Hydrogen can be used to power cars, supply electricity and heat homes, all with zero carbon emissions. The snag is that the vast majority of hydrogen itself is derived from fossil fuels – a fact that scientists are now hoping to change. They plan to clean up production to kickstart a dedicated economy – something that has already found small-scale success in Scotland’s Orkney Islands.
By generating hydrogen from electrolysis, biogas, or within solar reactors, these scientists are hoping to encourage the uptake of a clean hydrogen economy. In such an economy, hydrogen would be used to store the energy from renewables during periods of peak production, and then release it as electricity whenever – and wherever – demand is high.
‘The production of hydrogen from processes with a low or zero carbon-footprint is at the core of developing the hydrogen economy,’ says Dr Souzana Lorentzou of the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas in Greece, and the scientist responsible for a project called HYDROSOL-PLANT. […]
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