2024-03-28 08:00:00
Europe and France with it want to make hydrogen the pivotal molecule of the energy transition.
The idea is not new. Each European country is considering hydrogen based on its existing energy mix and its likely evolution.
In the countries of Northern Europe, for example, where hydroelectricity makes it possible to have large quantities of electricity from renewable sources, the production of green hydrogen, by electrolysis, is a preferred solution… And which is also massively supported by Europe. In a country like Germany, which began its energy transition following the Fukushima disaster by phasing out nuclear power, and which has since been rapidly implementing solar and wind energy, erasing their intermittency thanks to massive use, coal, the situation is different. Our neighbor is therefore opting, for the moment, for a strategy based massively on imports to have low-cost renewable hydrogen and inject it into its network, replacing coal.
The case of France is still different. For many decades, France has based its electricity mix, one of the most carbon-free in Europe, on nuclear production. Thus, we have low-carbon electricity, and despite a post-Fukushima decade marked by promises to reduce the impact of the atom in the French mix, it is clear today that political power has returned to the center of the game the technology dubbed by General de Gaulle. And for good reason: The Russian crisis, concomitant for a few months with a sharply declining nuclear capacity factor, showed that nuclear power has long provided us with low-cost electricity.
In fact, in terms of public opinion, it is the best thing that might happen to nuclear power. That said, this carbon-free electricity from nuclear power plants is today at the center of all attention: for electric mobility, to operate electrolysers… Beyond the capacity of the current fleet to provide the electrical power necessary for these ambitions , the pitfall lies in the categorization of hydrogen obtained by electrolysis powered by nuclear electricity. Europe first excluded nuclear power as a renewable electricity vector, like nuclear and wind power, before unofficially accepting the relevance of this type of production.
The strategic choices of European countries to integrate hydrogen profitably – energetically and economically speaking – into their electricity mix in a harmonized manner must outline a carbon-free industrial energy sector, serving carbon-free industrial sectors.
Everyone must adapt, like Germany, which plans to import French hydrogen obtained by electrolysis using nuclear electricity. The change is now.
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