BP H2TEESIDE

Energy group BP has announced plans to build Britain’s largest hydrogen plant by 2030. The facility would treat natural gas to extract hydrogen, and capture the carbon dioxide produced in the process.

BP announced its plans to boost use of hydrogen as a fuel by building a large hydrogen plant in Teesside, in the north of England. The ‘H2Teesside’ plant will have capacity of up to 1GW of ‘blue hydrogen’: a fifth of the UK’s 2030 target of 5GW hydrogen capacity.

‘Green’ hydrogen is produced by splitting water by electrolysis to produce hydrogen and oxygen, requiring a large energy input. Blue hydrogen, however, is produced by splitting natural gas into hydrogen and carbon dioxide through steam methane reforming or autothermal reforming; the carbon is then captured to leave almost pure hydrogen. This does not require additional energy input, although it will require considerable work to develop and implement carbon capture technology effectively.

Although carbon capture and storage technologies are frequently characterised as something of a saviour in the context of decarbonisation strategies, there are only around 20 commercial carbon capture facilities in the world - Link