Good news for HPQ & PYR With all the hype surrounding hydrogen as a climate saviour, it’s important to remember that scale counts.
As Adam Radwanski and Emma Graney report, Canada and Germany will sign an energy co-operation agreement with hydrogen at the centre of considerations. The prospect of a country like Germany looking to import Canadian hydrogen is, to say the least, a dream come true for this country’s nascent hydrogen industry.
But there’s a hitch.
The Germans aren’t exactly keen on what Canada is selling. Canada’s “hydrogen strategy” has emphasized “blue” hydrogen. That means producing the element from natural gas or other fossil fuels, while using carbon-capture technology to minimize emissions from the process – and supporting Western Canada’s struggling resource sector in the process.
Germany is mostly interested in importing “green” hydrogen, which is derived from non-fossil fuel sources and thus considered emissions-free. A report on Canada’s hydrogen potential commissioned by the German government is critical of Ottawa’s blue-hydrogen focus. There is some acknowledgement, however, that as green hydrogen gets up to scale, blue hydrogen will be a limited-time transition fuel.
Similarly, The Globe’s European bureau chief, Eric Reguly, believes the rollout of green hydrogen at scale will be a lot slower than advertised. But that hasn’t stopped companies from picking their spots as they try to capitalize on the transition from blue to green.
Plug Power, a fast-growing U.S. maker of hydrogen fuel cells has signed a deal to produce green hydrogen by using hydroelectricity from Brookfield Renewable Partners LP’s Holtwood power plant in Pennsylvania.
For Plug and Brookfield, the agreement at Holtwood signals a leap forward as there are only a handful of green hydrogen projects operating today in North America.
Plug’s chief strategy officer Sanjay Shrestha told the Globe’s Brent Jang he believes the green hydrogen economy will emerge in the not-too-distant future, with renewable power costs dropping around the world.
“It’s real because as we keep on decarbonizing the electric grid and as prices for renewable power keep going down, the cost of green hydrogen would continue to go down