Mission Hydrogen: Accelerating the Transition to a Low Carbon Economy
Clean hydrogen could play a significant role in the global transition to a low carbon economy, particularly for hard-to-abate sectors. It offers a path toward meeting national and international climate and pollution goals while avoiding reliance on imported fuels. It can help to address renewable energy intermittency and curtailment issues. And it can open new avenues for technology and manufactured goods, providing substantial economic benefits.
Hydrogen comes in a range of colours – blue, green, yellow, or pink. But is there a pot of gold at the end of the hydrogen rainbow? Two key challenges are currently hindering clean hydrogen adoption and use at scale: cost and limited infrastructure availability. In Mission Hydrogen: Accelerating the Transition to a Low Carbon Economy, Nicola De Blasio and his coauthors explore the various colors and applications of hydrogen across multiple sectors and regions.
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Could China replicate its success with other clean technologies like solar PV and emerge as a renewable hydrogen superpower? How can hydrogen complement existing efforts to electrify road and rail transportation, especially for long-distance and heavy-duty sectors? How might system-scale renewable hydrogen reshape the structure of global energy markets and geopolitics?
“One of hydrogen’s key attractions is that it can provide carbon-free energy in multiple sectors,” said Nicola De Blasio, Belfer Center Senior Fellow and editor of the report. “But this versatility also creates significant uncertainties. In Mission Hydrogen, we analyze hydrogen’s potential by critically looking at all the pieces of the carbon-free energy puzzle. Only by understanding how all the pieces fit together can we hope to draw a complete picture and accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy.”
Paolo Magri, Executive Vice President of the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI), said, “I am honored to launch this Belfer Center-ISPI joint publication on hydrogen – an energy vector that will be crucial to fight climate change and ensure that the carbon neutrality targets that many countries are setting as national priority policies will turn into reality. It is imperative to avoid the geopolitical tensions and market deficiencies of the fossil era and foster a global cooperative approach also through international fora such as the G20.”
The Belfer Center's new project, the Global Energy Technology Innovation Initiative (GETI), drills down on several of the challenges facing country efforts to deploy green hydrogen, particularly the absence of a national infrastructure to transport, store, and use hydrogen as a heating or transport fuel, according to Henry Lee, Director of the Environment and Natural Resources Program. “One of the questions before the G20 leaders,” Lee said, “is who will build, own and finance such an infrastructure?”
The case of hydrogen highlights how adopting new clean technologies can offer unique opportunities to accelerate the needed transition to a low-carbon economy. Still, deployment at scale faces significant challenges that neither the private nor the public sectors can address alone. Stakeholders across the globe need to thoroughly assess hydrogen’s economic, environmental, market, and geopolitical implications, develop strategies to address them, and define long-term implementation plans. A deeper understanding of these underlying dynamics will allow policymakers, investors, and other stakeholders to better navigate the challenges and opportunities of a low-carbon economy without falling into the traps and inefficiencies of the past.
“Mission Hydrogen” is an ongoing collaboration on the future of hydrogen in the context of the G20 between the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI), National Coordinator and Chair of the T20.
Read the report here.
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