Lifecycle Assessments | Hydrogen Delivery

Lifecycle  Assessments | Hydrogen Delivery

Renewable hydrogen is expected to play an important role in European decarbonisation efforts. A previous JRC study showed that importing hydrogen from a location where renewable energy is cheaper can be more cost effective than producing it locally. However, the environmental impact of transporting large amounts of hydrogen over long distances has not been fully understood yet. Our work aims at advancing this field by comparing the life cycle environmental impacts of three options for delivering hydrogen from a distant location (i.e., hydrogen compression, liquefaction, and chemical bonding to other molecules) to on-site production via steam methane reforming (SMR) or electrolysis. Ammonia, liquid organic compounds, methanol, and synthetic natural gas were considered as potential hydrogen chemical carriers.

The goal is to understand whether importing hydrogen could make sense from an environmental perspective, and if so, which is the option with the lowest impact among the environmental categories considered in this study. Impacts are assessed covering the delivery chain from hydrogen production, through its conversion into a suitable carrier for transportation (ships and pipelines are considered), to the supply of pure hydrogen to an industrial user.

A distance (2 500 km) compatible with European territory, corresponding to a large delivery of hydrogen produced in Portugal and used in the Netherlands, and a timeframe extending beyond 2030 were considered. The Environmental Footprint (EF) impact assessment method of the European Commission (impact on 16 environmental categories summarized in a single score) was used for the assessment.

Contrasting results are obtained for the different environmental impact categories considered: while all the delivery options would guarantee a supply of hydrogen with a lower global warming potential than on-site production via fossil fuels, producing hydrogen locally via SMR would generate lower impacts in 12 of the 16 environmental impact categories considered, including the use of natural resources such as water, land, and minerals and metals. When the overall environmental impact is expressed as a single score using the normalization and weighting factors of the EF impact assessment method, all the delivery options would guarantee an environmental advantage compared to on-site fossil-based productions (without carbon capture). Renewable liquid hydrogen transported by ship and compressed hydrogen transported by pipeline prove to be the most environmentally friendly options to deliver hydrogen for the 2 500-km distance considered in the assessment.

The transportation efficiency advantage of packing hydrogen into more manageable carriers does not seem to translate in an environmental impact advantage. On the contrary, the energy required to pack the carrier at the hydrogen production site and unpack it at the delivery site significantly increase the impact with respect to the compressed and liquid hydrogen options

Hydrogen Shipping