Oil, methane and hydrogen: How are we facing the energy transition from fossil sources?

Looking around it seems that nothing is changing, we go to the distributor to fill our cars with gasoline or diesel , we see some methane cars circulating, a few frankly, some rare electric cars. There are still cities that use diesel for heating and hot water , many factories that have industrial processes fueled by fossil fuels and road transport devours diesel fuel like a flood.

Sea transport and air traffic depend on oil derivatives and have a significant impact on air pollution.

There are power plants that produce electricity that still run on coal and despite everything, there is a lot of talk about renewable energy but, in everyday life, we struggle to see them expressed.

In reality, the de-carbonization process in some areas of the world has started, with the conversion from fossil to renewable sources, a process that will take time and will require investment.

In the past there was only oil , which provided, once refined, all the energy we needed. It pollutes, yes, we have always known it, but we have always pretended nothing, indeed, even today there are those who claim that climate change does not depend also on oil .

The danger we feared, by pronouncing the word “Petroleum”, was that sooner or later it could end, thus having to give up our comforts.

Then methane came, not that we had called him to our bedside for an environmental issue, but because it was cheaper and therefore he was immediately nice to us.

The experts, introduced to the oil sector , did not like these great sympathies and to avoid an important transfer of customers, which would have undermined the margins of the oil industry, they claimed that the gas reserves were very limited compared to the oil ones, therefore the market of gas saw a surge in prices so as to secure the oil business.

Today things have recovered, as the protection of the environment is on the agenda of any citizen, so things are seen in a less unilateral way. The gas reserves estimated in 2006 in 25 years of availability today have reached 200 years, bringing the price of gas, for example in the United States, to a value ten times lower than that of 2006. Compared to oil, natural gas today it costs about half, making purchases attractive.

The move away from oil is also materializing with the increase in the production of bio-methane, which will give a big hand, both in environmental terms and in the management of municipal waste , very important, helping the energy conversion.

In this perspective, the energy source to make road and sea transport work can be gradually replaced by gas with considerable CO2 savings.

As for electricity production plants or waste-to-energy plants that will be able to enjoy the use of natural gas or bio-gas for their operation by reducing the carbon footprint.

And what is the future?

The future today is called Hydrogen , an element known for many years but for political, economic and technical reasons it has never seen a happy sunrise.

The hopes that this energy element will be used on a large scale in the next 10 years is supported by the fact that renewable energies will lower the price of hydrogen production, as well as the industrialization of the production of electrolysers, which are used to obtain hydrogen from the electricity by breaking down the water will help this process.

Hydrogen can be used in heavy transport, in the residential sector, in heating and in some industrial activities.

The marriage between hydrogen and energy produced from renewable sources will be the keystone for its diffusion, in fact new plants must be designed that are able to transform, for example the energy of the sun, into electricity specifically dedicated to this production.

Italy is thinking with interest of the area of North Africa as a preferred source for the production of dedicated solar energy, while Holland thinks of the North Sea for the use of wind energy.

There is a great fervor behind the scenes, soon, we hope, the show can also begin for consumers.

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