Up to $3 trillion of infrastructure investment may be needed by 2030, and up to $20 trillion by 2050 to develop the “hydrogen economy,” according to a recent report by QIC.
The report, titled Gathering Pace: Infrastructure opportunities in the hydrogen economy, notes that although significant progress has been made globally to reduce carbon emissions from electricity generation, there has been very little progress in reducing carbon emissions from transport and heavy industrial uses — sectors that collectively account for more than 40 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
These sectors continue to rely on fossil fuels and although hydrogen demand from industrial users has grown exponentially in the previous few decades, it is currently manufactured almost entirely from coal and natural gas.
At present, the production of hydrogen is responsible for some 830 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, which is equivalent to the carbon p