22% of new registered cars are electric (fully or hybrid). Still going to take a while but beginning to make a dent. Re-focussing on rail is another approach but that’s also a long-term thing, infrastructure doesn’t get expanded over night.
Another big chunk is heat, both domestic and industrial. There’s been huge dents due to better insulation and using more waste heat (mostly industrial settings), when it comes to source of heat that’s a more difficult thing. France is big on electric heating so they’re switching over automatically, Germany historically uses tons of gas and even with the new laws in place it’s going to take decades before everything is switched over to heat pumps and stuff.
The last big chunk is industrial feedstock, I’m including steel smelting in that. Long story short Canadian and Namibian hydrogen is in the pipeline. Not literally, but investment-wise. The first smelters using hydrogen are already online, ready to get switched over from blue to green, and I’m quite sure BASF already knows exactly which pipes it needs to double up and which to repurpose, their precursor production stage is already flexible AF, able to react in practically real-time to what’s cheapest on the market they’ll be ready once the hydrogen comes flowing.
Hydrogen from water electrolysis needs massive (look at world gas demand for scale) excess renewable electricity production and support infrastructure which isn’t there nor are there credible buildout and financing plans for it. Even if it would happen it would cause demand destruction due to its high price.
This isn’t an argument against doing it. It’s just about the status quo and mid-term future.
Please don’t say energy when you mean just electricity. Primary energy demand is what we need to focus on.
22% of new registered cars are electric (fully or hybrid). Still going to take a while but beginning to make a dent. Re-focussing on rail is another approach but that’s also a long-term thing, infrastructure doesn’t get expanded over night.
Another big chunk is heat, both domestic and industrial. There’s been huge dents due to better insulation and using more waste heat (mostly industrial settings), when it comes to source of heat that’s a more difficult thing. France is big on electric heating so they’re switching over automatically, Germany historically uses tons of gas and even with the new laws in place it’s going to take decades before everything is switched over to heat pumps and stuff.
The last big chunk is industrial feedstock, I’m including steel smelting in that. Long story short Canadian and Namibian hydrogen is in the pipeline. Not literally, but investment-wise. The first smelters using hydrogen are already online, ready to get switched over from blue to green, and I’m quite sure BASF already knows exactly which pipes it needs to double up and which to repurpose, their precursor production stage is already flexible AF, able to react in practically real-time to what’s cheapest on the market they’ll be ready once the hydrogen comes flowing.
This is what I meant https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-primary-energy
Hydrogen from water electrolysis needs massive (look at world gas demand for scale) excess renewable electricity production and support infrastructure which isn’t there nor are there credible buildout and financing plans for it. Even if it would happen it would cause demand destruction due to its high price.
This isn’t an argument against doing it. It’s just about the status quo and mid-term future.