IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v10y2018i6p1699-d148529.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Hydrogen Supply Chains for Mobility—Environmental and Economic Assessment

Author

Listed:
  • Christina Wulf

    (Institute of Energy and Climate Research—Systems Analysis and Technology Evaluation Forschungszentrum Jülich, 52425 Jülich, Germany
    Institute of Environmental Technology and Energy Economics (IUE), Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), 21073 Hamburg, Germany)

  • Martin Kaltschmitt

    (Institute of Environmental Technology and Energy Economics (IUE), Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), 21073 Hamburg, Germany)

Abstract

Hydrogen mobility is one option for reducing local emissions, avoiding greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and moving away from a mainly oil-based transport system towards a diversification of energy sources. As hydrogen production can be based on a broad variety of technologies already existing or under development, a comprehensive assessment of the different supply chains is necessary regarding not only costs but also diverse environmental impacts. Therefore, in this paper, a broad variety of hydrogen production technologies using different energy sources, renewable and fossil, are exemplarily assessed with the help of a Life Cycle Assessment and a cost assessment for Germany. As environmental impacts, along with the impact category Climate change, five more advanced impact categories are assessed. The results show that from an environmental point of view, PEM and alkaline electrolysis are characterized by the lowest results in five out of six impact categories. Supply chains using fossil fuels, in contrast, have the lowest supply costs; this is true, e.g., for steam methane reforming. Solar powered hydrogen production shows low impacts during hydrogen production but high impacts for transport and distribution to Germany. There is no single supply chain that is the most promising for every aspect assessed here. Either costs have to be lowered further or supply chains with selected environmental impacts have to be modified.

Suggested Citation

  • Christina Wulf & Martin Kaltschmitt, 2018. "Hydrogen Supply Chains for Mobility—Environmental and Economic Assessment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-26, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:6:p:1699-:d:148529
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/6/1699/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/6/1699/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nirmal V. Gnanapragasam & Bale V. Reddy & Marc A. Rosen, 2010. "A Methodology for Assessing the Sustainability of Hydrogen Production from Solid Fuels," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 2(6), pages 1-20, May.
    2. Reuß, M. & Grube, T. & Robinius, M. & Preuster, P. & Wasserscheid, P. & Stolten, D., 2017. "Seasonal storage and alternative carriers: A flexible hydrogen supply chain model," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 290-302.
    3. Akito Ozawa & Mai Inoue & Naomi Kitagawa & Ryoji Muramatsu & Yurie Anzai & Yutaka Genchi & Yuki Kudoh, 2017. "Assessing Uncertainties of Well-To-Tank Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Hydrogen Supply Chains," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(7), pages 1-26, June.
    4. Unknown, 2016. "Energy for Sustainable Development," Conference Proceedings 253270, Guru Arjan Dev Institute of Development Studies (IDSAsr).
    5. Burkhardt, Jörg & Patyk, Andreas & Tanguy, Philippe & Retzke, Carsten, 2016. "Hydrogen mobility from wind energy – A life cycle assessment focusing on the fuel supply," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 54-64.
    6. Hosseini, Seyed Ehsan & Wahid, Mazlan Abdul, 2016. "Hydrogen production from renewable and sustainable energy resources: Promising green energy carrier for clean development," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 850-866.
    7. Nikolaidis, Pavlos & Poullikkas, Andreas, 2017. "A comparative overview of hydrogen production processes," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 597-611.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cesare Saccani & Marco Pellegrini & Alessandro Guzzini, 2020. "Analysis of the Existing Barriers for the Market Development of Power to Hydrogen (P2H) in Italy," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-29, September.
    2. Martin Hammerschmid & Daniel Cenk Rosenfeld & Alexander Bartik & Florian Benedikt & Josef Fuchs & Stefan Müller, 2023. "Methodology for the Development of Virtual Representations within the Process Development Framework of Energy Plants: From Digital Model to Digital Predictive Twin—A Review," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(6), pages 1-30, March.
    3. Apostolou, Dimitrios & Enevoldsen, Peter, 2019. "The past, present and potential of hydrogen as a multifunctional storage application for wind power," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 917-929.
    4. Janos Lucian Breuer & Juri Scholten & Jan Christian Koj & Felix Schorn & Marc Fiebrandt & Remzi Can Samsun & Rolf Albus & Klaus Görner & Detlef Stolten & Ralf Peters, 2022. "An Overview of Promising Alternative Fuels for Road, Rail, Air, and Inland Waterway Transport in Germany," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-65, February.
    5. Sungmi Bae & Eunhan Lee & Jinil Han, 2020. "Multi-Period Planning of Hydrogen Supply Network for Refuelling Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles in Urban Areas," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-23, May.
    6. Rosario Carbone & Concettina Marino & Antonino Nucara & Maria Francesca Panzera & Matilde Pietrafesa, 2019. "Electric Load Influence on Performances of a Composite Plant for Hydrogen Production from RES and its Conversion in Electricity," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(22), pages 1-15, November.
    7. Lechón, Yolanda & Lago, Carmen & Herrera, Israel & Gamarra, Ana Rosa & Pérula, Alberto, 2023. "Carbon benefits of different energy storage alternative end uses. Application to the Spanish case," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    8. Akito Ozawa & Yuki Kudoh, 2021. "Assessing Uncertainties of Life-Cycle CO 2 Emissions Using Hydrogen Energy for Power Generation," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-23, October.
    9. Busch, P. & Kendall, A. & Lipman, T., 2023. "A systematic review of life cycle greenhouse gas intensity values for hydrogen production pathways," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    10. Rahmat, Yoga & Maier, Simon & Moser, Francisco & Raab, Moritz & Hoffmann, Christian & Repke, Jens-Uwe & Dietrich, Ralph-Uwe, 2023. "Techno-economic and exergy analysis of e-methanol production under fixed operating conditions in Germany," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 351(C).
    11. Martin Hammerschmid & Johannes Konrad & Andreas Werner & Tom Popov & Stefan Müller, 2022. "ENECO 2 Calc—A Modeling Tool for the Investigation of Energy Transition Paths toward Climate Neutrality within Municipalities," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(19), pages 1-32, September.
    12. Levin Matz & Boris Bensmann & Richard Hanke-Rauschenbach & Christine Minke, 2024. "Resource-Efficient Gigawatt Water Electrolysis in Germany—A Circular Economy Potential Analysis," Circular Economy and Sustainability, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 1153-1182, June.
    13. Marco Pellegrini & Alessandro Guzzini & Cesare Saccani, 2020. "A Preliminary Assessment of the Potential of Low Percentage Green Hydrogen Blending in the Italian Natural Gas Network," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-22, October.
    14. Rüdisüli, Martin & Bach, Christian & Bauer, Christian & Beloin-Saint-Pierre, Didier & Elber, Urs & Georges, Gil & Limpach, Robert & Pareschi, Giacomo & Kannan, Ramachandran & Teske, Sinan L., 2022. "Prospective life-cycle assessment of greenhouse gas emissions of electricity-based mobility options," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 306(PB).
    15. Gianmarco Gottardo & Andrea Basso Peressut & Silvia Colnago & Saverio Latorrata & Luigi Piegari & Giovanni Dotelli, 2023. "LCA of a Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Considering Different Power System Architectures," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(19), pages 1-19, September.
    16. Martin Hammerschmid & Alexander Bartik & Florian Benedikt & Marton Veress & Simon Pratschner & Stefan Müller & Hermann Hofbauer, 2023. "Economic and Ecological Impacts on the Integration of Biomass-Based SNG and FT Diesel in the Austrian Energy System," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(16), pages 1-29, August.
    17. Yáñez, María & Ortiz, Alfredo & Brunaud, Braulio & Grossmann, Ignacio E. & Ortiz, Inmaculada, 2018. "Contribution of upcycling surplus hydrogen to design a sustainable supply chain: The case study of Northern Spain," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 231(C), pages 777-787.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yáñez, María & Ortiz, Alfredo & Brunaud, Braulio & Grossmann, Ignacio E. & Ortiz, Inmaculada, 2018. "Contribution of upcycling surplus hydrogen to design a sustainable supply chain: The case study of Northern Spain," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 231(C), pages 777-787.
    2. Seunghyun Cheon & Manhee Byun & Dongjun Lim & Hyunjun Lee & Hankwon Lim, 2021. "Parametric Study for Thermal and Catalytic Methane Pyrolysis for Hydrogen Production: Techno-Economic and Scenario Analysis," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-19, September.
    3. Wenhui Zhao & Jibin Ma & Zhanyang Wang & Youting Li & Weishi Zhang, 2022. "Potential Hydrogen Market: Value-Added Services Increase Economic Efficiency for Hydrogen Energy Suppliers," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-18, April.
    4. Li, Lei & Manier, Hervé & Manier, Marie-Ange, 2019. "Hydrogen supply chain network design: An optimization-oriented review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 342-360.
    5. Baena-Moreno, Francisco M. & Pastor-Pérez, Laura & Zhang, Zhien & Reina, T.R., 2020. "Stepping towards a low-carbon economy. Formic acid from biogas as case of study," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 268(C).
    6. Jahangiri, Mehdi & Rezaei, Mostafa & Mostafaeipour, Ali & Goojani, Afsaneh Raiesi & Saghaei, Hamed & Hosseini Dehshiri, Seyyed Jalaladdin & Hosseini Dehshiri, Seyyed Shahabaddin, 2022. "Prioritization of solar electricity and hydrogen co-production stations considering PV losses and different types of solar trackers: A TOPSIS approach," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 889-903.
    7. Marino, C. & Nucara, A. & Panzera, M.F. & Pietrafesa, M. & Varano, V., 2019. "Energetic and economic analysis of a stand alone photovoltaic system with hydrogen storage," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 316-329.
    8. Giuseppe Sdanghi & Gaël Maranzana & Alain Celzard & Vanessa Fierro, 2020. "Towards Non-Mechanical Hybrid Hydrogen Compression for Decentralized Hydrogen Facilities," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-27, June.
    9. Li, Guoxuan & Wang, Shuai & Zhao, Jiangang & Qi, Huaqing & Ma, Zhaoyuan & Cui, Peizhe & Zhu, Zhaoyou & Gao, Jun & Wang, Yinglong, 2020. "Life cycle assessment and techno-economic analysis of biomass-to-hydrogen production with methane tri-reforming," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    10. Morteza Aien & Omid Mahdavi, 2020. "On the Way of Policy Making to Reduce the Reliance of Fossil Fuels: Case Study of Iran," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(24), pages 1-28, December.
    11. Lopes, J.V.M. & Bresciani, A.E. & Carvalho, K.M. & Kulay, L.A. & Alves, R.M.B., 2021. "Multi-criteria decision approach to select carbon dioxide and hydrogen sources as potential raw materials for the production of chemicals," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    12. Chisalita, Dora-Andreea & Petrescu, Letitia & Cormos, Calin-Cristian, 2020. "Environmental evaluation of european ammonia production considering various hydrogen supply chains," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    13. Lui, Jade & Chen, Wei-Hsin & Tsang, Daniel C.W. & You, Siming, 2020. "A critical review on the principles, applications, and challenges of waste-to-hydrogen technologies," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    14. Qyyum, Muhammad Abdul & Dickson, Rofice & Ali Shah, Syed Fahad & Niaz, Haider & Khan, Amin & Liu, J. Jay & Lee, Moonyong, 2021. "Availability, versatility, and viability of feedstocks for hydrogen production: Product space perspective," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    15. Abdin, Zainul & Zafaranloo, Ali & Rafiee, Ahmad & Mérida, Walter & Lipiński, Wojciech & Khalilpour, Kaveh R., 2020. "Hydrogen as an energy vector," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    16. Magnin, Jean-Pierre & Deseure, Jonathan, 2019. "Hydrogen generation in a pressurized photobioreactor: Unexpected enhancement of biohydrogen production by the phototrophic bacterium Rhodobacter capsulatus," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 239(C), pages 635-643.
    17. Chen, Qianqian & Gu, Yu & Tang, Zhiyong & Wang, Danfeng & Wu, Qing, 2021. "Optimal design and techno-economic assessment of low-carbon hydrogen supply pathways for a refueling station located in Shanghai," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 237(C).
    18. Shirzad, Mohammad & Kazemi Shariat Panahi, Hamed & Dashti, Behrouz B. & Rajaeifar, Mohammad Ali & Aghbashlo, Mortaza & Tabatabaei, Meisam, 2019. "A comprehensive review on electricity generation and GHG emission reduction potentials through anaerobic digestion of agricultural and livestock/slaughterhouse wastes in Iran," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 571-594.
    19. Al-Qahtani, Amjad & Parkinson, Brett & Hellgardt, Klaus & Shah, Nilay & Guillen-Gosalbez, Gonzalo, 2021. "Uncovering the true cost of hydrogen production routes using life cycle monetisation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 281(C).
    20. Mostafa Ahmed & Mohamed Abdelrahem & Ibrahim Harbi & Ralph Kennel, 2020. "An Adaptive Model-Based MPPT Technique with Drift-Avoidance for Grid-Connected PV Systems," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-25, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:6:p:1699-:d:148529. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.