Creating the new hydrogen economy is a massive undertaking
It is also a delicate one
TODAY’S HYDROGEN business is, in global terms, reasonably small, very dirty and completely vital. Some 90m tonnes of the stuff are produced each year, providing revenues of over $150bn—approaching those of ExxonMobil, an oil and gas company. This is done almost entirely by burning fossil fuels with air and steam—a process which uses up 6% of the world’s natural gas and 2% of its coal and emits more than 800m tonnes of carbon dioxide, putting the industry’s emissions on the same level as those of Germany.
This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline “A very big balancing act”
Briefing October 9th 2021
From the October 9th 2021 edition
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