Abstract
The global climate change has become an inevitable reality of existence, causing a radical destabilisation of life on earth. Swift mitigation measures should be taken to avert the irreversible build-up of greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. A rising coalition of over 70 countries have now enacted climate change legislation and policies to ease the corporations of low-carbon economy transition towards net-zero by 2050. Given hydrogen’s appealing diverse applications and its ability to decarbonise, hydrogen is a priority area for a sustainable circular economy, claimed European commissions. Yet, hydrogen production was confronted with numerous profound challenges in circular economy implementation, including waste management issues, infrastructural constraints, cost, safety and environmental concerns and so forth. Upon addressing such challenges, optimisation and tailored impact assessment tool like mathematical programming and life cycle assessment can be employed for feasible and sustainable hydrogen production pathway(s) identification. This paper investigates various hydrogen production pathways, green hydrogen in particular, followed by key challenges identification aforementioned for large-scale implementation and near-term opportunities to accelerate hydrogen deployment. Considering commercial viability of hydrogen generation is crucial for the realisation of a circular economy system and sustainable development, a transition to a hydrogen economy is able to enhance the penetration of variable renewables in grids whilst simultaneously lowering urban pollution emissions as well as the total carbon footprint, driving the hydrogen economy towards a circular economy. Amid increasing world’s future demand, hydrogen derived from ever-changing power sources may co-exist for future extension of the current hydrogen rainbow. Integrated or hybrid hydrogen production networks may be identified and optimised via a combination of mathematical programming model and tailored impact assessment tools.
