The boss of TotalEnergies is skeptical about the rapid growth of green hydrogen

“Let us recognize that we are only at the embryonic stage,” Patrick Pouyanné declared on Sunday at the World Economic Forum in Riyadh.

The CEO of French energy giant TotalEnergies, Patrick Pouyanné, was skeptical about the rapid deployment of green hydrogen on Sunday April 28 at the World Economic Forum in Riyadh. Often presented as the Holy Grail of decarbonization, the low-carbon hydrogen sector (produced from electricity from renewable or nuclear sources) is struggling to take off. The cause: very uncertain demand and the low deployment of electrolysers, machines which extract hydrogen from water using an electric current.

As Franceinfo explained, for the moment, 95% of the hydrogen atoms that we use come from hydrocarbon molecules, this is what we call gray hydrogen. It is also possible to recover hydrogen atoms by breaking water molecules by electrolysis, using renewable electricity: this is what is called green hydrogen. But the process being expensive, it remains largely in the minority.

“To be clear, there is no way to reduce the cost of green hydrogen if it is only a niche market”for refineries for example, said the CEO. “If we don’t have a market (…) for transport, it will be very difficult to bring costs down”he estimated.

Pouyanné counts on biofuels

“Let’s recognize that we are only at the embryonic stage and stop talking about 10, 20 million tonnes”declared the CEO of TotalEnergies in reference to the very ambitious objectives of the European Union for annual production.

The European Commission says it wants to produce 20 million tonnes of low-carbon hydrogen per year from 2030. But a study by the French Atomic Energy Commission estimated last month that industrial demand for low-carbon hydrogen would amount to only 2.5 million tonnes per year by 2030 and 9 million tonnes in 2040.

According to Patrick Pouyanné, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we must first focus on biofuels obtained from biomass (raw materials of plant, animal or waste origin).

As for sustainable aviation fuel, also called SAF, he also believes that “the best way“is to produce it from biomass, “no jumping on green hydrogen” to make synthetic fuels (e-fuels).