At the dawn of the presentation of the European strategy for the creation of a green hydrogen market in three stages, with a goal of 2050, there is no shortage of raising shields against that blue hydrogen which would seem indispensable for the transition process. Wednesday 8 July the European Commission has adopted the strategy for integrating the energy system e that for hydrogen. The two plans introduce a new investment agenda in favor of an integrated energy system where hydrogen should help decarbonisation industry, transport and electricity generation. The production of hydrogen should grow in the European energy mix starting from a share of 2% to get to represent 13-14% of continental energy sources in 2050. By that date, green hydrogen production technologies should reach full maturity, allowing, among other things, the decarbonisation of the most difficult sectors: transport and steel.
The main objective is to promote the dissemination and consumption of green hydrogen, the costs of which are still not competitive with the so-called blue hydrogenproduced from fossil sources. With the new EU hydrogen strategy, Brussels aims to promote a substantial increase in the production of electrolysers that allow energy to be transformed into hydrogen by electrolysis of water. In other words, the mechanism is to use energy to decompose water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen gas. Hydrogen can then provide storage capacity to compensate for the variability of renewable energy flows. The need for new infrastructures for the transport of hydrogen is limited, as at least partial reconversion of the existing gas network is possible. The hydrogen would then be fed into the network as a methane enrichment transforming the gas network into a buffer for the inconstant electricity production of renewable sources.
However, according to a report published Friday by the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators, for 65% of the national authorities the transport network does not currently allow the introduction of hydrogen. In most cases, the development of networks capable of transporting mixtures of hydrogen and biomethane would seem to have stopped at the pilot project stage.
However, the electrolysis of water is an extremely energy-intensive process and although the goal for 2050 is to produce hydrogen through renewable energy sources, in the short and medium term the use of would seem inevitable fossil sources. The transition period would therefore also promote blue hydrogen, but the new strategy emphasizes the need to keep carbon emissions from the hydrogen gas production process low and this would be possible with the capture and storage of the released carbon. Various analysts of the green innovation market, however, do not hide theirs doubts about the real possibility that capture and storage technologies can become economical accessible and therefore gain market.
To react positively to the new prospects that hydrogen poses at the moment seem to be the financial markets, as demonstrated by the performance of some shares on the stock exchange on the occasion of the official launch, also on Wednesday, of the European Clean HydrogenAlliance, which brings together institutions, industries and civil society. The Italian Snam, one of the leading European companies for gas infrastructure, participated in the launch of the new strategy by declaring its commitment to invest to enable greater use of hydrogen through its infrastructure. The words of the CEO of Snam, Marco Alvera, in fact supported share prices in Piazza Affari which closed with an appreciation of almost 2,2%.
Gas infrastructures should allow the passage of a sustainable fuel to be used for the conversion of coal-fired plants and power plants and to feed energy-intensive industrial sectors such as the steel industry. Not by chance Frans Timmermans, Commission Vice-President responsible for the European Green Deal, launched an appeal to the Italian government to commit itself to making Taranto a European champion of green steel. But the fiery debates on the horizon about what is green and sustainable and what is not could make it difficult to pursue the good intentions of the European Union. In fact, on the occasion of the launch of the new strategies, the five-star MEP Rosa D'Amato harshly warned the supporters of the new energy policies, underlining that the hydrogen of the future is green hydrogen and not blue hydrogen, which instead "safeguards the interests of the lobbies and finances the large polluting steel industries". For Fabio Massimo Castaldo (M5S), vice president of the European Parliament, we no longer need to invest in expanding the existing fossil infrastructure. An appeal that smells of regret for the failed resistance to the Tap/Snam gas pipeline which will bring its first Azeri gas to Puglia in mid-August.
