Electricity has well known limitations, mainly for bulk and long-range transport, industrial processes requiring high temperature heat, and the chemicals industry. To entirely replace fossil fuels we need hydrogen. It has an energy density comparable to hydrocarbons. There’s more: Europe’s electric grid can’t cope with 100% electrification, yet hydrogen would use the existing gas pipe networks. The authors lay out a plan to deliver 50% of Europe’s energy from hydrogen by 2050. Done rapidly at scale, hydrogen would soon be as cheap as gas. It will also make Europe the hydrogen market leader: what technologies Europe (or anywhere!) masters first, it can sell to the rest of the world hungry for clean energy solutions.

Green hydrogen can in principle be shipped around the world to places that are less well endowed with cheap renewable energy sources.

France's EDF has launched a hydrogen production and distribution subsidiary to support decarbonisation of industry and mobility using low-carbon electricity from its nuclear and renewable energy fleet.

BLOOMBERG - Gazprom PJSC, the Russian company that’s the dominant exporter of natural gas into Europe, is exploring ways to produce emissions-free hydrogen from its fuel and create a 153 billion-euro ($175 billion) a year market by 2050