Siemens Energy CEO Christian Bruch spoke about the challenges facing the sector "green" hydrogen, telling CNBC that "there is no business justification for its use at present time".
On October 19, during a discussion on CNBC's Sustainable Future forum, Christian Bruch outlined a number of areas that need to be addressed for green hydrogen to gain traction.
"We need to establish boundary conditions to make this technology commercially viable."
In particular, Bruch added:
"And we need an ecological environment, obviously with cheap electricity and an abundance of renewable energy sources ..."
This is not yet available, he claims.
Hydrogen can be produced in a variety of ways. One of the methods is electrolysis, in which an electric current splits water into oxygen and hydrogen.
Some people call hydrogen green or renewable hydrogen when electricity is used for its production comes from renewable sources such as wind or solar energy.
While some people are in awe of the potential of green hydrogen, it is currently costly to produce.
The National Grid Company describes hydrogen gray as "the most common form of hydrogen production."
This gray hydrogen, according to National Grig, "is produced from natural gas or methane using steam methane reforming, but without capturing greenhouse gases from the process production ".
In his speech, J. Bruch also stressed the importance of building an industry to support the commercialization of green hydrogen.
He explained that the key aspects are technical systems and operational knowledge accumulated over 10-15 years, noting that this is what is usually found in the energy industry.
"All this remains to be done to transform... into the commercial system, "Bruch said.
"So the biggest problem is that under the current boundary conditions, there is no commercial justification for green hydrogen yet."
Italian energy infrastructure giant Snam also took part in the discussion. Marco Alvera, Managing Director of Snam, spoke in particular about the importance of laying the foundation to foster a more sustainable industry.
“We need policies that encourage or sanction: the transition from gray to green, from natural gas to hydrogen, from coal to hydrogen,” he said. "Then it will happen soon."
Described by the International Energy Agency as a "universal energy carrier", hydrogen has a wide range of applications and can be used in industries such as industry and transport.
The use of hydrogen fuel cells in automobiles has been the subject of much debate in recent years.
“For private cars, or passenger cars, this is a very, very difficult use case,” said Bruch of Siemens Energy.
"I think it would be more logical to talk about the use of hydrogen either in heavy vehicles or in certain industries," he added.
"We are talking about green steel or green refining processes that make more sense, are more efficient. in terms of CO2 emissions and create more favorable conditions for the production of green hydrogen. "
P.S. I listened to this forum and came to the conclusion that, of course, Europe will be "puffed up" with its last bit of strength to refuse Russian gas supplies. But, for the sake of objectivity, no significant progress is expected in this regard in the next 10-15 years. But sooner or later - this will happen - there is already a very strong trend towards "green energy".
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