While water isn't a fuel, it can be used to make planet-friendly "green hydrogen," which could help us wean off dirty energy sources like coal and oil — and low-carbon eFuels producer Infinium is leading the way.
The Washington Post reported that the company is on a mission to decarbonize the transportation industry — specifically heavy-duty vehicles such as planes, ships, and long-haul trucks.
At Infinium's eFuels production facility in Corpus Christi, Texas, which it touts as the world's first commercial-scale synthetic fuel plant, a process called electrolysis extracts hydrogen from water molecules. From there, it's transformed into cleaner-burning diesel by combining carbon captured from nearby refineries with green hydrogen into a result that is chemically the same as regular diesel.
If you're wondering how this is more sustainable than traditional gas since it still requires carbon, the answer lies in how it's produced. Instead of releasing carbon into the air from burning oil, the process captures and recycles carbon that already exists, essentially canceling out the pollution.
In addition, wind turbines near Infinium's plant supply the Texas grid with clean energy, providing the facility with renewable electricity — a key component of producing truly green hydrogen.
If only renewable energy powers the electrolysis making the hydrogen and the carbon capturing process, at least, the outcome is a diesel fuel that adds no new carbon to the air. Still, currently the fuel relies on carbon capture from six oil refineries and thus relies on the use of fossil fuels, so the carbon is still coming from dirty energy. But acknowledging the world is not going to cease all use of fossil fuels any time soon, maximizing the value of that fuel in this way can really only be seen as an improvement over the status quo.
Company CEO Robert Schuetzle told the Post that Infinium pays extra to ensure that wind turbines and solar farms in the area generate as much electricity as the plant uses.
However, according to the Post, which cited data from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, renewables only supply about 40% of the power on Texas' electric grid. That means most of the hydrogen is still produced from dirty fuels, which can be even worse for the atmosphere than the traditional process using natural gas, per the nonprofit Energy Innovation.
But even though less than 1% of current annual hydrogen production is totally green, as clean energy tech company Heliogen reported, that's expected to increase rapidly as wind and solar become a larger part of the energy mix. When that happens, green hydrogen has the potential to seriously clean up the transportation sector and make a big dent in planet-warming pollution.
According to the International Energy Agency, plants that produce green hydrogen could eliminate 4% of global carbon pollution by 2050.
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In addition, as advancements are made in hydrogen fuel cells and prices come down, that will help cut even more pollution since the only byproduct of pure hydrogen is water vapor, as the Post explained.
A Honda-backed company recently unveiled a versatile hydrogen fuel cell that could be a game-changer for the shipping and construction industries. China even launched a hydrogen-powered high-speed train that can travel for nearly 750 miles before needing recharging.
As hydrogen technologies evolve, we can look forward to a new era of cheap, clean travel and a healthier planet.
Jules Verne foresaw in his futuristic novel "The Mysterious Island" that "water will be the coal of the future," and we couldn't agree more.
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