The hydrogen revolution is real and it will change the world

The hydrogen revolution is real and it will change the world

“The way we see the future, in 20 to 40 years from now, all the energy that mankind uses will come from wind, solar, and hydro. Forty per cent of this will be used directly to power electric vehicles, heating, light, air conditioning, and cooking. The rest will be used to break down water and produce hydrogen. That will be the source of energy to drive trucks, ships, trains, and industries like steel,” he said.

That sums it up in a nutshell. You move through the gears, first displacing natural gas as a dispatchable back-up for renewables, then reaching cement, fertilizers, chemicals, or heating for buildings. The scissor-action of falling hydrogen prices and rising carbon prices brings one sector after another into range.

Bingo, you have decarbonized most of the global economy. Agriculture is harder to crack but that can be offset in other ways. Drax's biomass project in Yorkshire will achieve net negative emissions with carbon capture.

Goldman Sachs argues that blue and green variants will rapidly achieve cost parity, or better, and become the global energy workhorse, potentially abating 45pc of greenhouse emissions.

Philanthropist Bill Gates doubts that we can pull it off without nuclear power, though it will have to be