ith the discussion about

green hydrogen (H

) gain-

ing momentum over the

past couple of years, the question

also arises as to how we can cover

the huge amounts of hydrogen need-

ed to decarbonise various industrial

sectors in the future. This question

is posed too in the context of the

IEA’s prediction that, already by

2030, worldwide hydrogen demand

will reach around 180 million tons.

To cover this huge hunger for

green hydrogen, an increasing num-

ber of proposals suggest producing

hydrogen in sunny regions such as

the Saharan countries or Australia.

Similarly, regions blessed with con-

sistent wind conditions, such as the

Patagonian region in the South of

Chile and Argentina, come into

play. In these areas, the conditions

for renewable energy production –

the inevitable prerequisite for green

hydrogen – are eminently favour-

able in that they deliver affordable

green energy and, consequently, sig-

nicantly reduce the cost of green

hydrogen.

But how to bring this economical-

ly-produced green hydrogen to

those world regions where the ener-

gy need is greatest? The remoteness

of these potential, new hydrogen

hubs make pipelines impracticable,

while transporting hydrogen by ship

is technically complicated owing to

both its low volumetric energy-den-

sity and high fugacity. A much easi-

er solution would be to further con-

vert the hydrogen, with the help of

power-to-X technology, into syn-

thetic fuels such as synthetic natural

gas (SNG) or methanol with both

fuels then easily transportable using

current infrastructure. As an exam-

ple, SNG is more or less pure meth-

ane and, thus, existing LNG infra-

structure can be used for its

transportation. The same situation

applies to methanol, which is al-

ready traded worldwide as a stan-

dard chemical. Of course, other

transport media like ammonia and

LOHC (Liquid Organic Hydrogen

Carrier) are available as well, and

we expect to see a broad mix of me-

dia being established over the next

decade.

Upon transportation to Europe,

such fuels could then either be con-

verted back to green hydrogen or

used directly as climate-neutral fu-

els. For example, SNG can already

power today’s gas-engine power

plants and ‘green’ them without sig-

nicant technical adjustment. Simi-

larly, methanol-running engines for

power plants are also a viable pros-

pect. Additionally, such synthetic

fuels are also urgently required to

decarbonise sectors such as ship-

ping, aviation and the chemical in-

dustry where new markets with new

off-takers are imminent.

But what is often left out of the

hydrogen discussion, is that the pro-

duction of these fuels requires an-

other raw material, namely carbon.

An example: to produce 4 kg of

SNG requires 1 kg of green hydro-

gen and nearly 11 kg of carbon di-

oxide (CO

This makes the discussion ambig-

uous: on the one hand, we need to

reduce carbon emissions as much as

possible to prevent global warming,

but on the other hand carbon is

needed as a raw material to produce

the synthetic fuels urgently required

to reduce emissions from sectors

that cannot be directly electried,

including the aforementioned ship-

ping, aviation and chemical industry

sectors.

Therefore, the discussion must be

broadened. Besides green-hydrogen

strategies – which are currently ad-

opted by many governments world-

wide – there has to be discussion

around carbon management and

both views must be reconciled. The

main question then becomes how to

supply enough carbon for synthetic-

fuel production in the future without

causing harmful emissions to the

atmosphere.

The answer mainly lies in carbon-

capture technology. This facilitates

the capture of inevitable carbon

emissions, for example those from

industrial processes, preventing

them from entering the atmosphere.

A look at the cement industry, re-

sponsible for 8 per cent of world-

wide CO

emissions, shows that

two-thirds of these emissions are

caused by the process and thus can-

not be reduced by using a climate-

neutral energy source. Accordingly,

such ‘hard-to-abate’ industries ur-

gently need carbon-capture technol-

ogy to reduce their harmful atmo-

spheric emissions.

What happens to the captured car-

bon afterwards? Certain countries,

such as Norway, the Netherlands

and Canada, send it underground –

mostly to exploited gas elds – for

storage, a process called Carbon

Capture and Storage (CCS). But

you can also take the idea further

and bring this captured carbon back

into the cycle for use in synthetic-

fuel production, called Carbon Cap-

ture and Utilisation (CCU). The vi-

sion is to create a circular system

where carbon is captured, transport-

ed, stored and re-used – for example

in synthetic-fuel production.

For some, this may seem like a

bold vision but the carbon-capture

technology is already proven and in

use in various projects globally. As

an example, MAN Energy Solutions

compressors are already used in

more than 20 carbon capture projects

worldwide. Currently, the world’s

rst large-scale carbon capture plant

for the cement industry is under con-

struction for Heidelberg Materials in

Brevik, Norway, which will help re-

duce emissions from the cement

plant by around 50 per cent or 400

000 t CO

annually.

While the current projects in Nor-

way, the Netherlands and Canada –

and, following the US Ination Re-

duction Act, carbon capture

technologies are also building mo-

mentum there – show that the tech-

nology is already available and ma-

ture, unfortunately carbon capture is

often viewed as just standalone

technology and not connected to a

broader picture. However, there is

no doubt that carbon capture has not

only the potential to reduce inevita-

ble emissions from hard-to-abate in-

dustries, but also has the ability to

supply enough carbon as a raw ma-

terial to produce the huge amounts

of synthetic fuels that will be need-

ed in the future. Furthermore, car-

bon can easily be compressed,

stored and shipped to remote hydro-

gen hubs the world over.

Accordingly, hydrogen, power-to-

X and carbon capture are not com-

peting technologies, rather they are

all part of a bigger picture and we

need them all to prevent climate

change. But what’s needed to make

sure that carbon-capture technolo-

gies support a hydrogen economy?

Ideally, some kind of worldwide

deposit system for carbon needs to

be created which enables its cap-

ture, storage, transport and re-use to

create a circular economy. The basic

idea begins with hydrogen produc-

tion at a remote location, its subse-

quent shipping as synthetic fuel –

for example to Europe – and its use

or conversion back to hydrogen.

During this process, any emitted

carbon is captured and shipped back

to the remote hydrogen hub, and the

circle begins again.

Of course, this requires the build-

ing up of a dedicated, worldwide in-

frastructure to transport, handle,

store and trade carbon that comple-

ments the hydrogen and synthetic

fuels infrastructure. In the mid-term,

a CO

pipeline network is needed to

transport the captured carbon from

industrial emitters to either a nearby

power-to-X or storage facility, or a

port from where it can be shipped

overseas. Such ports will also re-

quire the infrastructure to store and

handle compressed CO

as well as a

worldwide eet with CO

-transport-

tankers.

The capture and re-use of carbon

also needs to be incentivised to

make it economically viable to in-

vest in such technologies. One ap-

proach to this could be to introduce

certicates of origin to create trans-

parency around the origin of the

used carbon: is it carbon that has al-

ready circled round? Thus, synthetic

fuels produced with ‘recycled’ car-

bon would be labelled as such and

its use incentivised. Ideally, users

would be further rewarded for re-

capturing the carbon and bringing it

back to the cycle.

Finally, it needs to be emphasised

in this discussion that carbon-cap-

ture technology does not interfere

with the much needed ramping-up

of renewable energies, rather it is a

complementary technology that is

necessary to supply carbon as the

raw material needed in the power-

to-x process to produce synthetic fu-

els. Carbon-capture technology

should not be used to ‘greenwash’

oil or coal red power plants, and

prolong their life-span when they

could just as easily be replaced by

renewable or lower-emission energy

sources. Also, even if such carbon

cycles can take up large volumes of

, they cannot replace the strong

need to decarbonise processes emit-

ting CO

wherever possible.

Accordingly, in the future, CO

must not only be viewed as the

source of harmful emissions but

also as a raw material that can play

a pivotal role in the hydrogen and

synthetic-fuel production chain. Ul-

timately, we will need both a world-

wide hydrogen and carbon economy

that are closely connected.

Sebastian Schnurrer is Business De-

velopment Manager Power at MAN

Energy Solutions.

While hydrogen-

based fuels are

urgently needed for

decarbonisation, it

is often forgotten

that their production

requires carbon.

MAN Energy

Solutions’

Sebastian Schnurrer

explains why it must

also be viewed as a

raw material.

Carbon: a forgotten factor in

the hydrogen discussion?

THE ENERGY INDUSTRY TIMES - MARCH 2023

Industry Perspective

Schnurrer: We need to reduce

carbon emissions as much

as possible to prevent global

warming, but on the other

hand carbon is needed as a

raw material to produce the

synthetic fuels

MAN Energy Solutions

compressors are already used

in more than 20 carbon-capture

projects worldwide