Creating the new hydrogen economy is a massive undertaking

TODAY’S HYDROGEN business is, in global terms, reasonably small, very dirty and completely vital. Some 90m tonnes of the stuff are produced each year, providing revenues of over $150bn—approaching those of ExxonMobil, an oil and gas company. This is done almost entirely by burning fossil fuels with air and steam—a process which uses up 6% of the world’s natural gas and 2% of its coal and emits more than 800m tonnes of carbon dioxide, putting the industry’s emissions on the same level as those of Germany.

The vital nature of this comes from one of the subsequent uses of the gas. As well as being used to process oil in refineries and to produce methanol for use in plastics, hydrogen is also, crucially, used for the production of almost all the world’s industrial ammonia. Ammonia is the main ingredient in the artificial fertilisers which account for a significant part of the world’s crop yields. Without it, agricultural productivity would plummet and hundreds of millions would face starvation.