2050 starts in 2020, and it starts with offshore wind and green hydrogen

Humankind achieved its first interstellar flight in 2063 with a spacecraft powered by a warp drive, based on a matter-antimatter system fuelled by deuterium, a hydrogen isotope, and its antimatter equivalent. This is according to Star Trek, a series famous for featuring several things we might take for granted today back in the seventies and the eighties, long before they were on the map of becoming a reality. Although travelling faster than the speed of light and stretching the fabric of space-time will not become one of those things in a foreseeable future, hydrogen (in its full glory) will. Green hydrogen, whose production is driven by renewables, is now certain to be a big part of what will power the world in the mid-21^st century.

The targets going for net-zero emissions by 2050 have been around for a while now. However, we have recently seen some major concrete steps being taken for the first time, solidifying the path toward what our mid-21^st century generation will perhaps take as a given.

The push for net-zero from renewable energy developers, environmentalists and even from political circles might not prompt you to turn up the TV volume anymore, but when Big Oil takes a fully “green” step, a thump echoes even if you pressed the “mute” button.

We are still a long way from another premise in the 24^th-century Star Trek that portrays humanity as a species no longer revolving around financial gain, and our collective betterment still depends on financial aspects of a multitude of things, including the sectors that power our daily living, from a fully-charged smartphone to air travel.

For the fossil fuel producers to find renewable energy and clean fuel viable enough to make a significant leap out of the oil fields, there maybe need to be two things to come together: the will of the entire humankind and a new resource that would fuel the downstream sectors that have been relying on oil and gas.  

In their net-zero pledges for 2050, issued at the beginning of this year, both Total and Shell refer to progressing towards a cleaner future “with society”. This year, and especially this autumn, both have made big moves in the clean energy realm, with Total entering another offshore wind project and Shell announcing the restructuring of its German business to revolve around hydrogen and offshore wind.

While oil is used in a spectrum of industries and for many products used for everyday convenience, the biggest market it is fuelling is transportation, be it by air, land, or sea. The transportation sector has started to change and, albeit slowly, it is on its way to cut fossil fuels out of the picture.

Electrical and, most recently, hydrogen-powered propulsions are gaining momentum across all fields of the sector.

In the air transport industry, which consumes large amounts of fuel, two breakthrough moments took place this September, one at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) and ZeroAvia, and one at Airbus.

Namely, on 21 September Airbus unveiled its zero-emissions concept aircraft fuelled by hydrogen. Four days later, EMEC and ZeroAvia, a developer of hydrogen fuel cell powertrain solutions, announced the completion of a hydrogen-electric test flight. According to the project partners, this was the world’s first hydrogen fuel cell-powered flight involving a commercial-sized aircraft.

EMEC, which boasted the first ever hydrogen production using electricity generated by a tidal energy device in 2017, is now supplying the hydrogen for flight tests in the HyFlyer project with ZeroAvia.

Presenting its own concept for three different aircraft types, Airbus has also pointed out that there needs to be more renewable energy capacity to power the production of green hydrogen.

“The transition to hydrogen, as the primary power source for these concept planes, will require decisive action from the entire aviation ecosystem. Together with the support from government and industrial partners we can rise up to this challenge to scale-up renewable energy and hydrogen for the sustainable future of the aviation industry”, said Guillaume Faury, Airbus CEO.

Urging the EU to support green hydrogen production over that facilitated by fossil fuels, the European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC) in September said that hydrogen “is an important alternative for sectors that are stuck in the fossil fuel economy”.

According to EASAC’s press release from 29 September, there should be a massive step-up of the build-out and production of renewable energy and green hydrogen, which can power the society and the biggest sectors, as well as each other when the hydrogen is produced by renewable energy.

“Electricity is a great way to decarbonize our economy. But important sectors such as ships, trucks, planes and steel production cannot easily be powered by electricity. To become climate neutral, they need a fuel that can be transported like oil or gasoline, or that can convert iron ore to steel at high temperatures like coal”, said William Gillett, EASAC’s Energy Programme Director. “The growing demand for hydrogen and synthetic fuels will require much more renewable electricity to be generated in the EU”.

With the EU member states and the European Parliament negotiating the EU’s hydrogen strategy, EASAC called for completely stopping the subsidies backing fossil fuels and increasing renewable energy capacity, which would power the rising demand for hydrogen.  

In their recent national hydrogen strategies, both Norway and Germany highlighted green hydrogen as a priority, referring to offshore wind as one of the drivers for such approach. However, they did not prioritise renewables-powered hydrogen production to an extent that would minimise the role of fossil fuels, having also included the so called grey and blue hydrogen in the mix.

This fact has incited plenty of criticism directed to the two governments. On the other hand, the strategies could eventually succumb to change, as grey hydrogen seems to have been incorporated solely as product to be used during the transitional period before there is enough renewable energy capacity to power green hydrogen production on a more massive scale.

To accommodate greater renewable energy capacity that will both power the households and the hydrogen production, offshore wind is rapidly becoming the go-to sector to the countries that have this (abundant) resource. The advantage of being able to install double-digit-output wind turbines in large arrays without hampering the onshore life is what potentially might put some countries in front of the others in the race for an energy system that is clean electricity- and green hydrogen-oriented.

National vows for more renewable energy are now turning into ambitions the countries worldwide are acting on, especially those with offshore wind plans.

As one of the most recent to raise the bar is the UK, which has just revealed that it will increase its offshore wind target for 2030, as of when there will be enough offshore wind in the country to power every home. Moreover, the country immediately issued a call for financial support for the development of large-scale manufacturing hubs at its ports, which would facilitate more efficient construction of giant offshore wind farms using big next-generation wind turbines.

That Big Oil’s thump we all must have heard in the past several days also involves offshore wind as a major part of its energy transition. With green hydrogen destined to become what oil is today, the vast expertise and resources of offshore oil & gas producers can, more or less easily, be transferred into the wind domain.

Joining Total and Shell with a 2050 pledge was also BP at the beginning of this year, saying it will pursue opportunities in new value chains such as hydrogen and carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS), among others. Six months later, the oil major said that it planned to reduce its oil & gas production by 40 per cent by 2030.

As more fossil fuel players get onboard the 2050 plans, with all expected to follow suit sooner or later, and more countries making concrete steps to facilitate bigger and faster build-out of necessary infrastructure, humans of the 2050 will most likely enjoy a clean energy world built by the first tangible blocks laid this year.

Written and edited by Adrijana Buljan, Offshore Wind; Contributions by: Nermina Kulović, Fossil Energy, and Amir Garanović, Marine Energy.