System-friendly process design: Optimizing blue hydrogen production for future energy systems

Schalk Cloete, Carlos Arnaiz del Pozo and Ángel Jiménez Álvaro

Energy, 2022, vol. 259, issue C

Abstract: While the effects of ongoing cost reductions in renewables, batteries, and electrolyzers on future energy systems have been extensively investigated, the effects of significant advances in CO2 capture and storage (CCS) technologies have received much less attention. This research gap is addressed via a long-term (2050) energy system model loosely based on Germany, yielding four main findings. First, CCS-enabled pathways offer the greatest benefits in the hydrogen sector, where hydrogen prices can be reduced by two-thirds relative to a scenario without CCS. Second, advanced blue hydrogen technologies can reduce total system costs by 12% and enable negative CO2 emissions due to higher efficiencies and CO2 capture ratios. Third, co-gasification of coal and biomass emerged as an important enabler of these promising results, allowing efficient exploitation of limited biomass resources to achieve negative emissions and limit the dependence on imported natural gas. Finally, CCS decarbonization pathways can practically and economically incorporate substantial shares of renewable energy to reduce fossil fuel dependence. Such diversification of primary energy inputs increases system resilience to the broad range of socio-techno-economic challenges facing the energy transition. In conclusion, balanced blue-green pathways offer many benefits and deserve serious consideration in the global decarbonization effort.

Keywords: CO2 capture and storage; Blue hydrogen; Techno-economic assessment; Energy systems modelling; Decarbonization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544222018539
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:259:y:2022:i:c:s0360544222018539

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2022.124954

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().