What is green hydrogen? How hydrogen fuel vehicles technology is growing in india and why India is making hydrogen fuel we know that pollution is increase therefore India also wants to reduce its carbon footprints.........
Hi everybody,
In march 2022 Indian transportation minister Mr. Nitin Gadkari surprised the entire nation as he arrived at the parliament in a hydrogen-powered car and as soon as this happened we all saw how wild this went on twitter and guess what this was not just a gimmick but a clear indication to the people of India that hydrogen fuel is the future because it's not just the government Mr. Mukesh Ambani is boldly investing into both blue and green hydrogen Adani group is said to invest 70 billion dollars into renewable energy and aims to produce the cheapest hydrogen on earth and the Tata’s are already looking to build hydrogen buses for India so the question is what is this green hydrogen all about how is it going to play out in comparison to the lithium ion batteries that we already have and most importantly as investors what are the challenges and factors that you need to consider before you invest into green hydrogen related stocks.
Try to understand why exactly India is so aggressive about renewable energy in this case there are three specific reasons:
Number one we are extremely dependent on the Middle East for oil which makes us extremely vulnerable to oil shocks in case of geopolitical tensions.
Secondly the world leaders realized that climate change is real so India and 193 other nations signed something called the Paris pact wherein India is aiming to cut down 50 percent of the greenhouse emissions by 2030.
And lastly three of the most important industries in India and the world itself do not yet have a viable renewable energy substitute and these industries are steel, transportation, and chemical which means the existing modes of renewable energy production cannot run these industries profitably.
So whoever manages to crack this code of renewable energy will go on to become a net exporter of renewable energy eventually they will go on to command extraordinary power in the global politics and one of the most important instruments to achieve this is green hydrogen because it can produce an extraordinary amount of energy with literally zero emissions if this is clear to you let's try to understand what exactly is green hydrogen to put that straight hydrogen production happens in many ways and based on the method and the source of its production hydrogen is categorized into four major categories the first type is gray hydrogen which is produced by breaking down methane and coal by a process called steam methane reforming then we have blue hydrogen which is exactly like gray hydrogen but in this case 95 percent of the carbon byproduct is actually captured stored and reused then we have the third type which is turquoise hydrogen which is produced by a process called pyrolysis and then we have green hydrogen which is produced not using methane not using coal but renewable energy and the process to get this hydrogen is a process called electrolysis if you remember electrolysis was taught to us in eight standard signs so as you can see clearly green hydrogen as the name suggests is the cleanest form of hydrogen wherein there is no carbon byproduct at all.
Now the misconception that people have over here is that when we say hydrogen fuel most people think hydrogen is a source of energy but in reality hydrogen is an energy carrier and not an energy source which means what if you look at the production of green hydrogen first there will be a solar power plant that will actually produce electricity then this electricity is used to conduct electrolysis and as this current passes through water which is H2O it splits into hydrogen and oxygen and then this hydrogen is stored and then used to dissipate energy so this way hydrogen is not the source of energy but the carrier of energy now this begs the question electrolysis has been there since decades right then why are we talking about green hydrogen electrolysis now and not 15 years back well that is because although electrolysis was there the cost of production of energy through renewable energy was very very high the renewable energy sector has actually changed in the past 10 years if you research on Google you will see that from 2009 to 2019 the cost of producing electricity from coal has decreased by just 2 percent from hundred and eleven dollars to 109 dollars per megawatt hour the cost of nuclear has increased by 26 percent from 123 dollars to 155 whereas the cost of onshore wind has dropped by 70% going from 135 to just 41 and the cost of solar has decreased by 89% going from 359 dollars to just 40 dollars per megawatt hour so for the first time in human history renewable energy source looks way cheaper than fossil fuels and in the next 10 years this cost is expected to drop further from 40 dollars in solar to maybe even less than five dollars this is a reason why suddenly electrolysis looks like a feasible process to carry out with renewable energy production.
Now the question we hear is why do we need green hydrogen? And what is the problem that hydrogen fuel will solve for the Indian economy? Well if you look at the industry specific application for green hydrogen it is almost super important for three major industries steel, transportation, and chemical industry.
So let's start with the first industry which is transportation here let's take the first factor which is range and volume occupancy if you look at an EV with an advanced lithium ion battery it could achieve 400 to 500 kilometer range but these batteries would take up 400 to 600 liters of space in your car which is absolutely enormous whereas the fuel cell plus hydrogen storage tank would take up less than 50 percent of the space and in the next five years considering the advancement in hydrogen economy hydrogen tanks plus storage would occupy only 100 liters and can give you a kilometer range of 480 to 500 kilometers which means four times less occupancy of space for the same range as lithium ion secondly hydrogen fuel cells have an energy to weight ratio that is 10 times greater than lithium ion batteries so in simple words if you want to add more range to a vehicle it is very easy to add to hydrogen cells but in lithium ion batteries they are so heavy that if you want to add range you will need to increase the size of the battery which means what will happen the weight of the vehicle will increase which will again need more power so you will have to add more battery so lithium ion batteries after a certain point will become counter-productive whereas with hydrogen it's very very simple then we have the third factor which is charging time if you look at EV’s tesla model can give you a 400 kilometer range with half an hour of charge and if it is a regular ac charger it will take up to four hours but when it comes to hydrogen fuel even a Hyundai truck which has a payload of 34 ton and 400 kilometer range gets recharged in just eight freaking minutes so if you see when it comes to passenger vehicles it might not make that much of a difference but when it comes to commercial vehicles these advantages are a massive game changer why because EV’s are suitable up to a weight of 10 tons and a range of 160 kilometers per day whereas as soon as you look at heavy utility vehicles like fleets and taxis it becomes very difficult to use EV both due to limitation of range and charging time because you see a taxi driver cannot stop and charge his vehicle for 4 hours or drive only 150 kilometers a day right whereas when it comes to hydrogen cells they are so productive that their applications extend all the way to buses with a range of 400 - 500 kilometers a day and a weight of 50 to 80 tons to trucks with 100 to 130 tons of weight and 800 to 1000 kilometer range to even trains up to one thousand tons and one thousand kilometer range and beyond this is a reason why hydrogen fuel cell can revolutionize the transportation industry the world and save hundreds of millions of tons of carbon emissions every single year and then we have the shipping and the aviation industry which will need synthetic hydrogen-based fuels which are a little far away from reality this is the reason why hydrogen fuel cells are super important because they cater to heavy duty load that EV’s cannot deliver for commercial or passenger transportation.
And this brings me to perhaps the most important industry specific application to India which is the application of hydrogen in steel industry this is where India needs to be extremely concerned about something called carbon border tax carbon must have its price because nature cannot pay this price anymore the idea of a carbon border tax is gaining ground in the united states and the European Union a carbon border tax to level the playing field for European products if other countries do not go as far as us or refuse to go in the right direction western countries don't want to see companies packing up for places like china or India because of their less stringent environmental rules which make the goods produce there cheaper in simple words the European union is going to charge you an additional tax if your carbon emissions are beyond a certain level which means if we do not decrease our carbon footprint the cost of Indian products in the European Union will increase eventually it will cost us billions of dollars in trade in fact BCG estimated that a levy of just 30% per metric ton of carbon emission tax could reduce the profit pool for producers by about 20% this is assuming the crude oil prices remain at 30 to 40 per barrel now for India we are the second largest producer of steel and we exported 20.63 million tons of steel in 2021 alone and as much as steel is a superpower for India and global trade it is also one of the most polluting sectors in the country with steel industry alone contributing to 12 of India’s total fossil fuel emissions and the reason why this emission is so high is because the steel industries in India use gray hydrogen as fuel and releasing agents what is gray hydrogen that is produced from coal and methane using steam methane reforming and considering the rise for demand of Indian steel if we do not shift to green hydrogen the carbon emissions from the steel industry of India is expected to shoot up from just 242 million tons to 837 million tons over the next three decades and the fossil fuel emissions from steel industry alone will be more than 33 percent of the entire country's fossil fuel emissions so practically if we do not curb our carbon emissions European Union will impose carbon tax on us and someone else might beat us in steel export this is the reason why there is a high need to decarbonize the steel industry of India and to shift from gray and blue hydrogen to green hydrogen.
And this brings me to the third important industry that we have in India which is the chemical industry. Explanation about chemical industry is too technical to avoid your misconception if you want to understand this the concept is very simple blue and gray hydrogen are supposed to be replaced by green hydrogen which is expected to happen with the evolution of solar and wind energy and this is merely because of the cost of green hydrogen similarly hydrogen also has immense application in oil refinery, glass production, propellant fuel, semiconductors and a lot more this is the reason why green hydrogen is super important not just for India but every single country on the planet and whoever manages to crack the code of green hydrogen will go on to become a net exporter eventually that country will go on to command an extraordinary power in the global politics.
First and foremost factor that you need to consider is the cost of green hydrogen which is extremely high in case of transportation the cost per kilometer of hydrogen fuel is at the moment close to three times more than lithium ion and since hydrogen has more application for commercial transportation like buses trains and trucks it is a little far away from reality as of now because it is not viable yet the most important word over here is yet because with the increase in production research and government incentives combined it is expected to drastically bring down the cost of green hydrogen in the next five years. Now as far as the steel industries are concerned just like in transportation green hydrogen right now costs 500 rupees per kg whereas grey hydrogen only costs 150 rupees per kg so according to multiple sources and research journals green steel is expected to become viable only till 2023 and that too is an optimistic estimate secondly just like lithium ion batteries use lithium and cobalt which are extracted at the cost of the environment hydrogen fuel cells need platinum and iridium which are again rare metals and will need a lot of digging and harming the environment so very soon there is a very good possibility that we will see alternative metals or alloys that will come as a breakthrough for green hydrogen applications so keep an eye on any kind of substitute for green hydrogen for platinum or iridium thirdly the storage of green hydrogen is a big big problem and last and most importantly there is something called round trip efficiency of hydrogen which currently stands at just 40 to 50 percent which means if you get 100 joules of energy converted from power to hydrogen and then back to power you will get only 40 to 50 joules of energy with the rest of it being lost in the process so practically 50 to 60 of your energy is going to be lost in the process of going from power to hydrogen and then back to power so this area will need a lot of improvement and I am just hoping that the Indian tycoons will manage to crack the code of green hydrogen because right now being an exporter of green hydrogen is a fast track into the big leagues of geopolitics that's all from my side
Thank you so much for reading.
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