Glossary
Hydrogen
Hydrogen is the simplest and most abundant element in the universe. It consists of a positively charged nucleus (proton) and a negatively charged electron and has the lowest atomic weight of any element. Under normal or standard conditions, hydrogen is a colourless and odourless gas.
Hydrogen can be produced from a variety of resources, such as natural gas, nuclear power, biogas and renewable power like solar and wind. The challenge is harnessing hydrogen as a gas on a large scale to fuel our homes and businesses. Despite hydrogen being a very energy-dense gas per unit mass, it is very voluminous and requires compression to store a useful quantity of energy.
Types of Hydrogen
Green hydrogen
Green hydrogen is created by using electricity from surplus renewable energy sources to electrolyse water. The production of green hydrogen is currently expensive but will eventually come down in price as it becomes more common. Whilst green hydrogen claims carbon neutrality, the technology cannot work in isolation as it can only store energy converted from electricity, which is arguably inefficient when accounting for losses in the electrolyser.
Blue hydrogen
Blue hydrogen is produced mainly from natural gas, using a process called steam reforming, which brings together natural gas and heated water in the form of steam. The output is hydrogen, but carbon dioxide is also created as a by-product.
Grey hydrogen
Grey hydrogen is created from natural gas, or methane, using steam methane reformation but without capturing the greenhouse gases made in the process. Grey hydrogen is essentially the same as blue hydrogen but without carbon capture and storage. This is currently the most common form of hydrogen production.
Clear Hydrogen
Our Wild Hydrogen technology takes wet, unprocessed biogenic material and turns it into hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide is captured and stored; the resulting hydrogen fuel is carbon negative. For every tonne of hydrogen, we remove 14 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Therefore, the more we produce the more carbon dioxide we remove from the atmosphere.