PIERRE-ETIENNE FRANC / PASCAL MATEO Preface by Pascal Lamy Hydro- gen: the energy transition in the making!

2 manifestô manifestô

Manifest texts that place the new environmental and societal issues at the heart of the debate.

Other titles of the collection:

• Cradle to Cradle William McDonough / Michael Braungart • Nos enfants nous accuseront Jean-Paul Jaud / Anne-Laure Murier • Terra Madre Carlo Petrini • Changeons de cap, changeons de Pac! José Bové / Gilles Luneau • Vive la COrévolution! Anne-Sophie Novel / Stéphane Riot • L’Âge de l’Homme Christian Schwägerl • La Métamorphose numérique Sous la direction de Francis Jutand

• La Vie share Anne-Sophie Novel

• Vers un nouveau mode de ville Vidal Benchimol / Stéphanie Lemoine • Ré-enchanter le monde Sous la direction de Marie-Hélène Contal • La ville rebelle Sous la direction de Jana Revedin • Semences hors-la-loi Blanche Magarinos-Rey Hydrogen: the energy transition in the making! English translation: Margaret Ganong

© Éditions Gallimard Collection Alternatives 5 rue Gaston-Gallimard Paris VIIe – 2015 www.editionsalternatives.com Hydrogen: the energy transition in the making!

PIERRE-ÉTIENNE FRANC in collaboration with PASCAL MATEO

Preface by PASCAL LAMY

manifestô Table of contents

8 Preface by Pascal Lamy 13 Introduction

19 Chapter 1 One molecule, many applications 21 Hydrogen, a unique molecule 25 Many applications 30 Energy uses for today and tomorrow 37 Challenges for the future

41 Chapter 2 Produce, store and transport 42 Produce 53 Store 58 Transport and distribute

65 Chapter 3 A vector of the energy transition 66 No real transition without the integration of energy and transportation 74 No decarbonization of transportation without electriication 80 No electriication of transportation without clean hydrogen 85 Chapter 4 The roadblocks to be lifted 86 Lifting the psychological barriers 94 Resolving the question of funding

123 Chapter 5 A new model for new energy 124 A decisive issue for Europe 130 A wager on the future 134 Dedicated inancial instruments? 138 Too much caution kills initiative 140 Market and politics

145 Conclusion 153 Acknowledgements 154 Biographies

Clicking on this logo will take readers to the website: ➜ 2 www.hydrogenetransitionenergetique.fr Preface

As I write, Europe is slowly emerging from a crisis like others it has experienced, except that this time European unity has taken a hit. The conlict between European solidarity and European responsi- bility within the family of the Union’s member states came to the forefront during the Greek drama. While we can rejoice that a solution was found, it is in fact one that takes us along a narrow, uncertain ridge. Today, Europe is looking for a second wind. On the eve of the ninetieth birthday of Jacques Delors, the man who for a long time inspired a “certain vision of Europe,” this observation is necessarily bitter. On this occasion, Jacques Delors restated how important it is for Europe to rediscover the moral dimension at the heart of its project. There are plenty of reasons to give the European adventure a second wind, beginning with the imperious need to wield clout against the world’s major geopolitical groupings being built around it – powerful, homogenous and determined. A divided Europe would probably signal the end of our models, our values, our dreams of power and sovereignty. In the list of projects that can help to construct a new European mission, energy-related issues are likely to be among the most meaningful, for several reasons. First of all, the problem of the energy transition goes to the heart of questions about civilization, an area where Europe has always aspired to show the way, because it involves putting the entire planet on a consumption pathway that is compatible with the preservation of the resources that have been entrusted to us. Without falling into the trap of naïve optimism, Europe continues to want to incarnate a moral conscience for the planet and after

8 Hydrogen : the energy transition in the making! successfully maintaining peace within its ranks, for which it won a Nobel Prize, it is truly the planetary ecosystem that should constitute the new horizon for peace. Not only because this is an existential issue, but also because it opens up the possibility of tackling a number of other challenges that are of immediate concern for Europe – growth, cooperation and integration. Secondly, the solutions that are becoming more compelling each day when it comes to making this transition attest to the return of human ingenuity at the service of society, the return of technology at the service of a desirable future. Indeed, we will not succeed in shifting to a renewable world where electricity is competitive without considerable technological developments. And this return to belief in the virtues of technical progress is also a return to the foundations of Enlightenment philosophy, the cauldron of the European project. It seems to me that the progress made in the ield of hydrogen, presented in this book, ofers an eloquent illustration of the way the dreams of Jules Verne become realizable. Other sectors – wind, solar, hydraulic, nuclear tomorrow and fusion thereafter – are not standing still. It is not trivial to observe that the global ITER fusion project is hosted on European soil and largely backed by European technologies. Thirdly, we Europeans are lucky to have among us some of the most ingenious players on the planet when it comes to energy matters, whether this means France’s savoir-faire in nuclear energy, Germany’s “Energiewende,” the sustainable energy ecosystem in the Scandinavian countries, or Europe’s expertise in industrial gases and hydrogen technologies. This expertise runs the gamut from cutting-edge research and development and start-ups to the utility operators, major equipment and power plants manufacturers. Moreover, it is worth noting that the developments required to roll out this energy transition are great job generators and play a role in the reconstruction of a regionally-driven economy, more decentralized, more local, more integrated with the business

9 Preface sectors that it irrigates. The impact on our trade balances and our collective public debt – weighed down by an energy bill that comes to more than 450 billion euros a year – of a reshoring of our energy resources would also be considerable, even without factoring in the geopolitical liberty that such an evolution would ofer. Europe has the opportunity to become a pioneer in the energy transition and hence to promote a model of economic growth that is less destructive to the environment. But perhaps the most essential feature of this dynamic resides in what this book endeavors to explain, i.e., the necessity – if our change of model is to be successful – of revisiting the relation- ships, roles and responsibilities of the various actors in society, driven by a social democratic mindset that is, ultimately, very European. In fact, there will be no successful energy transition without political instruments and without institutional, inancing and collaboration frameworks, fully integrated across industries, public policymakers and citizens. There will be no industry engagement in the deployment of heavy alternative infrastructures without strong support from regulation and without adequate, dedicated insurance tools that can organize the synergy between political powers and market players. There will be no afordable success in the energy transition wager without the mobilization of citizens. And there will be no mobilization of citizens without a clear conviction that the shift from one model to another will be virtuous for the citizen as well as for the society as a whole. We are in a unique situation, where the positive collective externalities of the energy transition are building the dynamic of the market and enabling a new balance to be struck between the aspirations of the collective and the individual, the industrial and the political. In this context, the European public/private development model that constitutes the joint undertaking over which the author presides is part of these European originalities that promote the convergence of public policy and private commitments. Lastly, this work reminds us that we are not isolated. Hydrogen,

10 Hydrogen : the energy transition in the making! one of the vectors of this energy transition that is underway, is advancing everywhere. The deployments, the commitments of large industrial nations to promote more widespread use of this molecule, in transportation and at home, and in energy storage, are signiicant – starting with Japan, South Korea and the United States. China, under ire, recently indicated its willingness to put hydrogen at the heart of its future energy strategy. Europe is in the race and could even stay in the lead. It is, once again, a question of political will but also an opportunity to strengthen the co-development models among the planet’s major economic actors, so critical when it comes to ensuring that everyone puts in his or her fair share of the efort it will take to build the energy solution of tomorrow. Against this backdrop, the debates expected during the upcoming COP21 in Paris remind me of those I experienced within the WTC. In particular, I learned that in order to make headway on subjects this complex, it is necessary to have a goal that is clear to everyone and unlagging perspicacity. In this respect, the story of the hydrogen sector, its successes, the stages of its development, its clear awareness of the challenges to come, and the collab- orative needs for success, provide a good illustration of the global stakes of the energy transition as a whole. Pierre Étienne Franc repeats the words uttered by Claude Lévi-Strauss in a documentary commemorating his centenary: “Humanism is destructive if it is only applied to certain categories of the living, for it leads by steps to selection upon selection. We need a humanism that applies to all living and sufering beings.” Lévi-Strauss then added, “this is why I am not optimistic for our modern society.” The author responds by asking readers the following question: “Is it possible to prove him wrong?” This is the challenge presented to us here. The moral dimension of the energy transition, in light of the climate issues we face and the damage our productive model is doing to our ecosystem, is obvious. The technological capacity of our societies

11 Preface to resolve this problem is real, as this book demonstrates through its focus on hydrogen. Admittedly, the question of whether the political will exists remains an open one. But as this work shows, there is room for optimism if we can obtain buy-in for an ethic of conviction within globalization.

Pascal Lamy President emeritus, Institut Jacques Delors

12 Hydrogen : the energy transition in the making! Introduction

And if, once again, he was right all along? And if Jules Verne had once again demonstrated his incomparable clairvoyance? Everyone knows how many times the writer proved he was a visionary. Pushing back the limits of scientiic knowledge at the end of the nineteenth century, his anticipatory novels did indeed prophesize any number of technological revolutions. Mentioned back in 1865, in From the Earth to the Moon, the launch of a space gun with three passengers onboard for a trip to the moon preigures the conquest of outer space, which only became a reality in 1961 with the maiden voyage of Yuri Gagarin. Similarly, Captain Nemo’s submersibles, described in 1869 in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, are unanimously considered to be the precursors of the nuclear-powered submarine and the scuba. As for the lying machine that imitated the birds, which he imagined in 1886 for Robur the Conqueror, it preceded the fabrication of the irst helicopters by several decades. And if, with respect to hydrogen, the writer’s incredible intuition also came true? In 1874, Jules Verne has the engineer Cyrus Smith, one of the protagonists of The Mysterious Island, say: “I believe that water will one day be used as fuel, that hydrogen and oxygen, which are used singly or together, will provide a source of heat and light inexhaustible…” And nearly 150 years later, the energy revolution suggested by the father of science iction is well and truly in the making: it turns out that hydrogen does in fact constitute a remarkable vector of energy and, by the same token, a key to the future. In fact, this molecule allows us to store electricity, particu- larly that produced by wind and sun power. Because these renewable energies are intermittent, being able to capture the surplus energy produced on particularly sunny or windy days is

13 Introduction absolutely essential. Hydrogen is able to do this. In addition, when combined with fuel cell technology, it can turn this energy into electricity with remarkable outputs and for multiple applications: a turbine, a heating network, a car, and so on. The advent of a hydrogen society thus becomes conceivable. Better still: given that the world energy system, dominated by fossil resources – gas, coal, and oil – is running out of steam, it is indispensable. Fossil reserves are not extensible. These hydrocarbons are the fruit of the sedimentation of organic residue over a period of several million years, but their frenetic use over the course of the last two centuries is leading to their irreversible disappearance. Indeed, they will only become increasingly scarce in the decades to come. The global productive model is tightly dependent on these fossil energies, and the sustained pace of demographic growth on a planetary scale is leading ineluctably to higher consumption of coal, gas and, above all, oil. Moreover, the fact that they are gradually becoming more expensive is obviously the necessary corollary of the inexorable exhaustion of these natural resources. The recent decline in oil prices is an outlier within the long-term uptrend. These two phenomena – dwindling supply and higher prices over the long term for fossil fuels – require that we think about the development of new vectors of energy. Hydrogen is one of them. Though it is the smallest molecule in existence, hydrogen’s energy density is exceptionally high. Moreover, as the most abundant element in the Universe, it is inexhaustible! Provided that it is wisely exploited from an energy perspective, hydrogen can help the planet free itself from its dependency on fossil energies. Especially since it is now unanimously recognized that the immoderate use of these fossil energies poses a serious threat to the environment. Fossil energies make a very signiicant contri- bution to the emission of carbon dioxide, the major greenhouse gas. Consequently, they are largely responsible for global warming and its painful repercussions for the various ecosystems of our

14 Hydrogen : the energy transition in the making! planet. The ecological challenge is critical to our future, and it requires us to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in every productive sector. The challenge facing the transportation industry, which today is extremely dependent on oil, is particularly daunting. Is there a molecule other than hydrogen that could possibly help to decarbonize the transportation industry? There is not a trace of carbon in hydrogen! Used in a fuel cell system, it produces electricity without any harmful emissions, with water as its only by-product! Thus, hydrogen’s potential for playing a key role in the energy transition is extraordinary. It even constitutes one of the keys to the planetary shift toward a carbon-free economy. Especially considering that, in the last ifteen years or so, the technologies used to control the production, packaging and use of hydrogen have for the most part moved beyond the demo phase. Via electrolysis in particular, it is now possible to produce hydrogen without emitting any greenhouse gases whatsoever. And for the storage of hydrogen as a gas, a liquid, or a solid, there are numerous methods to choose from – some are tried and tested, while others are just getting started. In addition, the world’s most inluential automakers are manufacturing hydrogen-powered vehicles and starting to sell them to consumers. In every sector, the ield of possibilities is considerable: hydrogen can not only store intermittent electricity; it can also charge a mobile phone, supply electricity to a remote site, or even fuel a ship. It has been providing fuel for the Ariane launcher for more than 40 years! On the other hand, while the technical challenges have now either been resolved or are close to resolution, the economic challenges remain to be met. Since the technologies are mature, it is now time to begin rolling them out on an industrial scale. If this deployment does not happen rapidly, the investment sequence that some key industry players – automakers, energy specialists,

15 Introduction and suppliers of industrial gases among them1 – have initiated in recent years, with the support of public powers, will grind to a sudden halt. Above all, the countries that fail to start the process of industrialization in time run the risk of not having the capacity needed to store intermittent energies when the wind and solar grids reach maturity. Obviously, this deployment phase has a cost. By deinition, the irst stages of industrial and commercial development are not proitable. The risk is consequential for manufacturers that have to build production units, new power trains, and dedicated infrastructures for distribution. The public powers play a decisive role in supporting the risk takers. Within the context of an energy transition based on hydrogen, it is in fact fundamental, since the cost question becomes even more acute: in this case, the goal is to gradually transform the energy mix so that a growing proportion of the existing fossil energies can be replaced by an energy solution that will be more costly at the outset and more diicult to roll out! Even if these fossil resources are both a source of pollution and bound to gradually decrease, it is still not necessarily easy to make the wisdom of this change apparent: measuring tomorrow with the interpretive tools of today is no easy task. And yet… The energy transition can only be achieved at the price of a genuine paradigm shift! In order to bring this societal disruption about, it is imperative to convince. To demonstrate that there are solutions for resolving the problem of rolling out this energy transition, of which hydrogen is one of the keys. We must mobilize all stakeholders – from public powers to ordinary citizens, not to mention businesses and research laboratories – and convert them to cooperation and dialogue. We must showcase the virtuous societal changes and

1 Industrial gas companies manufacture and distribute, in liquid or gas form, air gases (oxygen, nitrogen and rare gases), specialty gases, and small essential molecules (helium and, of course, hydrogen).

16 Hydrogen : the energy transition in the making! the emergence of an economy at the service of society, with hydrogen as a possible source. We must demonstrate, in short, that it is in the interest of France, Europe, and the entire world to bring about Jules Verne’s premonition with respect to hydrogen. That’s the whole ambition of this book.

17 Introduction

CHAPTER 1 One molecule, many applications T appeared at the very moment the Universe was born, immediately after the event scientists call the Big Bang… With Iits thirteen billion years of existence, hydrogen thus constitutes the oldest chemical element in the Universe! Yet it has been just a few centuries since man became aware of its existence, and it was only little by little that he began the process of understanding it. In the irst half of the sixteenth century, the Swiss alchemist and physician Paracelsus conducted an experiment that consisted of pouring vitriol on iron filings, observing an effervescent reaction and suspecting that the air by-product – the term gas did not come into use until the seventeenth century – was not exactly the same as the air he breathed. This was a fundamental intuition for modern science, since it called into question the older theory which held that the Universe was composed exclusively of the four elements – air, water, earth and ire. However, without a process for isolating this mysterious air, Paracelsus did not venture any further. In 1766, the British chemist Henry Cavendish took up the work of Paracelsus, dissolving metal with acid. He too observed a strange chemical reaction. But, unlike his illustrious predecessor, he was able to ill a pig’s bladder with some of the gas emanations and observe that they were much lighter than atmospheric air. He also noted that these emanations were highly lammable, producing water vapor when burned. Cavendish decided to call this gas “inlammable air.” The process of identifying hydrogen had begun. Less than two decades later, in 1783, Antoine de Lavoisier reproduced the experiments conducted by Paracelsus and Cavendish, coming to the exact same conclusions. The French chemist proposed a new word to designate this inlammable air: from the suix hydro (from the Greek hudôr, meaning water) and the suix gen (from the Greek genomai, I engender), he formed the word hydrogen. In other words, the “formative principle of water,” as Lavoisier himself wrote in his Elementary Treatise of Chemistry, published in 1789. Finally, the hydrogen adventure could begin.

20 Hydrogen : the energy transition in the making! Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and addressing the gradual disappearance of fossil fuels igure among the challenges the planet must face in the years to come. Hydrogen can and indeed must play an important role in the energy transition. Since the technologies that allow for the safe production and use of hydrogen are now mature, this carbon-free molecule can enable the shift to a “clean” world.

Hydrogen has the capacity to store primary energy, particularly renewable energies. Combined with a fuel cell battery, it can also make this energy available in the form of electricity in a large number of applications, starting with those that pertain to mobility. But while the technical diiculties are in the process of being resolved today, responses to the economic and inancial challenges have yet to be found: going forward, it will be necessary to structure large-scale industrial and commercial deployments. And doing so will require new forms of global cooperation between the private sector and public policymakers at the international level. In a word, launching the energy transition requires a paradigm shift. manifestô collection

Hydrogen : the energy transition in the making ! Pierre-Etienne Franc et Pascal Mateo

Cette édition électronique du livre Hydrogen : the energy transition in the making ! de Pierre-Etienne Franc et Pascal Mateo a été réalisée le 06 novembre 2015 par les Éditions Gallimard. Elle repose sur l’édition papier du même ouvrage (ISBN : 9782072642333 - Numéro d’édition : 292793). Code Sodis : N79445 – ISBN : 9782072650895 Numéro d’édition : 295379.