Speaker 1: this
Speaker 2: is the climate conversations and I'm Jamie
Speaker 1: home today.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about the most abundant element in the universe
Speaker 2: and some believe it has a part to play in
Speaker 2: getting us to net zero. It's hydrogen when harnesses the fuel,
Speaker 2: it has the potential to transform our power plants, factories
Speaker 2: and vehicles. Unlike fossil fuels, it emits only water vapor
Speaker 2: when burned. But the catch is that hydrogen is hardly
Speaker 2: found as a pure gas on earth and extracting it
Speaker 2: is not always green nor affordable,
Speaker 2: storing and transporting highly flammable gas is also difficult.
Speaker 2: Despite these challenges, experts say hydrogen can play a significant
Speaker 2: role in that Net zero economy. Even if it takes
Speaker 2: time and money
Speaker 2: with me to discuss, this is fredrik, which specializes in
Speaker 2: innovative technologies and lifecycle solutions for the marine and energy
Speaker 2: markets Welcome Frederick,
Speaker 1: I'm
Speaker 2: going to jump straight into the first question and you know,
Speaker 2: we've spoken about alternative energies on this podcast series in
Speaker 2: several episodes, but hydrogen hasn't been discussed as extensively as
Speaker 2: I would like, partly because I think it has a
Speaker 2: reputation for being tough to harvest, so to speak compared
Speaker 2: to other alternative energies as a start. Perhaps you can
Speaker 2: just run through,
Speaker 2: give us a sense of why, you know, hydrogen is
Speaker 2: maybe even green, hydrogen is a little bit more complicated
Speaker 2: than other clean energy sources.
Speaker 1: Thanks johnny, I'll get into that. And what I'm thinking
Speaker 1: of is maybe I can give a few facts some
Speaker 1: of the basics before trying to answer your question a
Speaker 1: bit more precisely, most of us, we know that hydrogen
Speaker 1: is the most abundant element in the, in the university,
Speaker 1: I think it's about 74% of all elements is hydrogen.
Speaker 1: One of the problem with hydrogen is that on earth,
Speaker 1: hydrogen does not come on its own because it's a
Speaker 1: very reactive elements. It's normally bonded with some of our
Speaker 1: molecules on this planet. We are finding hydrogen mostly in
Speaker 1: water and in hydrocarbons. It means that to be able
Speaker 1: to produce hydrogen, you need to extract these hydrogen atoms
Speaker 1: from the molecules.
Speaker 1: There are currently two ways of doing that. The most
Speaker 1: common way right now is reforming and this is when
Speaker 1: you try to extract the hydrogen from the hydrocarbons which
Speaker 1: is fossil fuel. The inconvenient with this process is in
Speaker 1: addition to creating hydrogen, It also releases Sio two. That's
Speaker 1: not something that we want.
Speaker 1: The second way of producing hydrogen is called electrolysis
Speaker 1: and this is producing Ideagen from water using electricity to
Speaker 1: make that transformation.
Speaker 1: That's the first part. First you need to be able
Speaker 1: to get this a trojan atom from these molecules where
Speaker 1: it's in
Speaker 1: what may be interesting to know also for our auditors
Speaker 1: today is that there is already quite substantial hydrogen production,
Speaker 1: which is happening, I think it's about 100 million tons
Speaker 1: per year, which is already being produced. This is produced
Speaker 1: right now from this reforming process, so produced from fossil
Speaker 1: fuel
Speaker 1: and the uses mostly for refinery processes and also for
Speaker 1: fertilizer production. What's interesting to know is that in this
Speaker 1: case the hydrogen is not used for its energy content
Speaker 1: or as a kind of energy carrier as we are.
Speaker 1: I think right now saying that hydrogen is mostly talked about,
Speaker 1: but it is used for its chemical properties and in
Speaker 1: this case it clearly cannot be replaced by any other
Speaker 1: source of energy. That's why these industries refineries and fertilizer
Speaker 1: producers need really the hydrogen, as I wasn't mentioning, it
Speaker 1: is also a known fact that I'd rogen could be
Speaker 1: used as an energy supplier
Speaker 1: that's been talked about for actually quite a long time.
Speaker 1: So it's not a new discussion.
Speaker 1: It's been talked about for more than a century. I
Speaker 1: would say, there was even sometimes in the history during
Speaker 1: the oil crisis in 1973 where it was really seen
Speaker 1: as potential fuel that could come very soon, but finally
Speaker 1: it has not materialized
Speaker 1: and there are some good reasons for that. I think
Speaker 1: what you were asking about the difficulty of producing, but
Speaker 1: also the economics of hydrogen needed to be right for
Speaker 1: it to compete with the actual for social which is available.
Speaker 1: I have a natural gas o or liquid Schulte.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, it sounds as if it
Speaker 2: is a problem of scale of cost and also of
Speaker 2: course of the emissions that are associated with extracting hydrogen itself. Right. Obviously,
Speaker 2: as you say, it's not something new. It's been there
Speaker 2: on the cards for a long time
Speaker 2: and now it's coming back on stream as sort of
Speaker 2: a potential alternative. What do you think are the kinds
Speaker 2: of technological leaps that are going to be necessary? And
Speaker 2: how long is that going to take for hydrogen to
Speaker 2: really be able to be sourced at scale and at
Speaker 2: a cost and at the level of emissions that's going
Speaker 2: to be worthwhile. How long is it gonna take?
Speaker 2: I don't
Speaker 1: really have a crystal ball, but I will, I will
Speaker 2: try to
Speaker 1: give you some elements that maybe can answer your question.
Speaker 1: The first part is about how can green hydrogen, because
Speaker 1: we are talking in this case of green hydrogen, which
Speaker 1: is hydrogen generated for this electrolysis process and when the
Speaker 1: electricity to produce hydrogen electrolysis process is produced from renewable energy,
Speaker 1: because that's really what people are looking for
Speaker 1: because in this case, as you rightly mentioned then, you
Speaker 1: can really see that there is a net zero effect,
Speaker 1: There is no C 02 emission at the same time. So,
Speaker 1: we are really talking talking about that, how to get
Speaker 1: to a point where green hydrogen can be a competitive fuel.
Speaker 1: There are three
Speaker 1: factors actually influencing the price of green hydrogen. The first
Speaker 1: one
Speaker 1: Is of course the price of electricity because you need
Speaker 1: electricity to produce hydrogen and you are doing it from renewables.
Speaker 1: The long term projection is still that renewable electricity price
Speaker 1: will come down. We see the prices of solar and
Speaker 1: wind coming down for instance already in the last 20 years.
Speaker 1: And this is already creating what we call the energy transition.
Speaker 1: But we see that this will keep on unfolding. Maybe
Speaker 1: not at the same rate, but still should be coming
Speaker 1: down in the long run. So that will help in
Speaker 1: the production cost. We also expect that if the right
Speaker 1: policies are there at the same time, there could be
Speaker 1: a scale effect. And then the price of the electrolyzer
Speaker 1: itself
Speaker 1: will be able to come down. And the last point is,
Speaker 1: once you have electricity, once you have your electrolyzer,
Speaker 1: you need to ensure that the electrolyzer is used at
Speaker 1: maximum capacity is what we call capacity factor. So planning
Speaker 1: how the electrolyzer will be used most efficiently is going
Speaker 1: to be important because I think we should not forget
Speaker 1: that for green hydrogen to make sense. It should use
Speaker 1: renewable energy. Yes, but actually it should use excess renewable
Speaker 1: energy
Speaker 1: the best way for the planet to be able to reach.
Speaker 1: The next Ceo target is first to use renewable as
Speaker 1: directly as possible generating electricity when possible. And then if
Speaker 1: you have access, then you can think of producing fields
Speaker 1: like green hydrogen. Those
Speaker 2: are really excellent points. And I caught on and and
Speaker 2: I do know that we're talking about green hydrogen now.
Speaker 1: But maybe this is a good
Speaker 2: time as well to talk about other colors that have
Speaker 2: been associated with hydrogen most commonly blue and gray explained
Speaker 2: to us what the differences are and and how these
Speaker 2: features into the role that hydrogen can play overall
Speaker 1: there's a rainbow of almost of hydrogen that people are
Speaker 1: talking about the most common forms or colors of hydrogen green.
Speaker 1: I think I've already explained that part, the gray hydrogen
Speaker 1: is hydrogen which is produced through this reforming process,
Speaker 1: meaning that you are using hydrocarbons as the feedstock for
Speaker 1: producing the hydrogen. And in this case the process is
Speaker 1: releasing Sio two and with great hydrogen, you are not
Speaker 1: capturing and using the C. 02. So you just released
Speaker 1: Ceo to India, which is not ideal. Blue hydrogen is
Speaker 1: still using hydrocarbons as the feedstock for producing hydrogen. But
Speaker 1: in this case there is a system and process in
Speaker 1: place to capture the C. 02 which is produced through
Speaker 1: the process and try to either store the Ceo to
Speaker 1: bury it for instance,
Speaker 1: or reuse the CEO to in some of our processes.
Speaker 1: So this is a better, more efficient and also, especially
Speaker 1: more environmentally friendly way to produce hydrogen. There are some
Speaker 1: other colors that people are talking about for instance, being hydrogen,
Speaker 1: which is hydrogen produced in this case from electrolysis, but
Speaker 1: with nuclear energy for instance. So there is a very
Speaker 1: wide variety area
Speaker 2: that's interesting. So, I mean most hydrogen now that's been
Speaker 2: processed is presumably gray. So as we sort of look
Speaker 2: into the various options, is it necessarily always going to
Speaker 2: be progressive in that you have gray, then you need
Speaker 2: to move into blue first and then you trans transition
Speaker 2: more and more into green Or are there sort of
Speaker 2: technological leaps that can actually move us very quickly from
Speaker 2: potentially gray to green? Or is that sort of also
Speaker 2: contingent on developments in alternative energies elsewhere?
Speaker 1: That's the evolution you see going from gray to blue
Speaker 1: and then from blue to green at what pace is
Speaker 1: that going to happen?
Speaker 1: There is no consensus really in the industry, what we
Speaker 1: feel is that economically speaking, blue hydrogen for instance, should
Speaker 1: remain cheaper than green hydrogen for the next maybe 10 years.
Speaker 1: But after this, we feel that there are some places,
Speaker 1: some countries which should be able to produce
Speaker 1: green hydrogen at a cheaper cost than blue hydrogen and
Speaker 1: in this case it will be the snowball effect in
Speaker 1: terms of demon and also in terms of price reduction
Speaker 1: and then a green hydrogen should be the fuel of
Speaker 1: choice at this time we'll
Speaker 2: take a quick break and be right
Speaker 1: back. So climate
Speaker 2: conversations, podcast is supported by Sabrina jerome building cities shaping lives.
Speaker 2: So would you say that therefore that you would expect
Speaker 2: most of the action or the
Speaker 2: technological advances and the leaps forward to come from places
Speaker 2: that are moving much faster on renewable energies. Therefore right
Speaker 2: and therefore lowering the price of those renewable energies and
Speaker 2: then allowing for hydrogen to be deployed, they're much more
Speaker 2: cheaply in the longer term. So is that where it's
Speaker 2: all going to be? And if that's the case
Speaker 1: bringing back
Speaker 2: to Singapore, what's the role of a place like Singapore
Speaker 2: in helping with the technological advances?
Speaker 1: That's a good question. I'll try to answer it in
Speaker 1: two different times. The first one, I think you're spot
Speaker 1: on countries which have already invested a lot in renewables
Speaker 1: should be the country's coming first with solutions in terms
Speaker 1: of green hydrogen production.
Speaker 1: This can be countries like Germany, I think we all
Speaker 1: know that Germany is really leading the way in promoting
Speaker 1: the use of hydrogen in in the future. Also cases
Speaker 1: like Australia, I think in front, but just because they
Speaker 1: are already in front, also in terms of renewable energy usage,
Speaker 1: maybe two to link it back. Also to what I
Speaker 1: was saying earlier, even if in the next 10 years,
Speaker 1: the blue hydrogen might be slightly more economical than green hydrogen.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that nothing should happen on the green
Speaker 1: hydrogen side. And that's what also these countries
Speaker 1: like Australia or Germany are doing a lot to promote.
Speaker 1: Already some policies that are encouraging investments, pilot projects because
Speaker 1: the next 10 years need to be a time where
Speaker 1: we are validating technologies in terms of storage in terms
Speaker 1: of transportation in terms of production of the androgen, but
Speaker 1: also in terms of the use of the hydrogen in
Speaker 1: the different potential industry,
Speaker 1: there will be a number of parameters later on that
Speaker 1: will decide which industry would be able to use the
Speaker 1: hydrogen first. When is it going to be relevant for
Speaker 1: this or that industry to use this? And that will
Speaker 1: be the same question I would say for Singapore.
Speaker 1: Would the hydrogen makes sense to be used for power
Speaker 1: generation at some point for maybe air conditioning, Would it
Speaker 1: be used for aircraft? Would it be used for busses?
Speaker 1: There are a number of parameters which are there. What
Speaker 1: is pretty unique to Singapore? Is that
Speaker 1: Singapore is at the same time
Speaker 1: of course, a place where with quite sizable population and
Speaker 1: where there is demand for energy, but it's already a
Speaker 1: energy up in a way. You have a big petrochemical
Speaker 1: complex in Jurong Island and also it is a shipping hub.
Speaker 1: It's it's one of the biggest ports in the world.
Speaker 1: And there could be a lot of synergies between different
Speaker 1: sectors between the petrochemical industry. As I was explaining, refineries
Speaker 1: are big consumers of hydrogen power generation can be a
Speaker 1: consumer of hydrogen at least for what we call balancing
Speaker 1: power because the first source of power
Speaker 1: ideally in the future is still going to be renewable,
Speaker 1: but you could still use hydrogen for balancing uh, some
Speaker 1: of these intermittent, see with the renewable
Speaker 1: but also for the shipping industry, we know that this
Speaker 1: is an industry that really has some targets in terms
Speaker 1: of emission reduction and they would be also potentially capable
Speaker 1: of using hydrogen maybe not in the hydrogen form, it
Speaker 1: might be in a different form where you associate again
Speaker 1: hydrogen with some of the
Speaker 1: components to make the transportation easier. It can be like ammonia,
Speaker 1: but for Singapore, it will be important to have all
Speaker 1: these different sectors to talk together and try to plant
Speaker 1: some infrastructure that could benefit or
Speaker 2: using against Singapore as sort of the hook to ask
Speaker 2: my next question. Obviously we import a lot of our energy.
Speaker 2: So if we're looking at that, that then brings into
Speaker 2: question the viability of transportation of hydrogen give us a
Speaker 2: sense as well how easy difficult it is and how
Speaker 2: different it is when it comes to
Speaker 2: transporting and moving hydrogen.
Speaker 2: People are used to talking about Lng solar, what's different
Speaker 2: about it when it comes to hydrogen and moving it
Speaker 2: from one place to another.
Speaker 1: Hydrogen is different from a natural gas. It has some
Speaker 1: advantages because hydrogen per kg is containing a lot of energy,
Speaker 1: but the density of hydrogen is actually very low, which
Speaker 1: means in practice is for instance, if you compare compressed
Speaker 1: natural gas to compress hydrogen,
Speaker 1: it takes about
Speaker 1: 3 to 4 time the volume to get the same
Speaker 1: amount of energy with hydrogen. You can imagine that this
Speaker 1: is a challenge in terms of transportation. Instead of having
Speaker 1: one LNG carrier. For instance, you would need 3 to
Speaker 1: 4 to bring the same volume of energy. Also, what's
Speaker 1: a bit tricky with hydrogen when you want to transport
Speaker 1: it by sea for instance,
Speaker 1: Is that the temperature at which you can get it
Speaker 1: under the liquid form is very low. It's a -250°
Speaker 1: compared to natural gas, which is about 160°. So it
Speaker 1: also requires more energy and you can have quite a
Speaker 1: lot of
Speaker 1: Energy losses in this process either by compressing or turning
Speaker 1: into liquid that can be quite inefficient in some cases.
Speaker 1: One way of transporting aborigine, which is quite efficient is
Speaker 1: by a pipeline because even if the what with this
Speaker 1: energy density is different with with H2, the advantages the
Speaker 1: flow of H2 in pipelines is actually faster
Speaker 1: the natural gas. Just because this molecule is so like
Speaker 1: that can be a more efficient way. So some countries
Speaker 1: will have the advantage to have the energy, the green
Speaker 1: hydrogen production close to the point of demand and can
Speaker 1: just use pipeline, in which case it can become pretty
Speaker 1: efficient very quickly. Some of our countries will have the
Speaker 1: disadvantage
Speaker 1: not having maybe the renewable energy production in their own place,
Speaker 1: then they will need to compress liquefy sending the gas
Speaker 1: so that can become more expensive
Speaker 1: for Singapore. We know that the challenge. I think the
Speaker 1: biggest
Speaker 1: for me, my recommendation for Singapore is first to not
Speaker 1: be focused on the nitrogen. We need to have a
Speaker 1: plan for Net 0 2050. And there are many ways
Speaker 1: to achieve this decarbonization? Probably H two for me will
Speaker 1: play a role. It might be the final push in
Speaker 1: getting there.
Speaker 1: But the most important is to have an overall plan.
Speaker 1: And then part of this plan first is how do
Speaker 1: you get your renewable energy in Singapore? Is it going
Speaker 1: to be produced on our small island or are we
Speaker 1: going to do a little bit as E. M. A.
Speaker 1: Is exploring maybe procuring from Malaysia, maybe for curing from Indonesia.
Speaker 1: And then if we do that, then can we do
Speaker 1: maybe the conversion of renewable electricity
Speaker 1: island that could be a possibility to
Speaker 2: use your own experience as a way to sort of
Speaker 2: cap off our conversation,
Speaker 1: you've been doing
Speaker 2: this for several years already with Godzilla as you look
Speaker 2: into the future therefore. And you did mention sort of
Speaker 2: time frames of, you know, at least 10 years and
Speaker 2: obviously for different sort of jurisdictions different countries, the role
Speaker 2: that hydrogen is going to play, It's gonna vary. But
Speaker 2: in terms of the technology that at least that is
Speaker 2: going to be allowing countries who can scale it to
Speaker 2: an efficient enough level, what kind of timelines would you say?
Speaker 2: You know, looking at what's happened in the last five years?
Speaker 2: Is it moving in a sufficiently progressive way? Or is
Speaker 2: it still sort of linked really to other breakthroughs elsewhere
Speaker 2: in terms of the cost of alternative energy overall then,
Speaker 2: do you see it being a big part of it
Speaker 2: or is it really a final push kind of thing
Speaker 2: as you mentioned.
Speaker 1: Okay, first of all, in terms of the, as I
Speaker 1: was mentioning, we see green hydrogen probably displacing blue hydrogen
Speaker 1: in the next 10 years. That because it will become
Speaker 1: more economical than blue hydrogen, but it will still not
Speaker 1: probably be cheaper than natural gas, it will probably just
Speaker 1: replace the use really for chemical process where you need
Speaker 1: the molecule to form some other products like ammonia for
Speaker 1: fertilizers or in the refinery process, they're using hydrogen for
Speaker 1: this authorization to be able to remove the sulfur from
Speaker 1: the idol cabinets. So
Speaker 1: Beyond that, you still need to have the costs keep
Speaker 1: on coming down so that it can really compete with
Speaker 1: natural gas and that's when things can accelerate and that
Speaker 1: might still take many more years after this. Some countries
Speaker 1: will be in a better place. It will also depends
Speaker 1: on the, on the countries, some countries have access to
Speaker 1: cheap gas, some countries have access to expensive gas and
Speaker 1: when they will start to adopt green hydrogen might be different.
Speaker 1: So it's possible that it might take on over 10
Speaker 1: years after that for green age to to start to
Speaker 1: be competitive with natural gas.
Speaker 1: That's why we see more seed. Like it's almost a
Speaker 1: final push. But if we don't start now, we will
Speaker 1: not get them and when I mean if we don't
Speaker 1: start now, it's these are companies like us. We are
Speaker 1: providing technologies so it can be different technologies
Speaker 1: electrolyzer for us in the back still a case its
Speaker 1: power generation equipment. We want to have our equipment which
Speaker 1: is future proof so that we are going to be
Speaker 1: able to use hydrogen in our equipment as a as
Speaker 1: a fuel. And we are doing that. Governments are coming
Speaker 1: with policy with targets in terms of emission reduction because
Speaker 1: of course the economics of hydrogen is not everything if
Speaker 1: really there are policies that are forcing people whatever the
Speaker 1: price is to adopt hydrogen that could come faster. So
Speaker 1: it's going to be a mixed back depending on the
Speaker 1: countries but having targets encouraging technology development and for instance,
Speaker 1: I can say that in Singapore. This is already happening
Speaker 1: because we are doing currently a project with capable of
Speaker 1: shore and marine for instance where capable of showing marine
Speaker 1: is getting a grant from the E. M. A. As
Speaker 1: a research project to build what they call a floating
Speaker 1: living lab. And on this floating living lab they will
Speaker 1: have different technologies, they will have battery storage but they
Speaker 1: will also have some of our that's still a power
Speaker 1: generation equipment
Speaker 1: in which we are already planning to blend natural gas
Speaker 1: and hydrogen with a support percentage just to validate the
Speaker 1: technology get used with the technology and also help Singapore
Speaker 1: come with a better understanding of these Children.
Speaker 2: Well, Frederick certainly sounds as if everyone is on the
Speaker 2: right track right now. That's certainly my hope that everything
Speaker 2: is being done now. So that when the time comes
Speaker 2: for the final push, the technology is already, it's been
Speaker 2: a fascinating conversation. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot for your time
Speaker 2: and thanks for listening to the climate conversations. Stay up
Speaker 2: to date on CNN's coverage of climate change on sienna
Speaker 2: dot asia. You can also find this and other CNN
Speaker 2: podcasts on our website and on itunes and Spotify. The
Speaker 2: team behind this podcast are Christina, robert lynch tooling and
Speaker 2: Aaron Low. I'm Jamie Hotel next week.
Speaker 2: Yeah.