Shell’s green hydrogen factory: a solar panel on a petrol pump – De Correspondent

ow a modest construction site on the windy Tweede Maasvlakte, soon Shell’s very latest factory. Under the sway of wind turbine blades, the oil and gas giant is building a place where, starting in 2026, sixty thousand kilos of ‘green hydrogen’ will be produced every day: Holland Hydrogen 1. ^*

Ben van Beurden, then CEO of Shell, at the announcement in 2022, said :

We are building the factory of the future

But the factory, which Shell sees as a ‘ new chapter in the energy transition’, ^* in reality hardly yields any gain for the climate. This becomes clear when we calculate the CO2 footprint of Shell’s products, with and without the green hydrogen from the new factory.

That sustainable energy experts ^* and even an environmental organization like Greenpeace ^* nevertheless see the factory as a good move, shows how complex the energy transition is in practice. Shell is the only one, they say, that can build such a factory at the moment. And that exposes a broader problem: we have become dependent on fossil companies, in the task of getting rid of fossil fuels.

Green hydrogen is the future

Hydrogen: the tiniest atom of all, perhaps best known for its presence in water (as the ‘H’ in ‘H2O’). Hydrogen is by far the most abundant element in the universe, and you could consider it the most fundamental building block of the universe. It’s not for nothing that hydrogen has atomic number 1. ^*

Unlike fossil fuels, pure hydrogen is not extracted from natural sources or pumped from the ground. Pure hydrogen, a colorless and odorless gas, is made in a factory. This can be done simply by electrifying water to separate the H’s and O’s – and voilà, pure hydrogen gas.

Like natural gas, hydrogen is flammable. ^* When hydrogen gas is burned, no CO2 is released, only water. This property makes it an alternative to fossil fuels.

When a hydrogen plant runs on renewable electricity from wind turbines or solar panels, the hydrogen produced has a zero CO2 footprint, is climate neutral and can be called ‘green hydrogen’.

A gas that you can produce and burn without CO2 emissions: that sounds ideal within the context of the energy transition.

Industry is eyeing green hydrogen. Particularly in sectors where it is difficult to replace fossil fuels such as coal or oil with electricity, green hydrogen is seen as the way to become CO2-free. Think of the steel industry, ^* the production of artificial fertilizer ^* or trucks that have to travel long distances. ^*

Another often-mentioned application of hydrogen: it can serve as a backup for the energy system, ^* necessary in a future with only green electricity. You can burn it – just like natural gas – in power stations to generate electricity during periods when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing

Shell’s Holland Hydrogen 1 plant, which will be connected to wind turbines in the North Sea, ^* will be Europe’s largest green hydrogen plant upon completion.

Expectations are high. Rotterdam wants to become the green hydrogen hub of Europe. ^* The hydrogen pipeline from Holland Hydrogen 1 will be expanded in the coming decades to a network that not only covers the Netherlands, but is also connected to the rest of the continent via Belgium and Germany. ^* The EU sees green hydrogen as a ‘key component’ of its transition strategy and wants it to cover no less than 10 percent of the total energy requirement in 2050. That share is currently almost zero. ^*

You could say that Shell is doing well with Holland Hydrogen 1 in promoting the energy transition and combating climate change.

From green to gray

But the green sheen quickly disappears when you follow the route of the (now partly constructed) underground gas pipe – the pipe through which the future green hydrogen will leave the factory and travel to its destination

By: hydrogen-central. January 18, 2025