The Infrastructure Podcast: Episode 18

Guest: Dr Angie Needle, Director of Strategy, Cadent Gas

Busting the hydrogen myths 

This podcast sets out to bust the myths and expose the realities around our hydrogen future – explaining how this fuel can really fit in the UK’s net zero carbon energy future and understanding the infrastructure challenges of making the ambition a reality. 

There is no dispute that when it comes to energy sources, hydrogen is one of the cleanest around. No carbon emissions are released when it’s burned as a domestic of industrial replacement for fossil fuels such as natural gas and coal. And when used in at fuel cell to power vehicles, it is reckoned that the fuel cell is around two to three times more efficient than a conventional internal combustion engine.

So given that in 2019 the UK emitted 351.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from the use of fossil fuels, representing over 80% of the UK’s total greenhouse gas emissions, it is clear that harnessing the power of a clean fuel such as hydrogen must be part of our net zero carbon future.

If the UK is to meet its legally binding targets to be a net-zero emitter by 2050, we have to radically rethink the way we heat our homes, run our vehicles and power our industry. Hydrogen is part of this radical rethink, alongside the switch to renewable electricity generation and the drive towards using less by insulating homes and redesigning industrial processes. 

In addition, hydrogen has huge potential as an efficient and cost effective means to store and transport energy – particularly useful when smoothing the power output from intermittent renewable generation. 

The challenge – and the reason so often quoted as to why hydrogen can never be a serious part of the UK’s energy mix – is how to create the vast qualities of hydrogen required to replace the current global fossil fuel demand. Problems of cost and complexity continue to make the gas difficult to produce commercially.

So what is the truth about hydrogen. It is the solution to our energy transition needs or simply a technical dead-end. Well to find out, it is my pleasure to welcome Dr Angie Needle, Director of Strategy at Cadent Gas and Vice President of Hydrogen UK who is without question one of the UK’s leading hydrogen and net-zero energy minds and so well capable of exploding the myths around the UK’s hydrogen future.

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