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Has the Ukraine war influenced the green versus blue hydrogen debate?
9/11/2022
6 min read
Feature
Jake Stones, Global Hydrogen Editor at ICIS, examines how the war in Ukraine is likely to affect the production of hydrogen in future European energy markets.
Going into 2022, multiple hydrogen strategies, plans and roadmaps had been released by governments globally. Generally, the strategies revolved around identifying the key areas of future hydrogen demand which governments would seek to support using low carbon or renewable hydrogen to decarbonise hard-to-abate sectors, such as transport and industry.
However, despite alignment across hydrogen proposals for areas of demand, the promoted type of hydrogen supply was often the topic of debate. Discussions largely focused on whether to use green hydrogen (hydrogen made using renewable electricity to split water) or blue hydrogen (hydrogen generated from natural gas (CH4) with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology).
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February of this year drastically changed the energy scenario in Europe, with a massive effect on the debate about green and blue hydrogen. In the current situation, it is worth asking: How profitable is blue hydrogen and can it still be included in the picture when 30% of Europe’s natural gas supply has been brought into question?