Abstract
Green hydrogen can play an important role in the energy transition because it can be used to store renewable energies in the long term, especially if the gas infrastructure is already in place. Furthermore, environmental costs are becoming increasingly important for companies and society, so that this study examines the environmental costs of green hydrogen production and compares them with the environmental costs of steam reforming, the conventional process that produces more than 90% of the world's hydrogen. For the green hydrogen production, the renewable energy sources solar, wind, and hydro energy are taken into account. The study shows that hydrogen production from hydro energy causes less environmental costs than the production from wind and solar energy. Moreover, the environmental costs of steam reforming are in part more than twice as high as the environmental costs of hydrogen produced from wind and hydro energy, whereby only the impact category climate change could be considered for steam reforming due to a lack of information.
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Abbreviations
- AEL :
-
Alkaline-Electrolysis
- ESG :
-
Environmental, Social, and Governance
- GWP :
-
Global Warming Potential
- ILCD :
-
International Life Cycle Data
- IPCC :
-
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
- kg :
-
Kilogram
- kWh :
-
Kilowatt-hour
- LCA :
-
Life-Cycle-Assessment
- PEM :
-
Polymer-Exchange-Membrane
- ReCiPe :
-
Method of calculating environmental impacts
- SI :
-
Supplementary Information
- SOEC :
-
Solid-Oxide-Electrolyzer-Cell
- TWh :
-
Terawatt-hour
- CO2-eq.:
-
Carbon dioxide equivalent
- CFC-eq.:
-
Trichlorofluoromethane equivalent
- 1.4 db-eq.:
-
1.4 dichlorobenzene equivalent
- PM2.5-eq.:
-
Particulate Matter less than 2.5-micrometre equivalent
- kBq U235-eq.:
-
Kilobecquerel of Uranium-235 equivalent
- NMVOC-eq.:
-
Non-Methane Volatile Organic Compounds equivalents
- SO2-eq.:
-
Sulphur dioxide equivalent
- P-eq.:
-
Phosphor equivalent
- CTUh:
-
Comparative Toxic Unit for humans
- mol H +-eq.:
-
The molar concentration of hydrogen ion equivalent
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I would like to dedicate my appreciation to my wife, Sandisiwe Palesa Gerloff, who checked the manuscript regarding grammar and spelling.
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Gerloff, N. Environmental costs of green hydrogen production as energy storage for renewable energies. MRS Energy & Sustainability 10, 174–180 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1557/s43581-023-00062-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/s43581-023-00062-2