Hydrogen’s time is now, as the world’s attention turns to renewable energy to hit drastically needed emissions targets.

So here’s a ‘Ryse Hydrogen Christmas Top Twenty’, with just some of the reasons why:

1.  Coming out of the Covid-19 crisis, the two most pressing problems are the Environment and Unemployment.  Hydrogen is a solution for both, lowering emissions and creating jobs.

2.  The U.K. has the ability to lead the global Hydrogen economy.

3.  With our zero-emission Hydrogen buses already entering service on the streets of London, Aberdeen, Birmingham, and Northern Ireland, we are now ready to export them throughout the world.

4.  If the U.K. fail to act in our support of Hydrogen, we will become importers rather than exporters; marking the loss of yet another green technology, just as we did with wind turbines and batteries.

5.  Let’s lead the Hydrogen industry, just like China has done with batteries.

6.  In the world of batteries China has 73% market share – they basically own the whole supply chain. 

7.  Hydrogen can be made and used entirely on U.K. shores with no reliance on foreign supply chains, increasing our independence and energy security.

8.  We have an abundance of wind, and an abundance of water in the U.K.: the two renewable energies which power our production of clean, green hydrogen. 

9.  Hydrogen fuel for heavy transport provides a major opportunity to build a green transport system.

10.  Hydrogen is the clean fuel best placed for mass adoption because it behaves the same as the diesel.  The most difficult thing to change is human behaviour.  When it comes to transport, we’re used to filling up our car in five minutes, then driving for four or five hundred miles, getting out and filling up again.  The only zero-emission solution that costs the same, performs the same, and is as easy to fill up as diesel is Hydrogen.  

11.  We can now deliver Hydrogen in London for a zero-emission Hydrogen bus at the same cost as running a bus on diesel.

12.  We are building a green Hydrogen plant in Kent, powered by renewable energy from the Kent wind farm.  This will generate enough clean Hydrogen to keep 300 zero-emission Hydrogen buses powered.

13.  There are two zero-emission transport solutions out there, batteries and Hydrogen.  Batteries are a good solution for certain applications, but they don’t work so well when your vehicle gets bigger and heavier.

14.  A battery double-decker bus will do 60% of the distance of a diesel bus and takes a minimum of four and a half hours to charge.  A Hydrogen bus will do the same distance and take only seven minutes to fill up. 

15.  On an electric double-decker bus you’re lugging around about three and a half tonnes of battery.  If you wanted to power a Boeing 747 on batteries you’d need 2,700 tonnes of battery, so it would never get off the ground.

16.  For the same price as the diesel equivalent we could have 4,000 zero-emission Hydrogen buses on our roads, creating a bigger Hydrogen economy than any other country, creating thousands of skilled jobs and tackling the emissions crisis head on.

17.  The Hydrogen industry will be worth $2.5 trillion by 2050. The U.K. must go guns blazing for Hydrogen.

18. Let’s get Hydrogen going as quickly as possible, get the volume up and the costs down in our own domestic market, then we can benefit from using it to power our industries and transport and homes, whilst exporting it around the world.

19.  Some exciting government support for Hydrogen is underway but we need lots more.

20.  The U.K. needs a Hydrogen Strategy now.

By Tim Daukes, 10.12.2020