Hydrogen could help China’s heavy industry to get greener
China is the world’s largest producer of cement, steel and other building materials, whose manufacture emits huge amounts of carbon dioxide. But an analysis now suggests that powering heavy industries with hydrogen could be a cost-effective way to reduce China’s carbon emissions — and its contribution to climate change1.
China aims to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2060, but decreasing carbon output in heavy industry is challenging. Part of the answer could lie with ‘clean’ hydrogen, which is made with renewable energy or from decarbonized fossil fuels and yields only water and energy when burnt.
Xi Yang at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and her colleagues used computer modelling to analyse how clean hydrogen could be used in China, and its cost-effectiveness. The team found that by 2060, clean hydrogen could supply 29% of the energy demand for steelmaking, for example. The analysis also showed that by turning to hydrogen, China could avoid spending nearly US$2 trillion between 2020 and 2060 on other clean-energy solutions to achieve its carbon-neutrality goal.
The study indicates that clean hydrogen could help many countries to shrink the carbon footprints of their heavy industry.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-03084-x
References
Yang, X., Nielsen, C. P., Song, S. & McElroy, M. B. Nature Energy https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-022-01114-6 (2022).
