India has planned to invest in one of the most abundant elements on earth that are hydrogen. Nirmala Sitharman. The finance minister announced the National Hydrogen Mission project during the budget 2021-22 to profit from this universally available element.
According to Chaitanya Giri, this natural energy source will reveal with some of India’s biggest companies like Reliance, Tatas, Mahindras, and Indian Oil, a man with space and ocean studies with the Mumbai-based think tank Gateway House who publishes a paper on the Methane Economy.
It is informed that the need of the hour is a coalition of the stakeholders as Hydrogen Council or the European Hydrogen Coalition. Giant companies like Indian Oil, the Tatas, the Mahindras, and the Eicher will be part of the coalition; then Reliance will also become a part.
The Necessity of the Hydrogen coalition in India
It is as huge as one company can’t pull this off alone. It will need the auto sector, fuel companies, speciality chemicals, and advanced materials industry to work together.
If India wants to make this a feasible solution, it doesn’t need only just fuel. It will also need cars that can access it; it will also need fueling stations and technology to fixed it safe as Hydrogen is an explosive element by nature. Already Germany has started a coalition in an excellent process and incredibly step forward. They are targeting to setup 400 hydrogen fueling stations by 2023. They had planned to use Hydrogen Council to the best possible extent.
India also approaches Norway, Sweden, or New Zealand to make a blueprint of the system. All of this countries population are only one-fourth of the size of India’s urban cities. Norway consists of only 55 lakh people while only Mumbai consists of two crore people.
The Process of making Hydrogen
India only has only two approaches to collect Hydrogen. One of the processes is the electrolysis of water, though water is a scarce resource and another resource is the natural gas that can be broken into two parts Hydrogen and one part Carbon. We can use Hydrogen as a fuel and the leftover carbon in making the speciality materials for the different sectors like space, aerospace, auto, shipbuilding, electronics, and many more.
They also have planned about one more direct approach, absorbing the Methane from the air and using scrubbers you can convert that gas into carbon and hydrogen.
Europe, Saudi Arabia, and the US also have started to work on the prototypes. They are trying to implement this technology on the ground and adopt these technologies in a way that they have a sufficient amount of fuel.
Lithium batteries and Electric Cars
In this coming time, electric cars are the upcoming new flavour of the season but the use of lithium batteries has to be faced many challenges. The main problem is that the maximum of the lithium batteries is imported and there will be a ‘range anxiety’ issue. Where electric carts can cover 200-250 kilometres, there Hydrogen cars can cover twice the distance if not more.
It indicates less fueling and less stress for the drivers. The quantity of hydrogen is more than that of the lithium in the world. If this idea of the Hydrogen coalition has been implemented successfully, it will be a good alternative for conventional internal combustion engines. It will also be beneficial to fulfil the needs of India’s growing population.
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