Seventh International Conference on Technologies and Combustion for a Clean Environment - July 2003, Lisbon (Portugal) 1 Socio-economic Aspects of the Hydrogen Economy Development F. Di Mario, A. Iacobazzi, R. Infusino, A. Mattucci, ENEA, Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Project, C.R. Casaccia, Via Anguillarese 301, Rome, Italy

Seventh International Conference on Technologies and Combustion for a Clean Environment - July 2003, Lisbon (Portugal) 2 Summary u u The framework of the study u u The EU energy issues u u The hydrogen as energy carrier u u Possible hydrogen scenarios u u Results u u Final considerations

Seventh International Conference on Technologies and Combustion for a Clean Environment - July 2003, Lisbon (Portugal) 3 The context The study has been carried out as a Fast-Track for European Science and Technology Observatory (ESTO) network, coordinated from the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies. ESTO main objectives are related to trans-national prospective analysis and advice on science and technology changes relevant to EU society, economy and policy. ESTO is presently composed of a core of twenty European institutions

Seventh International Conference on Technologies and Combustion for a Clean Environment - July 2003, Lisbon (Portugal) 4 The framework conditions u The Green Paper from the European Commission states that the most important issues related to energy are for EU:  Global climate change  Security of energy supply u Kyoto protocol target achievement (8% of CO 2 reduction in for EU15 respect to 1990) is uncertain; in any case this target is not enough to stop planet warming, but only to delay it u In fact, after 2010 the energy demand will continue to increase; 2030 forecasts give CO 2 emissions increasing more than 20% respect to Kyoto target

Seventh International Conference on Technologies and Combustion for a Clean Environment - July 2003, Lisbon (Portugal) 5 Global climate change u The consequence is that additional effort is required to reduce the CO 2 emissions. The most effective recipes are:  efficiency improvement, with reduction of fossil fuel consumption (short term);  use of low-carbon or carbon-free energy sources (natural gas, renewables, nuclear);  separation and sequestration of the CO 2 produced from fossil fuels. But even these reduction will be unable to stabilise atmospheric CO 2 concentration, if fossil fuels will be the main sources (50-70% in 2050, according with IIASA-WEC scenarios)

Seventh International Conference on Technologies and Combustion for a Clean Environment - July 2003, Lisbon (Portugal) 6 Security of energy supply Big issues of energy supply for EU are: u The energy supply is mainly provided from non-EU countries u Poor control on the supply side u The only ways to reduce the demand require measures on residential and transport sectors, but they are hard to be implemented Therefore innovative solutions are to be investigated, such as the Hydrogen

Seventh International Conference on Technologies and Combustion for a Clean Environment - July 2003, Lisbon (Portugal) 7 Reference conditions in 2030 for EU30 The Green Paper states that: “ there are the following challenges:  energy import dependence is around 70 % in 2030,  renewable energy does not reach its target of 12 % share of primary energy,  Kyoto objectives are not met,  the absence of nuclear energy would make it even more difficult to tackle climate change in the long term.”

Seventh International Conference on Technologies and Combustion for a Clean Environment - July 2003, Lisbon (Portugal) 8 Future scenarios for CO 2 Trend of worldwide annual Carbon emissions under IPCC B1 scenario Comparison between CO 2 annual emission forecasts for EU30

Seventh International Conference on Technologies and Combustion for a Clean Environment - July 2003, Lisbon (Portugal) 9 Why Hydrogen? Hydrogen can be a viable solution as: u Is CO 2 and pollutant emissions-free at the final use (transport, electricity production, etc.), while emissions can be heavily reduced during the production processes u Can be obtained from a variety of different primary sources (fossil, renewable, nuclear) u Can have higher efficiency, especially if converted in fuel cells, therefore reducing overall CO 2 emissions, even if separation and sequestration are not carried out (whenever H 2 is produced from fossil fuels)

Seventh International Conference on Technologies and Combustion for a Clean Environment - July 2003, Lisbon (Portugal) 10 A vision for the future Hydrogen society H 2

Seventh International Conference on Technologies and Combustion for a Clean Environment - July 2003, Lisbon (Portugal) 11 Hydrogen scenarios for environment preservation Two hydrogen penetration scenarios have been considered, both of them based on the lower curve of the previous figure (about 2050 Mt of CO 2 less than the baseline in 2030): u scenario A, ( high hydrogen penetration ), characterised by an early introduction of the hydrogen, that covers a significant share of the total EU30 energy; u scenario B, (low hydrogen penetration ), with a H 2 penetration in longer times; H 2 covers only a share of few % of the total EU30 energy in 2030.

Seventh International Conference on Technologies and Combustion for a Clean Environment - July 2003, Lisbon (Portugal) 12 Scenario A features  Hydrogen is produced from fossil sources in centralised plants whose size is of about 100 Mt/year (I.e. 286 Mtep/year), with partial or total separation and sequestration of CO 2 ;  hydrogen is produced also from renewables, whose market covers 22% of total energy in 2030 (mainly from biomasses); beyond 2020, also thermo-chemical processes are available;  infrastructures are available on the EU territory both for stationary use and traction in 2030;  industrial enterprises and services are also available for the required hydrogen technologies (from the production to the final use of the hydrogen);  a significant share of hydrogen vehicles is deployed for road transport (starting with buses and city goods delivery vehicles and then including private cars); technologies are mainly based on fuel cells (66 millions of vehicles in EU30);  fuel cell systems of different size for distributed generation/cogeneration (from a few kW to a few tens of MW) have been also deployed.

Seventh International Conference on Technologies and Combustion for a Clean Environment - July 2003, Lisbon (Portugal) 13 Scenario B features  Hydrogen is produced from fossil sources (28 Mt/year corresponding to 80 Mtep/year), in a few centralised plants, with CO 2 separation and sequestration, and in smaller plants near to final users, with CO 2 separation for industrial uses;  hydrogen production from renewable sources is limited (about 3Mt/year);  infrastructures and services have been developed only in some regions and normally located near the production plants;  hydrogen vehicles are mainly used in public transport and captive fleets, where the availability of infrastructures can be better overcome, with a total of 14 millions of vehicles in EU30;  the hydrogen penetration is easier for the stationary market sectors where the availability of diffused infrastructures is not required.

Seventh International Conference on Technologies and Combustion for a Clean Environment - July 2003, Lisbon (Portugal) 14 Hydrogen benefits in terms of CO 2

Seventh International Conference on Technologies and Combustion for a Clean Environment - July 2003, Lisbon (Portugal) 15 Hydrogen benefits in terms of pollutant emissions Scenario A Scenario B

Seventh International Conference on Technologies and Combustion for a Clean Environment - July 2003, Lisbon (Portugal) 16 Hydrogen cost evaluation (billions of €)

Seventh International Conference on Technologies and Combustion for a Clean Environment - July 2003, Lisbon (Portugal) 17 Final Considerations The most relevant effects of future hydrogen introduction are:  Consistent benefits are resulting, especially in terms of CO 2 emission reduction; therefore economic savings are possible, avoiding additional measures to cut emissions  Considerable reduction of pollutant emissions is also attained and this can have very positive impacts in urban areas  Considering constant the oil price in the medium-long term (safe assumption), hydrogen costs are high, but affordable, keeping in mind that other measures are needed if environmental targets have to be met; of course the H 2 economic impact would be significantly lower if oil price increases.  The high effort to promote the hydrogen introduction in the energy market can create technological opportunities and increase the European competitiveness in the economic field

Seventh International Conference on Technologies and Combustion for a Clean Environment - July 2003, Lisbon (Portugal) 18 References A full copy of the report Socio-economic Aspects of the Hydrogen Economy Development Author(s): F. Di Mario, A. Iacobazzi, R. Infusino, A. Mattucci, A. Soria (ed.) EUR No: EUR EN Year: 2003 ISBN: can be downloaded from the site: