Harvard Researchers Suggest Green Hydrogen Will Remain Costlier Than Projected

Harvard researchers found in a recent study that prices for green hydrogen — hydrogen fuel created from sustainable energy sources — will remain high.

Harvard Environmental Science and Engineering professor Daniel P. Schrag and postdoctoral fellow Roxana T. Shafiee reported Oct. 8 in the energy research journal “Joule” that the high costs of green hydrogen storage and distribution nullify the cheaper production costs.

According to Shafiee, many have hailed green hydrogen as the potential saving grace of the energy transition, citing its sustainability and a potential drop in cost that will follow from increased production.

Their new research, Shafiee said, shows that — due to storage and distribution costs — green hydrogen is perhaps a less economically viable option than previously thought.

“What we argue is that the cost structure of hydrogen is fundamentally different, that it doesn’t lend itself to these learning curves like you get for solar and wind,” Shafiee said.

Unlike solar and wind, which required new techniques, the shipping and storage of hydrogen is a “mature” technology, she said, so the opportunities for cost reduction have already passed.

“We’re not saying that the cost of storage and distribution might never come down,” Shaifee said. “There could be a new innovation, which means that we can store hydrogen better on land at higher densities, because the problem now is that hydrogen is such a leaky molecule.”

Shafiee stressed the need for innovation in the industry, which will require funding that has all too often been poured into deploying existing technology.

Elaine Buckberg, a senior fellow at Harvard’s Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability, said it’s important to consider the entire system cost and develop other renewable energies.

The paper “asks the right questions,” Buckberg said, and “is a reminder that we need to keep working on a variety of different technologies, and that green hydrogen is by no means a slam dunk approach.”

Shafiee said while “hydrogen is not going to be the answer for everything,” it “could still have a role.”

“We shouldn’t be picking which technology wins,” she added. “We should be investing in a lot of different technologies and then seeing which one proves to be the best.”