How ‘Green Hydrogen’ Could Make ‘Green Steel’ Real

Cars, fuels and a raft of other products contain an invisible ingredient: heat. Furnaces reaching 1,500 degrees Celsius (2,700 Fahrenheit) or more are commonly needed in manufacturing. But producing those ultra-high temperatures requires burning something, usually coal, oil or natural gas. That’s why the heat used by industry is responsible for about 10% of global carbon dioxide emissions, more than the fuel burned by all the world’s cars and aircraft combined. Under mounting pressure from protesters and climate-conscious investors, major industrial companies and governments are experimenting with what’s called green hydrogen.

Hydrogen flames hot and clean. When it burns, it only leaves water vapor instead of the greenhouse gases that come from fossil fuels. And its value as a fuel is proven. Since it’s lighter than any other element, airships used it to keep aloft in the last century, albeit not without incidents such as the Hindenburg disaster in 1937. It also powers rocket engines that need to work where there’s no oxygen.