HYway
Studying the climate impacts of large-scale hydrogen usage
HYway is a new Horizon Europe funded project led by CICERO in Oslo, starting in September 2024. HYway will determine the climate implications of a switch to a hydrogen economy.
Hydrogen (H2) has been heralded as a clean and renewable energy carrier that can contribute towards our global efforts to reach net zero carbon emissions. However, hydrogen is difficult to transport and store and leaks easily due to its small molecular size. And while H2 does not contribute towards climate change when it is combusted, any fugitive hydrogen that is not combusted affects atmospheric chemistry in a multitude of ways that does adversely affect climate and worsen air quality, such as promoting ozone formation and lengthening the lifetime of methane.
HYway will develop capability to model H2 in a number of Earth System models. Here, I will develop parallel capability in the fair simple climate model that will allow the provision of useful climate metrics, and pave the way for inclusion of hydrogen in integrated assessment models.
The project also develops new techniques for the monitoring and reporting of hydrogen in-situ, which is necessary for faithfully evaluating the performance of models as well as a observing system should the hydrogen economy become a reality.
More information is on the project website.