Specialist
Former acting secretary at the US Department of Energy
Agenda
- Economics of hydrogen and positioning relative to alternatives
- Role for hydrogen in emissions reduction targets
- Applications for hydrogen in industry and supply chain
- Government incentives for hydrogen use and key policy considerations
Questions
1.
How is hydrogen being used today?
2.
Could you give us an overview on past attempts to use hydrogen? Where was it tried and why did it fail?
3.
Could you discuss producing hydrogen and what we mean by grey hydrogen? How much does this cost to produce?
4.
Where do you expect the opportunity to cut costs? Is it driving the reverse osmosis cost down, is it on the electrolysis side?
5.
Where is coal gasification plus biomass and CCUS [carbon capture utilisation and storage] being done, or is this in a lab that is showing negative emissions?
6.
How much energy equivalent do you need from renewables to get that same output as a result from green hydrogen? Is there more waste in renewables than trying to produce from steam methane reforming and coal gasification?
7.
How does the fuel density of hydrogen compare to diesel, if we were to put aside the cost?
8.
How seamless would using natural gas pipelines be? Is there incremental equipment either into the pipeline or in people’s homes? How simple is this really? I know you said you can put 10-25% hydrogen in these pipelines, but how does that actually get done?
9.
What are the remaining technical challenges that you expect for using hydrogen in trucks, passenger vehicles, etc?
10.
Where do you expect the most money to be invested, or the most activity in solving these hydrogen issues, whether it’s fuelling or vehicles, engines, electrolysis, etc? Where do you think the best opportunity is, or where most of the effort in the industry is heading?
11.
How would it work to be using hydrogen as a source of backup power? Would a lot more storage need to be built for hydrogen?
12.
The US has emerged from the past decade as an energy powerhouse, as a few people have said. We now export natural gas. Oil production is at multi-year highs. Is it entirely just the idea that we need to reduce CO2 emissions that makes hydrogen part of the energy mix? What do you think happens to all the development in oil and natural gas over the past decade when considering how the energy mix will shape up?
13.
How would you summarise why hydrogen use will be different this time around?
14.
What should we be tracking in 2021 as it relates to hydrogen?
