Problem: You may have already heard of hydrogen as a clean source of energy, however, like other sources of clean energy, it struggles with being truly carbon-free. The processes used to establish sources of clean energy, whether it’s the machines used for mining or the tankers the parts are shipped on, are almost universally reliant upon gas and thus are a source of carbon in it themselves. However, a new competitor in the race for clean energy has entered the arena: green hydrogen. Powered entirely by green energy, it splits hydrogen from the oxygen atoms in water.
The market is ripe with opportunity: a Norwegian company announced a 4.3 billion dollar investment in a steel plant with an integrated hydrogen production facility, the DOE started their Earthshot program with a 52.5 million dollar investment in, you guessed it, green hydrogen, and in Spain, a company is building the first green hydrogen supply chain, expected to supply Europe with over 6 million tons of green hydrogen in only 7 years.
Subscribe here to get access to the first 500 ideas from our blog. For just one coffee a month, you can have access to more than $500 billion dollars of ideas. What's not to love?
Solution: A business based upon the most recent developments in the hydrogen sector (less than 1 month old of as writing this!) to leverage decreasing costs and increasing demands.
Researchers have recently found a way to replace the expensive rare earth metals in the electrolysis device, essentially the part that separates the hydrogen from the oxygen in water, with cheap iron nitride. The business would be sell to other businesses that currently use less sustainable forms of hydrogen, so primarily the fertilizer production and petroleum refining industry. Green hydrogen is an extremely recent development with few big players in the business and innovations being developed nearly every year. Previously thought to have been merely an evolution of the green car of the future, today it represents one of the most promising green energy sources that can save around 830 million tons of carbon compared to traditional carbon gas produced using fossil fuel.
The fact that green hydrogen is practically the same on the user's end means it can take advantage of hydrogen's rising popularity, without the downside of unregulated carbon emissions or controls. Additionally, it piggy backs off the progress of more mainstream forms of clean energy like solar panels and wind turbines, so any breakthroughs in green energy directly contributes to the success of green hydrogen as a whole.
This form of energy is just one part of the ever-increasing demand for energy, which is estimated to increase by 47 percent by 2050. The only way to offset that without coal and oil is further investment into green energy. Green hydrogen is more than capable of filling in at least a significant portion of that, reducing or possibly even outright replacing carbon emissions in the industries that produce the most like gasoline, car fumes, and plant production smoke.
Contributed by: David Salinas (Billion Dollar Startup Ideas)