by Preeti Pande, Chief Marketing Officer<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Green hydrogen will be essential to meeting the decarbonization goals of the Paris Agreement. Nearly everyone wants to take better care of the Earth, but achieving a global warming limit of below 2\u00b0C by 2050 without a broad set of zero-carbon energy sources is challenging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The growth of renewable energy adoption, while rapid, has been hindered by intermittency \u2013 environmental, seasonal and daily cycles that can limit their use or efficiency. To close the last mile of decarbonization, these renewable energy sources need a partner when the sun isn\u2019t shining and the wind isn\u2019t blowing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The top three sources of climate-warming emissions in the U.S. come from transportation, power generation and industry. Emissions from certain portions of the economy are difficult to eliminate. Green hydrogen is the only zero-carbon option that can decarbonize industries like aviation, shipping, long-distance trucking, and concrete and steel manufacturing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hydrogen is abundant and its supply is virtually limitless. Green hydrogen is a cost-effective source that can be \u201calways on\u201d and turn the tide against resource scarcity. It can be used where it is produced or transported elsewhere. Unlike batteries that are unable to store large quantities of electricity for extended periods of time, hydrogen can be produced from excess renewable energy and stored in large amounts for a long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pound for pound, hydrogen contains almost three times as much energy as fossil fuels, so less of it is needed to do any work. And a particular advantage of green hydrogen is that it can be produced wherever there is water and electricity to generate more electricity or heat. Split the H2O water molecule by electrolysis and you have Hydrogen (H2) and Oxygen (O) on site and ready to go to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Green hydrogen can be stored in existing gas pipelines to power households. It can transport renewable energy when converted into a carrier such as ammonia, a zero-carbon fuel for shipping, for example. It can also be used with fuel cells to power anything that uses electricity, such as electric vehicles and electronic devices. And unlike batteries, hydrogen fuel cells don\u2019t need to be recharged and won\u2019t run down, so long as hydrogen fuel is available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although some industry experts predict it will be 10 years before there is widespread adoption, green hydrogen is here and ready now. A recent McKinsey study<\/a> estimated that by 2030, the U.S. hydrogen economy could generate $140 billion and support 700,000 jobs, while a report by the Hydrogen Council<\/a> estimates that 18% of the world energy market will consist of hydrogen by 2050.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Green hydrogen alone cannot address the world\u2019s emissions concerns, but we cannot fully decarbonize the economy without it. We believe that green hydrogen is only one piece of the puzzle and that we must build a Integrated Renewable Energy Architecture, consisting of solar, wind, batteries, and green hydrogen. This is the energy infrastructure of the future, and it cannot be achieved without green hydrogen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Preeti Pande, Chief Marketing Officer Green hydrogen will be essential to meeting the decarbonization goals of the Paris Agreement. Nearly everyone wants to take better care of the Earth, but achieving a global warming limit of below 2\u00b0C by 2050 without a broad set of zero-carbon energy sources is challenging. The growth of renewable energy adoption, ...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.plugpower.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8160"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.plugpower.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.plugpower.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.plugpower.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.plugpower.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.plugpower.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.plugpower.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.plugpower.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.plugpower.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}