platforms of different energy densities - industry, transportation, agriculture, household use - are driven by either Electronics (electricity) or molecules (heat generated by fuels that experience different examples of coal combustion). At present, there are several tight misses in the carbon emission in the process of low-level power generation, but molecular manufacturing is still highly dependent on fossil fuels. This is a goal with a theme. As many models have predicted, molecules will continue to play an important role in powering our economy.

　　There are limited technical avenues to supply carbon free molecular power. Hydrogen is the only molecular energy carrier that can be completely carbon free. Green hydrogen can be made from renewable electricity or nuclear power, blue hydrogen can be made from fossil fuels and capture and store carbon dioxide by-products (carbon neutral). This allows products such as syngas, bio methanol, ammonia, etc. to be made from carbon neutral hydrogen. In short, hydrogen plays an important role in the EU's carbon free decision-making by 2050.

　　Hydrogen is a kind of power carrier, which has many potential applications in many different economic platforms. It may help us to decarbonize the manufacturing of energy consumption for transportation, indoor environment (especially heating) and industrial manufacturing platforms. This report focuses on the application of industry and concludes that there are two reasons why the development of industrial hydrogen economy should be started first:

　　First of all, not all industrial manufacturing processes can be driven by electricity, and many other carbon neutral power carriers are required to completely decarbonize industrial manufacturing. Hydrogen is just one of the very few supplies available for this purpose. In addition, hydrogen and its derivatives have become the link materials of many industries, especially in chemical manufacturing and refining. So far, industrial application is a very large cost platform for hydrogen. Our description and case study (see Chapter 2) show the wide application of hydrogen, such as the application of hydrogen to supply energy for industrial process (such as high temperature heating). In all these applications, hydrogen, as a carbon free substitute, has great potential in replacing carbon based process.

　　The second reason is that industrial behavior is conducive to the rapid development of hydrogen energy in other platforms. It's one thing to advocate the molecular based energy carrier that hydrogen is short and long, and it's another thing to complete the manufacturing of the range and low cost. It may be true that the range of hydrogen energy needed for hydrogen production is very large. In industrial application, a small number of companies with large volume manufacture a large share of hydrogen, which is enough to influence and promote the application of hydrogen. Compared with the role of transportation or office, this is an advantage. Generally speaking, the advantages of transportation and home platform are related to the style of double evacuation. Later, a large number of professional knowledge and basic methods related to hydrogen have been acquired in all walks of life.

　　2. Many industrial hydrogen applications are facing the "valley of death"

　　Hydrogen generated in the industry is currently critical or carbon based (ash hydrogen), which usually experiences steam methane reforming (SMR). As time goes on, the challenge for hydrogen production will be to replace these skills with carbon free or carbon neutral (green or blue hydrogen) technologies. The details of these technologies include the use of renewable electricity to generate hydrogen through electrolysis or the use of carbon pipes to generate syngas that can be used as a synthetic fuel.

　　Many of these carbon free or carbon neutral technologies are still in the early stages of technological maturity. They have been verified by technology and are carrying out small-scale experiments. At present, it is urgent for these technologies to be applied on a larger scale, so as to contribute to low production cost and generate economic benefits. In other words, these technologies belong to what economists call the "valley of death" stage of the technology curve.

　　We have conducted a modeling study on the economic feasibility of using electrolysis as a carbon free alternative to SMR (see Chapter 3). The consequence assessment shows that electrolysis is probably economically feasible in 2030. This is based on the assumption of adopting ambitious cost reduction strategy, which is reasonable compared with the amazing cost reduction rate of offshore wind power or solar photovoltaic power generation.

　　However, there are few active trade cases of large-scale deployment of green hydrogen. A long period of time is needed for low cost and technology advancement. It is estimated that by 2050, we still need a large number of energy carriers in molecular mode. Although we have set up ambitious carbon neutralization targets for 2050, it is difficult for us to achieve the targets according to the current development path. In order to ensure the first large-scale application of carbon neutral hydrogen from 2030, and to complete green hydrogen by 2050, we need to adopt actions immediately.

　　3. Blue hydrogen may reduce emissions and promote the establishment of hydrogen energy economy

　　According to this report, the completion of the carbon free economy by 2050 will probably require technologies based on hydrogen, and industrial application is the "main battlefield" to start the hydrogen economy. However, the large area of hydrogen produced in current industrial manufacturing is not carbon dioxide neutral, because it matters

——Author：ebico