Hydrogen’s Role in the Future Energy System – How to Make Sure the ‘Silver Bullet’ Hits the Mark?

As a versatile energy carrier and chemical building block, the role of hydrogen in a next zero world is widely recognised. The massive scale-up of renewables and planned build-out of carbon storage solutions enable the large scale production of hydrogen with low carbon emissions from water electrolysis as well as natural gas e.g. ‘green and blue’ hydrogen.
 
The use cases of this clean hydrogen can stretch so widely from heavy industry, to mobility and long term energy storage that some have labelled it a ‘silver bullet’ or ‘swiss army knife’ and is leading to a healthy debate on how to prioritise the deployment with strong views shared by scientists, industry and policy makers.

In this talk, Paul Bogers - formerly the global head of hydrogen for Shell - will share his views on how hydrogen can reach its full potential and recent examples of progress and challenges in building a world-scale green hydrogen plant in The Netherlands, operating a bulk Liquid Hydrogen ship in Japan as well as first-hand experience in hydrogen use in transportation in Germany and California.

Talk organised by the Cambridge University Energy Technology Society