Green gases can help in the shift from fossil fuels to electricity

Using electricity to do things currently done with fossil fuels means generating more of it. If all America’s cars were evs and Americans drove as far in them as they drive today, the country’s power consumption would rise by 28%. If just two of Germany’s largest industrial sites—the Ludwigshafen complex run by basf, a chemicals goliath, and the Duisburg plant run by ThyssenKrupp, a steel giant—were to run on currents not hydrocarbons, the country’s electricity consumption would be increased by 15% at a stroke, says Klaus Schmitz of Arthur D. Little, a consultancy.

That is a daunting prospect for developing countries which do not have the capacity to meet today’s demand. It is less worrying for countries like America, Germany and Japan where new capacity is affordable and grids are getting more sophisticated. But it is still a huge challenge. And there are still difficult decisions to be made about what is electrified directly and what is electrified indirectly with green hydrogen.