The hype about hydrogen –wonderful or insane?

The following article is the continuation of Edition 22.

Strong demand likely from the steel and chemical industries

There may well be doubts that the resulting patchwork with methane “islands” of 100% and 80% is also ideal from an economic and technical viewpoint. Some actors want a separate infrastructure for pure hydrogen right away, like the Federal Association of Offshore Wind Farm Operators, which wishes to “preserve the value of green hydrogen”. The greatest demand for hydrogen is likely to soon come from energy-intensive industry: Both the German steel and chemical industries want to contribute to greenhouse gas neutrality through hydrogen by 2050.

Germany currently consumes 1.8 million tonnes (t) of hydrogen (60 TWh) per year, with the chemical industry accounting for around 1 million tonnes. Refinery processes for cracking hydrocarbon chains, ammonia production and methanol synthesis are the biggest sectors with a demand for H2 that is covered with grey hydrogen. In the chemical industry the first step is to decarbonise existing processes with green hydrogen and then use it as an energy carrier.

Hydrogen as a reducing agent

For the steel industry, the key to decarbonisation lies in direct reduction, which is intended to replace the traditional blast furnace process. Coke is used as a reducing agent for producing crude steel in the blast furnace. Here CO2 emissions are 1,800 kg per tonne of crude steel. With direct reduction on the other hand, natural gas and/ or hydrogen is used to reduce iron ore to sponge iron, which is processed further in an electric arc furnace. In contrast to the blast furnace, liquid pig iron is no longer produced. CO2 emissions can be reduced to as little 100 kg/t.

With the Salzgitter Low CO₂

Steelmaking project, Salzgitter AG wants to develop a purely hydrogen-based direct reduction process replace as much fossil fuel as possible with green hydrogen. For this purpose, the company is in-