Challenges and solutions for scaling clean hydrogen were the focus of discussions during the Parliamentary Breakfast hosted by MEP Andrea Wechsler (EPP Group in the European Parliament) and Future Cleantech Architects on Wednesday. Participants also discussed how to shape effective policies for a competitive, net-zero European Union. Some of our insights from the discussion are:
✅Hydrogen is predominantly used in refineries (~58% of European demand), ammonia production—mainly for fertilizer synthesis— (~25%), and methanol and other chemicals (~11%).
✅Hydrogen production accounts for up to 3% of the EU’s annual emissions. Almost all of European hydrogen production, ~96%, is still from una bated fossil fuels, mainly through natural gas. Low-carbon H2 can only meet a minimal fraction of today’s European demand.
✅Clean hydrogen will continue to remain scarce in the near future because it relies on the availability of clean electricity and CCS infrastructure.
A big thank you to the attendees for their active participation, including Thomas Pellerin-Carlin, Aude Labaste, and Bruno Tobback (Socialists and Democrats Group in the European Parliament), Stanislaw Krzyzanowski, Henrike Sophie Mohr, and Laura Strobel (EPP), Gregor Erbach (European Parliamentary Research Service), Igor Vidal (Mission of Brazil to the EU), and Johanna Schiele (EU Environment and Climate).
For more information on our work on hydrogen, please see our recently released Hydrogen Factsheet!
