According to the CEO of TotalEnergies, Patrick Pouyanné, the construction of six new nuclear reactors, wanted by Emmanuel Macron, will not be enough, if France wishes to produce decarbonated hydrogen, that is to say hydrogen produced at from renewable or nuclear electricity, on its territory. ” It is not our six reactors or ten reactors that we need to build if we have the ambition to produce carbon-free hydrogen in France, we need to build 15 or 20 of them”he launched before the deputies of the commission of inquiry of the National Assembly, gathered this November 23 to “to establish the reasons for France’s loss of sovereignty and energy independence”. An order of magnitude, the lower range of which corresponds to the government’s nuclear stimulus plan, including the 8 new EPRs as an option.
“Our park [électronucléaire, ndlr], it must be renewed to ensure the availability of electricity to the French because we have old power stations. […] If France has the ambition to be an exporter of hydrogen, it must build much, much more electricity than what we have [prévu, ndlr] in our trajectories, he said. According to the leader, whose company aims to become a major player in the production of this molecule considered strategic for carbon neutrality, “we can’t talk about hydrogen if we don’t talk about surplus electricity”. It is according to him, “the limit of green hydrogen”.
Hydrogen and surplus electricity
While electricity currently represents 25% of France’s energy mix, this share should increase to more than 50% by 2050 in order to decarbonise the economy. To produce enough hydrogen locally, “we must add 50% of capacity [électriques, ndlr] moreover, according to the calculations we have made, by 2050. It is enormous”believes Patrick Pouyanné. “It’s a real subject. We must not be mistaken about the trajectories we take. This refers to local policies”he points out.
France defends local production of carbon-free hydrogen while many countries, Germany in the lead, intend to import very large volumes of hydrogen to decarbonize their economy from regions of the world with very competitive renewable energies. While this vision of long-distance trade in green molecules is not unanimous, particularly for sovereignty issues, it also presupposes meeting technical and economic challenges.
“We do not believe much in the development of hydrogen LNG carriers”, said Patrick Pouyanné during his hearing, recalling that “Liquid hydrogen is very badly transported” because it must reach extremely low temperatures, close to absolute zero. The boss of the multinational relies instead on the transport of hydrogen incorporated in semi-processed products, such as green ammonia and methanol, whose transport by ship is more accessible.
A European network of around a hundred hydrogen stations
“The hydrogen economy is not a simple economy, we are only at the beginning”, he acknowledged. According to him, it is above all necessary to understand the demand and distinguish two types: the local demand to decarbonize industrial sites, where the question of its transport does not arise, and the demand dedicated to land mobility, which is more complex to understand.
Yesterday, TotalEnergies and Air Liquide announced a partnership around the production of hydrogen at the Grandpuits refinery, currently undergoing conversion. Air Liquide will invest 130 million euros to build and operate a production unit supplied in part by biogas from the biorefinery. The approximately 20,000 tonnes of hydrogen produced per year will be purchased by TotalEnergies and will be used mainly for the manufacture of “SAF”, “sustainable” aircraft fuel with a lower carbon footprint than kerosene.
This Wednesday, November 24, the CEO of TotalEnergies also indicated that he plans to build a Europe-wide network of around a hundred hydrogen charging stations for trucks. On the other hand, Patrick Pouyanné believes that the place for light hydrogen vehicles will be “marginal”with automakers largely moving towards battery-powered technology.