Hydrogen has been pinpointed by both the Scottish and UK governments as a fuel of the future.
Politicians are keen to scale up production of clean hydrogen to contribute to Scotland’s 2045 net zero target.
What is renewable hydrogen?
Renewable hydrogen comes in different forms.
Read more: SNP's just transition chief blows hole in independence economic case
The purest sense of renewable hydrogen is green hydrogen, which doesn’t require fossil fuels. Other grades such as grey or blue hydrogen rely on natural gas (methane) to produce it.
Grey hydrogen, currently the most common form of the fuel, is created using steam methane reformation, splitting natural gas into hydrogen and carbon dioxide.
Blue hydrogen uses the same process, but the carbon dioxide is prevented from entering the atmosphere by carbon capture technology.
How is green hydrogen produced?
Green hydrogen is produced by using renewable electricity to power a process called electrolysis – which splits water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen.
The fuel, if powered by renewable energy, has no carbon emissions, with oxygen the only by-product.
What can it be used for?
Those in the industry claim hydrogen can be used in a range of sectors of the economy.
Buses and other vehicles such as trains can be powered by hydrogen to eliminate their contribution to the climate crisis, if a pure green grading is used.
Read more: SNP's energy strategy dealt blow after report warns hydrogen for heating 'not efficient'
Trials have also been carried out to see if hydrogen could replace natural gas in fossil fuels boilers.
Heavy industry, such as chemicals plants at Grangemouth, hope to use hydrogen as a renewable fuel to cut carbon emissions through carbon capture and storage.
What is the Scottish Government’s hydrogen ambition?
The Scottish Government claims that up to 600,000 jobs can be created by scaling up hydrogen.
Under the Scottish Government’s current strategy, ministers hope to generate 5GW of power by 2030 and 45GW by 2045, when Scotland will become net zero.
What are the concerns about the fuel?
Climate campaigners have warned that focusing on hydrogen, particularly grey and blue hydrogen, allows fossil fuels giants to continue to burn gas and produce carbon.
Read more: Heat pumps will cut energy bills amid fears over climate target
A report from WWF Scotland, revealed by The Herald in February, raised concerns that using hydrogen for heating homes was a “distraction” and called for the focus to be put on other methods, primarily heat pumps.
Fears have also been raised about the costs and energy needed to produce green hydrogen.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel