Mining’s role in accelerating the hydrogen economy MELODIE MICHEL REPORTER Energy and Mines
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nce seen as a utopian solution that would take decades to materialize, hydrogen is now firmly planted at the centre of the global decarbonization agenda — and it is time for miners to get in on the action. The first few times green hydrogen was discussed at Energy and Mines conferences less than five years ago, the response was mixed: the audience recognized the technology’s full decarbonization potential, but thought it would take decades for equipment and production to become commercially competitive. Today, this timeline has been reduced to just 5 to 10 years, with many seeing 2030 as the tipping point when hydrogen will become the cheapest clean solution for many power and mobility applications. In January 2020, the Hydrogen Council — an international advisory body that went from 13 to 60 members since its creation in 2017 — published a study on the path to hydrogen’s cost competitiveness, and predicted that hydrogen production and distribution systems at scale would unlock hydrogen’s competitiveness in many applications sooner than previously anticipated. Specifically, the analysis
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