CLIMATE change legislation will eventually trigger a huge change in power production and distribution. Dramatic engineering projects are already underway which could shape the future of energy use. 

Skyrocketing electricity prices in Britain are a big driver of the cost-of-living crisis. In Europe only people in Ireland and Germany pay more for their electricity. 

Despite being so high, these are the prices even when they are capped by Ofgem. Although the price of energy is affecting people across Europe, Britain has its own particular problems. 

Being an island limits the flexibility of the grid in the UK, but worse, 85 per cent of British homes are heated with gas boilers, and 40 per cent of electricity produced in Britain comes from gas-fired power stations. Gas is piped internationally in thousands of kilometres of pipes, in Europe mostly from Russia, which supplies 35 per cent of Europe’s gas. 

The reduction in import of Russian gas since the war has driven gas prices up very fast. Britain actually imports very little Russian gas (4 per cent of UK supply), but it is not insulated from the price-shock. Britain is a significant gas exporter to Europe so the proceeds from increased prices of gas across Europe (including Britain) go straight into the pockets of the gas exporters.  

Energy infrastructure can seem so hidden, so deeply woven into the fabric of reality, that it’s hard to understand how fundamental it is to our lives at every scale: from boiling a kettle to long-term economic planning. 

But all infrastructure depends on political and industrial decisions on technology, and massive investment in its installation. How these technologies get decided upon is a messy battleground. 

Infrastructure that is deeply embedded in everyday life is less vulnerable to the vagaries of scientific fads, and therefore promises more secure returns. Hydrogen, for example, in the early days of air travel seemed to be the future, but it was not fully integrated into the infrastructure and turned out to be just a passing phase.

Hydrogen was used to fill airships from 1852, but it was abandoned in the 1930s after several fatal explosions, and subsequent legislation in the US banning hydrogen airships. 

In fact, the helium lobby was also influential in the banning of hydrogen. Hydrogen needs oxygen to burn — later a helium lobbyist admitted adding some oxygen to the balloon that he exploded to demonstrate to politicians the dangers of hydrogen. Helium airships, half as efficient as hydrogen ones, also lost out to modern aeroplanes but not before they had reaped the proceeds of vast investment in helium.

In the early days of the electricity grid, the early 1880s, a vicious battle was  fought over whether alternating (AC) or direct (DC) current would be used to construct the electricity grid. 

The motivation was the companies’ monopoly on patents and technology, but the arguments were entirely about the comparative safety of the two technologies. 

Although AC electricity had won the battle before the end of the 1890s, some DC infrastructure was installed in the meantime. Unlike hydrogen balloons which could simply be retired, DC infrastructure was already in people’s houses. Astonishingly some DC networks, for example in New York and San Francisco, persisted into the 21st century. The infrastructure produces the monopoly, and subsequently the continual payments and state subsidy. 

In the climate crisis, the only thing that will control profit-driven fossil-fuel burning is international legislation to drive the replacement of infrastructure. 

There seems to be movement in this direction. The potential impact of new laws are hinted at by the ferocity of debate around them. In the EU, a division has opened up between France and Germany over nuclear power. 

France now has 56 nuclear reactors, while Germany switched off its last remaining nuclear reactor last month (April 2023). Britain has nine nuclear reactors, and, before Brexit, was an ally to France’s pro-nuclear stance. As the EU directs investment to “clean” technologies, one battleground is over whether France’s nuclear reactors count.

Oil and gas capital have fatally held back policy change, but as international policy lumbers to conclusions limiting fossil fuels, a dramatic transition has already begun.

If you believe the hype, and the money, hydrogen is back in play, but this time, as infrastructure. Hydrogen can be used to make steel (currently 7 per cent of global emissions), but it can also be used in fuel cells to produce electricity with no emissions at point of use. 

It could even theoretically be burnt like gas to heat homes, but most importantly it can be used in generators on ships, planes and cars instead of oil derivatives, all without carbon emissions at the point of use. If emissions legislation is ever finally implemented, hydrogen will be extremely attractive for use in heating (14 per cent of global emissions) and transport (16 per cent).

However, hydrogen is currently almost entirely produced directly from burning fossil fuels. Just 4 per cent of global hydrogen production is produced by electrolysis which only requires water — and a lot of electricity.

The current largest electrolysis plant in the world is a Chinese plant, Baofeng, which runs at 30MW. It recently supplanted in the top spot a Canadian plant running at 20MW. Announcements of new electrolysis plants greenlit in the last few years are eyewatering: 100MW (delayed, but apparently imminent) in Egypt, over the next decade plants at 14GW in Oman, 20GW in Mauritania, 45GW in Kazakhstan, 67 GW in one loop across Western Europe. The important thing about these electrolysis plants is that the number is the amount of energy used to produce hydrogen, not electricity produced.

When you remember that Britain’s total electricity needs are “just” 30GW, the scale of these ambitions become apparent, being several thousand times bigger than current existing plants. But in order for electrolysis to be green, the electricity used must be from renewables.

In the projects named here, the production of the energy through renewables is part of the project. But it doesn’t have to be: electrolysis can just as well be run off the grid, turning electricity (from anywhere) into hydrogen. This “flexibility” may be part of its appeal to industries still deeply entangled in oil and gas. The EU is currently only permitting new electrolysis projects which are “green,” and this is part of what makes the argument between France and Germany so intense. If electrolysis run on nuclear energy is permitted, electrolysers can simply be plugged into the existing grid, opening the door to dramatic scale-up of nuclear plants.

Producing hydrogen is just one piece of the puzzle. In order to use hydrogen, it must reach its destination: major international pipelines, much like those for gas, will be built to match the ambitions of the plants. A report from a group representing several large hydrogen companies (calling themselves “The Hydrogen Council”) announced their plans for international trade routes via long-distance shipping and pipelines being established by 2030. 

Moreover, we need to need it — the International Energy Agency report on hydrogen instructs governments to produce “policies to create demand for hydrogen.” 

Hydrogen’s famed explosivity is a hindrance, but the British government has already commissioned a safety feasibility report from engineering giant Arup into hydrogen for home heating. 

Arup predicts a four-fold increase in household explosions with respect to gas, increasing to an average 25 explosions a year. Burning hydrogen to heat homes is necessarily less efficient overall than using electric boilers, but it could be done.

The government is pursuing domestic hydrogen heating demonstrations. Even as lobbyists aim to define the bounds of current legislation, bulldozers are starting work to produce the plants which will dictate future legislation. The question is whether this time hydrogen makes it through the door.