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Green hydrogen instead of black coal
Hydrogen-based technologies offer great hopes for the decarbonisation of industries. Hydrogen generates enormous amounts of energy, which is needed in many industries that rely on coal at the moment, such as steel processing.
Frans Timmermans’ speech at the opening of the European Hydrogen Week gives hope: the EU climate policy leader recalls the last COP26 in Glasgow and compares it to the same event held two years ago. At the previous COP, not only did the US delegation show up and deny climate change: China gave no carbon reduction pledges, and other countries spoke vaguely or not at all. This year, even Russia has declared its desire for climate neutrality and decided to put a price tag on carbon emissions!
Frans Timmermans stressed that the development of green hydrogen technology is vital to achieving climate neutrality. He also pointed out that, at the moment, obtaining hydrogen is expensive and international hydrogen trade is almost non-existent. Therefore, the focus is now on finding cheaper solutions to produce hydrogen on a mass scale, with a minimal carbon footprint.
80 GW of green energy from renewable electrolysers by 2030
Timmermans’ statement also includes hopeful declarations about the introduction of electrolysers. The plan is to obtain 40 GW from renewable electrolysers in Europe by 2030, with further installations of the same capacity in neighbouring countries that can export green hydrogen to Europe. Moreover, Timmermans assumes that the target will not only be met but exceeded. If successful, coal will become redundant in many sectors of the economy, significantly reducing our CO2 emissions.
Music for a better future
To conclude with an interesting fact: in this speech at European Hydrogen Week, Frans Timmermans mentioned a Spotify playlist he had created to motivate people for climate action positively. All music lovers will find Timmermans’ playlist under this link: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6Eq27EGFhOzQA0WgTmgvA1?si=f5e9cb9c5f1f4260
