Low-carbon hydrogen is expected to be a crucial part of the transition to a net-zero society. According to consultancy McKinsey, global hydrogen demand could reach up to 660mt by 2050, up from 94mt in 2021, and could potentially help abate more than 20% of global emissions.
Hydrogen is already produced in significant amounts for use in industries such as steelmaking, oil refining and the petrochemicals sector, and to make products such as ammonia and methanol. Yet it is produced from methane and generates CO₂ as a byproduct.
We are trying to reduce CO₂ emissions by focusing our efforts on low-carbon hydrogen, and we aim to develop technologies that can potentially reduce the cost of producing hydrogen from hydrocarbon sources and capture the CO₂ at the same time.
Transportation
Transporting hydrogen is not easy. To move it in liquid form, hydrogen must be cooled to -253°C, which is costly, and the liquid hydrogen technology is still at an early stage of development.
Technologies that allow us to convert hydrogen to ammonia, which is much easier to transport using well-established procedures, are crucial. At its destination, the transported ammonia can be used to generate electricity or converted back to hydrogen for use in other applications.
This approach has already been tested, with shipments of independently accredited blue ammonia dispatched from Saudi Arabia to both South Korea and Japan. And we continue to collaborate with our partners in Asia and Europe with ambitions to build a hydrogen value chain that could potentially span its production, certification, transportation and utilisation. Eventually, we aim to produce up to 11mt/yr of blue ammonia by 2030.
Next steps
But there is still much to do. New infrastructure is required, ranging from production plants to storage facilities at ports. However, progress is accelerating, and we aspire to be at the forefront of this change as well as an important player in the new hydrogen market. This includes building infrastructure and capabilities to assist in producing and exporting lower-carbon hydrogen around the world.
Today, more than 30 countries have developed or are preparing hydrogen strategies, indicating growing interest in developing hydrogen value chains. Hydrocarbon-rich countries can leverage their hydrocarbon resources, geographic locations, access to abundant renewable energy (in some cases) and highly developed infrastructure to become leaders in the hydrogen economy.
But more needs to be done to foster demand for hydrogen, particularly as offtake agreements are essential to encourage investment. Governments should therefore implement policies to reduce risk and improve the economic feasibility of lower-emission hydrogen projects. This includes identifying opportunities for hydrogen infrastructure, both in terms of new assets and existing natural gas infrastructure that can be repurposed. They also need to remove regulatory barriers and work together on issues such as certification, supporting the emergence of a lower-carbon hydrogen and ammonia market internationally.
Grey, green and blue
Of course, there are different ways to make hydrogen, ranging from the conventional grey hydrogen that releases CO₂ emissions through to green hydrogen made using electrolysers powered by renewable energy. At Aramco, we believe all forms of lower-carbon hydrogen should be considered.
Yet we have largely focused on blue hydrogen, which involves capturing CO₂ from existing hydrogen production—and either storing the CO₂ or using it to make other products. The rationale is that green hydrogen is relatively expensive to produce, and the world simply does not have sufficient renewable energy capacity to make it at the required scale. It also helps that we can leverage our own infrastructure, technology and the relatively lower production cost and upstream carbon intensity.
We believe that blue hydrogen is a viable mid-to-longer-term alternative that could help reduce global emissions and facilitate the energy transition. It could ultimately help pave the way for the green hydrogen networks of the future.
The author is senior vice-president of technology oversight & coordination at Aramco
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