Najib Saab, February 2022

The first shipment of liquefied hydrogen, which recently left Australia for Japan, heralded a new era in energy technology and trade. It is true that the extraction of hydrogen by electrolysis is not a new discovery, and the properties of hydrogen as an efficient energy carrier are well known; however, what's new is the production of hydrogen on a commercial level to be exported as pressurized liquid frozen at a temperature of -253 degrees Celsius, which is about fifty percent below the freezing threshold required to liquefy natural gas in preparation for its transportation and storage. It is known that the volume in the frozen liquid state is hundreds of times less than in the gaseous state.

In addition to the success in liquefaction and freezing, a special-purpose giant tanker was built that can load frozen hydrogen, while maintaining it at extremely low temperature, until it reaches the gasification plant in Japan, where it is converted back into its gaseous state for use in generating electricity. Depending on the geology of the land and the distance between the sites of production and consumption, hydrogen can also be transported in its gaseous state through pipe networks, same like natural gas.

This is the bright side of the picture, which marks the inauguration of the era of hydrogen as a component of global trade. But the issue has a less bright side, rooted in the environmental complications of producing the electricity needed to separate hydrogen from water. Australia uses the most polluting type of coal to generate electricity, with the associated greenhouse gas emissions. At the Glasgow Climate Summit, the country opposed imposing a short timeframe to halt the use of coal, of which it possesses large reserves. In return, the government and the multinational companies involved in the project committed to developing effective technologies for capturing carbon released from burning coal, and storing it using safe methods. However, the scientific community cast doubts, asserting that this carbon-reduction process has not been achieved successfully so far, resulting in much higher carbon emissions from coal-based electricity generation.

If the issue is so complicated, why would Japan want to import hydrogen from Australia? The answer is that Japan, like most other countries, has committed itself to reducing its carbon emissions gradually, to reach zero around middle of the century. Since the geographical location of the country does not allow for producing all its electricity needs from wind and sun, in addition to restrictions on nuclear reactors after the Fukushima catastrophe, Japan had to search for other external sources. While Japan thought it had found the solution by way of importing hydrogen from Australia, the final result may be limited to just transferring the problem from one place to another; for while carbon emissions will fall in Japan due to electricity being generated from clean hydrogen, emissions will rise exponentially in Australia due to burning more polluting coal to produce hydrogen.

But why Japan doesn't produce hydrogen itself? This process needs two components, water and electricity; while water is available anywhere, especially that sea water is also suitable for electrolysis, generating the electricity needed for this process remains the main challenge. The logical question that follows would be: What is the benefit of using electricity to extract hydrogen from water, only to use it to produce electricity again? The answer is that hydrogen is not a source of energy; it stores and carries it. However, it can be produced by utilizing the surplus electricity generated at suitable times from clean sources, such as sun and wind, and using it at any time when needed, whether to generate electricity at large plants for grid distribution, or to run cars on fuel cells. It is also hoped that carbon capture, recycling and storage initiatives will achieve practical results that allow the process to be utilized in efficient and economical methods; this opens the doors for the use of oil and gas to produce the energy required for hydrogen in central stations, free of carbon emissions.

Arab oil and gas producing countries are already preparing for an era in which hydrogen will play a key role in the field of energy. After launching hydrogen plants with other partners, Saudi Arabia agreed with the President of South Korea, during his recent visit to Riyadh, to implement joint projects to produce hydrogen from electricity sourced from solar panels. The UAE and Qatar have also announced similar projects within the framework of international partnerships. This is particularly significant because the countries in this region are qualified to lead the production and export of hydrogen globally, for, in addition to their wealth of oil, they possess unlimited sources of sun and sea water. This qualifies them to become the largest exporter of hydrogen in the world, either in pipelines that cross deserts and oceans, or in giant tankers in the form of pressurized liquid, after the Australian-Japanese experience demonstrated this can be practically done on a large scale. The difference here is that Arab countries, unlike Australia, are able to produce clean hydrogen that does not reduce carbon emissions in one country only to double them in another.

One of the comparative advantages of hydrogen is that it can be pumped into the natural gas distribution networks with few modifications, without the need to replace them completely. This makes it an attractive option as an alternative to heating in many regions of the world, such as Europe, which has been facing a stifling gas supply crisis for a while now. The University of Delft in the Netherlands has been implementing, for some time, a successful experiment by pumping hydrogen into select housing units, without changing the old networks. Although no gas supplies are allowed for new houses in the country, the government opted to preserve the existing natural gas networks, to be ready for potential future hydrogen use.

Twenty-one years ago, at the beginning of 2001, a major German car manufacturer invited me to a conference in Dubai, during which they demonstrated cars running on hydrogen. The leading company proposed a partnership with local authorities, to set up a plant to produce hydrogen from sea water, using electricity from solar panels covering parts of the UAE desert. This inspired a topic for the cover of Environment & Development magazine in March 2001 entitled: "Giant solar panels to produce hydrogen from seawater in the Gulf desert."

The Australians and Japanese succeeded in finding technological solutions to liquefy hydrogen and export it, but that actually led to the equivalent of importing carbon. What's required is integrated solutions that do not relocate the problem from one place to another; the Arab region is qualified to play this role. While it might not have been ready for this in 2001, it looks certainly ready now.