Our sister magazine Petroleum Economist’s launch in 1934 coincided with one of the most calamitous periods of hydrogen’s eventful history. The 1930s saw multiple attempts at long distance air travel by hydrogen airships, most of which ended in disaster. The airship era came to a tragic end in 1937 when Zeppelin’s Hindenburg caught fire while attempting to land in New Jersey.  

Some of the safety concerns raised by the infamous Hindenburg disaster linger in the public consciousness to this day, but they pale into insignificance compared to hydrogen’s vast new potential as a low-carbon energy vector for the global transition.  

Policymakers around the world have bold ambitions for hydrogen. Current projections suggest it has the potential to grab a 10–15% share of the global energy mix by 2050, with total hydrogen demand surging to nearly 600mt/yr, from about 95mt/yr today. New demand will emerge in the form of fuel for planes, ships, trucks, cars and power plants, as well as for thermal processes in industries such as steel and glass-making.  

Hydrogen’s shot at a staging mini revolution in the energy market is inextricably linked with the transition

If achieved, this growth in uptake would represent an astonishing turnaround for an element that hovered on the periphery of the energy complex for centuries, only to be eclipsed by vastly more competitive fossil fuels and confined mainly to the role of industrial feedstock for the refining, chemicals and fertiliser sectors. 

Hydrogen’s shot at staging a mini revolution in the energy market is inextricably linked with the transition. As the scale of the net-zero challenge has become clearer, governments have realised that electrification based on wind and solar will not deliver all the emissions reductions they need. And they have shown a readiness to dish out hefty subsidies to back the new hydrogen economy, driving the emergence of a whole new industry spanning the manufacture of electrolysers to vast renewables-based production projects and even specialist investment funds. Gulf Energy Information's Global Energy Infrastructure database is tracking more than 2,000 production projects and more than 400 hydrogen pipeline projects at various stages of development.   

Petroleum Economist responded to demand for analysis of this dynamic new sector with the launch of Hydrogen Economist in 2021. 

Inflammable air 

Today’s emerging hydrogen economy can be traced back to 1766, when English scientist Henry Cavendish formally announced its existence as a definable molecule, ominously describing it as “inflammable air”. 

The following decades brought early breakthroughs in the production of hydrogen via electrolysis, a process at the heart of today’s attempts to harness wind and solar power to produce green molecules. 

Hydrogen’s renaissance under the transition has contributed to a change of fortune for another niche technology, CCS

Hydrogen’s potential use as an energy source began to emerge properly in the early 1800s, when Franco-Swiss inventor Isaac de Rivaz developed what is widely claimed to be the first internal combustion engine, using hydrogen gas as a fuel. In 1839, Welsh scientist William Grove developed what was probably the first fuel cell, opening a pathway to new applications, especially in the automotive sector.   

Haber–Bosch

Perhaps the most important breakthrough in hydrogen’s story to date came in around 1910 with the invention of the Haber–Bosch process, which produces ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen, and is still widely used. Indeed, much of the green hydrogen that is expected to shipped around the world in the coming decades will be in the form of ammonia, rather than pure hydrogen. 

Despite the airship debacle, the aviation sector was to persist with hydrogen, with testing as a rocket fuel undertaken in the US as early as 1943. Pratt & Whitney was already testing liquid hydrogen as a jet engine fuel in the late 1950s, while NASA used liquid hydrogen to fuel its Space Shuttle in 1981.  

Fast forward to the present day, and the push for hydrogen-fuelled airliners is stronger than ever as governments impose ever tighter emissions limits and mandates for the use of clean fuels. European manufacturer Airbus has ambitions to bring to market the world’s first hydrogen-powered commercial aircraft by 2035. The IEA projects hydrogen’s use as an aviation and marine fuel growing to 116mt/yr, from 11mt/yr in 2030. 

Fuel cells

Back on the road, fuel-cell–powered cars have gradually advanced but perhaps not at the speed envisaged by Grove in 1839. General Motors presented its first fuel-cell vehicle design in the md 1960s but by the mid 2000s the company was still conceding that it needed longer to develop a commercially viable model, as well as the required refuelling infrastructure.  

Japanese carmaker Toyota has invested heavily in fuel-cell electric vehicles and remains a champion of the technology, despite sluggish uptake, while many other major manufacturers have bet on battery-electric vehicles as the main replacement for gasoline and diesel cars. Fuel cells appear to have the greater potential in long-haul trucking and public transport such as buses because of their faster refuelling. and advantages in trucks, where the sheer weight of batteries impacts the economics of the EV concept.  

Carbon capture

Hydrogen’s renaissance under the transition has contributed to a change of fortune for another niche technology: CCS. All of hydrogen’s new energy applications depend, of course, on its low-carbon credentials. Existing demand is met almost entirely by hydrogen produced from fossil fuels via CO₂-emitting processes, so-called grey hydrogen, which will need to be replaced zero or low-carbon alternatives.  

Most agree that green hydrogen, produced via electrolysis powered by renewables, is the best long-term option for the transition. However, it remains expensive to produce and will need to compete for renewable power with a host of other applications as electrification takes hold across the world’s economies. Blue hydrogen, where emissions from fossil-fuel–based production are abated using CCS technology, is seen as a good way to scale up supply in the next decade or so, allowing green production costs time to fall to more competitive levels.  

400mt/yr – Potential demand in 2050

The new role of CCS in the transition is not confined to blue hydrogen. It is also earmarked for a critical role in decarbonising industries such as cement manufacture, where electrification and direct use of hydrogen are not viable. CO₂ capture for use as a feedstock in the production of synthetic green fuels, rather than for permanent storage, is also growing. 

CCS for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) has been underway in the US and Canada since the 1960s. US oil company Chevron launched the first large-scale CO₂-EOR project, Scurry Area Canyon Reef Operating Committee in Scurry County, Texas, in 1972.  

The concept of large-scale storage of captured CO₂ under the seabed can be traced back to a paper published by in the 1970s by Italian physicist Cesare Marchetti. Now, with government subsidies and drivers such as cap-and-trade schemes and taxation, the floodgates have opened. Gulf Energy Information’s Global Energy Infrastructure database is tracking more than 500 projects. 

Both hydrogen and CCS were mentioned explicitly as key transition technologies in the final communique following the COP28 climate talks in Dubai in November 2023, confirming their arrival in the new energy mainstream. 

This article is part of our 90th anniversary special series on the history of hydrocarbons and the energy transition. Click here to go to the contents page.

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Author: Stuart Penson