Transcriber: Antonella Soledad Lizárraga Caro Reviewer: Amanda Zhu
Good morning, colleagues.
I thought I’d kick off by having a glass of water.
I’m feeling a bit thirsty this morning.
Now, as you know, water, H2O - hydrogen and oxygen.
Now, I would always advocate a good glass of hydrogen in the morning
before you talk about anything or sit down for anything -
a good little glass of water.
It’s good.
OK, ready to talk now.
So this morning, I’m going to talk to you about hydrogen
and the importance of hydrogen
and the way in which we can begin to utilize it,
hence the arguments or hence the case that we’re ready to go on hydrogen
across the UK and beyond right now.
So recently, in September 2020, my prime minister, Boris Johnson,
addressed the UN Climate Change Assembly.
And one of the key statements he made as part of that was the issue
that the the world cannot be caught napping around climate change.
There’s a pressing need for us to begin to address this particular issue.
And here we have a slide
taken from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
which demonstrates why we cannot be caught napping.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
this particular figure shows the amount of carbon dioxide,
which has increased from the world during the last 150 years,
since the start of industrialization.
And carbon dioxide has resulted in an increase in global temperatures.
And we’re just around 1.4 degrees higher than we were than pre-industrial times.
And if we’re not careful,
we’re going to reach this tipping point of 1.5 degrees.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change does talk a lot
about the impact that climate change could have upon extreme events,
upon sea level rise, upon humanity
If we reach that 1.5-degree level.
Now, one of the things I’ve been doing
is arguing that we need to shift away from carbon emitting industries
to industries that don’t emit any carbon.
And one way in which we can potentially do this
is to transition to a hydrogen economy.
And on this particular slide I want to argue with you,
Why hydrogen?
Why is hydrogen so important?
Well, there’s a number of reasons,
as you can see.
Firstly, hydrogen is the world’s most common element.
It’s one that we breathe.
It’s one that we drink constantly.
It’s there in the universe.
It has a real significant role to play in terms of reaching the next era.
We can transition away from methane and carbon emitting economy
to a hydrogen economy, where the only emission is water.
I think it’s a significant step forward.
Hydrogen is very good for transport:
We can use fuel cells to drive cars.
There’s proposals within the UK for hydrogen trains.
There’s proposals in the UK
to shift industry away from methane over to hydrogen
as part of the key gas to drive those particular dimensions.
It can heat our homes.
Hydrogen is a gas that we can use to heat our homes.
It’s also an important component
in terms of making sure that we have a balance around energy in the UK.
So, the moment we have wind, we have solar,
when there is excess electricity being generated,
we can use that electricity, put it through electrolysis
to separate the oxygen and the hydrogen molecules,
capture the hydrogen,
and then we can use that as a gas for our industries and for our homes.
It's relatively easy to store as well.
In the locality of Cheshire,
we have the largest onshore gas storage facilities in the UK
at the salt caverns in Northwich, which we could convert some of those
or build new ones, actually, to store that particular gas.
And I genuinely believe it’s an important component
as we begin to emerge from the pandemic that we're currently in.
Many people are asking for a green recovery to the pandemic.
Hydrogen could well be a core, an important part of that pandemic.
And it’s particularly the younger generation,
what I call the Greta generation,
the 16- to 25-year-olds are beginning to ask for this green recovery.
You know, one of the things that differs me, perhaps,
in my mid-50s, from the 18- to 25-year-olds
is that the 18- to 25-year-olds really do value the environment
and want to have this green recovery, you know, demanding this green recovery.
Hydrogen can begin to deliver on that
so we can pass on a future generation that won’t hit that 1.5 degrees.
The context, the policy context for all of this within the UK is this.
Since the government launched its industrial strategy,
what, four or five years ago now,
it has talked about the pressing need for clean growth.
Here we have a number of policy documents
that have begun to emerge over the last few years.
The one on the top right, the industrial clusters emission,
is the work I’m principally doing,
looking at the way in which we can transition industry
away from methane over to hydrogen
and to ensure that industry decarbonises.
The government wants us to decarbonize one industrial cluster
by 2040,
and all of the other ones across the UK, the other five, by 2050.
It’s doable if we take hydrogen on board.
Across the UK, there are a number of different hydrogen propositions
that are beginning to emerge.
Up in Scotland, in Teesside, in Humberside and in the North West of England,
there’s a lot ongoing at the moment
around hydrogen production from renewables, such as wind
or hydrogen production from reforming methane
and capturing the carbon and neutralizing reformed hydrogen
as a way forward.
And here in the North West,
we’ve got some fascinating propositions called HyNet around hydrogen.
That literally means putting hydrogen into the grid and into the network.
And here, we can see on this particular slide,
where potentially, some of the hydrogen production facilities will go,
injecting the hydrogen into the grid,
and therefore, we can begin to consume some of that hydrogen
in our homes, into industries,
we can utilize it to drive trains, we can utilize it to fuel our cars,
we can utilize it to fuel buses, etc.
We can also store it in the North West, in the salt caverns.
I’ve already mentioned
we have the largest onshore gas storage facilities in the UK there.
So there’re some fabulous propositions emerging around the North West
for hydrogen.
And it’s not a new idea, colleagues,
we’ve been working on this now for quite some time,
for the last four or five years.
And so, we’ve done studies,
which have been funded by governments and by other bodies,
so we actually understand what the problem is
around gas, around climate change, around emissions from industry.
We've actually done enough work now
so that we can begin to understand those causes
and that we have the data to come up with solutions.
And we now need to take action.
We know what to do in terms of taking action here in the North West
to shift away from a methane economy to a hydrogen economy,
from a carbon emitting economy to an economy that just emits water.
So hydrogen for me is part of, or is the key component
of a pandemic recovery across the UK and maybe even beyond that.
Hydrogen is easy to store.
It does help to balance demands and supply around energy.
It is easy to switch,
or relatively easy, to switch industry from methane to hydrogen -
there are a number of examples that I can happily talk about
within the North West where we’re doing that.
It’s great for transport.
Overall, it’s cheaper, believe it or not, than the electricity.
And when it comes to homes,
it’s fairly easy to blend methane with hydrogen,
and we can continue to consume it
for our heating systems and our cooking systems within our homes.
So it’s important that we begin to move on this.
Why?
Well, we need to reach net zero, but more importantly,
I believe that there are fabulous export opportunities
for the first country and for the first location
to begin to transition from this methane economy
to a hydrogen economy.
Let’s get a go on hydrogen economy,
then we can begin to export those technologies,
those skills, those ideas,
that intellectual property
to the rest of the world.
So on the left hand side is the north Cheshire coast,
where we’ve been doing a lot of the work;
on the right hand side, the little blue egg.
Well, in that little blue egg, colleagues, half the world’s population lives,
and they’re energy hungry right now.
And if we’re not careful,
they’re going to go and they are going along a methane carbon emitting route.
But we’re all going to have to address the issue of climate change,
and therefore, my argument here is
I think there’s fabulous export opportunities
around those skills, around those technologies
to other parts of the world, for the region that actually goes first.
The region to go for hydrogen first, I think, will benefit enormously.
So what next?
What next?
I want to argue, colleagues, that we mustn’t lose this opportunity.
I think it’s a fabulous opportunity, and we need to invest in it.
We need an investment framework now for hydrogen,
something to enable this to take place.
We need to move from lab-scale demonstrators
through to full deployment across the UK,
in those areas that I outlined earlier -
Teesside, Humberside, the North West, Scotland.
We need to work on supporting the development
of a supply chain around this.
We already have very strong oil and gas supply chains in the UK.
We mustn’t let those oil and gas supply chains diminish.
We must transition the workers within those supply chains
over to the opportunities
afforded by clean growth and the hydrogen dimension.
And we must work with universities, work with colleges of further education
to ensure that we’re putting into place
the skills that are required for that industry.
And so here we go.
For me, hydrogen -
we need to go on it now to deliver on net zero.
Net zero changes everything, but it’s an important dimension.
Thank you very much.