Is green hydrogen the fuel of the future

[Music]

we hear a lot of

noise about hydrogen recently and

most particularly hydrogen as a

potential fuel for the future

but what actually is hydrogen and how

can we

most importantly use it

first what we know now is that hydrogen

is the most abundant element on earth

it is mainly composed of a single proton

and a single electron but it rarely

comes along

it is composed with oxygen

it creates h2o which is very important

to remember

for later on composed with

carbon dioxide it creates methane

now

i will start with a little bit of

history because back in the day

we didn’t really know all of this

in fact you will be glad to know that it

is a british man

however born in france called henry

cavendish

a chemist and a physicist who in

1966

distinguished hydrogen as a single

element

scientific knowledge at the at the time

was not

very developed and therefore um

he identified two type of air the

non-flammable air which was composed of

carbon dioxide and the flammable air

which is

actually hydrogen and

through his experiences um he identified

that

the burning of hydrogen actually created

water

which as i remember as i mentioned

earlier is h2o

so this actually this process

identified that through the burning of

hydrogen actually

condensed some water now how did we use

it

um later on a couple of years later

they saw the development um of the

air balloon flight in 1783 in france

um which so the the first

airship coming coming into place

airships were very fashionable

at the time because they were very

practical

and it was very futuristic as well

they were mainly used for for transport

and the hygiene was therefore used as a

fuel however

they’re very poor and

they’re very poor usage and track

records uh you may also remember

the hindusburg disaster in 1937

we saw the airship flight

burning into flames um this german

airship

in the in the track um which

saw the end of uh of the airship era

and actually saw the end of hydrant

being used as a fuel

now today we still use hydrogen

in many industrial purposes

however we use it to make ammonia

for example and this is used for

fertilizer

and we also use it um adding it

into fat through the process of

hydro-generated

process and you will find it in your

morning peanut butter for example

um so there is different uses of

hydrogen today but not really um

as a fuel so let me now go back to

a little bit back in time in the

19th century and the industrial

revolutions

to explain the the beginning of the end

the usage and the drastic usage of

energy sources so in the 18th

um in the 1800s

you will see the development of

um energies to power

steam engines and factories

but also fuel was at the time used to

to fuel people homes and used to cook

and this fossil fuels was used as a

fairly cheap way for powering

people’s homes the fossil fuel

used were mainly

[Music]

mainly made of coal oil

gas but also renewable sources such as

your windmill

and your hydro water

generated power

so we used we used through the

industrial revolution

energy and fossil fuel in extensive

amounts

this at the time we did not

realize how damaged it could be to the

planet

and to the future generation to come in

fact

it is important to mention that this

fossil fuels are still

widely used today these are mainly

natural gas petroleum and coal

which amount to nearly 85 percent

of the primary energy consumptions in

the world

today in fact your

homes is probably uh heated by a gas

boiler

as well as you’re you’re probably using

your cooker and uh

for powering your your shower um your

car

maybe running on diesel or petrol and

this is the same

the same apply for the industry

so we need to lean away from

the reliance on on fossil fuel and

researchers mentioned that actually by

2050 we may lack of these resources

however there is a second important

challenge to to fossil fuels

which is climate change

now the burning of fossil fuels

creates carbon dioxide which

trapped in the in the atmosphere for a

long period of time

creates temperature to rise

and this is what we see

as as the climate emergency and climate

change

and therefore we have to when we think

about the decarbonization of the uk

we not only need to find first

alternative

to fossil fuels but also

find solutions to reduce our greenhouse

gas emissions

so what are we doing in the uk

and particularly in the northwest to

help and to lean away from this reliance

on fossil fuel

and to reduce our greenhouse gas

emissions

now there is a lot of initiatives

happening in the northwest for

decarbonizing heat

and by that i mean your homes but also

the industry

however today i will just focus on

transport

because transport is mainly the

um the largest emitter

of um carbon emissions

and when i think about

transport this this

comprise of road transport maritime

rail but also the aviation

ind within this sector road transport is

the largest emitter of carbon dioxide

and you will

road transport is made of the car you

use every day

to go to your nearest supermarket or

walkable

take away this is your tesco

delivery driver that provided you with

your very important toilet paper during

the lockdown

and but also um construction

vehicles um to build our houses

or the roads nearby or

are the um very high heavyweight

vehicles um that travels

from china to deliver your electric

tablets

or your uh your fruit and veg

coming from anywhere in the world

because we can now find in the

supermarket bananas kiwis and all of

those products

at any time whenever we want

so this change in consume

in the consumers kind of

made these sectors more and more

important

we are heavily reliant on road transport

nowadays

we are getting used to um to having

everything we want

whenever we want however

we need to change the way

we are getting those products so that we

can get them in a more

sustainable way and this

this means changing the way we actually

fuel those vehicles

and this is exactly the thinking behind

project vanguard

which we initiated with the cheshire

east council

in 2019 now most of you will be aware

that most of the councils in the uk

declared the climate emergency

and by that they took

actions to actually

help decarbonize their region

however most of the homes or your homes

is is not owned by the council nor

are the industries nearby or passing by

and this this is not an easy task for

for the council

but um they have a role to

lead the way in in the decarbonization

and what they do is providing services

to the residents one of these services

is waste services provided by gesturists

through their wholly owned company anza

which you may have seen

collecting your waste so refuse

trucks can actually be converted

to fuel cell vehicle to fuel cells

running on hydrogen

fairly easily and this is what project

badgards

is intending to do with the conversion

of two refused trucks

running off hydrogen however

how are we actually going to produce

this hydrogen to fuel those vehicles

now green hydrogen is produced

using clean electricity

from renewable sources

and by electrolyzing

the water um to

separate the hydrogen atom

to its molecular twin oxygen

if you remember at the beginning of the

talk i mentioned h2o the hydrogen and

the oxygen

now to create this green hydrogen

we are going to we have secured a

planning permission

um to install a large solar

panel pv array on

the environmental hubs of cheshire east

which is located in middleweight

these solar panels

will create the green electricity

and this green electricity will then be

connected

to the gray recycling

water hub

to create the electrolysis

so you we would have the solar pv

um powering the water

this will create the electrolysis and we

will separate the molecules to create

hydrogen

now as we live in the uk

the sun is not shining every day we are

quite lucky today

as you can see um but it’s

it’s not happening every day and we

therefore need

to store the hydrogen so we can use it

when we need it we will thus

have a reservoir or a tank

close to the production unit so that

we can store this hydrogen at times

not needed for example the

vehicles may not be running at weekends

and and this would be very important

to to be able to use hydrogen

whenever uh whenever the trucks

will be needed

how are we going to fuel those vehicles

we need a refueling station

so the refueling station will be

installed

at the same location next to the current

diesel refueling station

so this is the thinking behind

a project vanguard and hopefully

if all goes well you will be able to see

those two refused trucks coming to

collect your domestic waste

in april next year

so this may not seem as a very big

impact on the large scale

however if we all focus on uh on

and accomplishing the little things

greater

impact might follow suit in fact

you can already go and purchase a

hydrogen car

and you will soon find hygiene

coming into your homes i hope this gives

you a great overview

of why hydrogen will be a fuel for the

future