141. 18th Ezra Memorial Lecture, Worshipful Company of Fuellers, City & Guilds Building, Imperial College London, 13 March 2024
The 18th Ezra Memorial Lecture was given by the Lord Mayor
of the City of London, Professor Michael Mainelli. The audience included academics and students,
members of the Fuellers’ Company and other Livery Companies.
He then examined various energy economic aspects from
production, to transportation, to storage, to use. Increasingly these economic
considerations led the hydrogen markets to interact with the carbon markets. He also touched on market gaps, particularly
the lack of baseload markets for electricity and financial tools for long-term
government policy commitment. He concluded with some observations on how the
economics of hydrogen are analysed.
Further discussion on the topic was then conducted between
members of a panel, who answered a few questions from the audience. The panel comprised Jon Clark, Partner at EY
and Chair of the Fuellers' Industry Group, Stephen Skinner, Professor of
Electrochemical Devices for a zero-carbon economy at Imperial, and Dr Angela
Needle, Strategy Director at Cadent and Vice President of Hydrogen UK.
My challenge was the comparison between producing
electricity, storing it and using it at an efficiency of over 80% compared with
using the electricity to produce hydrogen, compressing it, storing it,
decompressing it, transporting it and converting it to electricity or heat at
an efficiency of 20%. Despite the
popularity of the question it was not put to the speakers - it should have
produced some interesting answers. What
was apparent from discussion was the scepticism as to the future of domestic hydrogen
gas distribution and consumption.
It was a fascinating evening and thanks to the Fuellers for
organising it.
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