"Hydrogen Revolution": Is it possible?
10 min read
A key driver of the : that is how many energy experts view . A great deal of research and technological advancement is still needed to make this vision a reality. But momentum is building in several major countries around the world.
© BLAISE BERNARD / TotalEnergies - Close up of a hydrogen nozzle in a service station.
Hydrogen: An Energy Revolution Envisioned as Early as the 19th Century
The role of hydrogen as an has been known since the 19th century. Jules Verne had already anticipated a true energy revolution in his novel *The Mysterious Island*. Engineer Cyrus Smith addresses his fellow adventurers: “Yes, my friends, I believe that water will one day be used as , that hydrogen and oxygen, which constitute it, used separately or together, will provide an inexhaustible source of and light of an intensity that could never match.”
As early as the 1840s, hydrogen produced through the distillation of coal was used for street lighting and town gas. Hydrogen then gained new momentum in the second half of the 20th century, driven by research related to space programs. The goal was to generate energy autonomously aboard satellites or to rocket launchers.
The First Industrial and Consumer Applications of Hydrogen
What is new since the early 19th century is the momentum that has spurred teams of researchers around the world and has already led to industrial and consumer applications, such as in Japan, Korea, the United States, and Germany.¹ The commercialization of the first hydrogen-powered cars has begun; stationary installations the size of a cabinet are starting to provide and heat to power and heat buildings and commercial spaces, while buses, trucks, and forklifts are already running on hydrogen.
While the use of hydrogen has so far been limited mainly to ammonia production and oil refining, its potential as an energy carrier appears poised for significant developments.
Why hydrogen is not a primary energy source but an energy carrier
Its main drawback is that it must be produced. From this perspective, it is not a source—like oil, natural gas, , or wind—but an energy carrier, like electricity or heat.
It is true that some natural hydrogen emissions have been detected, at the bottom of the oceans or in the center of certain continental basins, particularly in the Russian plains. Natural hydrogen has been found in gas mud in Mali and the United States, where efforts to recover it have begun.
But we are very far from commercial exploitation—if we ever achieve it—and so it must be produced by isolating it from the elements with which it is associated, such as the carbon in methane or the oxygen in water. It is thus a renewable resource. As for its CO2 emissions performance, everything depends on the production method: most of it is currently produced using fossil fuels, but biomass gasification and water electrolysis are emerging as viable alternatives, which would classify it as a “clean” fuel.
When used, hydrogen also does not emit CO2. When used to power a fuel cell, it produces electricity while releasing water and heat.
Hydrogen Storage and Transportation: A Major Technological Challenge
While hydrogen has excellent (it contains three times more energy per unit of mass than ), it is a gas that is difficult to store and distribute. Energy is required to liquefy or compress it, and because it is very light, its transport is highly inefficient in terms of energy transported per unit of volume (15 times less than oil and 3 times less than natural gas).
Today, hydrogen produced by steam reforming of methane is the least expensive: it costs about €2/kg ex-factory, excluding distribution. In contrast, hydrogen produced by water electrolysis remains significantly more expensive, with a cost ranging from €5 to €10/kg, depending on the price of electricity. Once transported, stored, and compressed, the price at the pump for hydrogen-powered cars in France will reach between €12 and €15/kg in 2025, depending on the operator. By way of comparison, a single kilogram of hydrogen allows a vehicle to travel more than 100 kilometers.
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