Abstract
Modern trends in the global energy market linked to the Sustainable Development Goals often lead to the adoption of political decisions with little basis in fact. Stepping up the development of renewable energy sources is an economically questionable but necessary step in terms of its social and ecological effects. However, subsequent development of hydrogen infrastructure is, at the very least, a dangerous initiative. In connection with mentioned above, an attempt to examine hydrogen by conducting an integral assessment of its characteristics has been made in this article. As a result of the research conducted, the following conclusions concerning the potential of the widespread implementation of hydrogen in the power generation sector have been made: as a chemical element, it harms steel structures, which significantly impedes the selection of suitable materials; its physical and volume characteristics decrease the general efficiency of the energy system compared to similar hydrocarbon solutions; the hydrogen economy does not have the necessary foundation in terms of both physical infrastructure and market regulation mechanisms; the emergence of widely available hydrogen poses a danger for society due to its high combustibility. Following the results of the study, it was concluded that the existing pilot hydrogen projects are positive yet not scalable solutions for the power generation sector due to the lack of available technologies to construct large-scale and geographically distributed infrastructure and adequate international system of industry regulation. Thus, under current conditions, the risks of implementing such projects considerably exceed their potential ecological benefits.
Highlights
The power generation sector forms the backbone of the economy and is a fundamental driver of its development
To name a just a few, governments of European Union countries are attempting to decarbonize their economies by directing all resources toward the use of energy carriers with low carbon footprints both by introducing strict tax regulation measures (Fig.1) and by implementing programs to co-finance society’s transition to alternative power generation, which amounts to billions of Euros
To understand the processes of ensuring universal access to inexpensive, reliable, sustainable and modern sources of global energy, it is necessary to have an in-depth knowledge of the search for and implementation of the advanced technologies, which are accelerating the energy transition
Summary
The power generation sector forms the backbone of the economy and is a fundamental driver of its development. The issues of infrastructural development in many contemporary studies [22] are limited to the separate stages of production and logistic chain (production, transportation, storage or consumption) or combinations thereof This is linked to the fact that while there are about 3,000 km of hydrogen gas pipelines worldwide [34], the assessments of the resources required to modernize existing energy distribution systems are still hampered. Taking into account objective issues with the social perception of these atomic power plants as well as their limited role in the global energy balance, this hydrogen resource is insignificant [36] It is worth mentioning the extremely promising technologies of hydrogen production from methane without access to oxygen (direct pyrolysis, low-temperature plasma, etc.) and without CO2 emissions [2]. Hydrogen from Steam reformation methane and water of natural gas СН4 + 2Н2O 4H2 + CO2
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