🔎 What’s going on?
A £7bn investment roadmap to upskill workers for the UK’s Northwest energy and hydrogen industrial cluster is being developed. Led by the University of Chester and Manchester Metropolitan University.
💨 What does this mean?
Last week, the UK’s budget announced an £800m budget for technologies such as carbon capture and storage - included in that is hydrogen technology. Firstly, this means 33,000 of new jobs could be created, which then means that workers need to be upskilled to make this low-carbon technology a reality. Secondly, this research investment should help accelerate the UK’s progress towards net-zero emissions because of the role hydrogen could play in helping the UK’s energy transition.
❓Why should I care?
Today, the vast majority of hydrogen is produced and used by industry. Mainly for producing ammonia (which is used to make nitrogen fertilisers, plastics, fabrics, pesticides) and oil refining.
Reducing carbon emissions from energy-intensive sectors such as chemicals, iron, steel and heavy-transport is really hard. Similarly, reducing emissions from heating buildings is also very challenging.
🚦 Where do we need to be?
Currently, most of the hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels such as natural gas, oil and coal - this means that they all add to carbon emissions.
But it is possible to create hydrogen from renewable sources (aka green hydrogen) - even if it’s quite a bit expensive at the moment. If you recall your high school science class, then you know that water can actually be split into hydrogen and oxygen (H₂O). Using a method called ‘water electrolysis’ - electricity is used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.
The opportunity to use green hydrogen for reducing emissions is huge across four sectors:
- Buildings - hydrogen boilers and heat pumps together could be used to eliminate emissions from buildings entirely!
- Industry - hydrogen could play a role in reducing emissions from industrial heat.
- Power - hydrogen could replace natural gas as a back-up to renewable energy, cost-effectively.
- Transport - along with battery-powered electric vehicles, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles could play an important role. Especially for heavy-duty vehicles such as trains, lorries and buses that have longer journeys and need to store energy for longer.
👤What can I do about it?
Today, as an individual, you can start looking into how you can reduce your emissions from heating. An easy alternative is to switch to a heat pump. There are two types of heat pumps: air source and ground source.