 Okay, welcome everyone and good afternoon from the Atoms for Climate Pavilion here at COP28 for an event called Opportunities and Challenges for Hydrogen to Accelerate Deep Decarbonization. My name is Arlie Payer. I'm the head of a section at the IAEA called Planning and Economic Studies and I'm delighted to be joined by two speakers on my left, Smita Fokke, who's an Industrial Development Officer at the Climate and Technology Partnership Division of UNIDO. UNIDO is the United Nations Industrial Development Organization and Brianna Lasevitz, who's an Energy Economics Environment Analyst at the Division of Planning, Information and Knowledge Management at the International Atomic Energy Agency. So we're here at COP28 and one of the, of course, the key challenges that's being discussed is decarbonizing energy and we know that the transition to a decarbonized energy system will require lots of clean electricity, but also we will need to decarbonize beyond electricity. We don't need to decarbonize transport. We'll need to decarbonize industrial sectors and for that we will need more than just electricity and hydrogen is often considered as one of the ways to decarbonize industry and transport provided that hydrogen is produced in a way that doesn't emit CO2. So there have been several events so far dealing with the decarbonization of hard to abate sectors, one on this pavilion and and others on other pavilions. So I expect that we will also hear in this event about how hydrogen is going to be used to decarbonize industry and transport and so on. So maybe before we start and I have a couple of questions I'd like to ask the panelists to share some of their views and perspectives on the use of green or low carbon hydrogen and how that fits into your analysis on decarbonization. Thank you. Should I? Yes please. Thank you. So hydrogen fuel of the future right wrong. I think it has its role to play definitely. There's the hard to abate sectors transportation, the heavy transportation, some of the hard to decarbonize industries especially those two. We don't have any other solutions so hydrogen definitely has its role to play but it's not that one and only solution. It will have to be a whole package together with greening electricity etc etc. Thanks. So taking a look a little bit, following up I think a little bit on what you were touching on here was the idea that this is going to be probably we know that electrification is going to require lots of energy and and to get to these hard to abate sectors there's lots of projections. The IEA says that by 2050 in order to reach net zero most of the emissions like you said buildings transport all these kind of heat and industry importantly and that they'll make up 100 percent of the emissions in the net zero scenario in 2050 and so some of the work that we've done at the IAEA is taking a look at what nuclear can do even today and what and the data that we collect from our member states trying to take a look at how many are producing hydrogen already and what we've done is come up with a list of some of the demonstration projects that use existing operational nuclear plants to produce hydrogen at a small scale and often these are linked to hydrogen hubs that are already you know incorporating that off take and so while today some of these demonstration these super small scale projects are linked to to the the nuclear plant what we're seeing is that likely as as the hydrogen economy grows that probably the system will grow along with it and it'll become a more complex integrated system not just tied to necessarily one power plant but tied to a decarbonized grid and so as you know this is really coupling that electrification and and hydrogen economies thinking about how the role that possibly nuclear could play in in decarbonizing entire energy and electricity systems which could feed into electrolysis and produce hydrogen or possibly by using a different method a thermochemical process of using heat from a nuclear plant to produce hydrogen so okay so maybe a lot of ideas and we'll we'll maybe touch touch on them a little in more details but i think it's it's worth also saying that hydrogen is not new hydrogen is used today massively by industry as a feedstock but something like 98 percent of that hydrogen is produced from steam methane reforming so it uses fossil fuels and emits co2 so the big challenge is decarbonizing that hydrogen which is already used and then finding new uses for for for hydrogen smita could you could you tell us how you work with the member states how they consider the the role of low carbon hydrogen or green hydrogen as part of their future energy system and how can the that hydrogen be deployed in a way that helps them transition and and transition in a just way indeed thank you interesting question because us at unido we have umbrella project um for hydrogen which is called global program for hydrogen in industry and the main motive behind it is hydrogen where will it be produced green hydrogen it's mostly the global south that have the potential to produce that green hydrogen so currently what they've been hearing is is the global north needs the green hydrogen to decarbonize their industry so the mentality has been very much we can produce what you need and will export it but what we are trying to do is change that reasoning change that give it a different twist okay yes you may need to to export it for the time being to get the hydrogen economy going but what about your own industry what about building uh your industrial development based on that hydrogen based on that new fuel that um you can now produce uh many of those countries were fossil free they had to they were net energy importers so it's really a complete new opportunity for those countries to achieve diversification green diversification and it's also a way for many middle income countries to overcome that the middle income trap right so um one way of looking at uh the just transition is part of that making sure that the economic development it's not that green hydrogen is not another fuel for export exactly but it's benefiting the global south as well on in addition to that if you want to bring it down to the local communities many of the solar farms are next to slumps with no electricity or no water so how does the community benefit from that how does the community benefit from rescaling so we're trying to identify a few um how hydrogen contributes to the SDGs identify a few um impact key indicators and then track that over time okay so it's really growing the hydrogen economy in those countries in the global south because it's true what you said we we hear almost every day uh some deals that are being made uh to to to produce hydrogen in in a country in Africa and exported to to to europe uh and as you say some of these countries actually also need electricity before they uh they need to grow other other fuels okay thank you for for for that uh Brianna um so Sumita was uh was talking essentially about green hydrogen because uh uh uh produced from wind or solar in in the global south but uh nuclear can also produce low carbon hydrogen can you tell us how yes absolutely why is it a good idea potentially for for for for decarbonizing industry absolutely so as i was starting to hint to in my opening remarks um the so we think mostly when we think about green hydrogen about the electrolysis process about uh using electricity uh to create hydrogen but um with with nuclear we have another option we can use the heat that is a byproduct of this uh atomic reaction uh to use to also create in a different and possibly more efficient process because there's not the loss of converting the heat to electricity and then again to to hydrogen but directly through the heat um to produce hydrogen itself and so uh this is an exciting uh kind of new boundary that some of our member states are exploring um and so we are working with our member states to understand more about that and the the possibilities it can have for the future but that's for member states that already have operating nuclear power you mentioned the study with the uh existing nuclear power plants but what about uh new types of uh uh reactors like small modular reactors which some countries in the global south are interested in is there a also a potential for such absolutely um some of actually so xenergy has a project they've signed an mo u um with dow chemical in texas so xenergy being a small modular reactor company uh based in the united states um signed a memorandum of understanding with dow chemical to use the heat from a small modular reactor to power uh the chemical process um that that dow chemical currently uses natural gas plants to run and so this is a a new technology um that that some country or some companies are interested in pursuing for for industrial processes so potentially in the future once uh this is proven uh maybe countries in the global south will be looking at sms also for hydrogen production so i'll i'll go back to smita it does make sense because especially for small island states right where there's no space for solar farms there's no space for the wind farms so yes why not very small land footprint and and then the possible heat application okay so so going back to developing countries which is very important how can the development of that hydrogen economy help industrialize those countries and develop value chains uh for for those countries you you mentioned a little bit the the job part um indeed um it's well the emerging countries they've got the industrial base if you have an industrial base that's there to absorb the hydrogen great uh countries which do not have it yet it's um longer pathway to get there but there are ways to mostly industrial policies to attract that kind of investment uh we right now it's a lot cheaper to transport green goods than it is to transport hydrogen so um we do see that there will be a re localization re yeah localization of some industries of semi-finished products um to to yes i heard that about steel for example correct i mean clean steel that uses decarbonized hydrogen or clean or green hydrogen it's it's it's better to produce steel in a location and transport steel than to transport hydrogen as a raw material yes and we're hearing that more and more um even there's some cases where it's already happening in even Mauritania um there's some movements going on there okay okay um thank you Brianna um can you explain some of the the the work that the IA is doing to understand how hydrogen fits in the global clean transition absolutely so i think one piece of that is quantifying how much exists today and one of the the projects that we have going on is building out the power reactor information system a database that is providing data from member states and collected by the IAEA to try and understand how many member states are already using hydrogen and producing hydrogen from their nuclear reactors and and trying to collect data on how then that that hydrogen is used so we can understand you know where this demand already exists today um but then some more analysis on building out the business case for hydrogen that project I spoke about um that is looking at already operating nuclear power plants and trying to understand you know for these projects that are still the demonstration phase um some of the the drivers of you know why they're trying to produce this hydrogen and it tends to be very location specific some ideas that that come to mind immediately are a project in the US that is using um that is using hydrogen produced by a nuclear power plant to balance out wind in a very windy region but at a super small scale today but trying to understand how how that hydrogen compare with renewables I think one of the challenges today for for for low carbon hydrogen whether it's from renewables or from from nuclear is the cost right the cost of producing that compared to the cost of gray hydrogen or I mean the hydrogen that is produced industrially today so what are your thoughts on how to how to drive down costs or make low carbon or green hydrogen attractive also for for industry for customers anyone so it's all economics right and market policies so uh the more you have of it the price drops so our aim right now should be push the supply and uh yeah so that's that's one way to get to get to get the price down technology wise I think as the technology matures there'll be more credibility more people will feel more confident I think there's hope also the cost of electrolysis will go down as well yeah but at the end the cost of electricity will remain the renewable power yes that's still about 80 to 90 percent of green hydrogen cost right now and as I always say especially for developing countries which do not have sufficient renewable power in their grid first thing before you even think about hydrogen get that up get the renewable energy share in your grid okay okay and Brianna as regards hydrogen from nuclear what are the enablers that you you see there are policy measures that we hear about I think the US inflation reduction act mentions support for for low carbon hydrogen absolutely and following up a little bit on your point Smita about that that the cost of electricity is is the biggest component of that cost of hydrogen today one of the things that we found in our analysis of using already operating nuclear reactors I mean a lifetime extension or an already operating reactor is much cheaper and then you also can achieve the sufficient efficiency to run and get economic gains from the electrolyzer and so trying to drive down that cost of electricity as much as possible but I think the biggest thing that we saw as a takeaway from the study was the policy drivers whether that comes from a government or an energy utility that has a decarbonization goal being the biggest component kind of pulling that policy into place so we're in 2023 COP 28 when do you imagine uh that hydrogen low carbon green hydrogen will will uh you know be a uh a fuel that is commonly used in in in the economies what was your view on the time scale for the deployment because right now it's still at the initial phase right but we know that there are not a lot of other options true we don't have many other options and we're trying really trying to push forward this this alternative but um if you think of any other technologies they've had decades to mature yes if you think of a car the car we know nowadays it's been several exactly um and we're trying to get hydrogen through in the next five years we may have some uh proof of concept by then but at scale I think it will take longer longer and I agree my initial thought was 2040s as we're trying to see lots more renewable growth on grids I think this in terms of flexibility hydrogen will be very important and but it'll become more and more important as as renewable shares grow and so seeing dispatchability from low carbon energy sources like nuclear paired with you know energy storage through batteries and through hydrogen I think will be really important and then getting that last you know small percent of those higher to abate sectors because uh if you look at the road map to net the net zero road map of international energy agency they see the power systems in developed countries being decarbonized around 2040 those in developing countries around 2045 but that that means to get to net zero by 2050 you will need to get that low carbon hydrogen or low carbon heat also for other applications ready at industrial scale by by by that time so yeah it's not a it's not on the time scale of industrial developments it's it's it's a very rapid and we have a lot on our plate okay well I'd like to thank you uh Smita and Brianna this was a short short event but we we meant it to be a lively conversation and I'd like to thank you for for sharing your your thoughts and thank you for the for the public online and here in this room thank you