🎬 Multilingual subtitles
✍️ By: Team BC1.NL
What you can do with hydrogen
We’re in the middle of an energy transition. That is needed for we all use more and more energy. It’s getting more obvious that hydrogen will play an essential role in this. But what can we do with hydrogen, and how far are we? Business Channel One has investigated to find answers.
Politicians go for a green hydrogen economy
There are also reports about hydrogen from politicians. With the Green Deal, Frans Timmermans, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission, wants to speed up the hydrogen economy. Dutch Minister Wiebes has drawn up a National Hydrogen Plan. And members of Parliament of the coalition parties, VVD, CDA, D66, and the opposition party PvdA, want to speed up green hydrogen production. In this documentary, Matthijs Sienot (D66), Agnes Mulder (CDA), William Moorlag (PvdA), and Mark Harbers (VVD) tell about hydrogen. Which developments do they see regarding the use of green hydrogen? And why do they think this is important.
Green, grey and blue hydrogen
With hydrogen, there is talk of green, grey, and blue. But what does it mean?
- Grey hydrogen is made with natural gas. During production, CO2 is released, which equates to grey electricity. So it is polluting.
- Blue hydrogen is also made with natural gas. However, the released CO2 is captured and stored. Therefore the blue hydrogen is less polluting. Of course, the stored CO2 should not be released into the atmosphere.
- Green hydrogen is made with sustainable energy. So from sun and wind energy. The advantage is that no CO2 is released neither with hydrogen production nor when the hydrogen is used.
Companies working on hydrogen
During our search, we were warmly welcomed at various companies. Companies that are actively committed to a hydrogen economy. We also visited companies that see multiple opportunities to reduce CO2 emissions and companies researching what can be optimized.
The company ‘Alles over waterstof‘ (All about hydrogen) is committed to improving hydrogen’s social acceptance. Alles over waterstof starts at 01.25.
Research organisation TNO researches and works for a sustainable energy transition on green hydrogen innovations for various applications. TNO starts at 7.00.
Tieluk shows that we can safely heat our buildings using hydrogen. Tieluk starts at 13.05.
H2arvester has developed a way for farmers to use their agricultural land twice. H2arvester starts at 17.35.
Hygro and NXT Mobility both work at project Duwaal. A project where hydrogen is generated in a windmill. They explain why it’s important to include the whole chain in this transition.
Hygro starts at 21.02 & NXT Mobility starts at 25.04.
Klaas Visser of TU Delft researches if and whether hydrogen can be used in the shipping industry.
TU Delft starts at 29.20.
And H2Fuel found a way to store hydrogen in a crystallized form. H2Fuel starts at 34.08.
Hyet Hydrogen has developed a new compressor without moving parts. They can also filter hydrogen gas that is mixed with natural gas. Hyet Hydrogen starts at 40.00.
At Holthausen Clean Technology, existing (freight)trucks are converted into hydrogen vehicles. Holthausen Clean Technology starts at 45.53.
Hydrogen the documentary
We’ve started the production and recording of ‘Hydrogen the documentary’ in the autumn of 2019. Due to Covid-19, production has been halted for a long time. We were able to finish the recordings at the end of this summer. We want to thank all participants for their hospitality and patience.
Also interesting:
Plastic, the raw material
Flevoland makes room for circular entrepreneurship
Frequently asked questions
This is a short summary of the film. Watch the video above for the full story.
How is green hydrogen made?
Green hydrogen is made with an electrolyser that splits water into hydrogen gas and oxygen gas using green electricity. At the Faraday lab of TNO in Petten, the largest research laboratory for electrolysis, membranes are tested to make electrolysers cheaper and more durable. The aim is a lifespan of not 80,000 but 150,000 hours, almost twenty years.
What is the difference between green, grey and blue hydrogen?
Grey hydrogen is made with natural gas and releases CO₂ while it is produced, which makes it as polluting as grey electricity. Blue hydrogen is also made with natural gas, but the CO₂ released is captured and stored, so it is less polluting, provided that stored CO₂ never reaches the atmosphere after all. Green hydrogen is made with sustainable energy from sun and wind, and then no CO₂ is released at all, neither during production nor when the hydrogen is used.
What is hydrogen used for?
Hydrogen can provide heating, run lorries, cars, buses and trains and power ships, and in the film it is called an energy carrier and a raw material for the chemical industry. Industry has been the largest customer for many years, using about 90 percent, mostly for fertilizer, but hydrogen is also used to make peanut butter.
How far can a car drive on one kilo of hydrogen?
A mid-size car drives about 100 kilometres on one kilogram of hydrogen. A 125 litre tank at 700 bar holds five kilograms, so around 550 kilometres. If H2Fuel stores the same energy as a powder, two and a half times as much fits into the same volume, taking the car to almost 1200 kilometres.
How can hydrogen be stored, also as a powder?
There are three ways: as a gas, as a liquid and in solid form. At H2Fuel in Rotterdam hydrogen sits in a powder that is only released when combined with water. Gerard Lugtigheid, head of science at H2Fuel, expects a price of five to six euros per kilogram without subsidy. TNO also studies storage in empty gas fields and salt caverns to bridge winters.
How do you compress hydrogen without moving parts?
HyET Hydrogen developed an electrochemical compressor that has no moving parts. It uses a Proton Exchange Membrane, the same membrane technology used in electrolysers and fuel cells. Hydrogen is broken down on entry, migrates through the membrane and is reassembled on the other side. That means no wear, no noise and no seals, and the same technique can pull hydrogen back out of the natural gas grid.
Can a diesel truck be converted into a hydrogen vehicle?
Holthausen Clean Technology in Groningen does exactly that: the diesel engine comes out and a 250 kilowatt electric motor goes in, with hydrogen tanks and a fuel cell. The first conversions cost cargo space; by now the fuel cell fits under the bonnet. It started with a written-off street sweeper belonging to the city of Groningen.
What is a hydrogen economy and when will it arrive?
There are calculations that thirty to fifty percent of our future energy supply will run on hydrogen, and towards 2050 green hydrogen is called indispensable. The Dutch minister set up a National Hydrogen Plan and the European Commission wants to speed the process up with the Green Deal. The brake is regulatory pressure and financing.
Can a house be heated with a hydrogen boiler?
Tieluk in Leeuwarden developed a hydrogen generator for central heating systems. What is unusual is that no storage is needed: water goes in, it is split using green electricity, and the gas goes straight into the boiler. The heat released during splitting returns to the return pipe, which raises the efficiency.
Can shipping run on hydrogen?
In the film Klaas Visser of the Delft University of Technology says there is a great deal of interest in emission-free ships, while in more than 99 percent of cases propulsion still comes from a combustion engine. The biggest challenge is carrying enough hydrogen safely, in a way that can be bunkered anywhere in the world.
How much hydrogen does one wind turbine produce per year?
In the Duwaal project near Alkmaar hydrogen is produced inside the wind turbine itself. A four megawatt turbine gets a two megawatt electrolysis unit that can make about 300,000 kilograms of hydrogen a year. That is enough for a hundred refuse trucks, forty lorries, twenty to thirty buses or fourteen hundred cars.
Where can I watch the full film?
With hydrogen, there is talk of green, grey, and blue. But what does it mean?
H2arvester has developed a way for farmers to use their agricultural land twice. H2arvester starts at 17.35.
