How green is blue hydrogen?

作者：Robert W. Howarth, Mark Z. Jacobson · 发表于：Energy Science & Engineering · 年份：2021 · DOI：10.1002/ese3.956 · 被引用次数：903 · 研究领域：Atmospheric and Environmental Gas Dynamics、Carbon Dioxide Capture Technologies、Atmospheric chemistry and aerosols

Abstract Hydrogen is often viewed as an important energy carrier in a future decarbonized world. Currently, most hydrogen is produced by steam reforming of methane in natural gas (“gray hydrogen”), with high carbon dioxide emissions. Increasingly, many propose using carbon capture and storage to reduce these emissions, producing so‐called “blue hydrogen,” frequently promoted as low emissions. We undertake the first effort in a peer‐reviewed paper to examine the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of blue hydrogen accounting for emissions of both carbon dioxide and unburned fugitive methane. Far from being low carbon, greenhouse gas emissions from the production of blue hydrogen are quite high, particularly due to the release of fugitive methane. For our default assumptions (3.5% emission rate of methane from natural gas and a 20‐year global warming potential), total carbon dioxide equivalent emissions for blue hydrogen are only 9%‐12% less than for gray hydrogen. While carbon dioxide emissions are lower, fugitive methane emissions for blue hydrogen are higher than for gray hydrogen because of an increased use of natural gas to power the carbon capture. Perhaps surprisingly, the greenhouse gas footprint of blue hydrogen is more than 20% greater than burning natural gas or coal for heat and some 60% greater than burning diesel oil for heat, again with our default assumptions. In a sensitivity analysis in which the methane emission rate from natural gas is reduced to a low value ...